The True Story of Johann Bessler and His Perpetual Motion.

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 the outside of it, but it’s internal workings were kept hidden. This was because the inventor feared that his design would be copied and someone else might obtain credit for all his years of hard work looking for the solution. He followed the advice from the famous scientist, Gottfried Leibniz, who was able to examine the device, and recommended 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 a number of years Karl aged and it was decided that after so long it was time the inventor left 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 thought 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 before the buyer was allowed to view the internal workings of the machine. But 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 78). 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 realised 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 and I found suggestions by the author that studying his books would reveal enough information about his wheel,to allow “someone with an acute and discerning mind, to build one”.

For some ideas about Bessler’s code why not visit my web sites at 

http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/

Take a look at my work on his “Declaration of Faith” at 

http://www.orffyreus.net/

Also please view my video at 

https://youtu.be/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 posthumous 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 also my own account of Bessler’s life is also available from the links. It is called "Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?" 

This biography contains a wealth of information about Bessler himself, as well as many quotes by Bessler and letters to him or about him from many interested parties. It tells of his life up to and including his years with Karl the Landgrave of Hesse Kassel, and what happened to him later.

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 use them in his planned school for apprentices.

You can order copies of the books from my website at 

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

Printed books direct from the printer can be obtained from here

https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/johncollins

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.

These books contain the most important information available if you seek to find the solution to Bessler’s wheel.

JC

Update on Building a Working Model of Johann Bessler’s Wheel.

Things are taking longer than I anticipated due to other factors not associated with Bessler’s wheel.  Mainly it concerns my granddaughter Amy.  I don’t wish to divert attention from my Bessler occupation but we received some generous funds from kind people on our crowdfunding page a while back and by way of a thank you, I thought I would just provide a link to an update article in the Guardian newspaper. Thank you.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/oct/24/i-have-spent-years-in-such-pain-that-i-begged-for-someone-to-cut-my-arm-off-this-is-how-i-survived

But here is brief update on my build.

I’ve mounted the wheel on a simple axle which I can drop into a couple of receivers as I call them. They weren’t designed to be part of a set of bearings but they do the job, I’ve used them before. There will be a little resistance or friction, but if the wheel works as I hope, it will be able to overcome it because it is designed to do work, so overcoming friction is the least of my concerns. This method of attaching the wheel to the support structure works well because it is easy to remove the wheel to work on it when it’s lying flat on the work bench. I can simply lift it out without opening the bearings.

The wheel is currently almost perfectly balanced but once the mechanisms are attached that will probably lead to some unwanted imbalance even if they are locked in place to prevent any of them acting. In my experience these are problems which can be easily resolved later. Maybe the amount of imbalance won’t affect the action anyway.

The first five pivot points are fixed and working. I think their positions relative to the axle position and the edge of the wheel are correct, if there is some adjustment needed, there are two options; one is to move the pivot points inwards or outwards, the second is to reduce the size of the mechanisms.  I don’t think this will be necessary.

There are things to be sorted out once all five mechanisms are fixed and their action is as I intended.  Placing of two pulleys for each mechanism will require a certain amount of trial and error. I know where they need to be but I may have to deal with avoiding obstruction by certain parts of the whole assembly. I’m confident that although these are potential problems I’m anticipating, I’m confident they will be simple to resolve.

This next bit is the most interesting to me. I can picture how it all works and I can’t wait to test it.  From a lifetime of experience in this field of endeavour I know that not everything will immediately turn out perfectly but I feel as though I’m on the final furlong.

I’m sure that most people think I’m kidding myself and that most of my code breaking is wrong or meaningless, and that if, as they suspect, it won’t work, then my plans to share what I know won’t be worth a penny. But I think many people will be amazed at the amount of information Johann Bessler left for us, and I plan to publish all of it, with or without a working model.

But I’m confident that it will work.

JC

Johann Bessler’s Inspirational Dream

Three hundred and eleven years ago Johann Bessler, aka Orffyreus, exhibited something he called a perpetual motion machine.  It took the form of a wheel mounted between two pillars or supports. It rotated at about 50 RPM, and would begin to turn as soon the brake was released.  He welcomed the public who examined the device.  They were allowed to stop it, start it, or slow it down. He didn’t allow anyone to see the interior because he intended to sell the machine for £20,000.

Most people are convinced it was a fraudulent enterprise.

