The Sympathetic Negative Transmitter is also lost, and only a description remains that was made during the dismantling for an observation by Professor W. Lascelles Scott of London. On the request of Bloomfield-Moore he made a "careful investigation" of Keely's inventions. "Imagine a globe in which is a vibrating disk which Keely calls a 'cladna'; also, a series of tubes which, under certain circumstances act like small organ pipes..." was Scott's puzzled description. And while he failed to get from Keely a "connected account which satisfied his English sense as to what these were," he discovered that "the apparatus appeared to be regulated upon something like a definite order or plan." He discovered that the Sympathetic Transmitter was sensitive to chords as B flat, D natural, F, D, F sharp and A. Keely considered the first three notes and their combinations as "having a tendency in one direction, which he called the polar force," and the other three notes "a tendency in an opposite direction, which he called a depolar force."
Keely's Vibrodyne, which suffered an equal fate as so many of his other devices, was apparently so strange that the Professor "would not call it a motor, an engine or source of power, but certainly it was capable of revolving." The device possessed "spokes" which in turn contained "pipes" similar to those in the Sympathetic Negative Transmitter, "with which they were in union." When the Transmitter was connected to the Vibrodyne by a single wire, nothing happened "until the right note or series of notes" were struck on the Transmitter. Then the wheel began to revolve. A galvanometer showed no evidence of electricity, and Scott stated that he knew of "no electrical or mechanical current that could be transmitted over a single wire."45
Perhaps we should excuse poor Professor Scott, who did not know what to make of Keely's Vibrodyne, as Babcock, while musing over Keely's devices from his first period, stated that "Keely's inventions... are so entirely original, and so unlike any other devices that have been constructed, that there is nothing in the annals of research to afford a starting point for the understanding... Keely's instruments are no more like electrical apparatus than they are like the machinery used with steam, the product of crude molecular dissociation of water by heat."46
At the time of Keely's death in 1898, a new engine was in its completion stage, which he expected to have in running order the next year. The machine had the same shape as his Globe Motor, only larger. It was made out of copper with a globe of about two feet in diameter and weighing 75 pounds. The final mechanism was three feet in diameter and built of decarbonized steel, weighing 600 pounds. After the machine was taken to Kinraide, its whereabouts became unknown.47
Unfortunately, no photograph of his Vibratory Microscope exists, which, according to theosophist R. Harte, worked "by means of three wires placed across the lens of a microscope.. .its magnifying power equal to that of the great telescope in the Lick observatory — the largest in the world."48 Likewise, there are very little details of the Vibraphone, which was "fashioned after the human ear," and which collected the waves of sound and made "each wave distinct from the other in tone when the 'wave-plate' is struck after the sound has died away."49
When studying the photographs of these machines, it is with a sense of awe and wonder. Keely's devices are so strange in concept, sometimes sturdy and almost barren in their industrial appearance, at other times possessing a poetic quality, a beauty that touches art and transcends that of mere functional equipment. Whatever the principles are that the machines operate on, these principles can by no means be those of conventional science. It is quite easy to see in these wonderful devices something of an artful nature. Years later, for instance, Hungarian constructionist artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy would build his "Light-Space Modulator," a mechanized sculpture consisting of steel, plastics and wood. Moholy-Nagy's device that was meant as a work of art bears a striking resemblance in certain aspects to some of Keely's devices, and evokes the same feeling that an attempt was made to visualize unknown principles, forces and energies.50
Keely's science was in certain aspects a synthesis of various opposites; the part that involved his use of the force that he variously named ether, apergy or inter-atomic force, became more and more the domain of the occult underground of that time. The other part, which consisted of his use of notes, chords, tones and sound in connection with his inventions, had a more scientific bearing. Such a synthesis might at first seem unusual but in fact it was not; the association with art and music with science started centuries before in the school of the Greek philosopher Pythagoras. The Pythagoreans devoted themselves to mathematics and believed that everything could be expressed numerically. Since they observed that the pitch of musical notes depends on a numerical ratio in the length of the chords struck, they concluded that this ratio corresponded to the distance of heavenly bodies from the center of the earth,51 in Keely's time poetically named the "wheelworks of nature."
