Free Energy Pioneer- John Worrell Keely
Page 31
In 1886, while in Italy, he allegedly met with a Florentine witch to whom he referred only as "Maddalena." He was introduced to other witches who divulged the secrets of the craft to him. The information obtained formed the basis of his book Aradia, or the Gospel of Witches, published in London in 1889.
After his death Leland was cremated and his ashes were returned to Philadelphia. He studied and wrote for half a century about things occult, and was also a journalist for fifteen years in Philadelphia, New York and Boston.16 Thus Leland, with his deep occult interests, and a journalist living at the same time as Keely in Philadelphia, would almost certainly have heard or read about him, even though no documentary evidence of their mutual acquaintance exists. There is a small and puzzling sentence in Bloomfield-Moore's writings where she states that "Should it be that Mr. Keely's compound secret includes any explanation of this operation of will-force... we shall then recover some of the knowledge lost out of the world, or retained only in gypsy tribes and among Indian adepts."17 It must also be taken into account that there are uncharted areas in both the private lives of Leland and Keely that have not been trusted to paper. Leland spent most of his life in Europe, and could easily have met with Newbrough, Colville, Hartmann or Paschal Beverly Randolph, as they too frequented European spiritist and esoterist circles.
Randolph (1825-1875) founded the Brotherhood of Eulis and stood at the base of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, which had a Rosicrucian temple in existence in Philadelphia in 1895 through its member Freeman Dowd.
Before spending the remainder of his life in Boston, Randolph traveled to Europe in 1855, 1857 and 1861. It is said that he met with Levi and Bulwer-Lytton.18 In France, he mixed in the Mesmerist circles around Baron Jules Du Potet de Sennevoy and Louis Alphonse Cahagnet. There Randolph discovered that, unlike most American spiritualists, the French Mesmerists were well versed in the Western magical and occult traditions. What also made a profound impression on Randolph was their use of magic mirrors, crystals and drugs, especially hashish, during spirit evocations . In 1861, he traveled to the Near East, where he learned a different kind of magic from the wandering dervishes. On his return to America, Randolph publicly denounced spiritualism and his role as a passive medium. Interestingly in 1861 Keely was, according to his own admission, "exposing spiritualistic mediums" in St. Paul, Minnesota, and was "nearly run out of town for doing so."
Instead of spiritualism, Randolph began to teach a complete system of practice and theory in which he saw man as having the task to first become individual, then a divine individual and in the end to become a god and to travel endlessly through infinite universes. Randolph also beheld the universe as being filled with vast hierarchies of elementals,19 as Newbrough would declare some twenty years later in his strange Oahspe.
It is asserted that Randolph, who was a close friend of President Abraham Lincoln, was also a member of the Societas Rosicruciana In Anglia, a branch of which was established in Philadelphia in the 1879 through the Societas Rosicruciana in Scotia. In 1880 the Philadelphia branch was renamed Societas Rosicruciana In United States, and afterwards Societas Rosicruciana Republicae Americae. The same year a college in Boston received a charter.20 Randolph also founded the Fraternitas Rosae Crucis in Quatertown, Pennsylvania.21 The Societas Rosicruciana Republicae Americae reportedly still exists today under the name Societas Rosicruciana Civitatibus Foederatis. The Masonic Rosicrucian order is, as was before, only open to master masons.22
Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891) resided in Philadelphia for a while. She would become one of the most influential figures in the occult world, and through her writings Keely would become known in esoteric communities everywhere.
