Johann Bessler, aka Orffyreus, and his Perpetual Motion Machine

Some fifty years ago, after I had established (to my satisfaction at least) that Bessler’s claim to have invented a perpetual motion machine was genuine, I decided to obtain as many verifiable facts pertaining to the legend of Bessler’s wheel as possible.  I believe that my publications below provide a summary of all the information available, but I should mention that I have made considerable progress in deciphering some of the inventor’s coded information, none of this is in the books detailed below, but you visit some of my other websites which give plenty of details.  This information is alluded to several times in his books, but it has taken many years of careful study to make sense of only some of it. Having said that there is considerable speculation about the various ciphers embedded in his works but most are too speculative to accept.

I think that the more we speculate the more confusion we can add. Speculation can be taken as fact and if further ideas are added that can compound the problem. I’m not promoting my books as the ultimate source of information on Bessler because there are so many historical documents which remain unexplored due to their poor condition or because they are lost in numerous private libraries. But for now they provide a quick and easy source of information on Johann Bessler and his perpetual motion machine.

Even though I published my biography of Johann Bessler several years ago, the information in it has not altered, because it is based on old documents written more than 300 years ago. There are new additional facts which need to be added at some point but they are details about his later life and although of interest do not impinge on the history of his perpetual motion machine. There are also Bessler’s own books which he published which cover his life in his own words and provide much information. The only other thing relevant to his story which I didn’t publish are two critiques written by his enemy, Christian Wagner and they are freely available in English at my main website, see below.

What follows is a list of my books, all but my biography were originally produced by Bessler to which I added a full English translation. The books are available in both hard copy and also as a digital PDF file.  The digital file allows easy searches for words and names.

I hope that people will continue to use these books as a source of accurate information in their journey of discovery to find the solution to Bessler’s wheel.

1) “Perpetual Motion: An Ancient Mystery Solved?”  View the synopsis for details of the book’s contents at my web site. http://www.free-energy.co.uk/html/synopsis.html.  Briefly it is an account taken from of every document relating to Bessler that I could find from files held in museums around the world, researched and translated. 

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2) “Apologia Poetica”   This was Bessler’s account of his life up until the time of Karl the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel’s patronage. The book contains the original German transcribed into a modern font and includes a full English translation at the rear. I would have preferred to include the original German font but it was in such poor condition that it would have been unreadable. This book contains some allusions to secret codes hidden within the book itself.  

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3) “Das Triumphans Perpetuum Mobile “- this was Bessler’s most professionally finished book. It was written in both German and Latin and this edition is a faithful reproduction of the actual pages of the original book. It also includes a full English translation at the rear. A number of drawings are included by the original author and these are said to contain a number of clues as to his machine’s workings.

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4) “Gruendlicher Bericht” - this was Bessler’s first publication, ostensibly produced by a friend although I think one can detect Bessler’s handiwork in places. This copy is also in the original German and includes a full English translation at the rear. It also includes the very first drawing which Bessler published and this also contains clues to the way his machine worked.

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5) “Maschinen Tractate” - this was found in the Bessler’s possessions after his death, in the form of a number of pages (141) and which contained a message on the front of the volume which stated that he had removed the drawings which depicted how his machine worked but that some one with a penetrating mind could by studying several drawings ultimately discover the secret of its construction. I have reproduced the drawings as they were found.  I included his handwritten notes with the best translation I could obtain, since the writing is very hard to read.

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You can also read Christian Wagner’s two critiques of Bessler’s wheel at my main web site.

 Copies of all the above books can be obtained from my web site at 

Books available from www.free-energy.co.uk    

Alternatively you can use the buttons in the lower part of the right side panel under the heading, ‘My Publications’, which also takes you to a payment page.

There are some excellent additional resources and a forum for discussion at the  

Besslerwheel forum

The best German web site is at http://www.besslerrad.de/html/bekannte_details.html

That’s all.  Of course some people prefer to continue their research into perpetual motion machines without referring to Bessler’s own efforts and I respect that, but for those who like to have the information relating to Johann Bessler aka Orffyreus to hand in an easily accessible format, the books detailed above provide a good digital resource.

It is common knowledge that Bessler left a lot of encoded information about how his wheel worked.  I have published a great deal of information about these codes and you read details both here www.the orffyreus code.com and in my previous blogs.

JC

The Bessler - Orffyreus Perpetual Motion Machine.

Johann Bessler, aka Orffyreus, exhibited a perpetual motion machine in 1712. Of course it wasn’t a perpetual motion machine (PM for Perpetual Motion) in the sense that most people think of them.   For a start it wasn’t isolated from any form of external energy, which is a strict requirement for such a theoretical device. It used weights which means it was enabled by gravity.

A waterwheel is driven by the flow of a river, the combustion engine by igniting petrol.  These two examples could just as easily be described as PM machines.  They are not isolated from any external source of energy, because the river flows down hill because gravity makes it.  It could in theory run continuously as long as the river flows thanks to gravity. The combustion engine will run continuously as long as it has fuel in its tank.

If the energy source is being maintained at a sufficient level, the machine will stay in motion like the so-called PM machine. But surely gravity isn’t an energy source?  No, but without it the water wheel won’t flow.

So Bessler’s wheel wasn’t a PM machine because it wasn’t isolated from external sources of energy.  But this is where confusion lies.  It was what people believed it to be, namely a PM machine.  But once people examined  the idea and defined it more precisely, they realised that many machines have external sources of  energy and they couldn’t all be PMs, so the idea was introduced, that a PM must be isolated from all external sources of energy including gravity.

