Free Energy Pioneer- John Worrell Keely

by Theo Paijmans

  The most unsettling thing is that outwardly these persons seemed to have aided Keely. The question thus remains open as to whether or not these persons, members of either sinister groups — or in fact innocent college fraternities — revolving around or having to do with the Skull & Bones, were indeed involved in a complex scheme or shadowy machinations, and whether or not they were in league with, or instead quite against the unknowing Keely.

  Dale Pond's replica of Keely's Musical Dynasphere (front and side view)

  Provisional Engine - The globe and drum revolve in opposite directions through the action of etlieric force which is transmitted via a wire of platinum and stiver.

  Keely in his workshop

  Compound Disintegrator

  Vibratory Indicator. Attractive Disks. Musical Globe, and Medium for testing centripetal force.

  Keely’s Provisional Engine

  Keely with Vibrodyne Motor

  Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) Brilliant inventor who knew of Keely's discoveries.

  Nikola Tesla's laboratory in New York, which mysteriously burned to the ground in March, 1895.

  In 1919, Alfred Hubbard built and demonstrated his first device at the age of 19. He claimed that his device could take energy out of the air.

  When Hubbard's device was successfully tested, the local newspapers reported the news on the front page.

  Rudolph Steiner (1861-1925) Occultist and one-time member of the Ordo Templi Orientis. Founded the anthroposophical movement. Wrote the Mystery Plays and developed the enigmatic Strader Instruments. He lectured on Keely and told his audience that certain English secret circles were developing technology based on Keely's discoveries.

  Steiner’s first Goetheaneum. built of the same wood used in the construction of violins to ensure proper resonance and vibration. Mysteriously burned down in 1922.

  Steiner's mysterious Strader Apparatus. One of its parts consisted of a metal which had not yet been discovered.

  The Strader Apparatus with its accompanying devices

  Three devices accompanying Steiner's Strader Apparatus

  Sketches and working drawings of the Strader Apparatus

  Saint Yves d'Alveydre (1824-1909) French occultist, kabbalist, author and inventor of the Archeometer.

  Saint Yves de'Alveydre's Archeometer that "translated into the material the word, form, color, smell, sound, and taste, the key to all religions and all the sciences of antiquity."

  Schematic depiction of the correspondences on the Archeometer between numbers, letters, colors and musical notes, the sign of the Zodiac and the planets.

  Joseph Maria Hoene-Wronski (1776-1853) Inventor of the Prognometer. Brilliant mathematician and initiate of the highest order.

  Only surviving sketch of Wronski's Prognometer. It was scrapped before his death, and later discovered by Eliphas Levi in a Parisian junkshop.

  The self-moving wheel that Orffyreus exhibited at Merseburg, Hesse-Cassel in 1715.

  Johan Ernst Bessler, alias Orffyreus (1680-1745) Invented a machine that allegedly operated independent of any known source of power.

  Map from the Appendix of the book Western Occultism and Eastern Esoterism by Auguste Van Dekerkove, alias Zanne <1838-1923), showing the Zodiac and Atlantis on the Parisian meridian.

  10

  The Secret Tradition Occult Technology and Free-Energy

  "... transporting systems, and the lighting of cities, and the operation of factories may someday be the outcome of... what I'd call mechanical witchcraft."

  Charles Fort,

  Wild Talents, 1932

  "The technology of the future will be magic. But magic is: technology with other means."

  Eugen Georg,

  Verschollene Kulturen, 1930

  There was some interrelationship between Keely and the academic sciences, but his entanglement with the occult communities of the time was considerable. There was already a strange technical dimension to the occult underground that was partly connected to the rapid scientific developments of the 19th century. This strange dimension helps to explain the immense success that The Coming Race enjoyed in the occult circles, for his novel struck a deep note of recognition.

  These circles cherished the occult concept of the will of the magician, the adept, the initiated. With this will, the mind-force, and its proper application, anything would be possible. This concept was used by the early alchemists and Rosicrucians, by Mesmer and Von Reichenbach, and further developed by Bulwer-Lytton in The Coming Race. Deviating from this concept was the idea that Keely's devices were propelled by his very willpower, the waves of the brain, as set forth by Blavatsky, later Steiner and ultimately Fort.

  It was the occult concept of the will that was an important ingredient of the occult technology that in that respect was a prophetic forerunner of today's cybernetics, virtual reality and most innovative science. For not all was pentagrams, old grimoires and the muttering of evocations when the stars were right.

  That strange technological dimension is only mentioned in several studies of the occult, but never has been the subject of a study in itself.1 It is in this exclusive perception of reality that we encounter wonderful tales of homunculi and golems, of automatic people and artificial heads that communicate. There the skies are filled with the fabled vimanaas of the Great White Brotherhood. In this section of reality, the spiritist uses devices such as the Ouija board as a rudimentary interface, or the secluded environment of the Psychomanteion for dialogues with other-dimensional inhabitants.

