Keely and His Discoveries

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Summary: The greatest mystery of the 19th century
Review: Did John Ernst Worrell Keely really discover a secret motive force in nature - or was he the greatest charlatan of the nineteenth century?

In 1874, Keely demonstrated a mysterious "force" to a group of hard-headed businessmen. His demonstration was so compelling that they launched the Keely Motor Company, and within five years it had capital stock of five million dollars.

Keely's experimental apparatus exhibited sensational results, although he failed to produce a marketable engine in more than twenty-five years of research and experimentation.

The inventor also developed a model airship (though never a full-scale prototype) many years before the first successfully powered Zeppelin.

Intellgent scientists who examined Keely's apparatus and experiments during his lifetime were unable to detect any irregularities in his "Compound Disintegrator," "Provisional Engine," "Musical Ball," "Globe Engine," "Vibratory Accumulator," and "Pneumatic Rocket Gun." Learned professors, shrewd businessmen, lawyers, and others watched awestruck as they saw the known laws of physics utterly violated. Keely was endorsed by men like Dr. J. M. Willcox, Professor Joseph Leidy, and Professor D. G. Brinton of the University of Pennsylvania.

Keely also found many supporters among Theosophists, who believed that he had liberated occult forces.

But investors wanted profits. Keely Motor Company shareholders sued. Keely went to jail for contempt of court for refusing to obey a court order to disclose his "secret" to a committee of experts.

At this low point in Keely's fortunes, Mrs. Clara Bloomfield Moore - poet, novelist, philanthropist - entered his life, became his campion, invested money, enlisted the support of reputable scientists, and wrote Keely and His Discoveries.

As a result of Mrs. Moore's efforts, Major Ricarde-Seaver, a Fellow of the Royal Society in Britain, went to Philadelphia to investigate Keely's work, and returned saying that Keely was working with and had apparent command over mysterious forces which were aboslutely unknown to him or to modern science.

Clara Bloomfield Moore's book, first published in 1893, is the only complete account of Keely's work and theories, and it includes his description of his discoveries and the hypotheses involved.