Part 24 - Rochester, NY - The Burned Over District - Set apart by the ancient gods or demigods?

As I wrote at the outset of this series it was long before I began to identify the demonic dominion over Rochester, NY and interpret the expression of it that it was apparent to me that there was something special about the region. In this post, I'm going to offer some insight into why it is so.

Until fairly recently I was quite ignorant of the history of the area, having little more than the local grade school version of its history. Before it was "settled," the land was occupied by the Iroquois, a confederacy of "Native Americans" who lived in longhouses. The canal known as the Erie and later as the Barge Canal was somehow important, and the area seemed very proud of Susan B. Anthony, a local woman who helped get women the right to vote. All that did little to educate me about the significance of the region.

In 1980, when the Lord drew me to Himself (when I finally gave up my efforts to flee from Him and let myself be drawn), I was brought into contact with a community of mostly young believers in Rochester and its suburbs who met for fellowship from house to house. Among them were some who truly lived by faith. I found it very interesting how that the way the Rochester area was viewed by the ministry folks on a national level was different from how I had perceived that Rochester was otherwise viewed by out-of-towners. It had never seemed to me that Rochester was really that significant, other than in the minds of the locals who exhibited the kind of self-promotion you typically find in any local community. The international ministry gave Rochester respect because of the evident work of the holy spirit and the character of the people who were being raised up. I have come to see now that Rochester is given respect beyond what I had recognized, by the worldly for the works and working of unholy spirit - and, by the saints, for that of the holy spirit.

I had apparently come into a work at the tail-end of something of a revival (one that I later discovered had ties to what had happened on the West Coast with Lonnie Frisbee that also influenced Chuck Smith and the Calvary Chapel movement, and the Vineyard movement.) At one point, probably because of my desire to understand this situation, I was told about the events of a few years earlier. Apparently, miracles of healing and even the dead being raised was local legend, involving a small number of students at Irondequoit High School sometime in the 70s. I never pursued all the details, but from what was going on in my life it could hardly have been more obvious that the Lord had brought me there at that time and that there was something very special about it.


Perhaps I'll share more of my personal testimony sometime, Lord willing.

As some have observed in comments left on this blog, the Rochester area has a history of supernatural and related activity that has had global impact, with fruit ranging from the very, very good to the very, very bad. I've pointed out how it was in the town of Batavia (36 miles WSW of Rochester) where the rise of Freemasonry was curbed due to backlash from the kidnapping of Captain William Morgan in 1826. Joseph Smith (LDS/Mormon origins) claimed to find golden tablets at what is called Hill Cumorah (1827 - 30 miles SE in Manchester). Charles G. Finney, Presbyterian and former Freemason brought genuine revival to much of the area, visiting for three seasons.(1830-31, 1842, 1856) The result led to the region becoming known as the "burned-over district" due to the extent of the work. The Fox sisters are attributed with the introduction of Spiritualism in America (1848 - 33 miles ESE in Hydesville), a movement that is still celebrated to this day. Rochester and outlying communities like Seneca Falls are famous for political activism for the causes of temperance, suffrage and the abolition of slavery, largely through people of Quaker affiliation.

"Spiritualism first appeared in the 1840s in the "Burned-over District" of upstate New York, where earlier religious movements such as Millerism, and Mormonism had emerged during the Second Great Awakening. This region of New York State was an environment in which many thought direct communication with God or angels was possible, and that God would not behave harshly—for example, that God would not condemn unbaptised infants to an eternity in Hell." (Spiritualism (religious movement) - Wikipedia

Before I address why the region is probably so supernaturally active I wanted to introduce those of you who might not be familiar with it to the testimony of Charles G. Finney's seasons in Rochester.

The following excerpts are from The Prevailing Prayer-Meeting: BY THE REV. C. G. FINNEY, A SERMON, Delivered in Blackfriars' Street Congregational Chapel, Glasgow, on 4th September, 1859.

"... On to 1830 and 1831, for some years a wonderful spirit of prayer was seen to prevail among Christians. Daily prayer meetings were held--ministers and laymen uniting together--and Christians of both sexes observed certain hours for closet concert prayer. This continued to increase, as I can bear witness, and I did what I could to promote it, till, in 1830, it burst out with a mighty power in the city of Rochester, and overflowed in every direction until it reached many places east and west, till Dr. Beecher remarked to me: 'This is the greatest revival of religion that has been since the world began.' 100,000 were converted this year in the United States. Taking the whole of that time, or perhaps from 1830 to 1835, there could not have been fewer than 200,000 that were converted."

