Documents About the Orffyreus Perpetual Motion Machine.

I’m currently getting ready to move house again so finding time to write my blogs and complete my work on Bessler’s wheel, is not so easy.  Space to work in is limited and although we expect to be out of this house by the end of March, I will then be staying with one of my daughters until we have chosen our next house.  This means no workshop until after we have moved!  In which case I’m trying to finish construction in the next four or five weeks!  So in the mean time here are the details about Bessler aka Orffyreus.......again.


  The Legend of Bessler's wheel.

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, who was able to examine the device, he devised a number of demonstrations and tests designed to prove the validity of his machine without giving away the secret of its design.

Karl the Landgrave of Hesse permitted Bessler to live, work and exhibit his machine at the prince's castle of Weissenstein. Karl was a man of unimpeachable reputation and he insisted on being allowed to verify the inventor's claims before he allowed Bessler to take up residence. This the inventor reluctantly agreed to and once he had examined the machine to his own satisfaction Karl authorised the publication of his approval of the machine. For several years Bessler was visited by numerous people of varying status, scientists, ministers and royalty. Several official examinations were carried out and each time the examiners concluded that the inventor's claims were genuine.

Over several years Karl aged and it was decided that the inventor should leave the castle and he was granted accommodation in the nearby town of Karlshafen. Despite the strong circumstantial evidence that his machine was genuine, Bessler failed to secure a sale and after more than thirty years he died in poverty. His death came after he fell from a windmill he had been commissioned to build. The windmill was an interesting design using a vertical axle which allowed it to benefit from winds from any directions. 

He had asked for a huge sum of money for the secret of his perpetual motion machine, £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 viewing the internal workings. 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.


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 76).  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.

Not long after I was able to read the English translations of his books, I became convinced that Bessler had embedded a number of clues in his books.  These took the form of hints in the text, but also in a number of drawings he published.  Subsequently I found suggestions by the author that studying his books would reveal more information about his wheel.


For some ideas about Bessler’s code why not visit my web sites atwww.theorffyreuscode.com or see my work on his “Declaration of Faith” at http://www.orffyreus.net/

Also please view my video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BWVKtpuzn0

It gives a brief account both the legend and some more detail about some of the codes.


The problem of obtaining a fair reward for all his hard work 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. He implied that he was prepared to die without selling the secret and that he believed that posthumus acknowledgement was preferable to being robbed of his secret while he yet lived.




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 his codes and I am confident that I have the complete design.




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's three published books are entitled "Grundlicher Bericht", "Apologia Poetica" and "Das Triumphirende...". I have called Bessler's collection of 141 drawings Maschinen Tractate, but it was originally found in the form of a number of loosely collected 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.

You can order copies of the books from my website at www.free-energy.co.uk

Or from the top of the right side panel under the heading ‘Bessler’s Books’.

There are also links lower down on the right side panel.

As I often say, the solution to this device is needed now.  Anything that might help cleanse the planet of pollution, green house gas emissions, by providing clean cheap alternative energy sources should encouraged in its discovery and development to counter global warming.

JC 

Johann Bessler aka Orffyreus and Numerology

There has been much written about Johann Bessler and how he may have used numerology.  I haven’t found any evidence that he did use it, although he may have been more interested in gematria.

He used alphanumerics to provide clues but they only led to further encoded clues. To get his pseudonym, Orffyreus, derived from his name Bessler, he used albam, a simple alphabetic substitution cipher originally used by Hebrew scribes to disguise the names of certain people they mentioned in their writings. Later it was known as the Caesar shift cipher used by the Romans. Today we refer to it as ROT13

He also used numbers in his drawings to achieve a certain total which would reveal a geometric design. He was fascinated by chronograms and produced numerous examples.  In an ordinary sentence he used certain Roman numerals which could be obtained from letters of the alphabet, to provide dates.

He used other codes but nowhere to my knowledge does he even hint at numerology. I see that , ‘the English word numerology is of recent origin, coming into existence around 1910 A.D. (dictionary.com). It is a combination of the Latin word "numerus," meaning numbers, and the ending "logy," which is used to designate the study or science of something. The definition of numerology, therefore, is the general study of numbers.”

I looked briefly into numerology and although it is a popular among some people it is generally regarded as a superstition. This is one reference among many that read,

‘ Actually the numerology I use is based on origins of the contemplations of philosopher Pythagoras back in ancient Greece. He was not just a mathematician, but looked at what was behind numbers. The study of the vibration and effect of numbers is in the Bible (like in the Kabbalah), and pondered by philosophers, theologians and scientists way back in time. The actual onset of modern numerology, where each number has a certain meaning and the letters of the alphabet is assigned to a certain number, has most probably become standardized into a system in mid 1800s. Pythagoras and Chaldean methods are the most popular systems.”

