TRUE: a documented 1694 mystic commune; the cave still stands
In 1694 a German mystic named Johannes Kelpius led forty scholars into the Wissahickon woods to await the end of the world, living as the Society of the Woman in the Wilderness: they watched the sky through a telescope, practiced alchemy and healing, and waited for a sign that never came. Kelpius, the Hermit of the Ridge, is said to have thrown a casket of secret arcana into the creek before he died. A stone grotto called Kelpius’s Cave still sits above Hermit Lane in Fairmount Park.
Wissahickon Valley, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia (PA)
See it on the map
Other places on the map within a couple of hours of here.
