The Atlas Obscura Podcast · Friday, August 7, 2026
Timothy G. Carlson, a professor at Westminster College, debunks the popular myth that Johannes Kelpius built a doomsday cave. Carlson explains that the cave was likely a root cellar and the association with Kelpius originated from a 19th-century author named Julius Sauxe, who also inaccurately portrayed Kelpius as a doomsday cult leader.
“So I do not know precisely who built the cave or what it's for. The very first time that the cave is associated with Kelpius is in 1895 book, 200 years later, just about.”
“Philadelphia author named Julius Sauxe included a photograph of the cave in his book titled, German Pietists of Provincial Pennsylvania, and he says, this is the cave that Kelpius constructed for his meditations.”
“And ever since that book was published, this has just become a historical fact. Everybody believes that the cave was built by Kelpius as a meditation chamber.”
“First of all, Kelpius wouldn't need to build a cave to meditate. This would actually be kind of a strange way for him to spend his time to do this, to construct this this sort of seller to meditate in.”
“Secondly, the cave really looks like a very, very common structure that people built in Pennsylvania. You just call it a root cellar or if you have a kind of Delaware accent, a root cellar.”
“And nowhere in the Americas was brick used in the 17th or early 18th century. So unless the brick was added later, that's definitively rules out that the cave had anything to do with Kelpius.”
“Sauxe was also the same person who started the idea that Kelpius anticipated the end of the world.”