Theosophy - Keely's Secrets: - Part 1 - Etheric Force identified as Dynaspheric Force - by
KEELY'S
SECRETS
Part 1
Etheric Force Identified as Dynaspheric Force
by Clara J. Bloomfield Moore
reprinted from “Theosophical
Siftings” Volume - 1 -
“Science
is to know things” — HERODOTUS.
“Knowledge
is developed by experience from innate ideas” — PLATO.
“Truth
is not attained through reflection, but through immediate
intuition. We neither Originate thought nor its form" — ARYAN
TEACHINGS.
“ It
may be said that if all things come from only one cause
or internal source, acting within itself, then Motion and
Matter must be fundamentally and essentially one and the
same, and we may look upon Matter as being latent force
and upon force as being free Matter.” —
FRANZ
HARTMANN, M.D.
[Page 10]
JOHN
WORRELL KEELY — the discoverer of compound inter-etheric
force, as operating in the animal organism, man — is
a great thinker, and a great student of the capabilities
of nature in offering to man's intelligence the means
whereby he may discover for himself the secrets she often
veils without entirely concealing.
The
result of more than twenty years of persistent effort
to apply etheric force to the operation of machinery
has, at last, enabled him to produce continuity of motion
in his engine; but, up to this time, he has not so mastered
this subtle force as to control reversions. The development
of his various discoveries has been one uninterrupted
work of evolution, reaching, within the last year, the
sphere of perfect vibratory sympathy, both theoretically
and practically. The proof of this is found in the fact
that he now transmits vibrations along a wire, connected
at one end with the vibratory machine which is the source
of power, and at its other end with the engine or cannon,
as the case may be, which is operated by such vibratory
power. Until recently (comparatively speaking) Mr. Keely
stored force, as he generated it, in a receiver; and
experiments were made by him in the presence of thousands,
at various times, for the purpose of testing the operations
of “etheric force”, liberated in the presence of his
audience and stored up in this small receiver. The Editor
of the Scientific Arena thus
describes what took place at one of these exhibitions, when
he was present: — “The confined vapour was passed
through, one of the small flexible tubes to a steel cylinder
on another table, in which a vertical piston was fitted
so that its upper end bore against the underside of a
powerful, weighted lever. The superficial area of this
piston was equal to one-half of a square inch, and it
acted as a movable fulcrum placed close to [Page
11] the
hinged end of the short arm of this lever, whose weight alone
required a pressure of 1,500 pounds to the square inch against
the piston to lift it.
“After
testing the pressure by several small weights, added
to that of the lever itself, in order to determine how
much power had already been accumulated in the receiver,
the maximum test was made by placing an iron weight of
580 pounds, by means of a differential pulley, on the
extreme end of the long arm of the lever. To lift this
weight, without that of the lever supporting it, would
require a pressure against the piston of 18,900 pounds
to the square inch, counting the difference in the length
of the two arms and the area of the piston, which we,
as well as several others present, accurately calculated.
When all was ready, and the crowded gathering had formed
as well as possible to see the test, Mr. Keely turned
the valve-wheel, leading from the receiver to the flexible
tube and through it into the steel cylinder beneath the
piston, and simultaneously with the motion of his hand
the weighted lever shot up against its stop, a distance
of several inches, as if the great mass of iron had been
only cork. Then, in order to assure ourselves of the
full 25,000 pounds to the square inch claimed, we added
most of our weight to the arm of the lever without forcing
the piston back again.
“After
repeating this experiment till all expressed themselves
satisfied, Mr Keely diverted his etheric gas to the exciting
work of firing a cannon, into which he placed a leaden
bullet about an inch in diameter. He conveyed the force
from the receiver by the same kind of flexible copper
tube, attaching one end of it to the breech of the gun.
When all was again in readiness he gave a quick turn
to the inlet valve, and a report like that of a small
cannon followed, the ball passing through an inch board
and flattening itself out to about three inches in diameter,
showing the marvellous power and instantaneous action
of this strange vapour.”
The difficulty encountered by Mr. Keely in his old generator of etheric force
grew out of the fact, in part, that the vaporic power produced was so humid
that he could not, when he attempted to utilize it, obtain its theoretical value
in work. This difficulty has been entirely overcome by dispensing with the
water which he used in liberating etheric force, by his old generator; and,
by this departure, he has attained a success beyond that which was
anticipated by himself, when he abandoned his original line of experiment.