I’m not expressing an opinion on numerology, just that I remain sceptical, but I would be delighted to be provided with proof of its efficacy. This would be nigh on impossible because all results could be coincidental. The interpretation of names, dates of birth and astrology are all in the same grouping along with religious belief systems - a matter of personal conviction.

So if modern numerology only became established in the mid 1800s it seems unlikely that Bessler would have used it. Gematria, on the other hand seems a more likely system used by Bessler. According to Wikipedia, ‘ an alphanumeric code  of assigning a numerical value to a name, word or phrase based on its letters. A single word can yield multiple values depending on the cipher used.’.

It is clear that Bessler was familiar with the albam/atbash system used by the Hebrews and therefore other alternative but similar systems, too complex to deal with here but certainly studied by Bessler, in my opinion. But even acknowledging his personal knowledge of such systems, there seems little of value in deciphering his works to try to get additional meanings from them. Such techniques reveal themselves as nonsensical words.

There is one place where such elaborate methods might hide meaningful information and that is within the ‘Declaration of Faith’, in Apologia Poetica, chapter 55. There he presents about 141 Bible verse references with differing abbreviations, and quotations for verses a few of 

which seem not be found. For more information about my own attempts to decipher its hidden meaning visit my web site at http://www.orffyreus.net/

I think that numbering his fingers etc, in aid of a numerological interpretation is a road to nowhere.  The gesture itself may be designed to send a message, but perhaps it was just another example of Bessler’s delight in adding mystification to engender curiosity in the genuinely encoded material.

JC

The Secret Message in Johann Bessler’s Hand

There are other idiosyncrasies to examine in Bessler’s portraits besides the ones I have pointed out on my website at  theorffyreuscode.com  but one I haven’t discussed before concerns the strangeness of Bessler’s hand gesture.  In the portrait below, notice the left hand, ringed in red. His little finger seems to be unusually separated from the next one, the ring finger.  In fact it looks almost as if it was originally placed next to the ring finger but then altered to appear in its current position or if you prefer, the two middle fingers are closer together than the two on either side.

There are several web sites explaining the significance of this feature which appears in a lot of Renaissance paintings. Three paintings picked at random below, demonstrate the point, but what does the gesture signify? 

During the Renaissance period, hands were as important a focus of attention as the face was, because they were the only other visible area of the body. Hence, representation of the position of the hands became a decorative element that was almost as important as the face. Thus, given its high visibility, hand gestures in portraits and paintings have been one of the most effective ways of conveying secrets, codes and messages.

It seems that there are two possible interpretation of this gesture.  First there is Freemasonry or Masonic membership and rank. Apparently the gesture was a secret sign used to recognize masonic followers. The enigmatic posture of the hand has fascinated a lot of scholars of hidden societies, who believe that the unusual splayed fingers represents the letter M, which indicated not only Masonic membership and rank, but also possession of occult secrets. That seems to fit with what we suspect about Bessler, but there is another possibility.

It was Ignacio de Loyola’s gesture for the atonement of sins 

According to this hypothesis, the gesture was a sign with a religious meaning used by Jesuits. San Ignacio de Loyola founded the Jesuits’ Order in 1541 and became its first Superior General. The Saint used to recommend a gesture for believers,  ‘each time one falls into sin, in laying the hand on the breast whilst inciting one’s inner self to grief.’ 

 

There are many more examples of this particular hand. signal in the paintings of that era, but their meaning, which must have been fairly widely understood still at the time, seems to have escaped modern interpretation. The fact that Johann Bessler adopted it in his portrait must indicate that he at least had some understanding of its importance and perhaps we can make some educated guesses given our knowledge of his particular circumstances. Firstly we know that he spent some time in Prague in the company of a Jesuit priest and a Rabbi. While he was there he claimed to have been taught about ‘the book of nature’ and ‘the language of angels’.  In 1623 Galileo crafted a famous metaphor that is still often cited by scientists. ‘Nature’, he wrote, ‘is a book written in “the language of mathematics”. If we cannot understand that language, we will be doomed to wander about as if “in a dark labyrinth”’.

 It is also known as the ‘language of  Enoch’.  Enochian is an occult or angelic language that was recorded in the private journals of John Dee and his colleague Edward Kelley in late 16th-century England. Dee was a man of science-turned-magic seeker, and Kelley was a spirit medium who worked with Dee in his magical investigations. The men claimed that the mystical language was revealed to them by the Enochian angels. 

It is also referred to as Celestial Speech, Angelical, The First Language of God and Adam, because they believed it was the language first used by Adam and Eve - perhaps even the language God used to speak everything into being. They were both active in Prague before Bessler’s time.