The idea that a PM had to be isolated from all external stimuli and yet retain motion once started - and do work is utterly ridiculous.  No wonder PM is believed to be impossible.  Continuous motion can only happen if it can tap an external energy source.

Like every other would-be discoverer of the secret of PM, Bessler’s wheel used a number of weights in its interior, this is a well established fact.  This clearly implies that gravity had a role to play - the design of the machine required the movement of a number of weights configured in a certain way to produce continuous rotation. Thus we can say that his wheels were gravity-enabled.

But we have been taught that the force of gravity is not a source of energy.  This is actually true, but without its force the river wouldn’t flow.  Without its force the weights in Bessler's wheel wouldn’t fall.  But the water has to move from higher ground to lower in order to run and turn the water wheel - and the weights have to fall; both events are driven to move by gravity.  In doing this gravity does work, expends energy.   But in both cases there has be an intermediate medium.  Water or the weights.  Without them no motion is enabled by gravity.

So when we say Bessler’s wheel is enabled by gravity, even though gravity is not a source of energy, it is a vital ingredient.  The energy for the work being done is generated by the fall of the weights, the intermediary between gravity and the wheel. This process seems to be ignored even by many who study this field, they are still battling with the idea that as gravity is not an energy source it can’t be labelled such.  But it is just the same as any system which relies on the presence of gravity to provide input at its most basic level….mass in motion.

The main argument against this point of view is well known and simple. When a single weight falls, it derives kinetic energy from the motion of its fall.  When a force moves an object of mass it does work.  In this case the force doing the work is gravity.  After the work is done the energy has been transferred to the object of mass.  

Bessler’s wheel was driven by weighted levers, causing the machine to rotate.  We know that a weighted lever beginning its fall from the twelve o’clock position in a clock face and being allowed to fall freely will only get to the six o’clock position before it has to begin to climb against the force of gravity to get back to its starting point at twelve o’clock position.

Even if we could remove all possible friction, the return point would only just reach the twelve o’clock point.  But we need the device to do work, not just overcome friction.  Theoretically thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people have studied this problem and tried to resolve it - but all failed except Johann Bessler.  Instinctively those many, many people knew that there was a solution to this problem, and there is.  Bessler found it and I believe I have found it.  I’ve been working on a PoP wheel, (Proof of Principle) and I hope to have finished by early next year.  It won’t be an attractive model, just a crude assembly of previously used parts, but one that proves the design.

Click on the link below for all information about my published books.  There is my own biography about Bessler which includes all documents by or about Johann Bessler, plus you can obtain digital copies of all of his publications each with a full English translation.

https://johncollinsnews.blogspot.com/p/johann-besslers-books-and-biography.html

For more information about Bessler and his codes, view my YouTube video at

https://youtu.be/5BWVKtpuzn0  it describes the codes.

JC

Johann Bessler’s (aka Orffyreus’) Maschinen Tractate.l

The publication mentioned in the title of this post, Maschinen Tractate, was never published by Bessler but was found in his possessions after his death. I have producedca digital copy and a printed version available from the side panel of this post. It includes an English translation of Bessler’s handwritten notes, which were difficult to read, but still useful.

Bessler’s Maschinen Tractate (MT) consisted of 141 illustrations designed to lead one to the discovery of Bessler’s Perpetual Motion machine. Originally intended to provide material for his planned school for apprentices, it unfortunately lacks the final illustration depicting the solution. I called the final page, ‘The Toys Page’, because it includes a brief reference to ‘children’s games’. This final page has the numbers 138, 139, 140 and 141 added to the bottom left of the picture. The page immediately before the toys page was numbered MT137, which was the logical number for the preceding page.

There is a possible explanation for the inclusion of those numbers. Firstly 141 is only divisible by 3 and 47. Euclid’s 47th proposition shows how to construct a pentagram and I’ve shown that most his construction method can be seen in his two pictures of his Merseberg and Weissenstein wheel. 

But interestingly adding together all four numbers written at the foot of the ‘Toys’ page produces a total of 558, and 55 we know is one of Bessler’s most favourite numbers, but the 8 is not so easily explained. However adding these three numbers brings the total to 18, the key number in the pentagram. So here we have a typical Bessler move designed to make us think and seek an explanation - suggesting the pentagram again.

As I have pointed out previously MT137 contains the musical ‘circle of fifths’ diagram, a guide for musicians. It takes the form of a dodecagram, a twelve pointed star. See adjacent picture of MT137.

Some of you may be aware of the work I've published on www.theorffyreuscode.com .Three of the pages refer to the dodecagram on MT 137. I wrote that Johann David Heinichen, 1683-1729, a German musician, introduced the concept known as the ‘circles of fifths’ in 1711 (he called it Quintenzirkel). I suggested that MT 137 being similar to his quintenzirkel was designed to point to the circle of fifths, thus being another pointer to the number five.

I was drawn to this illustration, MT137 because it looked like a random addition but I knew that nothing in Bessler’s books was devoid of purpose. We know that Bessler was fascinated by the history and the relationship between numbers and letters and their hidden meanings and of course all the popular codes of the era, and it seemed to me that he had included the number quite deliberately, even if it was somewhat roughly executed. I believe that he added the Toys page later in life and replaced some of the existing pages which gave the secret of the wheel. My guess is that he also added the MT 137 at the same time.

