Over a century ago, a man in Philadelphia made the most important discovery of all time: a mysterious source of free, unlimited energy. He experimented with the substance for years, building a staggering 2,000 machines and devices that ran on his esoteric force.
His eccentric vision led him to experiment with anti-gravity and the disintegration of solid matter. Numerous people witnessed his demonstrations, and his work was well known to Nikola Tesla, Jules Verne and Thomas Edison. The occult underground was inescapably drawn to him, and early science fiction still owes him a debt of gratitude. The name of the enigmatic inventor: John Worrell Keely. He was one of the world's first and foremost free-energy pioneers.
In a dazzling and extremely detailed tour de force, European author and researcher Theo Paijmans takes us on a unique journey through the very underground of free-energy research, exploring the depths of numerous secret societies and occult orders, and examining the influence of these mysterious techno-occultists and their incredible ideas - including the ultimate evolution of humans through free-energy. Paijmans clearly demonstrates that Keely and these inventors did not work in isolation, but in the confines of a very secret and silent tradition - the tradition of occult technology. Introduction by noted Fortean and paranormal researcher John A. Keel.
To my parents, my brother Robin and his Charity. To my little niece Anouk, my beloved Anouk Helder and her parents.
My grateful thanks go to the following persons for their help: to George Andrews; to Dale Pond of SVPvril.com; to Jerry Decker of Vanguard Sciences and KeelyNet; to Mark Chorvinsky of Strange Magazine; to Gerry Vassilatos; to Paul Theroux of the Borderlands Research Association; to P.G. Navarro; to Peter Bahn; to Jan Al-derich of Project 1947; to Barry Greenwood; to Jerome Clark; to Adolf Schneider; to senior curator John Alviti of the Franklin Institute; to head librarian Jeannette Rowden of A.R.E.; to museum specialist William Worthington of the Smithsonian Institute; to Roberto M. Rodriguez and Lori Hood of the American Precision Museum; to librarian Peter Drummey of the Massachusetts Historical Society; to librarian Ineke Vrolijk of the Theosophical Society Arnhem; to the staffs of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in Den Hague; to Glen Houghton of Weiser Books antiquarian dept.; to Maarten Beks; to my friends Mark-Paul Vos, Marielle, and Carina van der Snee; and of course to Ron Bonds of IllumiNet Press, who gave me every opportunity to make this book the best I possibly could.
Needless to say, any conclusions and opinions in this book, except where otherwise stated, or any errors are entirely my own.
Contents
Introduction
Foreword
Part I: The Life and Times of John Worrell Keely
1. Discoverer of the Ether: The Early Life of John Keely
2. Where the Molecules Dance: The First Decade
3. Prophet of the New Force: The Third Decade
4. The Power Millennium: Keely's Last Years
5. Into the Void: The Final Stage of the Keely Mystery
6. Anatomy of an Exposure
7. To Understand the Art: Keely's Discoveries
8. Prisoners of the Neutral Point: Keely's Antigravity Experiments
Part II: Secrets of Occult Technology
9. The Sorcerer's Apprentice: The Occult Connection
10. The Secret Tradition: Occult Technology and Free-Energy
11. Vril from Atlantis: Keely's Legacy
12. The Great 19th Century Airship Wave
13. Into the Realms of Speculation: Anomalous Documentation and Mythological Tales Notes
List of Illustrations Index
Introduction
How would you like to be able to install a spherical tank in your back room and make five million dollars?
That's the legend that has long surrounded a gentleman in Philadelphia named John Keely. Many learned scholars (and a number of total crackpots) have claimed for a century that Mr. Keely really used a hidden spherical tank of compressed air to run the phenomenal machine he invented and spent a large part of his life building and rebuilding.
Actually, the famous Keely machine was a very complicated device... so complicated, in fact, that maybe he did not understand it himself. Leading scientists, engineers and journalists visited his workshop to see demonstrations, eagerly expecting to expose him. But after most demonstrations they enthusiastically whipped out their checkbooks, all wanting a piece of the machine Keely had convinced them would revolutionize the world.
This book, the result of years of research by European author Theo Paijmans, tells the whole story for the first time. It is an amazing, heavily documented contribution to the mysterious land of basement inventors, and others who have spent their lives trying to develop free energy.
Keely found the secret, and it lies somewhere in this book. Mr. Paijmans has sifted through everything ever published about John Keely, and assembled a collage of stunning detail. He proves once and for all that the tales of compressed air are nothing but hot air. But the carefully drawn descriptions of the actual machines also seem to eliminate the recurrent theories about atomic energy. Water appears to have played a key part, as did sound waves and harmonics. Keely could produce thousands of pounds to a square inch and produce a power that could bend bars of steel.
As time passed, Keely's machines grew smaller. At first they weighed tons, later they were the size of dinner plates. Unfortunately, whenever the inventor was asked to describe the principles behind it all, he resorted to his own non-technical neologisms, only adding to the confusion. Mr. Paijmans has laboriously turned such passages into basic English, and perhaps some astute reader can even build one of these machines.
