Johann Bessler had Five Mechanisms in his One-Way Wheels

I may have mentioned this once or twice before (!) but it’s a recurring bone of contention with me that researchers trying to find the solution to Bessler’s wheel, continue to stress the importance of having eight weights.  This is usually in a design using eight mechanisms.  I have tried over the years to point out that the only reference to eight weights occurred in Fisher Von Erlach’s report to Sir Isaac Newton about his two hour examination of the two-way wheel in the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel’s castle.  The words used were ‘about eight weights were heard...’. Given that the examination lasted for two hours one might have expected von Erlach to be more precise about how many weights he heard.  This implies that the sounds he heard were confused by the presence of a lot of other noise.

We know from other witnesses that the rotation of the wheel was accompanied by considerable noise, and we also know, because he said so, that Bessler deadened the sound of some falling weights with felt.  It is also worth noting that Bessler frequently expressed concern that people might somehow find out how his wheel worked and it seems perfectly understandable and reasonable that he would take steps to disguise any sounds coming from the wheel which might give a clue to someone with a discerning mind.  He could have added an extra weight designed to fall with a loud noise but no mechanical advantage/disadvantage, or he might have sound deadened one or more.

Some people have claimed to be working on a two-way wheel from the start, why would you even consider that?  The logical place to begin is surely with the one-way wheels as Bessler did.  He only researched the two-way wheels to try to disprove the accusation that his wheels were clockwork driven.

So we know that about eight sounds emanated from the two-way Kassel Wheel.  We don’t have any description of the sounds coming from the one-way wheels apart from the fact that they were noisy. So is there a way of discovering the minimum number of mechanisms required in the simpler one-way wheels? I say ‘simpler’ because Bessler complains at the difficulty he had in getting the Kassel wheel to work, because it was a more complex design.

There are clues which in my opinion reveal the number of mechanisms required.  Most people are aware of Bessler’s inclusion of the pentagram in more than one drawing.  They may also be aware of the numerous pointers to the number five in his name, pieces of text and other places too numerous to mention.  I have included below, some details from the ‘Toys’ page but there are many more examples where Bessler includes broad hints that there are five mechanisms in his one way wheels.

Notice that I have separated the items in the part labelled A by drawing red lines across, revealing that there five pieces of identical mechanisms. Part B looks similar but twisted and it too has five parts. Items C and D look roughly the same as each other and they bear similarities to each part of item A.

I should also point out that Bessler has added his usual alphanumeric clues by labelling the items A, B, C, D and E - and letter E also represents five, and not content with that, he labels the hand drawing as a number 5, when it should be labelled F,  This gives him his number 55 or 5 and 5.

I should point out that the order of the letters is deliberate and to read the clues correctly we must start with A and move through tto F and don't forget the spinning top labelled 5.

I don't want to say anything more about the Toys page other than that it contains almost every clue you need, to know what parts are required for his wheel, although the exact configuration is not obvious.

JC

The Secret to Bessler's Wheel is There for Anyone who can Decipher the Orffyreus Code

Given the powerful evidence supporting Bessler’s assertion that he had built a working gravity wheel,  I think it highly unlikely that Bessler would have gone to his grave without leaving some clues revealing the secret of his machine.

He mentions in more than one place that those who seek further information should study his books and drawings. He also provides evidence that he was familiar with codes and there are numerous examples of their use throughout his publications.  He also states quite clearly that if he fails to sell his machine he will be content with post humus acknowledgement,  This could only happen if the information on how his machine worked was available after his death and only he could provide this information. What evidence is there that he used codes to hide information?

The following can only be a brief summary of the many codes Johann Bessler used, but it does give some idea of them and gives strong support to the idea described above.  The first is of course his adoption of the pseudonym, Orffyreus.  This demonstrates his familiarity with both the ancient Jewish method encoding, known as the atbash cipher, and also the Caesar shift cipher, or alphabetical substitution.  He also uses alpha-numeric substitution in various places.

Studying his drawings reveals that many of them contain a pentagram, but it is not obvious and has to be sought, although once suspected it is not difficult to find.  The purpose of the pentagram is obvious once you know what look for.  Other geometric designs are also present in some drawings from which one can conclude he was familiar with the work of Euclid and Pythagoras.