"Some of you have heard those revivals of religion discredited, and efforts have been made in this country to represent them as spurious. There is no greater mistake. I have been three times in great revivals in the city of Rochester, and have seen men from there recently. In 1830, 1842, and again three or four years ago, the revivals in Rochester spread themselves and overflowed till they have reached a vast extent of territory, and if there be any Christians in the world, I am sure they are to be found as the fruits of those revivals in the United States. I have been over the field of these revivals often, and can truly say that I do not believe that any revivals have ever been witnessed either in ancient or modern times that were more pure and more lasting in their results than those...."

I don't suppose Finney was given to exaggeration. What really blows my mind is how far Rochester has fallen since the culture was so dramatically influenced in that day, and how such little evidence of such a former work remains. The scale on which the fertile harvest was manifest in the work I had been brought into in 1980 doesn't compare to Finney's day.


So, why is the region so supernaturally potent? There appears to be an ancient connection to Greece and the gods honored by the Greeks. Consider the testimony of Manly P. Hall.

"From Plutarch's description of voyages it can be calculated that our great continent in the Western Hemisphere was visited by the ancient Greeks; they not only reached our shores but explored part of the Great Lakes area. ... Under a thin veil of symbolism they perpetuated in mythology their knowledge of our land which they called blessed....The area was anciently set apart for coming generations in the great human experiment of the democratic commonwealth." (The Secret Destiny of America by Manly P. Hall - 3 - WESTWARD OCEAN TRAVEL TO THE EARTHLY PARADISE)

When you read what Mr. Hall has recorded, you must interpret what he calls "the great human experiment of the democratic commonwealth" as a reference to what is in the biblical context to be understood as the kingdom of the Beast, the establishment of which is the goal of the secret societies termed "The Order of the Quest." Could Rochester, NY and the surrounding region have been explored by the ancient Greeks, which may well have been the gods or Nephilim demi-gods themselves? Mr. Hall declares elsewhere that their interest wasn't in settling or plundering (and, accordingly there appears to be no evidence of such activity) but, according to Hall, "The area was anciently set apart for coming generations in the great human experiment of the democratic commonwealth." By what means was the area "set apart for coming generations"? It's obvious they would not have been buying property and acquiring deeds to the land, physically. By interpretation, if such had come and called the land blessed, it should rather be understood as, "cursed." The area would have been set apart with a curse that claimed and established the region for a people who would labor to bring forth the kingdom of the Beast. Is this what was done?


The Bible documents how supernatural principalities may be legally appointed over territorial domains. I've presented convincing evidence in this blog (And, Lord willing, I'm not done yet) that the god worshiped as Hermes is the prince of Rochester, or "Rochester General." Just how this came to be may be due in part to the work of such a scouting party in an earlier season. Given what I've been presenting, it must be asked whether they established a gateway or portal, perhaps one of the 72 some believe to be distributed in key locations around the globe? Is there something to the Lovecraft inspired "blood-sealed vault" story that involves the Clock of Nations as a key element in the captivity of demonic beings that might terrorize Rochester upon their release? According to the book of Enoch, just such a thing is appointed for the near future, and I have to think there's some truth behind what Hall himself has declared in the palatable veneer of his book on the secret destiny of America!

Beyond the evidence I've already brought forth for consideration in these 24 posts, I made a further very interesting observation that seems to validate Hall's interpretation of Plutarch's description of voyages. There seems to be an inordinate number of towns and villages in the region of Rochester that bear the names of the cities, city/states and islands of ancient Greece. This wouldn't seem unusual if the area was settled by Greek immigrants, but it wasn't. If the land was indeed set apart in ancient times for future generations and the gods who had a stake in the property influenced the occupants of the land even while they established their identity, well, that would explain it.

To be continued, Lord willing!

Links of interest:

[video] Jesus Christ, DNA and the Holy Bible (reposted by Mike Hoggard. This is an excellent update to the first of three DVD's in the series distributed by Cutting Edge.

Links related to the burned over district

The Burned-Over District Re-Visited by John H. Martin
WFW: The Burned-Over District
The Burned-Over District
Nature of the Burned-Over District

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