An Abridged Addition to the Legend of Bessler's Wheel

Here, very much abbreviated, is the first portion of some additional information concerning the life of Johann Bessler that has not been published yet.  This isn't the kind of thing I usually post but I thought it might be of interest, I hope you enjoy it

Bessler relates how he was forcibly inducted into the army where he worked as a medic.  During his time there he met and fell in love with a very attractive girl who happened to be the daughter of the Mayor of Annaberg. This man, Dr Christian. Schuhmann, was the head of a family which shared the Mayoral position in alternate years with the head of another powerful family.  Schuhmann was also the town physician and held a number of other influential positions within the local community.  His wife, Barbara Schuhmann, a person we shall be meeting again much later in Bessler's life, and who became a veritable thorn in his side, was involved with the local ancient practise of conjuring ghosts to help find buried treasures.  A superstitious belief in such things was not unusual then. Her maid, was Rosina Kuntzmann, also known as Angerin, someone we know from existing accounts of Bessler's life, and her malicious gossip about him. She assisted her employer in all kinds of sorcery which included the use of dead bodies to conjure ghosts, casting spells and forcasting the sex of unborn children by tasting the mother's urine!

Some local people spread the news that Bessler and the mayor's daughter, also called Barbara, had been seen kissing, under a tree in the mayor's orchard -  Barbara and her sisters were the subject of much gossip in the town, and are described as having a fairly liberal attitude to sex.  Indeed Barbara is believed to have accepted an invitation to spend the night in the nearbye army barracks.  Whether this was with Bessler I do not know, but it is possible.

Some children playing in the cellar of an abandoned house in the town, discovered the body of a dead new-born baby, which immediately set tongues wagging and rumours spread that it belonged to either the mayor's wife or one of her daughters.  In time an official investigation was launched and continued for fifteen years, attempting to prove that the mayor's wife was guilty of infanticide and that she took part in black magic ceremonies which required a child's body as part of the proceedings.

One of the chief sources of gossip was Rosina the maid, and Dr Schuhmann, irritated by the constant accusations decided to take action against Rosina, and arranged to have her imprisoned in the deepest, darkest cellar at the town hall and told her that she would not be released until she had learned not to gossip. The mayor also used his position to frustrate and prolong the official investigation into the infanticide thus protecting both his wife and himself from arrest.

Rosina wrote piteous letters from prison, to her former employer, begging for forgiveness and promising never to gossip about her employers again.  These letters still exist and subject to the resolution of some difficulties in storing them in good condition they can still be read.  Eventually Barbara Schumann persuaded her husband to order Rosina's release and she was duly allowed to return to her duties as Barbara's maid.

Predictably, further accusations against the mother, Barbara, ensued, involving her and the increasing number of reports that the town's people had begun to suffer from hallucinations, laughing and dancing insanely, frothing at the mouth and vomiting in the street.  Naturally the gossip pointed the finger at Barbara Schuhmann, accusing her of doing a deal with the devil, hence the strange behaviour of the local people. 

Finally Barbara's daughter also began to suffer similar symptoms.  It was at this point that Bessler appeared on the scene.  He claimed that despite Dr Schuhmann's best efforts, only he, Johann Bessler, could cure her of her malady and as a reward he requested permission to marry Barbara, and of course receive a dowry.  How much of this part is accurate or whether it has been romanticised by Bessler himself, is unclear, but there is a suspicion that the daughter was pregnant, possibly by Bessler, and that therefore Dr Schuhmann had nothing to lose if Bessler cured her, and took responsibility for the unborn child.  He may have thought that Bessler could not possibly cure his daughter, and therefore there was no problem in agreeing a deal that he might not have to accede to.

But Bessler's experience as an army medic and assistant to a quack doctor, had allowed him to confront a number of illnesses for which there was little information. He had, however had the good luck to learn the cause of this strange affliction which was affecting the town of Annaberg.  We know these days, of the problem of a fungus which, under certain conditions, usually damp,  grows on rye and related plants, and can cause ergotism in humans.  Ergotism can cause convulsive symptoms including painful seizures and spasm, diarrhea, itching, mental effects including mania, or psychosis, headaches, nausea and vomiting.  These symptoms are easily diagnosed these days but in the 1700s a belief in witchcraft was still prevalent and many believed the sufferers from convulsive ergotism to be possessed by demons.  A similar hypothesis has been advanced to explain the actions of the townsfolk of Salem, Massachusets in the late seventeenth century, many of whom suffered accusations of witchcraft and stood trial and many of them were put to death.