MT 137, is the only illustration in the MT which doesn’t appear to show any mechanisms. One reason for this was, as I suggested above, to provide a hint towards the circle of fifths, but as Bessler usually included two or even three pieces of information in each of his clues I felt there could be something additional, that was invisible to me. 

I was intrigued by the possibility that the number 137 was recognised to have special properties in Bessler’s time. There are websites devoted to such things as the properties of the three main pyramids which allude to the number 137, plus the Kabbalah, numerology, Freemasons, etc. I’m inserting an interesting link about the number 137, the GOD particle.

“Leon Max Lederman is an American experimental physicist who received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1988. In his book, “The God Particle”, he writes:

“One hundred thirty-seven is the inverse of something called the fine-structure constant.”

https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-africa/hidden-message-khafre-s-pyramid-what-were-builders-trying-tell-us-008646#google_vignette

But I discovered that Bessler was hinting at the relationship between 137 and the golden angle or the golden mean, well known to the ancient Egyptians and the Greeks who called it phi, after the Greek sculptor Phideas. Phi, the golden ratio, is equal to 1.618, plus an unending succession of numbers. Plato discussed the subject at length in his Timaeus and of course there are the Leonardo Fibonacci series of numbers, and the laws of nature also dependant on the gold mean!

In geometry, the golden angle is the smaller of the two angles created by dividing the circumference of a circle according to the golden ratio, thus creating two arcs so that the ratio of the length of the smaller arc to the length of the larger is the same as the ration of the larger arc to the full circumference of the circle.

I must thank Trevor, a long time correspondent for pointing out the error in the above illustration.  360/1.618 is of course 222.5 and not 225.5.  I originally posted the illustration back in 2020, but nobody noticed then, me included. 😃

This provides two radii with angles of two particular degrees. The golden angle is 137.508. I suspect that using the number 137 for his dodecagram seemed like a good idea to the inventor, but he couldn’t name it MT 137.5, that would be too obvious. Bessler used the golden ratio routinely in his drawings and it was more commonly integrated in works of art than it is today. 

If you use two radii to divide a circle according to the golden ratio it yields sectors of approximately 137° (1.618, the golden ratio) and 222°, hence it being the numbered 137. 

To be accurate 360/1.618 = 222.5 and 360-222.5=137.5 Curiously 1/137.5 = 00727272727 etc. and 5x72=360, the basic numbers of the pentagram again.

But it is also interesting that 137.5/55 = 2.5 exactly because in his musical circle of fifths Heinichen explained that the circle of fifths gets its name from the fact that you travel across the circle from one point to another 5/12th away, or 2.5 segments away, in order to find circle of fifths. This is a way of organising pitches as a sequence of perfect fifths. 

In the above illustration the circle with its 137.5 degree angle also mimics a clock at five o’clock, which is a good pointer to the circle of fifths. But in truth with the hands showing five o’clock the angle would be 150 degrees (5x30) not 137.5. To show the angle as 137.5 with the hour hand at five, the minute hand is in fact closer to the number one on the clock, or 12.5 degrees nearer, 

Check out my web site at www.theorffyreuscode.com

JC

Update on My Bessler’s wheel.

Over the last few months I’ve received several emails and messages asking for news about my project to replicate Bessler’s wheel.  Many people in this area of research are aware of my own contribution to it but I stopped posting blogs about Bessler a few weeks ago preferring to promote my books in order to try to defray the ongoing costs of maintaining my six web sites. I intend to return to posting more details of the information I’ve recovered from Bessler’s books.  For info on my web sites see below.

http://www.free-energy.co.uk/

http://www.besslerswheel.com/

http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/

http://www.orffyreus.net/

http://www.orffyreus.org/

https://www.gravitywheel.com/

and a YouTube video I made several years ago!

https://youtu.be/5BWVKtpuzn0

___________________________________________________________________________

This is my current position concerning my efforts to build a duplicate of Johann Bessler’s perpetual motion device.  I dislike the term perpetual motion because it has such unfortunate connotations and is inaccurate - I prefer gravity-enabled continuous motion.

I know how Bessler’s wheel worked, and in fact I have known for all this year and some months last year, since I awoke one morning with the simple design open in my mind’s eye, having dreamed of it during the night.  Following the revelation I drew many pictures of it to examine the concept and immediately realised that it was correct.  In fact it was obviously the solution and I set to work designing a physical model to demonstrate it.  I decided not to publish explanatory drawings because it’s my belief that without a working model few if any will believe me and my past experience confirms this.  I think a video of an actual model working, showing the interior in motion is the best way to present a convincing explanation of the way it works.

So I’m still assembling a proof of principle model and I hope that this will help in my efforts to bring this device to the world’s attention.  In my opinion it’s a vital discovery which could offer a cheap clean alternative to the current energy sources.  You know the sources? Solar, nuclear, wind, fossil fuel, tidal and all the other multitude of expensive, wasteful, polluting methods.

So work on completing this model is made a little more difficult with my arthritic hands but not impossible.  I will continue to build and I won’t stop until I’ve proved I’m right!  I’ve never been so confident as I am now but even though I can see and understand the concept there are minor obstacles to overcome first. I know the exact concept but relative sizes of the various parts are not certain and I’m using old parts from former builds and some individual pieces maybe too small or too large but I am modifying them as I  go building them into at least one mechanism.  Then I’ll know for sure which works best.  It will be a crude model but it only has to prove the principle is  correct.