There are those who believe Bessler’s Wheel was genuine but don’t know where the energy came from to drive it.  

Others who accept Bessler’s words that the weights were the energy source and therefore accept that gravity provided the energy.  The problem they encounter is that we have been taught that gravity is not an energy source because it’s a force. 

The situation has resulted in deadlock.  The circumstantial evidence that Bessler’s wheel was genuine is compelling.  It’s  legitimacy was verified by the only person besides Bessler, who was permitted to study the internal workings.  This man, Karl the Landgrave of Hesse Kassel, was chosen because his reputation as an honest person of great integrity had been established over many years, acting as an honest broker trying to bring the wars that were then currently being waged throughout Europe to an agreeable end. 

His excellent reputation was critical to his role as an impartial mediator and he would never have become involved in anything of questionable authenticity. His name was a vital part of the verification, but he only accepted that role if he was permitted access to the internal structure of the wheel to confirm what Bessler claimed was true.  He described it as quite simple and expressed surprise that it hadn’t been discovered before.  He issued an official document, certifying that the claims that Bessler made regarding his perpetual motion machine or wheel, were correct.

This leaves us with an interesting paradox.  We have been taught for more than three hundred years, that perpetual motion machines defy the laws of physics, yet it would appear that this may not be true

So we have two points of view to consider. Here’s a quick reminder.

Bessler swore his machine was genuine

Karl agreed and issued a certificate stating in his opinion, the wheel was genuine

Every test devised simply added to the evidence that Bessler told the truth.  

Who is right, Bessler or the venerable scientific institutions?

Bessler began by simply showing his first wheel, spinning and being stopped and starting again.  It always began turning as soon as a brake was released. Spectators were encouraged to thoroughly examine the device but not allowed to view the interior.

News of the wheel reached the ears of that famous man of science, Gottfried Leibniz. He arranged a private meeting with Bessler to study the machine’s performance and concluded that it was a valuable machine.  He suggested a number of tests that Bessler should incorporate in his public exhibitions of the machine to persuade potential buyers of the machine’s merit.

The tests included stopping and starting the wheel, including running it in either direction.  This was a new step by Bessler who wished to make his machine able to rotate in either direction in order to silence those who claimed his machine was wound up by clockwork, this required the wheel be given a gentle nudge in either desired direction before the wheel began to turn and accelerate to its full speed. Other tests included  translocation of the device from one set of bearings to another a few paces away; allowing intense examination of both sets of bearings before and after translocation; demonstrations of the wheel’s power in lifting heavy loads and driving an Archimedes screw pump were routinely demonstrated.  Finally a 54 day test in which it was locked in a room, with a 24 hour guard outside the door.  The wheel was made to begin rotating and the room locked and sealed with Karl’s personal seal.  The rooms on either side and above and below had already been checked for some connection with the locked room.  All was found satisfactory.  After 54 days, Karl unlocked the door and he and a number of witnesses found the wheel still spinning.

So what is the answer to this paradox?  It’s clear from the history of this particular area of study that literally thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people have sought a solution to this puzzle, from the earliest inhabitants of Egypt, Sumer, the Indus valley and China up to the present day.  It seems that there is an inbuilt instinct that a device such as Bessler built is an absolute certainty if only we could discover how to build it.  Johann Bessler knew; he built a working model.

The evidence is clear, a machine which is enabled by the force of gravity to run and run, is simply waiting to be rediscovered. It’s not perpetual motion because it could come to a stop through wear and tear, accident, overloading etc. But it could run continuously without using any of the traditional sources of energy such as running water, wind, fire or the modern equivalents.

How?  Bessler said the weights provided the energy.  Energy is a property of the weights in Bessler’s wheel, but they have to be moved by the force of gravity. The weights provide a medium through which gravity can supply energy by moving them, making them fall.  

We’re all familiar with the need to lift the fallen weights at each revolution. Bessler discovered the method, it came to him in a dream, maybe a daydream.  He found the answer and in his books he provided codes and clues and hints, indicating everything we need to know to duplicate his work.  

I believe that I have found the answer and am currently building a model which I hope will be a working model! I too found inspiration in the middle of the night, lying awake considering everything.  This happened a few months ago and I’ve been working on how to make the best of use my of sudden comprehension.  Of course I have been here countless times over the last 50 years or so, but I’m confident that I have the right configuration and am trying to finish this build and then working or not, I’ll share what I believe is the solution to this very long search for the truth.