Bessler had come across such afflictions before and had learned that the cure was very simple; with-hold rye bread for several hours and the symptoms disappear.

to be continued...

JC

2017 - Happy New Year!

Confidence is high - I think in this coming year, things will be revealed which will prove that Johann Bessler deliberately left clues that will lead to the correct solution to reconstructing his wheel.

I will publish my own thoughts on what the important dream revealed to Bessler which galvanised his search for the solution.  I had my own revelation in 2016 and it is that I will share which I hope will lead to success either in my hands or someone else's.

I have had other revelations over the past years, some led to a dead end, others pointed the way but not the solution.  I know many of us have had breath-taking, astonishing revelations, some of which  it is believed, have remained as key steps towards victory and some have disappeared in the cold light of dawn - or reality has blown them away.

It never fails to amaze me how often, immediately following a hands-on experiment that demonstrates the faulty logic in its design, the human mind creates another design which seems even more promising than the recent failure.  Of course years of experience of such revelations generates extreme caution in the mind of the researcher leading to a more careful approach to publicising them - mostly!

The building work in our house is approaching the end and I am immersed in building a log cabin which will be my new workshop.  The garage which was the workshop has been reduced in size by about half to accommodate the kitchen dreams of my better half, but I am more than content with my new Bessler research centre!  It should be ready within a couple of weeks when I can return to the fray.

In my next post I will reveal in much abbreviated form some of the unknown parts of Bessler's life from just after his first realisation of his dream of Perpetual Motion up to his marriage to Barbara Schuhmann.

JC

Merry Christmas to All Perpetual Motionists!

I just want to wish all of you a very happy and peaceful Christmas.

I was slightly concerned that some readers might not celebrate Christmas as many of us do, because of religious differences.  So in wishing you a traditional Christmas greeting I am including all the good things associated with this greeting, such as happiness, peace and well-being, regardless of the  religious connotations.

As some may know, I am an agnostic, but I still celebrate the seasons as if I were a committed Christian, because I support the values associated with Christianity, even if I am unable accept the teachings it espouses.

JC

Is Over-balancing a Side-effect of some other Principle?

Having spent the last 50 years or so trying to discover Bessler's secret I realised some time back, that the solution must be something really simple, but not at all intuitive - not intuitive until you know but then instantly obvious.  It took Bessler about ten years to find the beginnings of an answer and even then, some very intense work to finally get a movement which proved to himself that he had found the correct principle.

The brief motion he discovered was so convincing that he dropped everything and went out into the world to earn some much needed funds to finance the building of a demonstration wheel and a place to show it.  He also persuaded a town mayor and physician of somewhat dubious political standing to allow him to take his daughter in marriage and accept her dowry.  This action sounds like a plan he had devised if and when the wheel worked.  To me this adds support to the idea that simply finding that basic principle and then deducing how to use it provides enough evidence that full test rigs and lengthy runs loaded and unloaded are unnecessary to prove the point, to ones self. But  I realise of course,  that such tests are a vital ingredient for anyone in the enviable position of having got to that penultimate stage that Bessler achieved prior to his search for funding.  You can only actually prove your wheel works by demonstrating it in action.

So first we have to find that simple concept which was so obvious that when Bessler discovered it he was encouraged to attack the problem with renewed enthusiasm.  I think that this concept was unarguably a vital part of the wheel's design. But Bessler admits that it took immense effort to find a way of making use of this principle, which suggests that even though the answer is perfectly logical it requires some considerable mechanical arranging to discover a way of utilising said principle. In my opinion this kind of trial and error method is an ideal way to hit upon the correct mechanical arrangement once you have the principle that allows the wheel to be driven in the presence of gravity.

This principle which I believe Bessler discovered must obviously be the light at the end of an extremely long tunnel, and yet even once discovered would take lengthy experimentation to find the correct mechanical arrangement to make it work.  Such a principle rules out the simple over-balancing wheel, according to Bessler, and yet an over-balancing ingredient seems to be implied in Bessler's description, although couched in the most ambiguous of terms.  It seems that action due to the operation of the prime principle leads to an overbalancing situation but the latter is more of a side effect than the primary cause of continuous rotation.  It is as though we have omitted a step in trying to generate continuous rotation through seeking to cause over-balancing, when we should be looking for some additional feature which then leads to overbalancing.

JC