Ignorant,
indeed, of the nature of Mr. Keely's work must those
men be who accuse him of “abandoning his base” or “principle”,
each time that he discovers his mistakes, and using them
as stepping-stones to approach nearer and still nearer to
his goal: reproaching him, even, for keeping his own
counsel, until certainty of success rendered it prudent
for him to make known that, in changing his field of
experiment from positive attraction to negative attraction,
he had succeeded in his efforts to produce continuity
of motion.[Page
12]
Equally
ignorant are those, who would wrench by force his secrets
from him before the time is ripe for their disclosure.
Let us suppose that Faraday, when he discovered radiant
matter in 1816, had formed a “Faraday Phospho-Genetic
Radiant Company”, to enable him
to experiment: fully cognizant of all that Crookes has
since discovered, and had taken for his base in experimenting
the principle involved in Crookes's discovery. Not succeeding
at first, we will suppose that the Company became clamorous
for returns, and demanded that his secret principle
should be made public. Had he been driven into making
it known, who would have credited what Crookes is now
able to prove? The effect would have been upon the Faraday
Company the same as if a balloon were punctured just
as it was soaring heavenward. The same with the Keely
Motor Company, had Keely obeyed the order of the Court
in 1882, and made his marvellous secret public. It would
have collapsed. Therefore, he has maintained his secret
in the interests of the stockholders of the Keely Motor
Company with a firmness worthy of a Christian martyr.
The one person to whom alone Keely has disclosed it
thought him a lunatic until he had demonstrated its soundness.
When he said, in all solemnity, “Now, I feel as if you
and I were the god and goddess of this world”, the effect
upon the hearer was no more than it would have been
had a patient in a hospital for the insane spoken the
words.
Charles
B. Collier, Mr. Keely's patent lawyer, writes as follows,
concerning the difficulties attendant upon “the supposed
duty” of his client's imparting
his “secrets”, as ordered by the Court to do, some
time since: —
“If
today, for the first time in your lives, you saw a harp,
attuned and being played upon, and the science of music
was unknown to you, you would hardly expect, without considerable
time and study, to be able to reproduce the harp, attune
its strings in proper relation to each other, and to play
upon it so as to produce the harmonies which you had listened
to. Mr. Keely's work is analogous to the illustration which
I have presented, inasmuch as he is dealing with the subject
of sound, or acoustics, but in a much more involved form
than as applied simply for the production of harmonies
for the delight of the ear. Mr. Keely's engine is analogous
to the mechanism of the human ear, in the respect that
it is a structure operated upon, and its motion induced
by vibration; and to the end of securing and attaining
in and by it uniformity or regularity of motion, there
must be perfect unison, or synchronism, as between it and
his structure which is the prime source of vibration. To
attain this perfect unison or synchronism, has involved
unparalleled research and experiment upon his part — experiments
that have varied from day to day. No one, in my opinion,
who had not stood by his side, as his shadow, watching every
experiment, could have kept fully abreast of him. To pursue
my simile, I may say that his harp (engine) is not yet perfectly [Page
13] attuned
(“graduated”); when it is so, it will
produce nothing but harmony (regularity of motion),
and his work will be finished.
“At
such time, I doubt not that he will be able to give to
Mr. Boekel, myself or another, the scale with which to
reconstruct and attune another apparatus so as to produce
like results with it, but to go over the ground that
he has gone over, to explore the wilderness in which
he has been the pioneer, in other words, the study, to
a full understanding of them, of his experiments and
researches, as recorded in his writings and illustrated
in the beautiful charts which he has produced, will be
a work rather for scientists than for mechanicians or
engineers”.
Mr.
Keely's “Theoretical Exposé” is nearly ready for
the press; and, when these volumes are issued, we may look
for a change of attitude toward him in all men who hold themselves “ready
to abandon preconceived notions, however cherished, if they
be found to contradict truth”; which
Herbert Spencer says is the first condition of success in
scientific research. The Rev. J. J. Smith, M.A., D.D., tells
us that the only way the great problem of the universe can
ever be scientifically solved is by studying, and arriving
at just conclusions with regard to the true nature and character
of force. This has been Mr. Keely's life study; and he is
able to demonstrate all that he asserts.
The
author of No.5 of the pamphlets issued by The Theosophical
Publication Society, “ What
is Matter and What is Force”,
says therein,
“The men of science have just found out 'a fourth state
of matter', whereas the occultists have penetrated years
ago beyond the sixth, and therefore do not infer, but know
of, the existence of the seventh, the last”. This
knowledge comprises one of the secrets of Keely's so-called “compound
secret”. It is already known to many that his secret
includes “the
augmentation of energy”, the insulation of the ether,
and the adaptation of dynaspheric force to machinery.
