there's a whole thing with southern illinois/st louis/memphis area being named after egypt/the nile delta because the geography is the same and the freemasons envisioned it being some kind of heartland for the new world or something, idk. the st louis arch has its roots in a similar thing. people don't really understand how big of a role occultism played in american history, especially the 1800s. the masonic lodge was often the biggest organization in every town, the kkk and knights of the golden circle etc were extremely influential, not to mention theosophy, spiritualism, and stuff like that. nowadays everybody trusts the science but occult new age fraternal organizations influenced a whole lot of the world's history over the last few centuries pre-ww2
United States