Theos-Talk Archives (February 2002 Message tt00796)

John Murray Spear (1804-1887), the American spiritualist In 1854 the 
American spiritualist John Murray Spear (1804-1887), constructed a 
motor at High Rock in Lynn in Massachusetts, intended to be self-
generative.


Spear, claimed that he did so at the instigation of one of the groups 
of spirits by whom he was controlled. He had been active in the 
antislavery, peace and temperance movements, and became a medium in 
March, 1852. He claimed that his book Messagesftom the Superior State 
was dictated by the spirit of John Murray, the founder of the sect of 
Universalism. Whatever its causes or literary origins, it heralded 
his first public appearance as a medium. Spear was also in the habit 
of journeying all over the country as the spirit moved him, "at the 
command or direction of spirits to whom he professed himself willing 
a childlike and unquestioning obedience. " 

A year later, Spear confided to a Boston newspaper that his spirits 
made -vWrtant declarations" to him as he visited Niagara Falls. Forty 
years later, dm place would see a very different kind of magic, but 
this time in the form of we of Tesla's visionary ideas. Spear's 
spirits declared that they had formed various associations. One of 
these was the "Association of Electricizers." (Emma Hardings, "Modern 
Spiritualism" 4e Ed. 1870 )


Before the construction of his New Motor that led to a whole 
movement, the new motive power movement, " Spear experimented with 
mineral and vital ciectricity as a means of developing the latent 
powers of mediumship. He also souglit to promote the influence and 
control of spirits through the aid of copper and zinc batteries, "so 
arranged about the person as to form an armor, from which he expected 
the most phenomenal results." However, an experiment tried in St. 
Louis "proved, so far as external effects were concerned, a complete 
failure. 

In the fashion of Levi's symbolical explanations and of Albertus 
Magnus' construction of an android, Spear too had other things on his 
mind; he "had long indulged the idea of embodying in some tangible 
form the crude conceptions of certain minds (not limited to the earth 
spheres alone), who have labored to discover and scientifically 
control the mystery of the life principle." Eventually Spear and his 
array of invisible spirit counselors thought that they had made this 
discovery, and a Boston spiritual periodical, the New Era, declared 
that "the association of Electricizers in the spheres were preparing 
to reveal to mankind a ,new motive power,' God's last, best gift to 
man," a work that was "destined to revolutionize the whole world" 
and "infuse new life and vitality into all things, animate and 
inanimate. " From time to time, the Boston periodical would drop 
mysterious hints concerning Spear's discovery, which was "to awaken 
the world to wonder, " but finally it announced in its pages 
that "high spiritual intelligences, through the organism of Mr. John 
M. Spear, had given directions for the construction of a living 
machine," termed "a new motor."

Consequently, strange reports began to circulate in spiritualist 
circles. In one of these, a Boston woman, also a spiritualist, was 
named as "the mother of the new motor," and "absurd and impossible 
stories were bruited about concerning the practices by which 'the 
life principle' had been infused into its organism."

Nevertheless, the New Era soon printed an article headlined, "The New 
Motive Power, or Electrical Motor, otherwise called 'Perpetual 
Motion'-The Great Spiritual Revelation of the Age." In it, its editor 
who was Spear's friend but not a spiritualist himself, proudly 
announced that "after about nine months of almost incessant labor, 
oftentimes under the greatest difficulties, we are prepared to 
announce to the world, first that spirits have revealed a wholly new 
motive power to take the place of all other motive powers. And 
second, that this revelation has been embodied in a model machine by 
human cooperation with the powers above. " The last statement was the 
vague utterance that the results thus far obtained,were "satisfactory 
to its warmest friends. "

Spear's "electric motor" or "The New Motor" was designed 
to "correspond to the human organism, " it had "a brain, heart, lungs 
etc., " and it should" perform the functions of a living being, " 
The queer device also had "some little balls, connected with the 
machine, " which "for some months have given evidence of motion." The 
device also was equipped with a large wheel, the "grand revolver," 
upon which "all the executive power is made dependent." Wiring of 
some sort covered the apparatus, "Each wire is precious, sacred, as a 
spiritual verse. Each plate of zinc and copper is clothed with 
symbolized meanings, corresponding throughout with the principles and 
parts involved in the livig human organism. ...The various parts of 
this mechanism, both the wood work and the metallic, are extremely 
accurate, and so mathematically arranged with reference to some 
ulterior result or effect. " Poles and magnets were also arranged in 
a specific way in the device.

The statements of the famous spiritualist Andrew Jackson Davis - who 
went to investigate Spear's remarkable machine, which he described as 
a "peculiar construction" - give some insight in the proposed working 
of Spear's New Motor: "The philosophy given through Mr. Spear, upon 
which the mechanism is predicated, is this: First, that there is a 
universal electricity. Second, that this electricity has never been 
naturally incorporated with mineral and other forms of matter. Third, 
that the human organism is the most superior, natural, efficient type 
of mechanism known on the earth. Fourth, that all merely scientific 
developments of electricity as a motive power are superficial, and 
therefore useless or impracticable. Fifth, that the construction of a 
mechanism on the laws of man's material physiology, and fed by 
atmospheric electricity obtained by absorption and condensation, and 
not by friction or galvanic action, will constitute a new revelation 
of scientific and spiritual truths, because the plan is wholly 
dissimilar to every human use of electricity. 

The New Machine was to derive its motive power from the magnetic 
store of nature, of creation itself. Since Spear's New Motor derived 
its power in such a way, it was to be as independent of artificial 
sources of energy as was the human body.

When a woman, obeying a vision that she had, went to the High Rock at 
Lynn where the New Motor was displayed, she suffered "birth-pangs" 
for two hours. From this possibly epileptic seizure, she judged that 
the essence of her spiritual being was imparted to the machine. At 
the end of that time, it was averred that "pulsations" were apparent 
in the motor.

The New Machine failed to work, or at least its actions remained 
inconclusive and unsatisfactory, and even his fellow spiritualists 
didn't think much of the device. Eventually the machine was brought 
to the village of P.B.Randolph in Massachusetts and housed in 
a "temporary building. " 
Bri.