Especially during the last century, scientific research on sound waves and the nature of sound rapidly progressed. This interest in sound was heralded by the work of Ernst Florenz Friedrich Chladni (1756-1827). For most of his life, Chladni was devoted to the study of sound, perhaps because he was an amateur musician,52 as was said of Keely. Chladni was an interesting character with wide-ranging interests. In 1790 he invented the Euphonium, a strange musical instrument that was made out of glass rods and steel bars which produced sound by the rubbing of a moistened fmger, or the transmission of vibrations by friction. His Euphonium, which is classified in the category of friction instruments, and the Aiuton, invented by Charles Claggett around the same time, were the first in a series of models of friction instruments. Some had piano keyboards and horizontal friction cylinders or cones that acted on upright bars, and others with bars stroked by the player's fingers or bowed by a continuous bow.53
Chladni also discovered the longitudinal waves and the so-called Chladni figures. Since nobody had studied the vibrations of plates, Chladni developed a technique in 1802 of supporting a plate of glass or brass at one central point, covering the surface with fine sand, and then stroking the edge with a violin bow. The sand then collected along the nodal lines of zero movement and thus formed "striking geometric patterns." He visited the Academie des Sciences in Paris in 1808 to demonstrate this technique and its results, and subsequently the visible display of vibrations in solids, and even in gases, was used in teaching.54 One of his other interests was meteorites, which he collected. He was one of the first to theorize that they fell from the heavens. In 1794, he acknowledged the theory that meteorites were debris from space, a theory which he would expand upon in his in 1819 book Uber Feuer Meteore u. uber die mit denselben herabgefallenen Massen.55
Herman von Helmholtz (1821-1894), who formulated the resonance theory of hearing, devised an instrument that could test the presence or absence of a particular harmonic in a given musical tone. This was called the Helmholtz resonator or resonance globe, and was a hollow globe made out of thin brass, with an opening at each end across the diameter. The Helmholtz resonators enabled sounds to be analyzed into their constituent frequencies, with benefit to music and speech theory. Helmholtz also synthesized sounds, reproducing these by "combining the individual sounds composing it, as shown by his resonators. "56
Like Chladni, Helmholtz was deeply interested in meteors, and in 1871 he wrote that meteors and comets might disseminate "germs of life wherever a new world has reached the stage in which it is a suitable dwelling place for organic beings."57
Karl Rudolph Koenig (1832-1901), a brilliant student of Helmholtz, moved to Paris in 1851 and took the unusual step for an academic of apprenticing himself to a violin-maker by the name of Vuillaume. Koenig made an unrivaled reputation for novelty and accuracy, and much fundamental work was done in laboratories in Europe and America, employing his equipment.58 During the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, when Keely had an operational Globe Motor, Karl Rudolph Koenig was awarded a gold medal for his work in acoustics. Koenig's greatest contribution to precision in the study of sound was the clock tuning fork, wh
ich "acted the role of a pendulum, and it could then be used as the standard for comparison with other forks."
Some years earlier, in 1862, on the International Exposition in London, Koenig displayed his newly invented manometric flame apparatus, "a bank of eight Helmholtz resonators, with their small ends each connected to a separate manometric capsule which acts on a gas jet. When the rectangle of mirrors is rotated, it is easy to see the flame that is vibrating, so that a sound can be analyzed."59
There are several similarities between the research of those early scientists and some of Keely's experiments; it is also interesting to note similarities between the Helmholtz resonators with their tuning forks, and parts of Keely's devices. Keely was also keenly aware of the works of these scientists, and at least one of them was aware of his work.