  It is also in this hazy area that the irrationalist whose mind is forever tuned to grandiose vistas of the universe discovers new rays, weird magnetism and strange powers. Through assiduous study the very foundations of cosmic forces and the laws of the universe are uncovered. It is in the darkest and most unexplored regions of the occult that the willpower of the initiate is linked to strange devices, to achieve a magical transformation of the universe itself, an aim that Rudolf Steiner hinted at discussing certain secret societies.

  It is therefore quite possible that somewhere deep in the occult underground, Keely's work was continued after he died, his devices carefully hidden and his manuscript diligently studied precisely with this purpose in mind. Based on the existing documentation this is impossible to verify, let alone prove. We know that circles surrounding the Golden Dawn were very much aware of Astor's futuristic writings, of Bulwer-Lytton's novels, of Jules Verne's futuristic tales but also of such strange tales of fiction as Bradshaw's hollow earth novel The Goddess of Atvatabar. But whether or not the members of these orders were actually involved in the construction and use of a variety of techno-magical instruments that went beyond the traditional wand and other ritualistic appliances is now matter for conjecture. Contemporary studies make no mention of such endeavors, although, as we will see, there is documentation that in a number of instances several members of the Ordo Templi Orientis were actually either interested or involved in the construction and use of techno-magical devices.

  Whether or not Steiner took precautions of not becoming more explicit about the nature of the secret circles that were engaged in the development of avant-garde technology, or simply dismissed the whole idea, is equally open to conjecture. Nowadays we only have Steiner's unsettling remarks.

  However, what makes this possibility likely is that a strain of influence of Keely certainly is discernible in more than one instance. There was also a secret tradition that was nurtured by a number of occult orders, esoteric societies and lone individuals that possessed a deep interest for avant-garde scientific discoveries.

  In the process, the philosophies of many of these occult orders would be mixed with futuristic concepts and alternative sciences, as would more generally accepted occult doctrine. There is also some documentation that mysterious devices were constructed, for many of which now only a rudimentary description, a rumor, a hint or a whisper remains.

  A good example of this unique blend of occultism and strange science is the case of the Ge
rman occultist and writer Ferdinand Maack (1861-1930), who founded a Rosicrucian order in Hamburg. In 1897, Maack devoted himself to the study of his newly discovered rays and his dynamosophic science. Maack also wrote lengthy essays that would be essential for a direction in magic that was called mathemagia, a blend of mathematics and magic that would center around the appliance of numbers for magical and ritual ends.2

  In the meantime, orthodox science drove the seekers of perpetual motion, the renegade scientists with their self-made jargon and the garage inventors who were hunting for free-energy into the arms of the occult world, and it was inevitable that the two would meet. Thus, the German Baron Von Reichenbach (1788-1869), who discovered what he termed the "odylic force," is today only mentioned in the occult textbooks. While experimenting, Von Reichenbach noticed that sensitive persons could perceive radiation that others could not see. Von Reichenbach termed these rays the cosmic Dynamid and named these after the Sanskrit word Od.

  In the cases of Mesmer's animal magnetism and the findings of the pioneers of radiesthesia, one is now equally forced to turn to the history of the occult. The early history of free-energy is therefore also very much a part of the occult; in its pages are found various tales of forgotten 18th and 19th century free-energy inventors who, while themselves not directly related to occult doctrine, at least found a more welcome home there after their rejection by the orthodoxy. But long before the 18th and 19th centuries, rumors and legends of strange machines and unheard-of technologies surfaced from time to time in the occult communities.

  The famous French magus Levi, for instance, records the story of Rabbi Jechiele, who was an adviser at the court of the French king Louis XI in the 13th century. Jechiele possessed a "brilliant lamp that lighted itself." "What one said about his lamp and its magical clue proves that he had discovered electricity, or at least that he knew how to make use of its principles; for this knowledge, as old as magic, was transmitted as one of the keys of the higher initiation," Levi explains.

  Levi notes that the lamp had neither oil nor a wick, but those who went by his home at night would see "a brilliant star in Jechiele's house; the light was so bright, that one could not stare into it, and it projected rays in the colors of the rainbow." Another device, used to protect himself, emitted electric shocks: the rabbi "touched a nail driven into the wall of his study, and a crackling, bluish spark immediately leapt forth. Woe to anyone who touched the iron nail at that moment: he would bend double, scream as if he had been burned, after which he would run away as fast as he could."

  Levi also mused on the tale of Jechiele's contemporary, alchemist and occultist Albertus Magnus (1193-1280): "At the same time lived Albert the Great, who was considered by the people to be the grand master of all magicians. The chroniclers assure that he possessed the secret of the Philosopher's Stone and that he had solved, after thirty years of labor, the problem of the android; that is to say that he constructed an artificial man, living, talking and answering all the questions with such a precision and subtlety, that Thomas Aquino, annoyed for it not keeping its silence, struck it on its head."3

  This iron man purportedly served Albertus Magnus for years, opening doors for guests, asking what they wanted and deciding whether or not they could see his master. Details about the appearance of this iron man or principles of operation lack completely, and the scarce bits that are available do not correspond to each other. Generally it is told that this remarkable automaton was made out of "wood, metal, wax and leather." At other instances Albertus Magnus is credited with the construction of only a head that could answer questions.4