Laurence
Oliphant writes as follows on Dynaspheric Force: “Recent
scientific research has proved conclusively that all force
is atomic— that
electricity consists of files of particles, and that the
interstellar spaces contain substances, whether it be called
ether or astral fluid (or by any other name), which is composed
of atoms, because it is not possible to dissever force from
its transmitting medium. The whole universe, therefore, and
all that it contains, consists of matter in motion, and is
animated by a vital principle which we call God.
“Science
has further discovered that these atoms are severally
encompassed by an ethereal substance which prevents their
touching each other, and to this circumambient, inter-atomic
element they have given the name of dynasphere; but,
inasmuch as has further been found, that in these dynaspheres
there resides a tremendous potency, it is evident that
they also must contain atoms, and that these atoms must in
their turn be surrounded by dynaspheres, which again
contain atoms, and so on ad
infinitum. [Page
14] Matter
thus becomes infinite and indestructible, and the force
which pervades it persistent and everlasting.
“This
dynaspheric force, which is also called etheric, is conditioned
as to its nature on the quality of the atoms which form
its transmitting media; and which are infinite both
in variety and in their combinations. They may, however,
be broadly divided into two categories; viz., the sentient
and the non-sentient atoms. Dynaspheric force, composed
of non-sentient atoms, is the force that has been already
mechanically applied by Mr. Keely to his motor; and which
will probably, ere long, supersede the agencies now used
for locomotive, projectile, and other purposes. When the
laws which govern it come to be understood it will produce
materially a great commercial and industrial revolution.
There is no hard-and-fast line between the sentient and
the non-sentient atoms; just as zoophytes are a connecting
link between the animal and vegetable creation, so there
is a graduated scale of atoms, between atoms which although
animated by the divine life are not sentient, and those
which are as highly developed, relatively to them, as
man is to a cabbage”.
Again,
in Scientific Religion, Laurence Oliphant writes:—
“The
most remarkable illustration of the stupendous energy of
atomic vibratory force is to be found in that singular
apparatus in Philadelphia—
which for the last fifteen years has excited in turn the
amazement, the scepticism, the admiration, and the ridicule
of those who have examined it
— called 'Keely's Motor' ” . . . “In the
practical land of its origin, it has popularly been esteemed
a fraud. I have not examined it personally, but I believe
it to be based upon a sound principle of dynamics, and to
be probably the first of a series of discoveries destined
to revolutionize all existing mechanical theories, and many
of the principles upon which they are founded”. . .
. . “Those who are sufficiently
unprejudiced to connect the bearings of this discovery, of
what must be dynaspheric force, with phenomena which have
hitherto been regarded as supernatural by the ignorant, will
perceive how rapidly we are bridging over the chasm which
has divided the seen from the unseen, obliterating the distinction
between 'matter' and what has most erroneously been called
'spirit' ”.
In
1882 a lady, conversing with Mr. Keely, said, “You
have opened the door into the spirit-world”. He answered,
.'Do you think so ? I have sometimes thought I might be
able to discover the origin of life”. At this time
Mr. Keely had given no attention whatever to the occult bearing
of his discovery; and it was only after he had pursued his
researches, under the advantages which his small Liberator
afforded him for such experiments, that he realized the truth
of this woman's assertion. It was then, in 1887, that a
“bridge of mist” formed itself before him, connecting
the laws which govern physical science with the laws which
govern spiritual science, and year by year this bridge of
mist has solidified, until now he is in a position to stand
upon it, and proclaim that its abutments have a solid [Page
15] foundation — one
resting in the material and visible world, and the other
in the spiritual and unseen world; or, rather, that
no bridge is needed to connect the two worlds, one law
governing both in its needed modifications.
“The
physical thing”, writes a modern scientist, “which
energises and does work in and upon ordinary matter,
is a separate form of matter, infinitely refined and
infinitely rapid in its vibrations, and is thus able
to penetrate through all ordinary matter, and to make
everywhere a fountain of motion, no less real because
unseen. It is among the atoms of the crystal and the
molecules of living matter; and, whether producing locked
effects or free, it is the same cosmic thing, matter
in motion, which we conceive as material energy, and
with difficulty think of as only a peculiar form of matter
in motion.”
Oliphant,
commenting upon this view of energy, says: “This is nothing
more nor less than what we have been in the habit of calling
'spirit'. ” . . .“ Mind is also composed of this extraordinary matter; so is
will; so is every emotion”. Jacob Boehman calls it “heavenly
substantiality”, and
Swedenborg calls it “natural and spiritual atmospheres,
composed of discrete substances of a very minute form”. Professor
Crookes has invented the word “protyle”, Professor Cones
calls it “soul-stuff”, or
biogen; while Occultists call it “astral fluid”.
