I was leafing through Bessler's "Der rechtgläubige Orffyreer", http://books.google.co.uk/books and noticed that page 13 has some curious hand-drawn black markings on it which I recognised as, possibly, items from the Hebrew alphabet, which Bessler mentioned in his Apologia Poetica, he learned during his stay in Prague.
A glance at the picture below tells the story. Bessler has inked in the Hebrew letters between the two parts of the decorative pattern at the head of the page. Below is a piece I copied from the page and in it I have included two examples found on the internet which clearly match what Bessler has written. He has reproduced the Tetragrammaton, which is what the Jews call the word for their God - Yahwey.
The Tetragrammaton, from Greek meaning a word having four letters, refers to the name of the God of Israel YHWH used in the Hebrew Bible. Different spellings of the tetragrammaton occur in Jewish magical papyri found in Egypt. One of these forms is the heptagram, These four letters are usually transliterated from Hebrew as IHVH in Latin, JHWH in German, French and Dutch, and JHVH/YHWH in English. This has been variously rendered as "Yahweh" or as "Jehovah", based on the Latin form of the term, while the Hebrew text does not clearly indicate the omitted vowels. It translates most basically as "I am that I am" or "I will be that which I now am".
The Latin pronunciation of the letter I/J as a consonant sound was, the 'y' sound of the English word 'you'. This changed in descendent languages into various stronger consonants, including at one point in French the 'j' sound of the word 'juice', and this was the sound the letter came to be used for in English. Thus the English pronunciation of the older form Jehovah has this 'j' sound, following the English pronunciation of its Latin spelling. In order to preserve the Latin and approximate Hebrew pronunciation of Jahweh, however, the English spelling was changed to Yahweh.
The septagram/heptagram is important in Western Kabbalah, where it symbolizes the sphere of Netzach, the seven planets, the seven alchemical metals, and the seven days of the week.
[My thanks to Wikipedia for the above information.]
I assume Bessler wished to include the Jewish version of Christianity in his unified Christain religion and he did use the word JEHOVA frequently throughout this document. This does lend credibility to Bessler's claim that he learned some Hebrew during his stay in Prague. With reference to the above quote from Wikipeida I should also mention the presence of the heptagram in MT 137 as explained on my web site at www.theorffyreuscode.com - see the four MT 137 links there.
JC
I don't see much of relevance here, John. Okay, Bessler knew a little Hebrew. So what?
ReplyDeleteThe dodecagram on the other hand might be VERY relevant!
I'm convinced that his pentagrams symbolize a major part of the interconnecting cord pattern found in his 8 weighted lever wheels. Maybe the dodecagram of Mt 137 symbolizes part of the cord pattern used in a 12 weighted lever wheel!
He first mentions the Connectedness Principle in MT 9 and suggests it can be used to make Leupolds's Weighted lever wheel work. That wheel just happens to have 12 weighted levers in it!
Hmmm...if we rewrite MT 137 as 1 and 37 and then apply the rule for reading Roman numerals to it, it becomes 37 - 1 = 36. Next we take the 9 from MT 9 and divide it into 36 to get 4. 4, of course, is the number of Hebrew letters in the Tetragammaton!
Yep, that proves it. MT 137's dodecagram must be part of the interconnecting cord scheme that Bessler would have used to turn Leupold's unworkable lever wheel into a "runner".
The words of the Tetragammaton can also be translated as "The Eternal and Supreme One". This, of course, implies a being who is immortal and omnipotent. No wonder Bessler believed his wheels were a gift from God. This was because they shared some of the attributes of the Almighty...the ability to operate eternally and produce an infinite amount of energy! (In practice, however, it is debatable if this would be the case.)
I don't know how relevant this is, but what strikes me as a bit odd is the fact that in the title the Hebrew symbols for Tetragrammaton are not exactly centered. A quick count shows why: there's 9 (decorative?) symbols to the left of the YHWH and 10 to the right. The row of decorations above and below the masthead lines are 29 each.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the extra dots above and below the second and fourth character (in the title) have any significance?
Interesting thoughts Technoguy - I must think about that some more.
ReplyDeleteWell spotted Andre. I had a bit of a problem finding Hebrew letters which matched Bessler's ones, and there seems to be some variation in the Hebrew letters I could find. Some had additional dots above and below and others didn't - and for the same letters. In the end I assumed it was the Tetragrammaton and found a Hebrew example of it which closely matched Bessler's albeit missing some dots! I don't know if Bessler's dots are simply ink blobs or are meant to be there.
As for the decorative masthead and what it contains, like you, I don't know if it is relevant or not, but I will keep it in mind.
JC
A version of the wheel could have been a 12 weighted wheel. Bessler drew a few wheels in MT based on 12. Has anyone tested anything based on the number 12?
ReplyDeleteWhen dealing with a wheel based on 12, connectedness can be based on 2 or 3 or 4 or 6 or 12 levers interacting together. 2 weights & levers connected is easy to visualize. 3 weights & levers connectedness is 1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 1 as the wheel rotates. Multiply by 4 layers and you have 12 weights & levers. Just repeat the idea for 4 or 6 or all 12 weights & levers connected together.
A wheel based on 10 can only have 2 or 5 or 10 connections in its connectedness.
A wheel based on 9 can only have 3 or 9 connections in its connectedness.
A wheel based on 8 can only have 2 or 4 or 8 connections in its connectedness.
Bessler left a lot of various numbers in his writings. Some are red herrings but some are not.
Nice to see you're thinking in terms of connectivity, Anon!
ReplyDeleteIn 8 weighted lever wheels, connectedness involves either groups of 5 and 3 levers (for the 10:30 and 12:00 levers that are lifted). For 12 lever wheels, connectedness involves groups of 7, 6, and 5 levers (for the 10:00, 11:00, and 12:00 levers that are lifted).
1 have worked with 12 weighted levers and they are a headache to analyze. Far more sets of cords are involved and the levers are also more complex in design (simulation take forever to process and one can easy max out his PC's available memory after only a few tens of seconds of simulation!). This is the reason, I believe, that Bessler finally settled on 8 weighted levers in his last two wheels.
However, I find some evidence that his first two wheels only had 6 weighted levers in them! In that case the connectivity is in groups of 5 levers (for the single almost 10:30 lever that is lifted). Unfortunately, 6 weighted lever wheels do not displace the CoM of their weights as far onto the descending side as 8 weighted lever wheels and will, consequently, have lower torques for wheels of the same diameter and weight mass. Bessler probably started out with 6 levers, tried doubling that to 12 for his 3rd wheel the Merseburg wheel, and, realizing that he was getting overwhelmed, compromised by reducing it down to 8 levers for both the Merseburg and Weissenstein wheels.
I now confine myself to working with only the 8 weighted lever wheels because of the 8 descending side impacts per drum rotation noted for the Weissenstein wheel. I also recommend that mobilists concentrate on this type of wheel although starting with a 6 weighted lever wheel can help one start at the simplest level possible (and, yes, the Connectedness Principle can be made to work with only 5 weighted levers, but probably not less than that. From the MT drawings, I doubt if Bessler would have tried it with 5 levers. He seems to prefer the symmetry of an even number of weighted levers and so do I).
Hmmm..."Please prove you're not a robot". !!! Wait a second...I AM a robot! What do I do now?! LOL!