New World Vision part 2 by Rev. Teresa Stuefloten M.Div. 6/8/2025

My talk today is a continuation of last week’s talk, based on Corinne Heline’s work “America’s Invisible Guidance.” This work shares the spiritual foundation which this country was founded upon. These visionary founders are truly inspiring for their vision of what it truly means to be one nation under God, a vision of equality and freedom for all based in Divine Love, compassion and caring for all, honoring the rights of every being.

Our next Founding Father of interest is Benjamin Franklin, born in Boston on January 6, 1706. Benjamin Franklin was an old soul, and at the age of 5 was reading the Bible. Soon afterward he showed his interest in ancient philosophies.  His father, recognizing his talents, decided he was best fit for the ministry, and so his early schooling was intended to fit him for such service.  He was interested in subjects beyond the orthodox Puritanical tracts of his father, From his earliest youth Universality became his keynote. By age 12, he came to the conclusion that “all men will, eventually, have the same religion.” 

Still a child, in 1717 he was apprenticed to his brother James, who founded a paper called “The Boston Gazette.” This was a liberal minded news-sheet and a dissenter against all the conventional or orthodox movements of the city. Franklin soon found himself in company of esoteric students. 

When James Franklin was sent to serve a term in prison for contempt of the government, the management of the Gazette fell upon 16 year old Benjamin, who used the paper to champion the cause of free speech and free press. One of Franklin’s first literary attacks was on Harvard University, which was a center of conservatism, and open only to the sons of wealth.  He observed that “here real students were unable to ascend the Throne of Learning, but were able to sit only at the feet of Madam Idleness and of her maid, Ignorance.”

Franklin, soon yearned to broaden his horizon, and venture to Europe, but first he was led to go to Philadelphia, and meet the mystic brotherhood.  He studied there for a time. Upon the passing of the order’s last leader its occult library was turned over to Franklin. He later founded Philadelphia’s  Benjamin Franklin Library with these works.

After this preparation in the deeper philosophy of life the time came for Franklin to make his long desired journey to England. He arrived there penniless and unknown, but his printer’s experience soon enabled him to secure a position.

1720-1790, was considered Europe’s “occult era.” All Europe was intrigued with accounts of strange elixirs of youth, the continuity of consciousness between life and so-called death, and with related facts pertaining to the less known powers in man and nature. Franklin was in contact with much of this knowledge. Two years had gone by before returning home to America. On his voyage he wrote: “The more deeply one studies the inner workings of life, the more wonderful and expansive they become.  The more one studies the outer, the less it means and the more ignorant become those who engage in it solely.”

In 1731, at the age of 25, Franklin joined St. John’s Lodge of Philadelphia, the first Masonic lodge in America of which there is any record.  He was soon elevated to the position of Grand Master. He published the first Masonic books put out in this country, and throughout his long life he assumed an important role in the affairs of the Fraternity, not only in the colonies, but in Europe as well.

Franklin organized the Junto or Leather Apron Club. The club was limited to a membership of twelve and its work was both esoteric and exoteric. The esoteric features were designed to prepare the members for the highest possible citizenship in the nation that was soon to achieve it’s Independence. It had the first circulating library in America with Franklin as the first librarian, and the Junto became the center for disseminating the highest idealism, cultural and political, into the life of the growing state. In a deeply mystical ceremony, the members of this club dedicated themselves “To build a universe of peace, devoid of fear and based on love.”

Franklin described the required regimen as the “discipline leading to moral perfection” with thirteen virtues for cultivation, each to be rigidly practiced for one week, with progressions. They are as follows:

1. Temperance: Eat not to dullness, drink not to elation.

2. Silence: speak not but what may benefit others or yourself, avoid trifling conversation.

3. Order: Let all things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

4. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought, perform without fail what you resolve.

5. Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others of yourself, waste nothing.

6. Industry: Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

7. Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

8. Justice: Wrong none by doing injuries or by omitting the benefits that are your duty.

9. Moderation: Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries, so much as you think they deserve.

10. Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes or habitation.

11. Tranquility: Do not be disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

12. Chastity

13. Humility: ie: Jesus and Socrates.

Franklin affirmed the importance of cultivating these prescribed virtues by saying, “Each year one vicious habit rooted out in time may make the worst man good throughout.” He also introduced retrospection at the close of the day just before retiring. Franklin writes that he would ask himself, “What good have I done today?” Then after self-examination he recorded the results in a book, “I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined, but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish.”