To
all who are conversant with Mr. Keely's theories a similarity
of views will be evident.
The
President of the British Association, Sir Henry Roscoe,
in his address last year before that body, endorses the
atomic theory. He said: “In nature
there is no such thing as great or small; the structure
of the smallest particle, invisible even to our most searching
vision, may be as complicated as that of any of the heavenly
bodies which circle round our sun”. As to the
indivisibility of the atom, he asks this question: “Notwithstanding
the properties of these elements have been studied, and
are now known with a degree of precision formerly undreamt
of, have the atoms of our present elements been made to yield
? “He continues: “A negative
answer must undoubtedly be given, for even the highest of
terrestrial temperatures, that of the electric spark, has
failed to shake any one of these atoms in two”.
This
is an error, for it is well known by those who are fully
acquainted with the principle involved in Keely's inventions
that the intense vibratory action which is induced in
his “Liberator” has accomplished what the retort of the
chemist has failed to do, what the electric spark has left
intact, and what the inconceivably fierce temperature
of the sun and of volcanic fires has turned over to us
unscathed. The mighty Geni imprisoned within the molecule,
thus released from the chains and fetters which Nature
forged, has been for years the tyrant of the one who
rashly intruded, without first paving the way with the
gold which he has since been accused of using in experiments
with reckless and wanton waste ! For more than a score
of years has Keely been fighting a hand-to-hand [Page
16] fight with
this Geni; often beaten back by it, paralysed at times, even,
by its monstrous blows; and only now so approaching its subjugation
as to make it safe to harness it for the work that is calling
for a power mightier than steam, safer and more uniform in
operation than electricity; a power which, by its might and
beneficence, will ameliorate the condition of the masses,
and reconcile and solve all that now menaces our race, as
it was never menaced before.
The
structure of the air molecule, as believed in by Keely,
is as follows. Broken up, by vibratory action, he finds
it to contain what he calls an atomic triplet. The position
of a molecule, on the point of a fine cambric needle sustains
the same relation to the point of the needle that a grain
of sand sustains to a field of ten acres.
Although,
as Sir H. Roscoe has said, “In nature there is no such
thing as great or small”. the human mind cannot conceive
such infinitesimal minuteness. We will then imagine a molecule
magnified to the size of a billiard ball, and the atomic
triplet magnified to the size of three marbles, in the triangular
space which it always sustains within that molecule, at its
centre, unless acted upon by electricity, when the molecule
(the billiard ball) becomes oblate, and the three (marbles)
are ranged in a line within unless broken up by the mighty
force of vibratory action. Nature never gives us a vacuum;
consequently, the space within the molecule not occupied
by the atomic triplet must be filled with something. This
is where the Geni — “the all-pervading ether” — has
made its secret abode through untold aeons, during which
our world has been in course of preparation for its release,
to fulfil its appointed task in advancing the progress of
the human race.
Step
by step, with a patient perseverance which some day the
world will honour, this man of genius has made his researches,
overcoming the colossal difficulties which again and again
raised up in his path what seemed to be (to all but himself)
insurmountable barriers to further progress: but never
has the world's index finger so pointed to an hour when
all is making ready for the advent of the new form of force
that mankind is waiting for. Nature, always reluctant to
yield her secrets, is listening to the demands made upon
her by her master, necessity. The coal mines of the world
cannot long afford the increasing drain made upon them.
Steam has reached its utmost limits of power, and does
not fulfil the requirements of the age. It knows that its
days are numbered. Electricity holds back, with bated breath,
dependent upon the approach of her sister colleague. Air
ships are riding at anchor, as it were, waiting for the
force which is to make aerial navigation something more
than a dream. As easily as men communicate with their offices
from their homes by means of the telephone, so will the
inhabitants of separate continents talk across the ocean,
Imagination is palsied when seeking to foresee the grand
results of this marvellous discovery when once it is applied
to art and
[Page
17] mechanics.
In taking the throne which it will force steam to abdicate
dynaspheric force will rule the world with a power so
mighty in the interests of civilization, that no finite
mind can conjecture the results. Laurence Oliphant, in
his preface to “Scientific Religion”, says: “A
new moral future is dawning upon the human race — one,
certainly, of which it stands much in need”. In no
way could this new moral future be so widely, so universally,
commenced as by the utilizing of dynaspheric force to beneficial
purposes in life, thus revealing to all men another phase
of God's
“underlying purpose”.
In
1746, when Franklin's attention was drawn to the phenomena
of electricity, little more was known on the subject
than Thales had announced two thousand years before.