My enthusiasm to continue with this project has returned in full flood, but occasionally, there have been times when I lost some of my passion for this project to build yet another model, but even then I remained utterly convinced that Bessler told the truth. In those times I lost the energy to try yet another build without having a clear and convincing hypothesis explaining a workable concept

I know that losing some of your enthusiasm in life, losing some of the passion projects that you were once so excited about, losing your enthusiasm for your dreams - that could be disastrous. I wouldn’t say I’ve ever suffered from a lack of personal conviction that Bessler told the truth about his machine, but years of scornful dismissal can make a serious dent in your dreams and maybe you begin to think that perhaps your belief in Bessler’s perpetual motion machine was misguided or just plain wrong. Add the years of failed attempts to replicate his device and your thoughts begin to question that belief. But those years of research where I sought the truth about Bessler returned, buttressed my belief and that’s when the dream rescued me from my doubts.

So I will continue to the finish. I like to imagine the extreme delight I shall experience when I can present a working model to the world which I can prove is exactly the same as Bessler’s. How wonderful to silence all those doubters and naysayers who penned such scornful, derisory comments about me and my work.

So visit this site from time to time to check on my progress, and when I’ve finished it and it works, Bessler’s wheel will be revealed.

JC

Johann Bessler, aka Orffyreus. His Codes - What Do They Mean?

I wrote this post in July 2013 and I thought I’d repost it because it seems little has changed.

This blog is sub-titled, "A blog about Johann Bessler and the Orffyreus Code and my efforts to decipher it", so it should come as no surprise if I occasionally actually discuss the codes I've been working on.  It has always puzzled me that few people discuss my efforts at decoding Bessler's works, other than an occasional mention in passing.  I assume that it is either because the codes reveal little of interest other than continual references to pentagons and the number 5 - or the argument I put forward in explaining the codes does not convince. 

Despite the lack of anything of substance being revealed, obviously Bessler thought that anyone interested enough to find just the clues I've decoded, would seek to use the information to look for the real information so clearly hidden in all of his books.  Just because I have failed so far does not mean that someone else might not succeed and I hope that there are those out there working at the puzzle in an attempt to tease out what it was Bessler wanted us to know.

On my chief decoding site at theorffyreuscode.com I have provided brief but logical descriptions of the codes I've fathomed, and they are only the ones where the proof of their existence is irrefutable. There are others which are more speculative and I am reluctant to detail them because of that very fact; they are hard to prove.

But the real question that absorbs me is what do these many references to fives and pentagons signify? I always believed that he meant that there were five mechanisms needed, but my own experiments and his comments about having just one crossbar hardly made the wheel turn at all, implies that five is not necessary although it could be the optimum number.

Considering my findings about chapter 55 in his Apologia Poetica,  which you can read at http://www.orffyreus.net/html/chapter_55.html you can see that this part obviously contains a coded message, and the reinforcements of this message, 55 verses  etc, confirm this.  The only drawing in Apologia Poetica, the Apologia wheel as it has become known, contains a pentagram above the words, 'do you still not understand?'  Surely this book but not this drawing is the place to start looking for an answer?  

What of Das Triumphirende?  There do not appear to be any mysterious Xs, nor blanks in place of certain words - but there are drawings full of mystery and intrigue.  And even his Maschinen Tractate contains at least one pentagram... where? In number 55 of course!  Also MT137 an apparently random drawing thrown in to confuse has as its basis,  not the pentagram, but the 'circle of fifth's, well-known in musical instruction but not so well, outside the profession.  I speculated that it was the 'circle of fifths', because that particular invention is attributed to Johann David Heinichen, who coincidentally lived in the same village as Bessler did, at the same time, when he (Heinichen) was an aspiring musician, composer and teacher, and Bessler was making church organs for the same people.  The circle of fifths is built up from a simple circle within a square and the resulting points are connected at every fifth point producing the dodecagram familar to both MT readers and musicians.

So here are all the firmly decoded clues available for all since at least 2009 and yet barely a single comment about any of it.  What puzzles me further is that  there are people still trying to build wheels based on the Apologia wheel which I've demonstrated is no such thing but merely a pointer to a pentagram.  

Others ask questions which they could easily find the answer to, if they only look, or they make  assumptions  based on inaccurate information which leads to utterly erroneous conclusions because they did not take the trouble to study the information both here and on the besslerwheel forums.

PS Since I wrote this particular post more than ten years ago I have made a lot of progress in deciphering Bessler’s many clues and I now know exactly how Bessler’s wheel worked.  I’m building a proof of principle wheel which I hope to finish before my 80th birthday, early next year. 

JC

Johann Bessler’s Use of the 24 and 26 Letter Alphabet

In Germany and elsewhere in Bessler’s day it was customary to use a 24 letter alphabet and it has always been assumed that Bessler too, stuck to that tradition, but there is evidence that he used both forms of the alphabet.

It is clear that he was familiar with an old Hebrew albam code as this was self evident in the way he obtained his pseudonym, Orffyreus.  This system was also used extensively throughout history and was also known as the Caesar shift, and in modern times ROT13. ROT13 is a simple letter substitution cipher that replaces a letter with the 13th letter after it.

The image below demonstrates how BESSLER became ORFFYRE, which he then Latinised to become ORFFYREUS as was customary in his day.

