Keely and His Discoveries: Aerial Navigation

by Mrs. Bloomfield H. Moore

“But why does not Keely share his knowledge with others?” “Why does he not proclaim his secret to the world?” are questions that are often asked. Keely has no secret to proclaim to the world. Not until the aerial ship is in operation will the world be able to comprehend the nature of Keely’s discoveries. When the distinguished physicist, Professor Dewar, of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, goes to America this summer, he will be instructed by Mr. Keely in his dissociation processes. Every man who has passed the mere threshold of science ought to be aware that it is quite possible to be in possession of a series of facts long before he is capable of giving a rational and satisfactory explanation of them—in short, before he is enabled to discover their causes even. This “dead-work” has occupied many years of Keely’s life; and only within the last five years has he reached that degree of perfection which warranted the erection of a scaffolding for the construction of the true edifice of philosophy.

We have only to recall the wonderful discoveries which have been made in modern times, relative to the properties of heat, of electricity, of galvanism, etc., in order to acknowledge that had any man ventured to anticipate the powers and uses of the steam-engine, the voltaic pile, the electrical battery, or of any other of those mighty instruments by means of which the mind of man has acquired so vast a dominion over the world of matter, he would probably have been considered a visionary; and had he been able to exhibit the effects of any of these instruments, before the principles which regulate their action had become generally known to philosophers, they would in all likelihood have been attributed to fraud or to juggling. Herein lies the secret of Keely’s delay. His work is not yet completed to that point where he can cease experimenting and publish the results of his “dead-work” to the world.

“When will he be ready?” is a question often asked; but it is one that God only can answer, as to the year and day. It now seems as if the time were near at hand,—within this very year; but not even Keely himself can fix the date, until he has finished his present course of experiments, his “graduation” of his twenty-seventh and last group of depolar disks, for effecting change and interchange with polar force.

“But what are his hypotheses? And what the tenets of his new philosophy?” His hypotheses are as antithetic to existing hypotheses in chemistry as the Newtonian system, at its first publication, was antithetic to the vortices of Descartes. The philosophy is not of his creation; nor is it a new philosophy. It is as old as the universe. Its tenets are unpopular, heterodox tenets, but their grandeur, when compared with prevailing theories, will cause the latter to appear like the soap-bubbles that Sir William Drummond said the grown-up children of science amuse themselves with; whilst the honest vulgar stand gazing in stupid admiration, dignifying these learned vagaries with the name of science. It is the sole edifice of true philosophy, the corner-stone of which was laid at Creation, when God said, “Let there be light; and there was light.” The scaffolding which our modern Prometheus has built is not the airy fabric of delusion, nor the baser fabric of a fraud, as has been so often asserted. It has been built plank by plank, upon firm ground, and every plank is of pure gold, as will be seen in due time.

It has been justly said that we have no ground for assuming that we have approached a limit in the field of discovery, or for claiming finality in our interpretations of Nature. We have, as yet, only lifted one corner of the curtain, enabling us to peep at some of the machinery by which her operations are effected, while much more remains concealed; and we know little of the marvels which in course of time may be made clear to us.

Earnest minds in all ages and in all countries have arrived at the same inferences which Keely has reached in his researches,—viz., that the one intelligent force in nature is not a mere mathematical dynamism in space and time, but a true Power existing in its type and fulness,—deity. You may say that such an inference belongs to religion, not to science, but you cannot divorce the two. No systematic distinction between philosophical, religious, and scientific ideas can be maintained. All the three run into one another with the most perfect legitimacy. Their dissociation can be effected only by art, their divorce only by violence. Great as is the revolution in mechanics which is to take place through this discovery, it has an equally important bearing on all questions connected with psychical research. Once demonstrated, we shall hear no more of the brain secreting thought, as the liver secretes bile. The laws of “rhythmical harmony,” of “assimilation,” of “sympathetic association,” will be found governing all things, in the glorious heavens above us, down to the least atom upon our earth. Leibnitz’s assertion, that “perceptivity and its correlative perceptibility are coextensive with the whole sphere of individualized being,” will be accounted for without depriving us of a Creator. “The music of the spheres” will be proved a reality, instead of a figure of speech. St. Paul’s words, “In Him we live, and move, and have our being,” will be better understood. The power of mind over matter will be incontrovertibly demonstrated.

“The requirement of every demonstration is that it shall give sufficient proof of the truth it asserts.” This Keely is prepared to give,—mechanical demonstration; and should he really have discovered the fundamental creative law, which he long since divined must exist, proving that the universal ether which permeates all molecules is the tangible link between God and man, connecting the infinite with the finite,—that it is the true protoplasm, or mother element of everything,—we may look for a philosophy which will explain all unexplained phenomena and reconcile the conflicting opinions of scientists.

The great law of sympathetic association, once understood, will become known as it is,—viz., as the governing medium of the universe. Herein lies the secret, the revelation of which will usher in the spiritual age foretold by the Prophets of the Old Testament and the Apostles of the New Testament. Inspiration is not confined to prophets and apostles and poets: the man of science, the writer, all who reach out after the Infinite, receive their measure of inspiration according to their capacity. We need a new revelation to turn back “the tidal wave of materialism” which has rolled in upon the scientific world, as much as Moses needed one when he sought to penetrate the mysteries of the Creation; and our revelation is near at hand,—a revelation which will change the statical “I am” into the dynamical “I will,”—a revelation which, while teaching us to look from Nature up to Nature’s God, will reveal to us our own powers as “children of God,” as “heirs of immortality.”

“Knowledge,” said Lord Beaconsfield, “is like the mystic ladder in the Patriarch’s dream. Its base rests on the primeval earth—its crest is lost in the shadowy splendour of the empyrean; while the great authors who, for traditionary ages, have held the chain of science and philosophy, of poesy and erudition, are the angels ascending and descending the sacred scale, maintaining, as it were, the communication between man and heaven.”

This beautiful imagery holds within it that seed of truth, which is said to exist in the wildest fable; for, although all great discoveries, pertaining to the material world, have been made gradually, with much starting on the wrong track, much false deduction and much worthless result, spiritual truths can be revealed to man in no other way than by that spiritual influence which maintains communication between the terrestrial and the celestial, or the material and the spiritual. “Truth is attained through immediate intuition,” say the Aryan teachers; but only by those who have educated their sixth sense; as will be seen in Mr. Sinclair’s new work, “Vera Vita; or, the Philosophy of Sympathy.” While the imaginative scientist is puzzling himself about new natural forces and the apparent suspension of old and hitherto invariable laws, Sinclair, in his writings, shows us that it is because we do not recognize the elements of nature that their influences remain mysterious to us.