Von Kleist in Leyden, Collinson in London, and others
in as widely-separated cities in Europe, were experimenting
in the same field of research. What our last century
has done toward subduing this tyrant which Franklin succeeded
in bringing down to earth, from the clouds, the next
century will see surpassed beyond man's wildest conjectures,
should Mr. Keely's utilization of dynaspheric force bestow
upon humanity the costless motive power which he anticipates
it will. Reynolds predicted that those who “studied the
mysteries of molecular vibration would win the victorious
wreaths of successful discovery”. After such discoveries
as Mr. Keely has made in this field of research, it matters
not to him whether he succeeds commercially or not. His work
of discovery commenced when, as a boy of twelve, he held
the sea-shells to his ear as he walked the shore and noted
that no two gave forth the same tone. From the construction
of his first crude instrument, his work of evolution progressed
slowly for years; but within the last five years he has
made giant strides towards the “Dark Tower” which is his last fortress to take. When he is ready, “Dauntless
the slug-horn to his lips” he
will set; and the world will hear the blast, and awaken
from its slumber into new life.
Molecular
vibration is thus seen to be, Keely's legitimate field
of research; but more than once has he had to tear down
portions of the vibratory scaffolding which aided him
in the building up of his edifice of philosophy; therefore,
he is ever ready to admit that some of his present scaffolding
may have to be removed. The charge of “abandoning his
base” recently
brought against him by one of the editors of The New York Times,
could only have been made by one who is utterly ignorant
of the subject upon which he writes. Under the heading “A
Cool Confession”, this editor
asserts that Mr. Keely has “given up the Keely Motor
as a bad job”, and
that he admits that he is a “bogus inventor” and
a “fraud”.
This is not true.
What
Mr. Keely does admit is that, baffled in applying vibratory
force to mechanics, upon his first and second lines of
experimental research, he was obliged either to confess
a commercial failure, or to try a third departure from
his base or principle; seeking success through another
channel of [Page
18] experiment.
While experimenting upon this third line, until his efforts
were crowned with success, he kept his secret from all
men; with the approbation of the one who furnished the
money for these experiments. This was a time when silence
is golden; and the charge made by the same editor that
Keely had been “receiving money from the
Keely Motor Company on false pretences from the time
that he abandoned his original plans”, could only
have been made by one who knows nothing of the facts of
the case: for years have passed away since the Keely Motor
Company broke its contract with him, and since it has furnished
him with any money for his experiments.
But
let Keely speak for himself in reference to his work: —
“In
considering the operation of my engine, the visitor,
in order to have even an approximate conception of its modus operandi,
must discard all thought of engines that are operated upon
the principle of pressure and exhaustion, by the expansion
of steam or other analogous gas which impinges upon an abutment,
such as the piston of a steam-engine. My engine has neither
piston nor eccentrics, nor is there one grain of pressure
exerted in the engine, whatever may be the size or capacity
of it.
“My
system, in every part and detail, both in the developing
of my power and in every branch of its utilization, is
based and founded on sympathetic vibration. In no other
way would it be possible to awaken or develop my force,
and equally impossible would it be to operate my engine
upon any other principle.
“All
that remains to be done is to secure a uniform speed under
different velocities and control reversions. That I shall
accomplish this is absolutely certain. While some few years
ago, I contemplated using a wire as a connective link between
two sympathetic mediums, to evolve my power as also to
operate my machinery — instead of tubular connections
as heretofore employed — I have only succeeded but
recently in accomplishing successfully such change. This,
however, is the true system; and henceforth all my operations
will be conducted in this manner — that
is to say, my power will be generated, my engines run, my
cannon operated, through a wire.
“It
has been only after years of incessant labour, and the
making of almost innumerable experiments, involving not
only the construction of a great many most peculiar mechanical
structures, and the closest investigation and study of
the phenomenal properties of the substance “ether”, per
se, produced, that I have been able to dispense with complicated
mechanism, and to obtain, as I claim, mastery over the subtle
and strange force with which I am dealing.
“When
my present process of adjustment is completed, the force,
the mechanism, and all that pertains to it, will be fully
explained in a theoretical exposition of the subject,
with appropriate diagrams, which I shall publish to the
world ; through which medium, and my patents, when taken
out, a knowledge of all that is required for its commercial
employment [Page
19] will
be more easily acquired than is the necessary skill required
to enable one to safely operate a steam-engine.
“My
power will be adapted to engines of all sizes and capacities,
as well to
an engine capable of propelling the largest ship as to
one that will operate a sewing machine. Equally well
and certain is it that it will be adapted as a projectile
force for guns and cannons of all sizes, from the ordinary
shoulder-piece to the heaviest artillery”.....