Another part of the Keely legend is exploded in this monumental work. He was not a charlatan and swindler. John Keely lived modestly, giving large sums of money to metal-workers, foundries and manufacturers who constructed parts of his machines (eventually he built over 120 of them). If anything, he was frequently conned out of money by numerous companies and individuals, according to Paijmans' research.
The author leaves no cult unturned. John Keely was a contemporary of many of the great occultists, like Rudolph Steiner, Madam Blavatsky, even Jules Verne. Some were ardent supporters of Keely's work, and their ghostly presence's are woven throughout this book.
Mr. Paijmans has carved his own permanent niche among them by producing an epic book that will be studied for generations to come.
John A. Keel New York, 1997
Foreword
Almost a decade before Charles Jeantaud invented the electric automobile, an inventor in America named John Worrell Keely claimed to have made an even more important discovery. Not a combination of two known devices, the carriage and the electromotor, nor the development of a crude fossil fuel burner, but the discovery of an entirely new form of energy.
When the first electric taxi appeared on the streets of London, Keely was still experimenting and working to construct the ideal machine that would operate on his force, and he was still fathoming the incredible secrets of the energy he discovered. In the process, many machines and wonderful devices were built. Many people attended his demonstrations. Keely had visions and he had dreams. Cars, ships, aeroplanes, even spaceships would someday be propelled with his force. Man could travel to the stars and would have an unlimited, everlasting and clean source of energy at his disposal. A golden age dawned for all!
However, in 1901 when Edison stated that he would build a super battery, Keely, who at one time invited him to inspect his inventions, had already been dead for three years. Today, Edison is well remembered, as are his inventions. Keely fared less well, as did his discovery. What was the fate
of Keely's inventions and his many devices? What was the essence of that mysterious energy that he claimed to have discovered that could have changed the course of history? Why was the technology of the enigmatic inventor so quickly forgotten?
With these questions and many others in mind, I embarked on my search. I began my attempt to reconstruct the life of John Worrell Keely, one of the most puzzling and mysterious inventors of the 19th century.
While studying Keely's life and inventions it was necessary to research other little-known areas, sifting through archives, collections and specialized libraries on two continents and in five countries. During my research I encountered strange tales and histories, and the obstacles I encountered were many.
All of Keely's writings, except for a few fragments here and there, have disappeared. What remains is contemporary newspaper articles, testimonies and memoirs of people who knew him personally, or who were lucky enough to meet him at one time or another. And as in any collection of sources, there is a certain percentage of impurity, contradiction, misunderstanding, and embellishments on tall tales or outright yarns.
It appeared that people did not always grasp what Keely was exploring, what his aim was, or what the nature of his enigmatic source of energy was. Although the accounts do paint something of his life, his explorations and the controversy he unwillingly evoked, these form only the visible part - his public life, the surface.
But the Keely history has a much deeper layer. To my surprise I uncovered the outlines of a strange tradition where the early free-energy inventors and the esoteric underground meet, a tradition involved in the creation and construction of what I have termed 'occult technology.' Lured into the center of Keely's labyrinthine history, I found myself delving into the heart of the 19th and 20th century occult undercurrents, and was amazed to find Keely's heritage there, and in some quarters still very much alive.
There was an obscure current that I have termed 'the early 19th century antigravity underground. There were ambiguous hints in certain 19th century futuristic novels. There were other free-energy inventors. There were connections and influences crossing lands, continents, philosophies and times... all of which will be offered to the reader in this book.
The information that I was able to find that has survived into this century, is in this book. The Keely history is also a Keely mystery; his personal papers do not seem to have survived. What happened to these is a tantalizing question that haunts us even today.
Much of the information in these pages is published here for the first time in more than a century, or for the first time in connection to each other. In many of the notes you may find the source for these materials and you may see how a particular line of thought in the Keely history, erroneous or not, developed from a specific source.
At each turn of my research, care was taken to use the most thorough studies in the fields, and as many primary sources as possible. When I found an anecdote in several clippings, I preferred the articles published in the Philadelphia newspapers, and not in a newspaper miles away from the event or incident, although I compared them for discrepancies. When I found similarities or dissimilarities in content, I described so in the notes.
Those who wish to follow the strange trail where dreams and reality meet, may be especially interested in the last chapter which — I must warn beforehand — is quite speculative in nature.
One of the pleasures of writing this book was in the people that I came to know. They are mentioned in my acknowledgments. These times witness an upsurge of interest in Keely's life and inventions. I hope that this book will offer enough materials to all those persons to satisfy their interest. Please feel free to contact me for the useful exchange of materials, if you have additional information that may shed light on the subject, or to discuss the materials in this book.
Theo Paijmans
Postal Box 213 6800 AE
Arnhem Holland [email protected]
PART I
THE LIFE AND TIMES JOHN WORRELL KEELY
1
Discoverer of the Ether The Early Life of John Keely
"If all, or even one-half, of what is reported of the Keely Motor is true, the world is on the eve of the most tremendous revolution it has had since it began to revolve at all...."