JC

How I Discovered Johann Bessler’s Perpetual Motion Machine

I was about 15 years of age when I first encountered the Legend of Johann Bessler’s wheel. It was an excellent account written by R.T. Gould in his fascinating book “Oddities : A Book of Unexplained Facts” London 1928.  The chapter in question was called “The Wheel of Orffyreus”.  The story went as follows.

In 1712 Johann Bessler (aka ORFFYREUS) exhibited a machine which he claimed, drew its energy from gravity. Despite nearly twenty years of the most stringent tests, examinations and public trials, not the slightest sign of deception was ever found. Bessler died 33 years later, in poverty, still maintaining that his machine was genuine and there was no convincing evidence to the contrary. He had a number of supporters as well as enemies, and among his champions were some of the most respected men of the day. These men, included Gottfried Leibniz and Christian Wolff, top scientists of the calibre of Newton.

Bessler wanted to sell his machine for the sum of £20,000, a fortune in those days, equivalent to well over a million Pounds today. Despite the apparent audacity of asking such a large sum of money, it was not unique and in fact Bessler based the sum on the one offered by the British Board of Longitude, which, at the same time, was offering £20,000 to the first person to discover a means of locating the exact longitudinal position of a ship at sea . John Harrison eventually won the money although it took him and his son many years to get all of it from a reluctant British government.

Bessler failed to sell his machine, not for a lack of customers, but because he refused to allow access to his secret until he had the money in his possession. He offered his head to the axe man if he should be found to have deceived his prospective clients. But his determination not to risk being cheated defeated all negotiations. He died in harrowing circumstances years later, building Europe's first horizontal windmill to his own design of course. In mid-winter, starving, weak and in debt, he fell to his death.

These two pictures show all that remain of his last project; a windmill with a vertical axle to take advantage of any wind, regardless of direction.  For more detail about the windmill visit my web site at http://www.orffyreus.org/

After his death the remains of the building were utilised for a number of different enterprises because it was so sturdily built that it was thought too valuable to allow to fall into decay.  I took these pictures and several more and even today more than 300 years later, it is being offered for sale subject to some conditions to preserve it.

I found Gould’s account absolutely fascinating and since those early days I have checked it against historical records, and found it to be correct in every detail, although omitting much that wasn’t available to him at the time, some one hundred years ago.

There is a curious coincidence relating to this story; when Johann Bessler chose to ask £20,000 for the secret of his machine it was in the same amount in the same year that the British government offered their reward for a method of finding a ship’s longitudinal position at sea.  As I pointed out above John Harrison won the award for his marine chronometer.  

Harrison was 21 years old when the Longitude Act was passed. He spent the next 45 years perfecting the design of his timekeepers. He first received a reward from the Commissioners of Longitude in 1737 and did not receive his final payment until he was 80.

Coincidentally, at this time having taken a shore job at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, in 1920 Rupert Gould visited the museum to see the Harrison chronometers, which were very corroded and dilapidated. He was inspired and wrote to the Astronomer Royal begging for permission to restore them and offered a bond of £100 against any damage he caused. He wasn’t some over confident amateur keen to tinker with an old relic, Gould had already restored one valuable antique chronometer. The Astronomer Royal gave his consent and allowed him to do the work at home rather than at Greenwich.

Gould, over a period of many years refurbished all five marine chronometers to their original condition.  It was a truly exhaustive venture, requiring special tools to be made in addition to trying to understand how they worked.

It was Rupert Gould’s book about Johann Bessler which gained my interest in Bessler and led to a life long study of the man and his life and of course his amazing wheel.  So there is a discernible thread connecting Bessler and British Board of Longitude, to John Harrison, to Rupert Gould and ultimately to myself.

I’m 78 now and I have thoroughly enjoyed my search for the truth, because it has become crystal clear to me that Johann Bessler told the truth and despite everything I’ve been taught I know beyond a shadow of doubt that his wheel was driven by gravity.  For those who don’t believe Bessler was genuine, read the numerous witness reports, letters and certificates published after a number trials and tests carried out on the machine.  Gottfried Leibniz was convinced of the inventors sincerity after having been allowed to study it twice and for a couple of hours each time.  He recommended a number of tests which could be carried out to prove that the machine was genuine. These were incorporated in the subsequent examinations which Karl the Landgrave arranged.  My book, Perpetual Motion; An ancient Mystery Solved? (PMAAMS?) details all the certificates and letters  to, from and about Bessler.