In 1732 he began the publication of his famous Poor Richard’s Almanac and continued its annual issue for 25 years. Franklin’s research work with thunder and lightning led him to invent the “Lightning Rod.” Letters came from many parts of the country commending him for making houses “safe from the wrath of God.” Orthodox churches, however, attacked him severely, declaring that he was attempting to defy God’s power. From 1749-1757 the Almanac became a battleground over the controversy between science and religion, which Franklin was ever seeking to conciliate in every way possible.

Franklin foresaw airplanes, scientific farming and preventive medicine. He wrote, “Imagine the height to which civilization may be carried in a thousand years, as man demonstrates his power over matter. We may, perhaps, learn to deprive large masses of their gravity and give them absolute levity for the sake of easy transport. Agriculture may halve its labor and double its produce. All disease may, by sure means, be prevented or cured, not excepting that of old age, and our lives lengthened at pleasure, even beyond the antediluvian standard.”

Franklin returned to England, and was given a life membership in the Royal Society of Science. He continued with his cause for the colonies, of a confederation of all the American Colonies. Due to his influence the Stamp Act was repealed February 22, 1776, and both the English Parliament and the American press hailed him as the Father and Liberator of his country.

In Europe, Masonic lodges paid homage to their famous brother and hailed him as a “second Moses” with his celebrated “magic staff.” Again he set sail for home, and arrived in Philadelphia May 5, 1775.  Franklin was now elected a representative to the Continental Congress.  

After loaning his entire worldly possessions to the Colonial Cause, he went to Paris seeking France’s aid, arriving Dec. 21, 1776. When asked to give the secret of statesmanship he replied: “He who will introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.” The Franco-American documents were signed in Paris, February 8, 1778. 

On Dr. Franklin’s 77 birthday he wrote: “at last we are at peace, praise God, long may it continue. When will mankind agree to settle their differences by arbitration? Such is ever the hope and the aspiration, backed by works of the emissaries of the Great One as they have come to teach and guide mankind down through the ages.” He continues to say, “Our future safety depends on our union and virtue. Let us beware of being lulled into a dangerous security and of being enervated by luxury or weakened by internal dissensions. Nor neglectful in military exercises and discipline and provision of arms and munitions of war. The expenses of providing for war are much lighter than those necessary to maintain it, if unprepared.”

Franklin held office of Postmaster General of the American Colonies. He founded the University of Pennsylvania, and both Harvard and Yale conferred honorary degrees upon him. Franklin was also made American Minister to France. 

Paris was now the center of Egyptian Masonry, and occultism flourished everywhere. The deeply esoteric Apollonian Society was founded by Franklin. Its purpose was yet again to further his lifelong dream of uniting science with religion. The Society celebrated his 83 birthday by the erection of his statue, crowned with myrtle and laurel.

He came back to America for his sunset years, after having spent 16 years in England and 8 in France. For three years he continued in active service. In 1787, during the making of the Constitution of the United States, four laborious weeks had gone by where delegates had not agreed upon one single sentence. As they were about to adjourn and abandon the great purpose for which they had come together, Benjamin turned the tide of affairs by rising to his feet and gravely said,

“The small progress we have made after these weeks of continual reasoning with each other, our different sentiment on almost every question, is melancholy proof of the imperfection of the human understanding...In this situation of the assembly, groping to find political truth...let us apply to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understanding...God governs in the affairs of men.”

“If a sparrow falls not to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can arise without His aid?  We have been assured in the sacred writings, that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.  I firmly believe this and also that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.  We shall be divided by our little partial, local interests.”

“Our project will be confounded and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword down to future ages.  And what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance despair of establishing government by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and contest.”

“I beg leave to move that hereafter prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessings on our deliberations be held in this assembly every morning and that the clergy of this city be requested to officiate.”  (End of quote)

From that time onward, each day marked definite progress which continued until the document was complete.  It was formally made public on September 17, 1787. Benjamin Franklin was the only one of the Founding Fathers who signed all four of the documents which became the groundwork of this nation – the Declaration of Independence, the Franco-American Treaty of Alliance, the Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, and the Constitution of the United States. He made his transition on April 17, 1790 at te age of 84.