In the above image matching alphabetic substitution letters share similar colours. Notice that the 24 letter alphabet includes two alternative letters I or J, and U or V.  But you have to work on the assumption that the two alternatives pairs of letter each have to remain in their number position as above.  If you use a 26 letter alphabet you get the pseudonym ORFFLRE instead of  ORFFYRE. This appears to confirm that Bessler used the 24 letter alphabet.

But at the same time that he adopted the pseudonym ORFFYREUS, Bessler added two more forenames to his Christened names.  He was born Elias Bessler, but added Johann Ernst to the former ones. So his new initials went from EB to JEEB.  Why?

Taking into consideration his use of the Caesar shift for his new name, when applied to JEE reveals itself as WRR, whether you use 24 or 26 letter alphabets. To explain this further we need to examine another code system.

In addition to alphabetic substitution Bessler also used alphanumeric substitution where each letter is replaced with its corresponding position in the alphabet.  For example A=1, B=2, C=3 etc.  in this case JEE becomes 9/10, 5,5.  WRR becomes 21, 17, 17.

In his first illustration in his book DAS TRIUMPHIRENDE (DT),  which shows an image of his wheel, Bessler, numbered all the parts from 1 to 24. This seems to confirm a 24 letter alphabet, at first sight.  Further examination of the image reveals the twelve hours of a clock with the eight o’clock line labelled with two 8s.  The labelling seems over generous leading to the suspicion that a specific number is sought.  Adding them together gives the total of 660.  When 660 is divided by the twelve hours of the clock, the number 55 appears.

This number is repeatedly indicated by Bessler and of course we just met it for the first time when we looked at the alphanumerical JEEB.  The two Es are the fifth letter in the alphabet, but what is the relevance?

I searched for the meaning of the number 5 and 55 within his books and this led to the discovery of some pentagrams hidden within some of Bessler’s illustrations.  The reason we can be sure of these conclusions and future ones is because Bessler always provided two or three ways of getting to the same solution through different ciphers, codes and clues. The number 5 is embedded in numerous places, too many to list here, but clearly it was important to him to make us aware of it.

I’ll leave the significance of the pentagrams for now, my aim in this post is to show why I think Bessler used both 24 and 26 letter alphabets.

There are four illustrations included in DT, we saw that the first one included a hidden clock face, the next one shows the wheel attached to an Archimedes pump, see below.  This illustration is also over labelled.  The letters when converted to numerals and added together total 324.  The number of letters actually used is 18 as we shall see in a moment and 324 divided by 18 equals 18, the basic pentagonal number.  Every angle in the pentagram is either 18 or a multiple thereof. 

But there is a curious feature used within the above image.  There are three letters which appear to be ‘W’s but could also be 10’s - and in fact in the list which accompanies the image they are listed as ‘10’s which is strange because all the other labels are alphabetical. The letter ‘J’ is omitted and the letter ‘T’ is the last letter used and therefore U and V are absent leaving just the W/10.  In the above picture I red ringed the W/10s. Why would he appear to use the letter W to blend in with the other letters when he meant the number 10?  Why not use the letter J if he meant 10 anyway?

The number of letters used is 17 and T is the last letter used and is the 20th letter, but you can add the W and get the 18 you need. So yes, 324 divided by 18 gives 18.

 

Bessler omitted the U and V, by stopping at T.  And by the including the letter ‘I,’ as the 9th letter he reached 17 letters.  If he had included the J to get it to 18, it would have appeared to be the alternative letter to ‘I’, therefore not part of the count of all the letters used.  By calling the ‘W’ by the number 10, it enabled him to reach his desired total of 324, but also by making it appear as a W’ he could add it to reach his desired 18.

You would be forgiven for thinking this is far too complicated and fanciful but I can assure you that this method of providing clues to the importance of the pentagram and its associated numbers is repeated in each of his illustrations as I can prove.

Bessler was telling us that he used both alphabets sometimes and there is one excellent reason why he did this.

Remember his use of the Caesar shift for his new name, when applied to JEE reveals itself as WRR, whether you use 24 or 26 letter alphabets. Remember that in addition to alphabetic substitution Bessler also used alphanumeric substitution where each letter is replaced with its corresponding position in the alphabet.  For example A=1, B=2, C=3 etc.  in this case JEE becomes 9/10, 5,5.  WRR becomes 21, 17, 17.

If we change to the 26 letter alphabet a familiar piece of information is revealed JEE becomes 10, 5, 5, and WRR becomes 23, 18, 18. Why is this important? Due to Bessler’s insistence on the importance of the pentagram and the number 5 and its associated number 18, we must assume that his intention was to draw our attention to it.  

It’s not easy to see but a careful study of the logo at the top of this page shows the ‘O’ of Orffyreus which also represents his wheel is supported on either side by the letter ‘R’ which means that the number 18, or the pentagram supports the wheel.  Notice also that the wording works in either direction just as his wheels did. RATH on the left side is written backwards.  It reads ‘RATH ORFFYRE’, Councillor Orffyre, his title when under the patronage of Karl, the Landgrave of Hesse Kassel.

Summary

At first sight there are most of the letters of the 24 letter alphabet present except both U and V are missing and J is also missing, although it’s atbash version is there masquerading as a ‘W’, but representing the number 10.  ‘i,’ is also present, representing the number 9.