Koenig had been present during one of Keely's experiments. In a letter written around 1891, he critically "ventured a suggestion as a test of the nature of the force that Mr. Keely is dealing with." This involved Keely's claim that a needle of his compass revolved as a result of negative polar attraction. Koenig remarked that since Keely had written that gold, silver and platina were "excellent media for the transmission of these triple currents," but since everybody knew that these metals were "unaffected by magnetic influences," he should make a compass needle of one of these three metals.60 To this request Keely replied that this was impossible, but he nevertheless took up the experiment and reportedly succeeded in making a needle of the three metals and let it rotate by "differential molecular action; induced by negative attractive outreach, which is as free of magnetic force as a cork."61 According to Bloomfield-Moore, Koenig stated: "I not only think Mr. Keely's theories possible, but I consider them quite probable."62
Keely undoubtedly visited the great Philadelphia Centennial Exposition as so many other Philadelphians did, and may have seen Koenig's work there. His favorite author was Chladni, whose writings he read in his youth and whose philosophy made a "deep impression on Keely."63 He even named a certain part of his Sympathetic Negative Transmitter a cladna: "imagine a globe in which is a vibrating disk, which Keely calls a "cladna."64 Chladni plates were also used by Keely, one of these being a large steel plate of 20 inches in diameter, which he struck with a "tiny hammer."65 He was also quoted as saying: "I am now having a compound siphon made by Helmholtz, near Paris. I like his work."66
There also was an esoteric strain in Keely's philosophies. For this we have only to look at his terminology. It has been established that most of his terminology was unique, meaning that it had no precedent in either scientific jargon or occult parlance or concepts. Every new invention or discovery brought with it a new nomenclature and vocabulary. But his terminology for the force that he claimed to have discovered is a different case.
In 1875, he called the medium that delivered his force "vapor"67 or "vaporic substance,"68 although it is suggested by Bloomfield-Moore that around that time this substance was also named "Keil."69 From this the term "vaporic force" evolved. In the following years, we also find terms in his philosophy such as "inter-atomic force," or "dynaspheric force."
Around 1881, Babcock even suggested that Keely's force should be called "Keal," meaning "Keely vapor."70
Around 1887, Keely's force was being compared with Bulwer-Lytton's vril, and we once again encounter new phrasings. Now he called the force "vibratory force," "sympathetic etheric force" and "sympathetic vibratory force."71 At that time, Keely mingled cabalistic and theosophical concepts while speaking of his force, that to him could be "best described as coming nearer to the primal force or willpower of Nature... it is that primal force itself... the breath of life which God breathed into man's nostrils at the creation of the world — the motion of the spirit on the face of the waters; the wave motion of the brain."72
Two years after this beautiful imagery it was alleged that he claimed to use an "ethereal force"73 and the same year elsewhere it was stated that "Keely's force is vibratory sympathy."74 In 1890 he called his force "vibratory force,"73 a term that was still in use in 1895,76 while in the same year the term "apergy" became grafted on Keely's force. In 1896, it was announced that his newest motor was "supposed to be energized by pure vibration, instead of "etheric vapor."77
This changing phraseology demonstrates Keely's personal intellectual evolution in thought and a maturing process of ideas. But his use of the term "ether" stemmed directly from occult tradition. There, before and after the idea became a topic for research in conventional 19th century science, the concept of unknown and invisible forces or energies that surround us daily were firmly rooted. Significantly Tesla kept using the term ether after its abandonment by the scientific world.
This notion of an all-pervading energy, a universal life force, has a long tradition and different names in various cultures: The Chinese called it Qi, the Vital Energy which played an important part in Sheng Fui. To the Japanese it was Ki. The Hindus called it Prana and the Polynesians and the Hawaiians, Mana. Hypocrites called it Vis Medicatrix Naturae, Galen called it Pneuma. In the writings of Hermes Trismegistos the force is Telesma.