But the most important thing is the fact that Bessler left three books full of coded information which he suggested would provide proof after his death, that he had in truth invented a real working gravity-enable wheel, which I prefer to call a Gravity Wheel.  I have deciphered many of the codes and I will be publishing the information I have found, just as soon as I have built what I believe will be a working model based on Bessler’s clues.

You can read the details of many of these codes by visiting the web sites I have provided links to, in the adjoining panel on the right. There are many details in this blog which has been running for almost ten years now.  If you wish to find the codes yourself, you can obtain digital copies of Bessler’s books, each has a full English translation at the back.

There is also one more book which he never published, containing 141 drawings showing the various historical methods which were used to try and find the solution to a gravity wheel. Bessler, who planned to open a school for apprentices, intended to use a number of these drawings to take his pupils on the same journey of discovery as he himself undertook. They are collected in a book, called Maschinen Tractate, a digital copy is also available from the same right side panel.

NB. A fuller list of the books available can be seen by clicking on the top of the right hand panel where is says Bessler’s Books.  For the books click on Bessler’s books and a biography.  They an be ordered from either end of the panel.  Click on home to get back to this page.

PS On my other blog at www.gravitywheel.com I’ve begun to share information based of the pieces of code, which I’ve never shared before.  As I’m in the process of building what I hope will be a working model based on Bessler description through deciphering his clues, the added information on that blog will lag behind my build, but it will all be shown in time, even if my build fails. This is because I believe that I have 99 per cent of the information I need to make a successful build.  So even if it fails the information will be there for someone else to carry on the work I’ve started.

JC

                                                            Copyright © 2023 John Collins

The True Story of Johann Bessler and His Perpetual Motion.

 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 the outside of it, but it’s internal workings were kept hidden. This was because the inventor feared that his design would be copied and someone else might obtain credit for all his years of hard work looking for the solution. He followed the advice from the famous scientist, Gottfried Leibniz, who was able to examine the device, and recommended 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 a number of years Karl aged and it was decided that after so long it was time the inventor left 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 thought 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 before the buyer was allowed to view the internal workings of the machine. But 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 78). 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 realised 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 and I found suggestions by the author that studying his books would reveal enough information about his wheel,to allow “someone with an acute and discerning mind, to build one”.

For some ideas about Bessler’s code why not visit my web sites at 

http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/

Take a look at my work on his “Declaration of Faith” at 

http://www.orffyreus.net/

Also please view my video at 

https://youtu.be/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 posthumous 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 also my own account of Bessler’s life is also available from the links. It is called "Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?" 

This biography contains a wealth of information about Bessler himself, as well as many quotes by Bessler and letters to him or about him from many interested parties. It tells of his life up to and including his years with Karl the Landgrave of Hesse Kassel, and what happened to him later.

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 use them in his planned school for apprentices.

You can order copies of the books from my website at 

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

Printed books direct from the printer can be obtained from here

https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/johncollins

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.

These books contain the most important information available if you seek to find the solution to Bessler’s wheel.

JC

More Information Hidden In Plain Sight

I’ve posted another page of information that I’ve decided to share in my www.gravitywheel.com blog page. This also comes from “Das Triumphant Orffyrean Perpetual Motion”.

This book contains even more information intended to guide the reader into discovering the solution to Bessler’s wheel, but it isn’t easy, it’s taken me a lifetime of study in my spare time to get to this point.  This book and others by Bessler, as well as myself, are available as digital copies from the panel to the right, either from the top where is says “My Publications” or from the bottom of the same panel.  Each of Bessler’s books written originally in German, include full English translations. You can get printed by versions from the link to www.lulu.com.

I will continue to share pieces of information while attempting to build a working model of Bessler’s wheel. I will also post some pictures of my progress in the build but I plan to keep back pictures of my progress behind any information I give out.

The clues I have discovered and interpreted already are available to read at my web site at www.theorffyreuscode.com  - these are well established and show examples of Bessler’s style and method.

One of the most interesting pieces of code are contained in his book Apologia Poetica.  It consists of five pages of biblical references totalling 141, which I have detailed on another of my web sites at www.orffyreus.net

There you can read about some of the progress I’ve made in defining the code and identifying the separate parts which can lead towards interpreting the text.

JC