In my opinion Bessler was telling us that he used both versions of the alphanumeric alphabet as well as the atbash cipher.

He used the name Johann to gain the J, this gave him the atbash version ‘W’.  Why was this significant?  He used the double V or interlocking Vs, to give in Roman numerals (which he also used frequently) two 5’s again.  There are other reasons which I won’t go into now for the need to show the letter W.

Of course he could have used the letter ‘I’, and used for example Ivan for his first name, but he needed the W and both ‘I’ and ‘J’ link to ‘W’, but in the 26 letter alphabet it is J that is the alphanumeric version which is needed, not I.

The letter R mimics part of the action in his wheel, as does the letter W. The ‘W’ as double ‘V’ represents the so-called ‘cross-bar’  but actually means the ‘cross’ or scissors mechanism.

Just to be clear there were five mechanisms in the early wheels.  Each mechanism had one weighted lever.  Each weighted lever worked with an adjacent weighted lever. Hence the obsession with the number FIVE, the pentagram, and its various angles all multiples of 18.

PS All of the above information has been posted in my blog over the last ten years but little notice is taken because almost everyone dismisses the idea that there were five mechanism required.  The reason for five mechanisms is simple.  With Bessler’s particular configuration he could get five mechanisms in the wheel which ensured a smooth rotation with no hesitation in each action.

JC

Johann Bessler’s Amazing Gravity Enabled Non-Stop Wheel.

Many people who are aware of the story about Johann Bessler and his extraordinary Perpetual Motion machine are familiar with his pseudonym, Orffyreus and how he arrived at the name.  But why did he decide to use a pseudonym?  What was his purpose in using one when everyone knew his real name?  The reason is simple once you know.

When he had worked out how to build a gravity-enabled perpetual motion machine he began construction and built his first working model.  He hoped to sell the secret to a rich prince for a lot of money, but there was a real problem to overcome first.  He had found the secret to making this device but realised the difficulty he was going to encounter in substantiating his claims without revealing the secret of its construction. How was he to convince would-be purchasers of his machine that it was genuine?  If he allowed anyone to see the interior and understand how it worked, what was to stop them just walking away and making their own version of his mechanical marvel?

Word about his machine quickly spread and people came to study it and examine the external features but no one was allowed to view the interior.  The inventor moved from town to town gradually moving closer to the busier places and as his fame grew people of high rank came to examine the device.

Gottfried Leibniz, the famous scientist, came to see the wheel on two occasions spending a couple of hours on each occasion and although he dismissed Perpetual Motion as a legitimate possibility he recognised that Bessler’s wheel had something of value about it and recommended that it should not be ignored for fear of losing it.

He and Bessler discussed the problem of proving its legitimacy without revealing the interior workings of the wheel.  Leibniz suggested that it would be helpful if he could find a patron who had the kind of secure facilities to allow Bessler to exhibit his machine for official examinations and tests.  It would also help if this patron had a reputation for absolute honesty.

They discussed a number of features Bessler could include which would be very difficult to achieve if the machine was a fake.  These were present at all the demonstrations.  They included two separate fixtures to which the wheel was attached, to allow the examiners to thoroughly examine all external aspects of the wheel, moving it from one set to the other as often as was requested.  An Archimedes pump was attached to the wheel axle and a 70 pound weight was shown being lifted several feet up and down the castle walls. A 54 day test was carried out under lock and key and 24 hour guard to prove no winding up was necessary.

These actions were carried out on several occasions during Bessler’s residency at Hesse Kassel for around ten years.  No sign of fraud was ever found and it seems that there were approaches made to purchase the device.  But they failed due to the inventor’s insistence that the money be paid in full before the purchaser could ascertain to his own satisfaction that the machine was genuine. This, despite the fact that Bessler swore on oath that if he was found to have cheated he should have his head chopped off!  Not an unlikely outcome in those days.

Johann Bessler was driven by a determination to be acknowledged as the original inventor of the gravity-enabled perpetual motion machine, but from the very beginning he seems to have realised that his chief difficulty lay in proving that he was not cheating.  This seeming impasse convinced him to encode the information required to understand and build a replica of his machine and embed the information in a book he planned to publish.  Ideally he wished to sell the secret and the machine for a large sum of money but in order to do that he had ensure that the strict terms of the purchase were clear, above board and adhered to.  

Given the above it’s not too surprising that he wrote that he’d rather die than give away the secret for free. But that plan might have had to modified later in life, but we will never know because he died early aged just 64, when he fell from the top of windmill he was building for the local town council of Fürstenberg not far from his home in Karlshafen. So all we know is that the encoded information lies embedded within the three books he eventually published.

He left strong hints that the information was there and could be found and understood if people searched for it. I have written about this on my previous blogs and provided links to my web sites in which I describe many of codes and ciphers I have found and deciphered. They can be found in the lower end of the panel on the right of this blog.

Over the years I have gathered a lot of information about the wheel and how it worked.  But even given the extraordinary number of clues in both text and drawing, it has been an almost impossible task to draw together all of the clues and pieces of deciphered text.  I think I have got it now and even after all this time, my whole life, I’m not one hundred per cent certain that I’ve got it right, but one thing I do know.  I understand the principle completely and it works.

The following link will take you to the books, including my own biography as well as all Bessler’s publications which each contain a full English translation.

https://johncollinsnews.blogspot.com/p/johann-besslers-books-and-biography.html

JC

Johann Bessler’s Purpose - to leave us his Free Energy Machine.