  Another variation of this legend recounts that when Thomas Aquino destroyed the artificial being, Magnus cried: "Thomas, Thomas! Thirty years of labor thou hast destroyed with one stroke!"5

  There is some confusion, even among high occultists, about the meaning of this tale. Levi searches for a symbolical meaning on an initiatory level and warns that, "This is the popular fable; let us see what it means," after which he explains that, "The mystery of the creation of man and his first appearance on earth has always preoccupied the curious who searched for the secrets of nature. ...The name Adam in the Hebrew language signifies the red earth; what then is this red earth? It is what the alchemists search for, hence, the great work is not the transmutation of metals. ...it is the universal secret of life."6

  The earliest records, although made a long time after Albertus Magnus died, contain a clear coherence with astrology and with magic: the body parts of his android were constructed according to the position of the planets, the eyes for instance were constructed in accordance with a certain solar constellation, a curious fusion of the concepts of technology and the arcane. What must be taken into account was that Albertus Magnus, although today chiefly remembered as an occultist, was also one of the most important scientists of his day, a veritable homo universalis who mastered botanics, physics, astronomy and mechanics.

  In Magnus' tale it is hinted that the legendary technology of building artificial people, or crude robotic beings had a much longer history attached to it. He wrote in De Anima Libri Tres: "It is said that Daedalus made a statue of Minerva out of wood that was moveable in all its limbs and, through the movement of the tongue, appeared to sing. This movement explained itself thus: in the inner of the statue were organs of mercury inserted and they appeared to move after the movement of the statue."7 Possibly this tale was a distortion of the very earliest oriental designs of a perpetuum mobile with hollow wooden stakes filled with mercury.

  While much of this curious fusion of technology and occultism was lost or erased from the pages of history, it was said that the ever-elusive, mysterious Rosicrucians were the keepers of parts of this knowledge. It comes as no surprise, then, that Bloomfield-Moore wrote about Keely's vibratory force in connection with that mystical organization of the Rosicrucians, and reminded her readers that: "... Everybody knows that a note struck upon an instrument will produce sound in a correspondingly attuned instrument in its vicinity. If connected with a tuning fork, it will produce a corresponding sound in the latter; and if connected with a thousand such tuning forks, it will make all the thousand sound, and produce a noise far greater than the original sound, without the latter becoming any weaker for it. Here then, is an augmentation or multiplication of power, as it has been called by the ancient Rosicrucians, while modern scientists have called it the law of induction. Modern science heretofore only knew the law of the conservation of energy; while to the scientist of the future the law of the augmentation of energy which was known to the Rosicrucians will be unveiled."8

  This was not the only secret to have been guarded by the Rosicrucians. It was also claimed that they possessed the secret of the "everburning lamps." These lamps were capable of burning for extremely long periods of time without a known means. Such a lamp was allegedly found, still burning inside a tomb dating back to Roman times as recently as the 1930s, during the construction of a road near Budapest.9

  Hargrave Jennings, the 19th century occultist who knew Randolph of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor and who corresponded with Golden Dawn initiate Arthur Machen and Bulwer-Lytton, collected a number of tales about these legendary mysterious lamps: "... Rosicrucius, say his disciples, made use of this method to show the world that he had reinvented the everburning lamps of the ancients, though he was resolved no one should reap any advantage from the discovery." The tomb of Christian Rosencreutz, the mythical founding father of the Rosicrucian Order, was said to have been illumined by these everburning lamps.10 Naturally these tales would influence the direction that some writers took with their works of fiction. A perpetual lamp that is being fueled by carbonized diamonds was featured in a 1899 tale titled The Master of the Octopus.11

  Long before the invention of the telegraph, the telephone and other means of communication, it was believed that certain initiates had technical means to transmit messages over great distances. Allegedly Johan Trithemius (1462-1516) — who coincidentally is also
credited with having the secret of the everburning lamps — described a device that resembles the current radio.12 In a book that is attributed to him, Albertus Magnus gives an elaborate and modern sounding description of a strange telegraph in a passage entitled, "The wonderful secret of how to build the sympathetic plate of numbers, with which one can communicate in an instant with distant friends." The telegraph consisted of two boxes made out of "fine steel," constructed "in the same manner as the cases for sea compasses" and having "the same weight, dimensions and appearance." These boxes had "reasonably big" surrounding rims on which were engraved the letters °f the alphabet. On the bottom of these boxes a small appendage was fixed on which some sort of needle was fastened. These needles were made out of a carefully selected magnetic stone.13 The legendary Rosicrucians are said to have built such devices.14

  Another means of communication, but with totally different beings, was provided by John Dee (1527-1608), the brilliant magus, mathematician, alleged Rosicrucian, astrologer royal to the court of Queen Elisabeth I, and some say spy. Dee constructed a complex device to communicate with what he termed "angelic beings." Influenced by Trithemius, Dee reasoned that intercourse with "spiritual creatures," was one of the highest ends that man could aim at. At this point, magic would enter Dee's life and work. The exactness of mathematics, together with the philosophies of the Hebrew cabbalah and the Arabic magico-alchemical works, formed the foundations on which Dee built his system of magic in a scientific manner.