'Gold Tried in the Fire'

This is a study of the most fascinating and idiosyncratic of all seventeenth-century figures: Thomas Totney (1608-1659), a London puritan, goldsmith and veteran of the Civil War. In November 1649, after fourteen weeks of self-abasement, fasting and prayer, Totney experienced a profound spiritual transformation and declared himself TheaurauJohn Tany, 'a Jew of the Tribe of Reuben' descended from Aaron the High Priest. During his prophetic phase Tany enacted a millenarian mission to restore the Jews to their own land and wrote a number of remarkable but elusive works. By contextualizing and then unraveling the mind of this exceptional person, this book provides a clearer view of what it was like living in the wake of the English Revolution, when freed men and women spoke their minds and challenged the times.