Spear's "electric motor" or "The New Motor" was designed to "correspond to the human organism," it had "a brain, heart, lungs etc.," and it should "perform the functions of a living being." The queer device also had "some little balls, connected with the machine," which "for some months have given evidence of motion." The device also was equipped with a large wheel, the "grand revolver," upon which "all the executive power is made dependent." Wiring of some sort covered the apparatus, "Each wire is precious, sacred, as a spiritual verse. Each plate of zinc and copper is clothed with symbolized meanings, corresponding throughout with the principles and parts involved in the living human organism. ...The various parts of this mechanism, both the wood work and the metallic, are extremely accurate, and so mathematically arranged with reference to some ulterior result or effect." Poles and magnets were also arranged in a specific way in the device.
The statements of the famous spiritualist Andrew Jackson Davis - who went to investigate Spear's remarkable machine, which he described as a "peculiar construction" - give some insight in the proposed working of Spear's New Motor: "The philosophy given through Mr. Spear, upon which the mechanism is predicated, is this: First, that there is a universal electricity. Second, that this electricity has never been naturally incorporated with mineral and other forms of matter. Third, that the human organism is the most superior, natural, efficient type of mechanism known on the earth. Fourth, that all merely scientific developments of electricity as a motive power are superficial, and therefore useless or impracticable. Fifth, that the construction of a mechanism on the laws of man's material physiology, and fed by atmospheric electricity obtained by absorption and condensation, and not by friction or galvanic action, will constitute a new revelation of scientific and spiritual truths, because the plan is wholly dissimilar to every human use of electricity."35
The New Machine was to derive its motive power from the magnetic store of nature, of creation itself that was defined by Milankowitsch as an incredible World Machine. Since Spear's New Motor derived its power in such a way, it was to be as independent of artificial sources of energy as was the human body.36
When a woman, obeying a vision that she had, went to the High Rock at Lynn where the New Motor was displayed, she suffered "birth-pangs" for two hours. From this possibly epileptic seizure, she judged that the essence of her spiritual being was imparted to the machine. At the end of that time, it was averred that "pulsations" were apparent in the motor.37
The New Machine failed to work, or at least its actions remained inconclusive and unsatisfactory, and even his fellow spiritualists didn't think much of the device. Eventually the machine was brought to the village of Randolph in Massachusetts and housed in a "temporary building." There the New Machine, costing Spear nearly $2,000 to construct, was destroyed by a mob of superstitious villagers.38 Saddened, Spear, who wanted to give mankind "God's last and best gift," disappeared from the pages of history, except for an occasional reference.39
What it demonstrates, aside from the superficial similarities between Spear's New Motor and Keely's disintegrator, is the fact that Spear's case was the reason that certain spiritualists were interested in Keely's discoveries in the first place.
Spear's story, strange and intriguing as it may be, was not an entirely isolated one. In 1850, just a few years before Spear was visited, young farmer Jonathan Koons, who lived on an isolated farm in Milfield Township in Athens County, Ohio, had his encounter with spirits. His neighbor, John Tippie, also lived on a farm some two or three miles away. On the farms of each they erected a log cabin, consisting of a single room about 15 by 12 feet. The buildings were built by Koons and Tippie under the direction of "what claimed to be the spirits of human beings," as "circle rooms, and fitted up with instruments, etc., from written plans and diagrams drawn out by the spirits with their own hands."
In each room was a "spirit machine," and although there is no definitive time period in which young Koons and Tippie were engaged in their construction, they were probably built around the time that Spear was busily assembling his New Motor. The spirit machines consisted of "a somewhat complex arrangement of zinc and copper," with "two drums... fastened with copper wires upon wooden supporters" at the top of a table. The table was intersected with copper wires wrapped with zinc. "On the upper cross wire hang some copper plates, cut in the form of doves, to which are suspended a number of bells, which the spirits sometimes ring." The spirits alleged that the spirit machines served the purpose of collecting and focalizing the magnetic aura used in the manifestations, also described as the "collecting and retaining the electricity of the circle and it is charged before giving any demonstrations, at every sitting." The charging of the singular devices was accompanied by a "startling noise." The devices, also described as "novel batteries" were placed upon a long wooden table, by the side of which lay several music instruments, provided "according to direction."