When
Mr. Keely in 1887 obtained continuity of motion in his
engine he thought that his last difficulty had been overcome:
but, up to the present time, he has not succeeded in governing
its speed nor in controlling reversions. He has, however,
again reduced in size the instrument with which he produces
the force. From 1882 to 1884 the “Generator” was
a structure six feet long and correspondingly wide and high;
but, failing in his attempt to make an automatic arrangement
upon which its usefulness in mechanics depended, Mr Keely
found a new standard for research in an experiment often
made by himself, but never before successful, which resulted
in the production of a machine in 1885 which he named a
“Liberator” — not so large as a lady's
small round work-table. Continuing his labour of evolution
Mr. Keely within one year made such astounding progress,
from experiments with this beautiful piece of vibratory mechanism,
as to combine the production of the power, and the operation
of his cannon his engine and his disintegrator in a machine
no larger than a dinner plate, and only three or four inches
in thickness. This instrument was completed in 1886, up to
which time his experiments had been conducted upon a principle
of sympathetic vibration, for the purpose of liberating a
vapory or etheric product. His later experiments have been
confined to another modification of vibratory sympathy; and
the size of the instrument used still for the same purposes
is now no larger than an old-fashioned silver watch, such
as we see in Museum collections. The raising of a lever with
an apparent uplifting expansive force of between 20,000 and
30,000 pounds to the square inch, the running of the engine,
the firing of the cannon, are conducted without one ounce
of pressure, in any part of the apparatus, and without the
production or presence of what has been known as Keely's
ether. The force is now transmitted along a wire (of platinum
and silver), and when the lever is lowered there is no exhaustion,
into the atmosphere of the room, of any up-lifting vapour,
as was always the case when the ether was used in this experiment;
nor is there any force impinging upon the piston under the
lever to raise it.
Mr.
Keely has named this new modification of the one force
in nature “Negative Attraction”, which to the uninitiated
suggests no more (and not so
much) than if he had called it “Exploded Humbug”.
The
two forms of force which he has been experimenting with,
and the phenomena attending them, are the very antithesis
of each other. Mr. Keely does not feel the shadow of a
doubt as to his eventual success in
[Page
20] producing
engines of varying capacities; small enough, on the
one hand to operate sewing machines with, and large enough,
on the other hand, to propel the largest ships that plough
the seas. “Every fact and
feature surrounding the case warrants the belief, notwithstanding
the incredulity of all who have not witnessed the progress
of Mr. Keely, step by step, that his success will be
complete, and his work stand as the most colossal example
of the survival of the fittest, in the process of inventive
evolution”. Cox
says: “Not one of the great facts which
science now accepts as incontrovertible truths but was
vehemently denied by the scientists of its time: declared
to be a priori impossible, its discoverers
and supporters denounced as fools or charlatans, and
even investigation of it refused as being a waste of
time and thought”. “History repeats itself”, and
Amiel's definition of science gives the key to the incredulity
of scientists in reference to Mr. Keely's discovery;
for if, as Amiel has said, “science is a
lucid madness occupied with tabulating its own hallucinations”,
it is not strange that men of science should refuse to
investigate what they consider the hallucinations of
others.
It
is an undisputed fact that “too much has been conceded to
science, too little to those sublime laws which make science
possible”. But the one law
which regulates creation (and to which all other laws are
made subservient), keeping in harmony the systems upon systems
of worlds throughout space, developing sound and colour,
animal and vegetable growth, the crystallization of minerals,
is the hidden law, which develops every natural science throughout
the universe; and which both Kepler and Newton anticipated
would be revealed in our age. “You can even trace the
poles in sound”, writes Mrs. Hughes (a niece of Darwin),
in her work upon the “Evolution of Tones and Colours”. The
experiments made by Mrs. Watts Hughes, at the annual Reception
of the Royal Society, and the [A system of Pendulums
tuned to swing the various ratios of the musical scale, form
a “Silent
Harp” of extraordinary interest. This “Silent
Harp,” D.C.
Ramsay, of Glasgow has shown to his students of harmony for
many a year. A pen, placed by means of a universal-jointed
arrangement between any two pendulums of this “Silent
Harp”, so as
to be moved by a blend of their various motions, writes,
with all the precision of gravitation, a portrait of the
chord which two corresponding strings of a sounding harp
would utter to the ear. This spiral writing is a Pendulograph;
exquisite forms such as no human hand could trace] Pendulograph
writings by Andrews of Belfast have a bearing upon Mr. Keely's
discovery; illustrating the workings of this hidden law.