Sixteenth century alchemists like Paracelsus and Van Helmont called it Munis and Magnale Magnum, respectively. To Franz Anton Mesmer the force was Animal Magnetism. Von Reichenbach called it Odic or Odylic Force, and the radiesthesists, Etheric Force. To Eliphas Levi and to Blavatsky, who saw all these connections, it was the Astral Light.78
In the twentieth century L.E. Ehman called it X-Force, Wilhelm Reich called it Orgone and the Nazi dowsers knew it as W-Force. To modern-day ley hunters it is Ley-energy or more poetically The Dragon Pulse, reminiscent of Levi's Great Serpent. Soviet parapsychologists called it Bioplasmic Energy or Psychotronic Energy.
"What is the primordial chaos but Ether? The modern Ether; not such as is recognized by our scientists, but such as it was known to the ancient philosophers... Ether, with all its mysterious and occult properties, containing in itself the germs of universal creation...," Blavatsky wrote.79
In a climate of new scientific discoveries and the rise of esoterism, ether became a widely researched concept. For instance, spiritualist Sir Oliver Lodge lectured on the ether and its functions in 1882 for the London Institution. He described ether as "an undivided substance that fills all space, that can vibrate as light, that can be divided in positive and negative electricity that, in vortex movement, creates matter and that through composition and not pressure, transmits all actions and reactions, that the substance may yield. This is the modern view on ether and its functions."80
But centuries before, the early alchemists gave the name ether to the Quintessence which to them was the fifth element, a power or essence that bound in a unity the otherwise separate four elements. Quintessence was synonymous with elixir, mercury of the Philosophers and etheric. The Quintessence was said to be semi-material and visible to certain persons. The four elements, the fifth named Quintessence and two other unnamed elements formed the Seven Cosmical Elements. These were held as conditional modifications and aspects of one element, the source of Akasha itself.
Akasha or Akasa was used in occultism and theosophy as an equivalent of the ancient term "aether," according to Hinduism the fifth and most subtle element. The word is the Sanskrit term for "all pervasive space." Akasha is also called Soniferous Ether. Theosophical doctrine links it to Quintessence. According to Blavatsky, the Akasha forms the anima mundi, the soul of the world. Through it, divine thought was allowed to manifest in matter. The anima mundi constitutes the soul and spirit of mankind. It produces mesmeric, magnetic operations of nature.81 Blavatsky introduced the concept of Akasha in the early twentieth century and connected it to the other notions of the universal life force, such as the Sidereal Light of the Rosicrucians, Levi's Astral Light and the Odic Force of Von Reichenbach. Astral Light is held by the occultists as a manifestation of the Aether, which is not to be confused with the ether of the modern physicists. Aether however can be linked to the Etheric of the occultists. Etheric w
as to them the force or energy that gives life within our cosmos. The influence of the etheric forces on inert matter creates the diversities of natural phenomena.
The Akashic Records were the supreme records of everything that has ever occurred since the very beginning of the universe. Theosophy claims that these records exist as impressions in the astral plane. Edgar Cayce asserted that he often consulted these records, as did Mary Baker Eddy and Rudolph Steiner, who called the records the Akashic Chronicle. With it he produced his detailed descriptions of the mythical lost civilizations Atlantis and Lemuria, as theosophists Scott-Eliott and Leadbetter did before him.
While the term ether crops up in Keely's phraseology around the time that it was widely researched to do so, Bloomfield-Moore admitted that it was from a particular book that both she and Keely discovered that "it was the ether that he had imprisoned, and for years after he confined his attention to efforts to keep the ether in an engine, supposing the ether itself to be the energy induced."82 This book was A Sketch of a Philosophy, published in 1868, and written by Angus MacVicar. Rev. John Andrew, who was a friend of the late MacVicar, brought the book to Bloomfield-Moore's attention. According to her, Andrew "maintained great interest in Keely's researches since he first heard of them."83 Bloomfield-Moore introduced MacVicar's concepts to Keely in 1884. A compilation of MacVicar's A Sketch of a Philosophy entitled Ether the True Protoplasm was sent to Keely, after which his attention turned to researches of the ether.84
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