Henry Steel Olcott, co-founder of the Theosophical Society, also lived in Philadelphia for a while, and along with Blavatsky investigated the claims of spiritists Jennie and Nelson Holmes. The Holmeses, through Robert Dale Owen, a former U.S. Congressman and foreign ambassador and leading spiritualist, appealed to Olcott to allow them to test their powers. The first seance was held on January 11, 1875, the last on the January 25. Olcott agreed to investigate and was accompanied by Blavatsky.23
Blavatsky resided at 1111 Girard Street. After the Holmes investigation she would stay in Philadelphia "for many months. "24 She might easily have met with Keely in that time period, although she never wrote of a meeting with him in her account of the investigation in Philadelphia.25 While she devotes some space to new scientific discoveries in her 1877 Isis Unveiled, and while the quotation in chapter 1 clearly shows that a kindred spirit already existed, she does not mention or refer to Keely.26
This would change, for when The Secret Doctrine was published in 1888, she stated in its pages that, "In the humble opinion of the Occultists, as of his immediate friends, Mr. Keely, of Philadelphia, was, and still is, at the threshold of some of the greatest secrets of the Universe; of that chiefly on which is built the whole mystery of psychical forces, and the esoteric significance of the 'Mundane Egg' symbolism."27 She also held it that "Mr. Keely's discoveries corroborate wonderfully the teachings of Occult Astronomy and other Sciences. "28
Thus she not only admitted that "the Occultists" were interested in Keely's inventions, but she also linked Keely to the esoteric doctrines, and this assured that other occultists everywhere who read her book turned their attention to the Philadelphian inventor. In fact, Blavatsky referred to Keely more than once in her seminal 1888 opus. The chapter titled "The Coming Force," refers to Babcock's 1881 pamphlet "Exposition of the Keely Motor," the back of which read: "The Doom of Steam, or, The Coming Force." Both titles in turn referred to The Coming Race, by that other great and mysterious initiate, Bulwer-Lytton.
Blavatsky's interest in Keely's inventions was fueled by Bulwer-Lytton, with whom an age-old and secret tradition breached the surface. This high initiate, alleged Rosicrucian, politician and friend of the French magus Eliphas Levi did not only influence the course that Blavatsky would take — reading one of his novels started her career as author while still residing in St. Petersburg29 — she would later catch a glimpse of her favorite author during the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace in 1851.30
Not only Blavatsky's career as a writer began by reading Bulwer-Lytton, early theosophy was principally inspired by his writings. Blavatsky's fascination with Egypt as the fount of all wisdom arose from her enthusiastic reading of Bulwer-Lytton's books. Only inher second book The Secret Doctrine, the location of the "source of ancient wisdom" would shift from Egypt to the Far East.31 Also, his most famous and most curious book The Coming Race would influence generations of occultists, and ultimately helped a secretive Berlin group formulate their ideas on the generation of free-energy in the 1930s.
Edward George First Baronet of Bulwer-Lytton of Knebworth (1803-1873) was a curious man with deep-ranging esoteric interests, and it is with him that we may clearly see the entanglement of occult lore and avant-garde science emerge for a brief but influential moment. Bulwer-Lytton studied at Cambridge, was elected to parliament in the 1830s, knighted in 1838 and made a baron in 1866. He was one of the most popular authors of his day with his collected works totaling over one hundred titles. Today his fame as an author is largely forgotten except for the book The Last Days of Pompeii, published in 1834.
In the fields of horror and science fiction literature, Bulwer-Lytton would earn fame with three influential novels by which he is still remembered to the present day. These were his 1842 Rosicrucian initiatory tale Zanoni, A Strange Story published in 1861 and his enigmatic The Coming Race.
