Observations About Johann Bessler and his Codes. Part One and Part Two.

PART ONE

I had planned to provide information about some of my discoveries concerning Bessler’s codes but my plans got disrupted.  Since then I have decided to go more generally into Bessler and his codes.  I believe these observations are accurate and they cover both his personality and his codes. This is part one, hopefully I will publish more of these if only to put them on the forum for discussion or simply information.

I hope this subject might be of interest?  I’m no expert so all the following info gleaned from various google searches.  I think that Bessler  had Asperger’s Syndrome, a development disorder that’s part of the autism spectrum disorder.  People who have this type of autism tend to have a hard time relating to others socially.  Asperger’s is known as a high functioning disorder, meaning it’s not as obvious as other forms of autism.  Asperger’s have problems reading body language and miss cues that are obvious to most people.  They obsess on a particular topic, they exhibit paranoia, but they often have strong verbal skills. In some cases their IQ may be very high, even in the genius range.  They often turn to computer science and apparently many of the best programmers have either Asperger’s syndrome or some of its traits.

Gottfried Leibniz wrote of Bessler, “ Malicious people are trying to get Mr. Orffyreus to think badly of me, particularly as he is of a suspicious nature. I hear that he talks about me in front of the spectators.” In a later letter, Leibniz describes Bessler as his friend, but he has not adapted to the rules of communal life.

These comments support the suggestion of paranoia and social awkwardness similar to Asperger’s.  The obsessive study of perpetual motion is typical of the syndrome and perhaps his higher intellect contributed to his amazing success in solving the puzzle.  His verbal skills were clearly excellent.  But this is just my diagnosis of his personality.

I first attributed Asperger’s to Bessler on reading about the English hacker Gary McKinnon who, in 2002 was accused of penetrating the computers at the Pentagon and  NASA in what was described as the biggest military computer attack of all time. He was seeking anything about UFOs at the time.  He was officially diagnosed as having Asperger’s syndrome and there are a number of similar character traits between the two men.

Of course such obsessions might be suggested as being attached to our own search for the solution that Bessler found?  I’m not qualified to comment!

PART TWO

We are certain in our own minds that Bessler’s claims to have invented, built and demonstrated a genuine perpetual motion machine (PMM).  In his case a PMM is a continuously turning wheel which can also raise heavy weights, turn other wheels or pumps etc.  To be true, it must be enabled by gravity.  The evidence is overwhelming if studied without bias.  

Consider this, if he was genuine then he almost certainly would not have risked his invention being lost to the world after his death.  Indeed he said as much and also wrote in AP, “Those who are keen to ask questions should ask them of this little book.”  He used a well-known code to produce a pseudonym to establish his credentials as being accomplished in the art of ciphers both graphic and textual.   The other point of the encoded pseudonym was designed to hint at further, more complex codes which might provide more detailed information and that is what has happened.

There has been some discussion about whether Bessler used the 24 letter alphabet or the 26 letter one; in my opinion there is no questions he used the 26 letter alphabet.  He was born Elias Bessler, note the inclusion of the letter ‘i.’  Just prior to his first demonstration he added two extra forenames, Johann Ernst, note the addition of the letter ‘j’.  So the letters ‘i’ and ‘j’ are both used.  That fact on its own should settle the argument, but there is much more.

We know he used alphanumerics extensively and J was the tenth letter, E was the fifth letter.  He also used the atbash cipher, so E also became the letter R, and J became W.  Using the 26 letter alphabet R is the 18th letter which fits in with his ubiquitous use of the number 5 and the pentagram.   So J is the tenth letter, but W is the 23rd.  23 doesn’t seem a useful number but Bessler used to draw the letter W in his own special way as two interlocking Roman Vs.  He even managed to find some examples of printers type  arranged as interlocking Vs and used it for his inclusion of Gartner’s name several times in AP.

Why was this important?  I believe it was meant to tell us about the cross.  Note, not the cross-bar, because he uses ‘creuz’ simply translated as ‘cross’.   The letter W with the interlocking Vs includes a perfect cross.  I have said before that this cross is also visible in the scissor mechanisms and it’s clear to me that this is what he meant. In fact the letter W is a highly important part of the mechanism. The several ‘bent’ horizontal bar ‘A’s’  in MT also suggest the scissor mechanisms.  

Bessler deliberately chose the letter ‘J’ in his extra forename to lead via the atbash cipher to the letter ‘W’, and of course to ensure that the correct alphanumerics were applied.

PS I know the idea that Bessler used the 24 letter alphabet has some support, mainly I think because he used 24 numbers in the Merseburg and Weissenstein illustrations, but that number was chosen because he embedded a hidden clock with both pictures.  The reason for the presence of the clock was to hint that the total of the numbers within the picture had to be divided by the twelve hours of the clock.  660 divided by 12 gives 55, another reference to the 5 mechanisms and their interlocked Vs.

JC