Visitors witnessed strange doings; "spirits" would play the musical instruments, loud blockings were heard and sometimes the log cabins shaked on their foundations. These spirits identified themselves as "of the most ancient and primal order of man." They spoke of the biblical Adam as of a "comparatively modern date," and indicated that they were "by no means the first of earth's inhabitants," though antedating the biblical Adam by "thousands ofyears."40
In the year that Spear had his revelation at Niagara Falls that would lead to the construction of his New Motor, Koons entrusted to paper a religious philosophy given to him by his visiting spirits. He wrote that the spirits declared that, "the electric element forms the various paths in which planets and all other known bodies in space travel and move in their respective orbits, but that nothing... can penetrate the realms of the 'subtler fluid,' yet it divides and permeates all space, and seems to hold in control the infinite realms of the electric element. ...There is a grand central territory in the universe. ...It embraces illimitable though unknown realms; yet its position as a vast central point is defined, from the fact that from thence, and to thence, seem to tend all the illimitable lines of attraction, gravitation and force, which connect terrestrial bodies, and link together firmaments teeming with lives and systems."41
Koons' spirits even imparted to him a philosophy regarding the working of their spirit machines. From it, we learn that one of its purposes was to overcome gravity. This detail alone may very well class Koons' and Tippie's spirit machines as two of the very first recorded instances of antigravity devices that were actually built with that purpose in mind.
"It is said that spirits, in their communion with earth, manifest through two primitive elements; first, an electro-magnetic element of which the spiritual body is composed; next, a physical aura, which emanates from the medium, or can be collected from material substances, analogous, it is supposed, to the element of 'vitality.' ... From the combinations of these two, namely the emanations of the spirit and the medium, a third or composite is formed, which is affected by the atmosphere and human emanations. From the preponderance of the electro-magnetic or spiritual element, the laws of cohesion and gravitation can be overcome, and through this spirits are enabled to dissolve and recompose substances with great rapidity, heave up and carry material bodies through the air, and causing them to float or sink in proportion to the strength of the battery formed."42
Thus, visitors of those strange log cabins would witness the musical instruments floating in the air, suspended from gravity while a horn, "a tin trumpet of two feet long," would produce "speaking, whistling, singing and addresses." Each time it would rise into the air, produce the sounds after which it would "fall to the table." The phenomena seemed to begin each time with "tremendous blows on the table, ceiling and walls."43
In 1854, Koons' and Tippie's log cabins were still shaking "like a tree in a gale of wind," the spirits exhibiting "extraordinary pyrotechnics, seemingly to consist of luminous bodies flying about with the swiftness of insects." Koons would pick up a violin and drew a bow across it; "immediately"
another violin was sounded. Tippie's cabin also exhibited the same phenomena; although persons there "neither saw writing nor a spirit hand." The music in Tippie's cabin, however, was "all produced by spirits," and was "more varied and interesting than Koon's."44
Numerous people visited the strange cabins where gravity seemed to exist no more. Affidavits were signed. The cabins were searched, but nothing of a fraudulant nature was found. Not all was well though; Koons' and Tippie's houses were attacked by mobs, their barns and crops destroyed by fire, "their children set upon and ill-treated." The phenomena seemed to have waned in later years and would ultimately come to a complete standstill; it was suggested that the reason for this was that Koons and Tippie lost their mediumistic gifts: "it must be remembered that... the presence of a large family of highly mediumistic children and the electrical nature of the locality where the circles were held must be taken into account."45 Koons and Tippie split up, and the ultimate fates of those wonderful spirit machines which according to witnesses were able to suspend gravity, is unknown.