Of
all women Mrs. Hughes approaches nearest to the theories
of Mr. Keely. Concerning them she writes to a friend
well versed in music, as music is taught: — “From
ignorance of the present Science of Musicians, which
you know so thoroughly, it is far easier for me to grasp
his meaning, than for you. I have lately been proving
by scriptural types how Nature's laws in the lower creation
develop by fifths below and by fourths above the [Page
21] key-note,
the two meeting in one harmony: art mingling both, creating
discords, and undulating them into harmony. Dr. C. Martin
says: — 'Musicians must have discords; the ear
is educated to them: but every one must allow that the
nearer Art follows nature, the more perfect it is'. Mrs.
Hughes adds: “I think Keely must have caught
the centre where both laws unite, or act upon Nature's
law only”.
Of
the law of periodicity, Hartmann writes: “Its actions
have long ago been known to exist in the vibrations producing
light and sound and it has been recognized in chemistry by
experiments tending to prove that all so-called simple elements
are only various states of vibration of one primordial element,
manifesting itself in seven principal modes of action, each
of which may be sub-divided into seven again. The difference
which exists between so-called single substances appears,
therefore, to be no difference of substance or matter, but
only a difference of the function of matter in the ratio
of its atomic vibration”. It is by
changing the vibrations of cosmic ether that Mr. Keely releases
his power, and Dr. Kellner in Austria produces electricity
in the same way; while it is said that a chemist in Prague
produces magnetism; also Dr. Dupuy, of New York, who has
been for years experimenting in this field without meeting
with Keely's progressive successes.
Horace
Wemyss Smith, in commenting upon the fact that, at the
time of Franklin's discovery, men in France, in Belgium,
in Holland, and in Germany were pursuing the same line
of experiment, says that there is something worthy of observation
in the progress of science and human genius, inasmuch as
in countries far distant from each other men have fallen
into the same tracks, and have made similar and corresponding
discoveries, at the same period of time, without the least
communication with each other.
Laurence
Oliphant's recent works give us the clue to an explanation
of this fact; and Lowe, in his “Fragments of Physiology”,
condenses the answer in these words: “Man is not the
governor and commander of the created world; and were it
not for superhuman influence constantly flowing into created
forms, the world would perish in a moment”. It is this
superhuman influence, felt most by those who have educated
the hidden sense (with which all men are born), which inspires
all discovery, all invention, all poetry, all of truth, let
it take whatever form it may. This sixth sense is as much
undeveloped in the mass of mankind as sight would be had
we been born with our eye-lids sealed; able to distinguish
nothing beyond the period of day-light from the reign of
night, and remaining sealed all the years of our life upon
earth. We know that some spiritually minded persons seem
to possess powers unknown to those who are spoken of in Scripture
as “the carnal
minded”;
and it may be that with dim vision they are able to discern “as
in a glass darkly”, without education of this
hidden sense, truths which are hidden from others. Of such [Page
22] are
our men and women of genius. Again, there are others
who possess uncertain, unreliable powers, which often lead
astray those who commit themselves to the direction of
these powers. What does this prove beyond the fact that
a human being is never an infallible medium of superhuman
influence ? “Spiritualism” represents a
great truth, behind the “spiritism” which
stands in the same relation toward it that counterfeit
coin holds to sterling gold. The operations of our sixth
sense are as liable to be deceptive as are the operations
of our other senses; and are limited or governed by law
in the same way. We cannot see in total darkness, and this
hidden power, susceptible of education, can only be brought
into use by an illuminated mind; a mind that has studied
the laws of evolution and involution, the descent of
spirit into matter, and the re-ascension of matter to
spirit — lawsof
the life-impulse beginning in the elemental kingdom and
ending in an evolution of man, far beyond the comprehension
of man of the present day.
“Man and woman as units”, continues
Oliphant, “are
still so ignorant of the great powers which they themselves
inherit that they wholly fail to see them, though they sweep
like mighty seas throughout all human
nature”.
When
mankind has become sufficiently spiritualized by the
process of evolution laid down in the plan of the great
Master, then shall we know ourselves and our powers as
we are known to Him. True Science must first open wider
the path of religion — a religion of progress, a religion
suited to the wants of humanity, as well as a humane religion — the
religion, taught by our “Holy Master”, of love for our fellow-men,
of harmony with all that is good — at war only with
evil; not with those who, warped by transmitted tendencies,
commit the evil. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”,
is the old Jewish law. Christ's law is the law of love, which
is God's law. “Do unto
others as ye would have others do unto you”; and this is
the law which we need to fulfil, in order to purify and regenerate
mankind.
