Someone emailed me the other day suggesting that Johann Bessler might have used invisible ink either under his portrait, in Maschinen Tractate or even in Das Triumphirende or one of his other publications. My first reaction was instant dismissal of the idea, but later I thought it might be interesting to investigate what was known about such things at that time just to see if it was even a possibility.
Surprisingly there is plenty of evidence that the subject was widely understood and used in particular by those in high office. No lesser person than Mary Queen of Scots while in prison plotted to over throw Queen Elizabeth I and used invisible ink in her letters to her co-conspirators to convey her wishes.
The history of invisible ink goes back more than 2,000 years and was used by the ancient Greeks and Romans. The first record of it comes from Pliny the Elder in the first century AD, who mentioned using the milk of the tithymalus plant as an invisible ink in his Natural History. Invisible ink continued to be used during the Renaissance; statesmen used it in their letters, and Ovid references the practice in his Art of Love. Giovanni Battista della Porta, an Italian polymath, developed a formula for invisible ink. Many others, including Roger Bacon and John Dee, were familiar with its use.
For our purposes one of the most interesting facts is that Prague was a hot bed of ciphers and codes and the constant ethnic tensions between the Jesuits and the Jews who lived there resulted in the need for secure communications between those on opposing sides who still wished to consult each other and invisible ink was a common method used.
Remember Bessler's account of his time in Prague when he conversed with the Jesuit priest:-
"You seem to be a clever, skilful and strong young fellow, and if you're interested we could join forces together with God, in the hope that He would let us make this discovery. Now as it happens, I know a wise man who, on proper reflection, could well help us, and it would be a good idea if you were to go to see him frequently, as it is no longer really fitting for me to do so, because I've been seen too often recently going into the Hebrew quarter, creeping to see some Rabbi or other. It doesn't take our Brothers long to sniff such a thing out! Since you and I seem to be at one in these matters I think you will be a perfectly satisfactory substitute for me on these journeys - we'll keep the whole thing a secret, shall we?"
It has always seemed to me that the two priests used Bessler for their own purposes besides helping him with his search for the secret of perpetual motion. Later he wrote of the Rabbi:-
"He also taught me hieroglyphics, the language of Nature and the writings of the Angels."
Interestingly, in 1705 a mysterious female German alchemist seems to have been the first person to identify bismuth-cobalt as a valuable substance from which to make invisible ink. This alchemist was also the anonymous author of three books, including one with the alluring title 'On the Key to the Cabinet of the Secret Treasure Room of Nature', which included a discussion of the changing bismuth-cobalt colours. That book title seems to ring closely with Bessler's 'language of nature', and given his extremely open and curious mind I am certain that Bessler was taught, or taught himself, the art of making and using invisible ink.
Given his obvious interest and extensive use of several different kinds of codes and his self-evident determination to provide many clues, some of which I know refer exclusively to the design of his wheel, it seems perfectly possible, after all, that he might have used invisible ink somewhere.
So it's not impossible that he might have written on some pages in invisible ink. Unfortunately I no longer own an original manuscript by Bessler so any research into the possibility will have to be done by another. I'm undecided about its use by Bessler, but I decided to fly a kite, to see if anyone thinks there might be something in this idea.
(To fly a kite, is a term used in politics in certain English-speaking countries to describe a tactic, whereby a politician, usually through the media and often by way of an intentional leak, raises an idea to gauge the general and public reaction to it.)
NB The mysterious female alchemist was thought to be Dorothea Juliana Walchin. Her findings were supported by George Ernst Stahl (1659-1734) a well-known German chemist and physician. I mention this because there was a lot of research being carried out at that time into the use of dies for writing, printing and painting - and invisible ink.
JC
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