Emma Hardinge, in her time a well-known medium and one of the founding members of the Theosophical Society, and of whom we are indebted to for the previous passages about Spear, Koons and Tippie, cites an instance in which we traverse the boundaries of the actual and historical. In a strange book published under her auspices, the anonymous narrator of the allegedly autobiographical sketches received an initiation into the mysterious Ellora Brotherhood while in India. The subterranean temple of Ellora — which indeed very much exists — where the initiation took place was in fact a strange device of gargantuan dimensions: "The whole temple was furnished with fine metallic lines, every one of which converged to six powerful galvanic batteries attached to the silver thrones by six of the adepts. These persons, adepts in the loftiest sense and most significant sense of the term, received their inspiration from the occupant of the seventh throne, a being who, though always present, was not always visible."46
Through the electrical system of this elaborate battery, the positive pole being the seven hierophants, and the negative being the assembly of neophytes, the narrator was mentally impressed with fantastic images of cosmic events,47 much like the visions of Koons and Newbrough's Oasphe.
In 1873 in Paris, Eliphas Levi, the great French magus and friend of Bulwer-Lytton, was quite happy to stumble upon the metal parts of a device called the Prognometer in a junk shop. The proprietor bought the dismantled device at an auction of the collector of handwritings and curios, Valette, who was executed during the revolt of the Parisian Commune. The proprietor paid 500 francs for it, but he sold the device to Levi for one fifth of the original price.48
The Prognometer, built by the Polish mathematician Hoene-Wronski, was a mechanical device that could predict certain trends in the future history of mankind, or so it was claimed. "While the master lived, the disciple had not been allowed to see the Prognometer. Now he bought it, recognizing Wronski's writing in the mathematical symbols which covered the contrivance," writes Webb.49 "Wronski trusted his secret only to Marquis Sarrazin de Montferrier, whose son-in-law was the last grandmaster of the Templars. I heard about this secret wonder, that Wronski had guarded as jealously as Menelaous had Helena, but I had some doubt as to the reality of its existence. Besides, I knew that before Wronski died, he had dismantled all his machines and had sold the copper to people from the region of Auvergne," explained Levi,50 and once again, as in the case of Mesmer, we see an order of definite esoteric and secretive nature involved in the preservation of occult technology.
Joseph Maria Hoene-Wronski (1776-1853) was a remarkable man, and it is with him that the revival of 19th century occultism on the continent indirectly begins. It was Wronski who initiated Levi between 1850 and 1853, who then became known as the sole instrument of the 19th century revival of the occult sciences. After a career that had led Wronski from the Polish rebellion of 1794 in the Russian army which he left with the rank of major in 1797, he studied philosophy in Germany, enlisted once again in the Polish army, and worked in 1810 in the Observatory of Marseilles. Around this year, Wronski had his illumination, and as a consequence, he claimed to have discovered the Absolute. The Absolute is the knowledge of truth, which may be reached through the human reason. While Wronski claimed that this was achieved through rational thought, it nevertheless is almost impossible to understand him, since he wrote his theories down in dense, mathematical terms. Another important theory of Wronski was that man could create reality from the total of the impressions of his senses.51
Brilliant as Wronski may have been, he was not able to communicate or depart with his ideas, which were steeped in occult lore. Of this, Webb writes that "Wronski was knowledgeable in Cabalistical matters as was obvious to early commentators on his work. He also knew Boehme and was familiar with Gnostic teachings. ...Wronski maintained that the goal of man was to become god-like; like other occultists, he veiled his meaning with an impenetrable curtain of jargon. His teachings were not for the vulgar but only for those who would make the effort to penetrate his mathematics."52
The further career of Wronski has some resemblances with that of Keely, although Wronski had a much, much more poverty-stricken existence. As in Keely's life, Wronski's only child died young. As with Keely, business teamed up with intellect, but to no effect. In Wronski's case, this came in the form of a French businessman, Pierre Arson. He met Wronski in 1812 and proceeded to take a course of instruction from him. He also agreed to subsidize the publication of Wronski's oeuvre. Around 1831, however, the two fell apart; Arson seems to have been disappointed in the final revelation of the Absolute, and so he not only revoked his agreement, but also published a hostile broadside.53