These novels would form the foundation of a whole current of occult fiction. Thus, parts of Zanoni found their way in Randolph's Mysteries of Eulis,32 who borrowed from it without acknowledging it. Later the current of occult fiction was popularized by Theosophist Marie Corelli (1855-1924). Bulwer-Lytton's novels also became essential reading for occult adepts, such as the initiated of the Argenteum Astrum, Aleister Crowley's renegade order founded after his fraction with the Golden Da
wn, although The Coming Race is strangely absent from its required reading list.33
In these novels Bulwer-Lytton connected scientific reasoning with occult elements, based on contemporary theories of animal magnetism, hypnotism, space and time,34 a curious fusion that was noted by Thomas H. Burgoyne, co-founder of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor. Under the nom de plume Zanoni, after Bulwer-Lytton's 1842 novel of the same title, Burgoyne remarked that Bulwer-Lytton was "thoroughly convinced of the great value and importance of uniting ancient alchemy with modern medicine."35
Recently it has been noted that the descriptions of magical rituals in Bulwer-Lytton's A Strange Story are similar to means of contacting extraterrestrial inhabitants and other-dimensional entities, and that A Strange Story in fact offers a classification system of these beings.36
Bulwer-Lytton appeared to the audiences of his day as a successful and perhaps a somewhat eccentric writer, but in his private life he was deeply involved in occult pursuits. He became the member of at least two, possibly three, occult societies, not only in England but also abroad. According to Wynn Westcott, one of the founders of the Golden Dawn, in 1850 Bulwer-Lytton was appointed "member in absence" of the exclusive German high-grade Rosicrucian lodge "Karl zum aufgehenden Licht" based in Frankfurt. This ancient lodge was founded in the 18th century and was one of the last representatives of a German Masonic-alchemical Rosicrucian system.37 One of its members was the well-known Masonic historian Georg Burkhard Kloss (1787-1854). Until the early 19th century, this lodge was involved in alchemical activities and members had their own alchemical laboratory at their disposal.38 Bulwer-Lytton allegedly corresponded with this lodge and became intimate with their alchemical teachings and doctrines.39
It is also alleged that Bulwer-Lytton became the Grand Master of the College Metropolitain in 1871, whose members were closely allied to the Rosicrucian lodge "Karl zum aufgehenden Licht." The College Metropolitain consisted of the highest and secret class of members of the order of the "Chevaliers bienfaisants de la Cite-Sainte" that was founded around 1770 on Knights Templar tradition. The highest grade of the Chevaliers was named after the patron of the Merovingian empire, the Cite Sainte, or the Holy City of course being Jerusalem. Members of this order were prepared for theurgic magic, the intercourse with "spiritual, material, invisible and visible beings" and the "transcendent experience of the Rose-Cross," inside a special room, called the "Chambre d'Operation." The College Metropolitain also had an "inner order" that zealously guarded the "true secrets." The College Metropolitain had connections to the Order of the Strict Observance, also modeled after Knights Templar tradition.40
In 1871, Bulwer-Lytton also became Grand Patron of the Societas Rosicruciana In Anglia, the mother lodge of the Philadelphia branch41 the year that The Coming Race was published. The Societas Rosicruciana In Anglia was founded in 1865 by Robert Wenthworth Little and was only open to master masons, the same being the case with its American branches. Members of the Societas Rosicruciana In Anglia included not only Randolph, but also Rudolph Steiner, Eliphas Levi, MacGregor Mathers, William Wynn Westcott and William Robert Woodman. In 1888, Mathers, Westcott and Woodman would found the Golden Dawn.
From Zanoni alone it is already evident that Bulwer-Lytton was well versed in Rosicrucian literature. He read that strange novel Le Comte de Gabalis, written by the equally mysterious abbe Montfaucon de Villars, which he quotes in Zanoni.42 Since the occultists took Bulwer-Lytton's Zanoni very seriously and considered its writer a high initiate, other offers for membership would follow. Interestingly, there is little historical evidence that Bulwer-Lytton was further involved in either Masonic or Rosicrucian activities — although it is hinted that he was a freemason43 — or that he belonged to any occult society except for his honorary membership in the Societas Rosicruciana In Anglia. John Yarker, the occultist and notorious promoter of bogus Masonic grades, and who had sold Blavatsky a Masonic diploma, also tried to interest Bulwer-Lytton in one of his Masonic systems. As with other letters by esoteric and occult orders, Bulwer-Lytton never bothered to reply.44 Most historians of the occult consider this proof that he was only theoretically interested in the occult sciences.45