Johann Bessler, aka Orffyreus spent more than ten years trying to design and build a perpetual motion machine.  He had the skills to succeed if he could only find the secret.  After several years of toil and experimentation he woke up one morning with an image of the right design in his minds eye.  He instantly knew his design was the right one and he had succeeded.  He went on to build the first model.

He was careful to hide the internal design from spectators because he had planned to sell the secret for a large sum of money.  This made it difficult to prove his machine was genuine and yet he couldn’t let anyone see how it worked.  It was witnessed and examined by many people but he needed to design and incorporate tests which would prove that his machine was genuine, so over the next ten years he built a succession of bigger and more impressive devices, finally producing his largest one. 

They all took the form of a wheel suspended on small steel bearings fitted into two wooden pillars.  He was contacted by the great scientists Gottfried Leibniz who examined the exterior view of one of the wheels and even though he dismissed the possibility of a perpetual motion device, he concluded that “there was something remarkable about the device and it should not be allowed to be buried and lost”.  He advised Bessler on various tests, all of which were incorporated in all his later examinations.

The tests involved lifting a heavy box weight 70 pounds up and down the outside of Hesse Kassel castle.  Providing a second set of bearings and pillars a few feet away from the first set, so that the wheel could moved between the two sets according to the examiners wishes.  This was so that the examiners could thoroughly inspect both sets of bearings before and after as well as during each trial run.  Another test involved an Archimedes pump attached the wheel’s axle to pump water out of large wooden chest.  Bessler also added a unique demonstration by designing his last two wheels with the ability to turn in either direction as desired by the examiners.

The final test was an endurance test.  The wheel was locked in a room and started.  The rooms in either side, above and below were thoroughly examined and found free of suspicion. A 24 hour guard was placed outside the door which was locked and sealed with the Landgrave of Hesse Kassel’s personal seal. He then left along with a number of courtiers and did not return until 54 days had passed.  Upon opening the door, the wheel was found to be spinning as before.

Karl, the Landgrave, had already seen the interior of the wheel and agreed to keep his knowledge secret until the inventor had received payment for the invention.  He had insisted on seeing the interior to confirm the inventor’s claims were real, before offering him his patronage.  Karl was highly regarded as a man of unparalleled honesty, negotiating as an honest broker between the warring nations in Europe.  He would not countenance the possibility of being involved in fraud.

Karl’s personal approval, is convincing; as is Leibniz’s opinion of the invention. The strictly organised tests would be difficult to mimic today using only the technology available more than 300 years ago.  

Finally, Bessler was determined not to give away the design without receiving payment.  He said he would rather die than do that. He did however, provide several strong hints that he had provided the necessary information within the books he had published.  Those books are available with English translations from the panel on the right, or click on the link below.

https://johncollinsnews.blogspot.com/p/johann-besslers-books-and-biography.html

I have published other websites which describe some if the clues and codes I have deciphered. See the links in the right panel.

JC

My Poems - Written During the Long Years of Research into Bessler’s Life

I’m certainly no poet, but having written several over the years, I decided to post them all here in one go! My apologies for the quality, but I enjoy trying to put down ideas with the occasional light touch of humour.  This is by no means all I’ve written and I’ll probably put down some more.

One more thing, if you would like to obtain copies of my biography about Bessler, plus four books by him, with full English translations please click on this link.

https://johncollinsnews.blogspot.com/p/johann-besslers-books-and-biography.html

For an excellent discussion forum for all things relating to Johann Bessler aka Orffyreus visit 

https://www.besslerwheel.com/forum/index.php?

I

All these poems have a theme,  but firstly let me set the scene.

When I was young I read a story that filled my head with dreams of glory.

Johann Bessler’s sole intent, a non-stop wheel he would invent.

Triumphant after toil untold, he sought to sell it for silver and gold.

People came to see the wheel, witnessing that it was real.

Though offers came from men of wealth, they did not buy because they felt 

the terms of sale were too unfair, they left with nought but empty air.

The cash must be upon the table before the buyer was even able

To study the inside of the wheel  and it’s secret at last reveal.

Perpetual Motion was proscribed, a possibility denied.

Yet Bessler proved it possible to make a wheel unstoppable

It was the first, no precedent, turned non-stop ‘twas self-evident,

Witnessed by the man from Hesse, unimpeachable - nothing less.

He saw the inside of the wheel, he understood, said it was real.

Somehow Helmholtz got it wrong, and so I’ve spent a lifetime long

Looking for the hidden secret, but where did Johann Bessler keep it?

II

My first poem about Johann Bessler aka Orffyreus

This Ancient Mystery, I have sought, for many years, to solve and thought

The secret of the wheel's construction lay beyond mere skilled deduction.

So I brought the world's attention to this greatest missed invention. 

Hoped some rare ability'd retrieve this fair facility.

Yet scarcely had the thought occurred before I realised how absurd

It was that I should have the notion I could solve Perpetual Motion

This Ancient Mystery's merely myth, credited by those whose kith

And kin forgot what they had learned, that energy spent must first be earned.

Despite this fact there was some doubt - did Bessler find a way about

This obstacle to energy, and find a force that's pure and free? 

Long ago my doubts were dashed, for certain inspiration flashed, 

The energy whose source I sought was all around - its cost was naught.

And wherein lies this bold solution that will solve the world's pollution?