Wronski replied and soon the two would find themselves in court. Curiously, Arson never ceased to regard Wronski as a genius. Another never properly explained matter was the fact that during their mutual recriminations in pamphlet form, Arson attracted the attention of a secret society about whom he never was certain whether they were in league with or against Wronski.54
There are speculations as to the identity of this secret society; while Webb thinks it likely that it involved a revived group of French Martinists, another suggestion is that it was one of the Saturnian Brotherhoods, said to have been revived in Warsaw by Wronski, with outer courts in Krakow, Poison and Thorn, although these lodges were ultimately destroyed by various wars.55
The occultist-mathematician kept turning his mind on things technical; in 1833, he developed a system for steam locomotives which he called a Dynamo-genic System that allowed the engine to dispense with rails. Wronski also invented a tracked vehicle, and the contract that he signed in 1833 with the Messageries Generates de France probably was for its prototype. He should have been able to live comfortably from the monies given to him by the company; yet when he perceived further mechanical principles from his invention, and he decided that it was his duty to publish these, the company withdrew all support. The remaining years of his life were spent in absolute poverty, his only feat being Levi's initiation in the last three years of Wronski's life.56
It is through Levi, that a description of Wronski's Prognometer has survived at all, and Levi hints that this was not the only device that he built: Wronski "dared to involve himself with inventions, he constructed mathematical machines, revolving axes which were put together in an admirable fashion. ... Only his machines would not work because the copper and bronze of his devices would not acknowledge the truth of his philosophies. ...His most fevered and most kept secret investigation was the invention of a divinating machine, also called prognoscope, that calculated all probabilities and drafted equations of occurrence that had happened in the past, happened now and would happen in the future, in order to establish all possible values."57
One day Wronski found out how to do this, and "he asked workmen to come over and ordered them to the most extreme secrecy. Nobody saw the design of his machine, but he let the workmen construct the machine in bits and piece
s, and being a bit of a mechanic, put the parts together himself. All was immensely complicated but as harmonious as the universe itself. The construction of the Prognometer cost enormous amounts of money."58
It consisted of two globes riveted together, which, by two crossing axles, turned in a large immovable circle. Two small pyramids which alternately opened and closed themselves contained the principles of all the sciences. The summary of all these sciences was engraved, corresponding to their analogies, on the two globes that revolved around the two axles. According to Levi, the machine resembled the heavenly globe, covered with polished bismuth, mounted on a carriage of gilded copper.
"There were two smaller globes on the top of which were mounted two threesided pyramids. One symbolized godly knowledge, while the other symbolized human knowledge. These always revolved contrary to each other, so that the harmony was the result of the analogy of its counter parts," Levi writes.
One of the small globes, the one that symbolized godly knowledge, was also called "a polarisator" and it was adorned with a lightning flash and a polished compass. Around this globe four letters, A, B, X and Z, were fixed, corresponding with its Hebraic equivalents, that had the value of "other Hebraic letters." From this globe two branches pointed, both having small compasses that indicated the proportion of "what was above and what was below." The other globe, representing human knowledge, carried "the flamboyant star of the magus," which Levi also calls "the sign of Salomo." This sign was viewable from "two sides," and the flash of lightning, pointing towards the globe, terminated in a five-pointed star, symbolizing "human initiative and human autonomy." On the circle were the signs of the zodiac and apertures which "opened and closed at will." On the ports of these apertures, the names of the sciences were written; under the ports, Wronski wrote the names of the "fundamental axiomata." There were 32 ports, on each of which were written "the names of three sciences." "The axiomatas were engraved with the greatest precision, but with a handwriting so small that even with a magnifying glass these were hardly discernible." Levi writes.59
Free Energy Pioneer- John Worrell Keely Page 38