But considering his membership of one, possibly two very exclusive continental orders, the reason for his lack of interest in other occult societies of his time may very well be that he was far deeper in the occult strata than most of his esoterically inclined contemporaries, who held him in high esteem. There were also stories by those who claimed to have witnessed his demonstrations of his telekinetic abilities, strange rumors of how he became increasingly eccentric towards the end of his life, morbidly afraid of being left on his own, terrified of being buried alive, and tales of his curious nickname "the old sorcerer."46
Bulwer-Lytton also mixed in circles that included the great English mystic and visionary seer William Blake. As a result, he became well versed in the art of geomancy, for in this, he was initiated by William Blake's friend John Varley, and it is asserted that he and Varley "worked at astrology together." Later the two, including the English statesman and Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, were often given to debates on the pros and cons of witchcraft, spiritualism and "they plunged into discussion and experiment... they even tried their hands at crystal gazing."47
Disraeli (1804-1881) was a close friend of Bulwer-Lytton, and at one time Bulwer-Lytton drew up his astrological chart. Disraeli not only shared Bulwer-Lytton's deep-rooted interest in matters of the occult, but he also perceived the existence of secret societies as something very real, and he held this belief his entire life. Disraeli wrote of his belief in several novels involving secret societies and political conspiracies.48
In 1856 in the House of Commons, Disraeli not only warned against the threat posed by secret societies in Europe, but also of the danger of supporting Italian revolutionary movements because of the influence of the secret societies in these movements. Disraeli also said that "a great part of Europe — the whole of Italy and France and a great portion of Germany, to say nothing of other countries, are covered with a network of these secret societies."49
There is also Bulwer-Lytton's cryptic and somewhat similar reply in a letter to Hargrave Jennings, who sent him The Rosicrucians, their Rites and Mysteries, that was published a year before Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race shook the occult undercurrents to their very foundations. In this letter, Bulwer-Lytton wrote: "There are reasons why I cannot enter into the subject of the 'Rosicrucian Brotherhood,' a society still existing, but not under any name by which it can be recognized by those without its pale." At the foot of the letter, he added a postscript which read: "Some time ago a sect pretending to style itself 'Rosicrucians' and arrogating full knowledge of the mysteries of the craft, communicated with me, and in reply I sent them the cipher of the 'Initiate,' not one of them could construe it."50
Not only from his letter to Hargrave Jennings, but also from Zanoni it is evident that Bulwer-Lytton's occult knowledge was profound, highly detailed, and went beyond the limits of a mere theoretical nature. This could only stem from sources which carefully guarded that knowledge: the esoteric societies themselves. Zanoni was published years before his memberships of the Societas Rosicruciana In Anglia, the German Karl zum Aufgehenden Light and possibly the College Metropolitain. It is possible that long before he joined these orders, Bulwer-Lytton may have been involved in other alchemical and Rosicrucian circles, of which his contemporaries did not even know their names — real secret societies whose existence both Bulwer-Lytton and Disraeli alluded to.
There are speculations as to the identity of these secret societies; for instance a mysterious Rosicrucian order is referred to, an order variously known as the Fratres Luces, the Order of the Brotherhood of the Light, the Order of the Brotherhood of the Cross of Light, or the Order of the Swastika, that was located in Paris and that may have formed the model for the Golden Dawn. The English adepts came to learn of its existence through unconventional means, such as crystal gazing. In 1
873, the contact with Cagliostro resulted from it.51 Therefore allegations that Franz Anton Mesmer and Cagliostro were members of the Fratres Luces must be treated accordingly. Nevertheless, Mesmer was one of the sources of inspiration for Bulwer-Lytton who himself had gazed in crystals, and created his concept of the vril-force.
Another clue was found in Bulwer-Lytton's writings; the mysterious D., the proprietor of an occult bookshop in Zanoni very much existed in actual life. He was identified as John Denley, and his occult bookshop was, as Bulwer-Lytton admitted, "one of my favorite haunts." Denley's bookshop was visited by a shadowy group of people from the occult undercurrents. One of them who worked for Denley copying old occult manuscripts was the Rosicrucian seer Frederick Hockley (1808-1885).
Hockley developed an interest in spiritism and experimented with crystal gazing as early as 1824. In 1864 he became initiated into freemasonry and would join various lodges. In 1872, a year after Bulwer-Lytton's honorary membership, Hockley was appointed a member in absence of the Rosicruciana In Anglia, and in this he was advanced into the highest grade. In 1875 he became a member of the Metropolitan College. Two years later he was appointed a member of the Theosophical Society as an "honor" that was bestowed on him by Olcott. He also went to Paris, where he met with an "invisible power," and in one of his manuscripts he refers to an unnamed society in France, "followers of the Rosy Cross."