The Evening Bulletin, July 8, 1875
"Let a note be struck on an instrument, and the faintest sound produces an eternal echo. A disturbance is created on the invisible waves of the shoreless ocean of space, and the vibration is never wholly lost. Its energy being once carried from the world of matter into the immaterial world will live forever. "
H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, 1877
One of the most enigmatic persons in the history of free-energy research is inventor John Ernest Worrell Keely. He stood at the very base of the history of free-energy research, and he possibly made the most important discovery of all time. Not only are the principles of the new form of energy that he claimed to have discovered still not completely understood, but almost all of his incredible machines and inventions are now lost.
John Worrell Keely was bora September 3, 1837, either in Philadelphia in a two-story frame house that stood on the corner of Jacoby and Cherry Streets, or in the old town of Chester, Pennsylvania.1 Sometimes his birthyear is given as 1827.2 Keely was twice married, the second time in 1887, but left no children.3 His first wife and his only child died many years before his death.4 Of his second wife, only her name, Anna Keely, is known. Keely died in the same city on November 18, 1898, and he was buried in the West Laurel Hill Cemetery, 1305 Arch Street, Philadelphia. He has plot number 313 in the River Section. His grave is unmarked. A hard maple tree stands over the plot, which is covered with ivy vines.
The parents of Keely's mother were of English and Swedish descent and his father's parents were of German and French descent.5 His father was an iron worker6 and it is alleged that his paternal grandfather was the German composer, Ernst, who led the Baden-Baden orchestra in his day.7
Keely had one brother, a J.A. Keely.8 Since he was orphaned in early childhood, they were probably separated early. Keely lost his parents in his infancy, his mother never recovering from his birth, and his father dying before he was three years old. After his father died, he came to live with his grandmother and an aunt, but his aunt died before he was sixteen, and his grandmother died a year later. Thus, Keely was thrown early upon his own resources. His educational opportunities were limited to the city schools of Philadelphia, which he left at the age of 12.9
It is also claimed that he went to live with his grandfather, the German composer, who was unable to do much for him. After he left school, he was apprenticed to the carpenter's trade.10 Keely, then 12 years old, allegedly worked at this trade until 1872.11
Somewhere in these early years, Keely made his astonishing discovery and decided to follow that road. Contemporary sources have their own, sometimes contradictory, versions of how this happened. The nucleus of these tales is that Keely had his moment of illumination while observing peculiar effects of sound on certain objects.
Keely himself claimed that in his childhood he started his research, leading him to the discovery that would haunt him for the rest of his life: "Before I had reached my tenth year, researching in the realm of acoustic physics had a perfect fascination for me; my whole organism seemed attuned as if it were a harp of a thousand strings; set for the reception of all the conditions associated with sound force as a controlling medium, positive and negative; and with an intensity of enjoyment not to be described."12
But while he was drawn to this line of research before he was 10 years of age, an incident several years later set him on the course that he decided to follow: "...the first manifestation of which to me when I was twelve years old drew my attention to the channels in which I have since worked..."13
Keely never told what that manifestation, incident or discovery exactly was, although elsewhere a poetic picture is presented of a young Keely who "held the sea-shells to his ear
as he walked the shore and noted that no two gave forth the same tone...," with which his work of discovery commenced.14
Since he never explained the nature of this incident, it was simply written by another that, "...since he was ten years of age [Keely] has been interested in the study of tones and resonances; of those rapid and incessant vibrations which underlie all we see in the world around us, and to which all the energies of the acting universe are primarily due. It is this study which he still continues, and the power which he has developed is claimed to come from a control of these vibrations...."15
And elsewhere it is confirmed that Keely not only was a "poor lad reared in obscurity and privation, in early childhood drawn to these unique researches.. but that "from his earliest recollection... was drawn to the study of sound as relating to force, and commenced his first systematic investigation when hardly 10 years of age, making his first encouraging discovery at thirteen. As a child he noticed how powerfully windows were often agitated by the heavy tones of an organ, and this led him to place various objects about the room, suspending glass dishes, etc., and then watching for any effect that might be produced by the various chords he was able to secure by the combination of different tones. He soon found that certain chords invariably resulted in the forcible agitation of objects at a distance."16
This was further explained by stating that, "The discovery of the fact that objects composed of a material such as glass could be made to vibrate at a distance only in response to one particular chord to which their mass seemed to respond led to the discovery on which his work is based — the finding of the so-called 'chord of mass' of any material body, and the application of this discovery to the production of vibrations at will. The utilization of this chord produces disintegration, and this disintegration in turn is, of course, capable of being converted into motion. "17 Although the consensus was that Keely's experiments in vibration had their origin in his knowledge of music, and were commenced in his childhood,18 sometimes a different story arose: "While he was working as a carpenter the vibrations of windows and glass dishes in response to the soundings of the various musical chords first set his mind upon the subject of vibrations and the curious sympathy between distant waves vibrating in harmony. He became interested in speculations concerning physical forces and originated many theories."19 It is even alleged that he simply became interested in music, and claimed that the tuning fork had suggested to him the idea of a new motive of power.20
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