Hitherto
we have been, in one respect, like the labourer in Tolstoi's “Confession”,
doing the work assigned him, in the space assigned, without
understanding where he was, or what the result would be,
and unable to judge whether the arrangements for this work
were reasonably planned by his master or not. The labourer
worked the handle of the pump, he saw the water flow into
numerous channels for irrigation of the soil; little by little,
shrubs grew and blossomed and bore fruit, and the labourer
passed on to more important work, understanding better and
better the arrangement of the establishment, and never doubting
that its Lord had planned all for the best. Our race has
been pumping the water for generations, planting the seed,
watching the growth of the plants, the shrubs, and the trees;
not always satisfied, however, that the Creator of the universe
had planned as well as all might have been planned, or that
there was any plan, or any Creator.[Page
23]
There
are men in various parts of the world, unknown even by
name to each other, who tell us by “the signs of the times” that
the season of harvesting is approaching; the season for
gathering the fruit, which has been deferred, century
after century, because mankind is not yet ready, in the
opinion of many, to share the fruit with one another.
Hyndman
says that capitalism has been as necessary as serfdom in
the progress of the Shuman race; and its stores will continue
to be garnered and used to spread the great net-work of
railways, steam navigation, telegraph and telephones lines,
which have given bread to millions upon millions; encouraging
paid labour and bringing nearer and nearer the age of love
and harmony, which, it has been predicted that the twentieth
century will usher in.
Renan,
the French theologian, writing of the advances to be
made in science by the discovery of nature's secrets,
said that, although he had ceased to look forward to
anything very unexpected, he envied those who should
live to see the wonders of the twentieth century. “For”,
he added “they who live then will see things of which we have
no conception. Already the light of a new dawn is breaking
upon the world of science”. These
foretold advances are heralded by the new modifications of
force, before alluded to. The instrument invented by Dr.
Kellner collects and produces electricity directly from the
ether of the atmosphere without any friction of solid corporeal
substances and without any chemical agency; the invention
of one of the Prague professors, which, it is said, collects
and gives out magnetism, seeming to be derived from changing
the vibrations of cosmic ether, as in Keely's and Kellner's
experiments, and other more recent discoveries.
It
has been said that when Keeley's vibratory force shall
have taken the place of steam-engines, the millions of
working men who gain with difficulty their daily bread
by the work of their hands, will find themselves without
occupation. The same prediction was made in regard to steam,
but instead we find the city of Boston giving work to thirty
thousand men in one manufactory of boots and shoes by steam,
in place of the three thousand shoemakers who were all
that were occupied in this branch of labour in that city
when the work was done by hand.
Dr.
Kellner's colleague, Franz Hartmann, M.D., writing to
me in reference to Keely's discovery, says: “I have taken
great interest in him ever since I first heard of him in
1882. I believe that the world is entering into a new era
of existence, and will become spiritualized from top to bottom.
As gaslight has driven away, in part, the smoky petroleum
lamp, and is about to be displaced by electricity, which
in the course of time may be supplanted by magnetism, and
as the power of steam has caused muscular labour to disappear
to a certain extent, and will itself give way before the
new vibratory force of Keely, likewise the orthodox medical
quackery that now prevails will be dethroned by the employment
of the finer forces of nature such as light, electricity,
magnetism,” etc. [Page 24]
When
the time is ripe, these are of the true scientists who
will come to the front “to lead as progress leads”,
men who know how to wait upon God, viz., to work while waiting;
and to such the end is, sooner or later, victory !
“God never hurries”. He counts the centuries
as we count the seconds, and the nearer we approach to the
least comprehension of His “underlying
purpose” the more we become like Tolstoi's labourer,
who knew that the fruit was ripening for him and his fellow-men,
trusting implicitly in the superior wisdom of his master.
“ Evermore
brave feet, in all the ages,
Climb
the heights that hide the coming day,
Evermore
they cry, these seers and sages,
From
their cloud, “Our doctrines make no way”.
All
too high they stand above the nations,
Shouting
forth their trumpet-calls sublime,
Shouting
downwards their interpretations
Of
the wondrous secrets born of time.”
No
man, whose spiritual eyes have been opened to “discern the
signs of the times”, can doubt that we are on the eve of
revelations which are to usher in the dawn of a brighter
day than our race has yet known.
No
prophecy of this brighter day, foretold by prophets,
apostles and inspired poets, was ever made in truer strains
than in these glorious lines of Elizabeth Barrett Browning: —
“Verily
many thinkers of this age,
Aye,
many Christian teachers, half in heaven,
Are
wrong in just my sense who understood
Our
natural world too insularly, as if
No
spiritual counterpart completed it,
Consummating
its meaning, rounding all
To
justice and perfection, line by line,
Form
by form, nothing single nor alone;
The
Great Below clenched by the Great Above.”
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