the ideological origins of the american revolution by bernard bailyn

And on the roof they placed a telescope, which they manned from dusk till dawn, so that in case the Bridegroom came in the middle of the night they would be prepared to receive him. In a primitive laboratory they conducted alchemical and pharmaceutical experiments aimed at eliminating disease and prolonging life indefinitely. It had a common room for communal worship and also cells where the celibate brethren could search for personal perfection by contemplating their magic numbers and their esoteric symbols. It is considered one of the most influential studies of the American Revolution published during the 20th century. Quickly upon their arrival they built a log-walled monastery of perfect proportions: forty feet by forty feet. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution is a 1967 Pulitzer Prize -winning book of history by Bernard Bailyn. “So the Chapter of Perfection, under the leadership of Johannes Kelpius, both a Rosicrucian magus and a magister of the University of Altdorf, set out for Pennsylvania to prepare for the coming of the Lord and to seek that state of personal perfection that was free of all sensuous temptations and beyond all rational understanding. The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675 Failing to find further military employment either in Europe or North Africa, he returned to England in 1604 where, through Gosnold, he was caught up in the plans for the colonization of Virginia.”

In Transylvania he had killed and perhaps had beheaded three Turkish officers in dramatic jousting duels (a feat he later blazoned on his coat of arms), was captured and enslaved by the Turks, but after noting carefully the way of life of the Turks, he managed to escape by murdering his owner with a threshing bat, and then made his way back to western Europe via Russia, Poland, and the German and Czech lands.

“It is true, as he said, that as a teenager, having schooled himself in the art of war, he had fought against the Spanish in the Low Countries, thereafter had seen service in France, toured the Mediterranean on a piratical merchant vessel, and finally had joined the Austrian forces fighting the Turks.

The ideological origins of the american revolution by bernard bailyn