The answer lies in Gravity, a field of energy that's free.

Conservative - its attitude to work is that its magnitude

Remains the same. It does not stop. It's constant and it makes things drop.

It’s said that this is contrary to what we think is verity, 

Gravity cannot be used and those who think so are confused.

It matters not who's right or wrong - the clues have been there all along.

Bessler wrote in ciphers rare and paranoid, he did not dare

Reveal a clue - changed his ambition - sought posthumous recognition.

Text and image, cryptic instruction, showing us complete construction. 

His secret solved will be the key to giving us free energy.

If you believe this can't be true, suspend your judgement - see if you

Can find a fault in what you read about the proof, with which I plead. 

 My aim is clear, intent is strong, to show that Bessler has been wronged.

III

Another More Poems

Perpetual motion?  It’s a lie

That’s what they taught us, so don’t  try

To understand, how Bessler found 

A way to make his wheels spin round.

But if that’s true then he’s a fraud,

The evidence we have is flawed,

But there are things that don’t add up

Things which tell us don’t give up.

You see I think that Bessler’s wheel

Was not a fake, no, it was real.

He said the motion came from weights 

But I think this misstates the case.

Deftly he abbreviated

Clues that each weight gravitated

Falling down then shooting higher

Each weight moving like a flyer.

The clues are there before our eyes

The mechanisms come alive,

Each one connects to the one next door

One goes up and one to the floor.

The evidence is very strong

Bessler’s claims cannot be wrong.

It’s just because we do not know

Exactly how he made it go.

They still say its impossible

To make a wheel unstoppable

But Bessler did and so can we

It might be you, or maybe me?

IV

I was callow and thin of skin,

when first I found Orffyreus' spin;

the poisonous barbs of jeers and sneers

aimed at me by my erstwhile peers

did not a jot of difference make,

to my intention to forsake

those oft repeated laws of old

that we were vehemently sold - 

immutable and set in stone.

I, ignorant, set out alone

to prove those falsehoods once proposed,

accepted almost unopposed,

weaved in argument assumptive,

circular and quite presumptive,

conclusions made were not conclusive

and some agreed were too inclusive. 

For 60 years I've sought success,

wanting more than just a guess.

Helmholtz said non-stop rotation,

driven just by weights in motion,

had never ever been achieved,

and not by Bessler, who deceived.

The words of many witnesses

dismissed as so much witlessness,

by Helmholtz, who said that he had proved

no weight-driven wheel had ever moved   

without the aid of trickery,

chicanery and quackery.

Addressing such a case as this

a court of law might well dismiss

on grounds of lack of evidence

when set against such testaments, 

given by those who saw the wheel.

Concluding that his claims were real

required a leap of faith to prove,

that gravity wheels could never move.

V

Three hundred years ago, he saw

the conservation of energy law,

which had previously prevented

every thing that he'd invented,

such as wheels that turned forever

driven just by weight and lever, 

finally be circumvented.

The so-called experts who declared

that such devices are absurd,

proscribed their source as gravitation,

nor anything else in isolation,

and denied perpetual motion 

could still be a valid notion.

But given the ubiquity

of the earth's force, gravity,

how blind they are to evidence

that Bessler's wheel was common sense.

Gravity is not exclusive

permeating and diffusive,

it affects all in its compass, 

supplying weight and moving mass;

with the right configuration

it supplies from gravitation

wheels which turn continuously, 

simply driven by gravity.

Those scientists who vent their spleen,

who criticise us and demean

our strong belief that such machines

do not turn in isolation

but draw their strength from gravitation..........

are wrong!

VI

When I first read about Bessler’s Wheel

I wondered if it could have been real.

I put the question to the teacher

Who said my question was a feature 

Of lazy people who’s attitude 

Demonstrated their ineptitude

To understanding what they were taught.

But his response I never bought.

I never could accept the logic

Which denied the force gravitic

Which endlessly maintained its presence 

It always seemed just common sense

To find a way to tap this source

And put to use its driving force

That makes things heavy and makes things fall.

They say it’s not a source at all,

But we can use the way things drop

To make a wheel rotate non-stop

We need a mutual exchangement

Within two gravitised rearrangements .

One weight works in each division,

Five divisions to aid transmission

Work together to make the wheel turn

Why five and not four, eight or six?

 Five is the most that really fits.

Using the right configuration.

VII

A Circle of Fifths.

My apologies for this poem, for over-egging the importance of the number 5, but it was clearly of immense importance to Johann Bessler but for reasons unknown, it seems we ignore it at our peril, well not peril but surely we should be using his own strongest clues to replicate his machine!

Bessler embedded the number five

In his name so we’d realise 

How vital five is to nonstop drive.

If we ignore how Bessler strived

To make us value number five

We will always fail to derive

A spinning wheel with endless drive

Unless we follow his advice

To make our wheels have space for five

Equal compartments just for five

Single weights to number five

It’s obvious that we should try

Configurations based on five.

The reason for the need for five

is simple once you realise

The regular and even drive

Needs no pauses to come alive.

Bessler fitted full mechanisms five.

Fewer than five will cause a dive 

In the speed and it won’t revive.

The most of them he could contrive

To fit inside the wheel was five

All  the space was needed to thrive.

Any pause in action denied,

Giving the eveness described 

By countless witnesses advised.

All hesitation is denied

To make this non-stop wheel thrive.

John Collins ©️ 2024