All his drawings in one of his publications contain labelled parts, some alphabetical and some numerical, and totalling the numerical ones reveals further information pointing to another encoded section.  This section is too complex to describe here but further details can be seen in my web site at www.orffyreus.net

Bessler’s extensive use of chronograms is designed to convey certain dates which in themselves provide further hints about where information may be found.  These chronograms are usually biblical quotations and traditionally, by using some upper case letters which can also represent Roman numerals,  can be added up to indicate ta certain date.

Extending the lines of perspective in one of his drawings reveals a hidden clock.  The eight o’clock line is confirmed by the presence, actually on the line, of two weights each labelled with the number eight.  The labelled numbers add up to 660.  Dividing this number by the twelve clock divisions gives 55.  This number appears frequently through out all Bessler’s books.  Besides the number five being such an important part of the pentagram, it represents certain information relating to the mechanism inside the wheel.

More evidence of Bessler's codes may be viewed at another of my web sites at www.theorffyreuscode.com

Describing all the codes used by Bessler is beyond the scope of this article, but I hope it gives some indication that there is a prize to be obtained whose value may be immense given the state of the energy resources and the pollution and its associated global warming.  Who ever deciphers Bessler's information and reconstructs Bessler's wheel, will become not only rich and famous but will also become a hero to our children and their children.

JC

Johann Bessler and the Orffyreus Code

On 6th June, 1712, in Germany, Johann Bessler (also known by his pseudonym, Orffyreus) announced that after many years of failure, he had succeeded in designing and building a perpetual motion machine.  For more than fourteen years he exhibited his machine and allowed people to thoroughly examine it.  Following advice from the famous scientist, Gottfried Leibniz, he devised a number of demonstrations and tests designed to prove the validity of his machine without giving away the secret of its design.

After more than thirty years he died in poverty.  He had asked for a huge sum of money for the secret, £20,000 which was an amount only affordable by kings and princes, and although many were interested, none were prepared to agree to the terms of the deal. Bessler required that he be given the money and the buyer take the machine without verifying that it worked.  Those who sought to purchase the wheel, for that was the form the machine took, insisted that they see the secret mechanism before they parted with the money. Bessler feared that once the design was known the buyers could simply walk away knowing how to build his machine and he would get nothing for his trouble.

This problem was anticipated by Bessler and he took extraordinary measures to ensure that his secret was safe, but he encoded all the information needed to reconstruct the machine in a small number of books that he published. It is well-known that he was prepared to die without selling the secret and that he believed that post humus acknowledgement was preferable to being robbed of his secret while he yet lived.

I became curious about the legend of Bessler’s Wheel, while still in my teens, and have spent most of my life researching the life of Johann Bessler (I’m now 72).  I obtained copies of all his books and had them translated into English and self-published them, in the hope that either myself or someone else might solve the secret and present it to the world in this time of pollution, global warming and increasingly limited energy resources.

It has recently become clear that Bessler had a huge knowledge of the history of codes and adopted several completely different ones to disguise information within his publications.  I have made considerable advances in deciphering one of his codes; the simplest one, and I am confident that I have the complete design.  Due to unfortunate family circumstances I am currently unable to complete the build I have undertaken but shall return to it as soon as possible and I sincerely believe that 2018 will see the reconstruction of Bessler’s wheel.

Johann Bessler published three books, and digital copies of these with English translations may be obtained from the links to the right of this blog.  In addition there is a copy of his unpublished document containing some 141 drawings - and my own account of Bessler’s life is also available from the links.  It is called "Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?"  Bessler published three books; "Grundlicher Bericht", "Apologia Poetica" and "Das Triumphirende..."

I have also published Bessler's collection of 141 drawings and I have called it Maschinen Tractate, but it was originally found in the form of a number drawings of perpetual motion designs. Many of these have handwritten notes attached and I have published the best English translation of them that I was able to get. Bessler never published these drawings but clearly intended to do so at some point.

For some ideas about Bessler’s code why not visit one of my web sites at www.theorffyreuscode.com

One last thing.  Perpetual Motion machines have been utterly proscribed and Johann Bessler’s claims ridiculed - however, it seems that more than a handful of scientists have now come to the conclusion that it might theoretically be possible to design a mechanical system which is continuously out-of-balance and therefore will turn continuously using the repeated fall of weights for energy.  Gravity but not directly.  These open-minded people remain tight lipped for now, awaiting proof of their hypothesis.

JC