Much of the above is too speculative to make any firm conclusions but I think we can say with some certainty that Bessler included the gesture in order to convey some message to those who could  understand it.  

Perhaps someone may be able to provide more certainty either about its wide use, or Bessler’s particular intentions.

JC

The Legend of Bessler’s Perpetual Motion Machine


Please feel free to comment if you wish and I will try to check back daily. So here it is again, 


  The Legend of Bessler's wheel.

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, who was able to examine the device, he devised a number of demonstrations and tests designed to prove the validity of his machine without giving away the secret of its design.


Karl the Landgrave of Hesse permitted Bessler to live, work and exhibit his machine at the prince's castle of Weissenstein. Karl was a man of unimpeachable reputation and he insisted on being allowed to verify the inventor's claims before he allowed Bessler to take up residence. This the inventor reluctantly agreed to and once he had examined the machine to his own satisfaction Karl authorised the publication of his approval of the machine. For several years Bessler was visited by numerous people of varying status, scientists, ministers and royalty. Several official examinations were carried out and each time the examiners concluded that the inventor's claims were genuine.


Over several years Karl aged and it was decided that the inventor should leave the castle and he was granted accommodation in the nearby town of Karlshafen. Despite the strong circumstantial evidence that his machine was genuine, Bessler failed to secure a sale and after more than thirty years he died in poverty. His death came after he fell from a windmill he had been commissioned to build. The windmill was an interesting design using a vertical axle which allowed it to benefit from winds from any directions. 


He had asked for a huge sum of money for the secret of his perpetual motion machine, £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 viewing the internal workings. 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.


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 75). 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.

Not long after I was able to read the English translations of his books, I became convinced that Bessler had embedded a number of clues in his books.  These took the form of hints in the text, but also in a number of drawings he published.  Subsequently I found suggestions by the author that studying his books would reveal more information about his wheel.


For some ideas about Bessler’s code why not visit my web sites atwww.theorffyreuscode.com or see my work on his “Declaration of Faith” at http://www.orffyreus.net/

Also please view my video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BWVKtpuzn0

It gives a brief account both the legend and some more detail about some of the codes.


The problem of obtaining a fair reward for all his hard work 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. He implied that he was prepared to die without selling the secret and that he believed that posthumus acknowledgement was preferable to being robbed of his secret while he yet lived.




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 his codes and I am confident that I have the complete design.




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's three published books are entitled "Grundlicher Bericht", "Apologia Poetica" and "Das Triumphirende...". I have called Bessler's collection of 141 drawings Maschinen Tractate, but it was originally found in the form of a number of loosely collected 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.

As I often say, the solution to this device is needed now.  Anything that might help cleanse the planet of pollution, green house gas emissions, by providing clean cheap alternative energy sources should encouraged in its discovery and development to counter global warming.

JC 

76 Today!

 Yes I’m 76 today.  How long have I been chasing Bessler’s solution? It’s been about 60 years and I’ve hardly stopped thinking about Bessler’s wheel in all that time.  I was about 15 when I first encountered the legend of Bessler’s wheel - in a book called ‘Oddities’ written by the famous Rupert T. Gould - and I was immediately certain that the maid lied.  Of course I also realised that that opinion was not sufficient to prove the inventor’s claims to have invented a perpetual motion machine were genuine.  I told my physics teacher about Bessler and asked him if it was possible - big mistake!  I couldn’t even hear his response because of the gales of laughter which erupted after my question.  Everyone knew such claims were fake.  I learned then, not to discuss my ideas with anyone else.

Afterwards, one boy who I had always thought of as clever but boring said to me, ‘don’t take what you’re taught as gospel, check it out for yourself, so you know if it’s true.  Don’t believe everything you’re told until you have satisfied yourself what is the truth.’  Sound advice and I’ve applied it through out my life.

I did consider trying to get more information about Bessler but at that age and without the internet, I had no idea how to go about it.  So I postponed any decision to investigate further to a later date, a year or a decade!

Over the next few years, from time to time, I drew sketches and plans of perpetual motion machines, and resolved to build a few when the opportunity occurred. But you know how it is when you’re young and busy, I had no time or inclination to build.  But when I was 29, I was browsing in a second-hand book shop and I came across the book, ‘Oddities’ by Rupert Thomas Gould again - and I bought it, and I still have it. That book reignited my search for the truth about Johann Bessler.  You know the rest.

So here I am, some 60 years later, am I further on towards the solution?  Yes.  You might think, ‘I knew he’d say that anyway, if only to justify a lifetime’s effort’. But I am.  Even though my design failed the sim test. I remain confident that I know enough of the design to succeed in building a working model. I do realise I’m an incurable optimist, you have to be in this field of endeavour, and it certainly helps if you have the determination to succeed, and I have.  I just hope I’m right.

JC