Theos-Talk Archives (February 2002 Message tt00821)

In 1850, young farmer Jonathan Koons, who lived on an isolated farm
in Milfield Township in Athens County, Otlio, had his encounter with
spirits. 
His neighbor, John Tippie, also lived on a farm some two or three
miles away. On the farms of each they erected a log cabin, consisting of 
a single room about 15 by 12 feet. The buildings were built b~
Koons and Tippie under the direction of "what claimed to be the spirits 
of human beings," as "circle rooms, and fitted up with instruments,
etc., from written plans and diagrams drawn out by the spirits with their
own hands."

In each room was a "spirit machine, " and although there is no
definitive time period in which young Koons and Tippie were engaged in 
their construction, they were probably built around the time that Spear 
was busily assembling his New Motor. The spirit machines consisted 
of "a somewhat complex arrangement of zinc and copper," with "two 
drums ... fastened with copper wires upon wooden supporters" at the 
top of a table. The table was intersected with copper wires wrapped 
with zinc. "On the upper cross wire hang some copper plates, cut in
the form of doves, to which are suspended a number of bells, which the 
spirits sometimes ring." The spirits alleged that the spirit machines 
served the purpose of collecting and focalizing the magnetic aura
used in the manifestations, also described as the "collecting and
retaining the electricity of the circle and it is charged before giving any 
demonstrations, at every sitting. " The charging of the singular
devices was accompanied by a "startling noise. " The devices, also 
described as "novel batteries" were placed upon a long wooden table, 
by the side of which lay several music instruments, provided "according 
to direction."

Visitors witnessed strange doings; "spirits" would play the musical 
instruments, loud knockings were heard and sometimes the log cabins 
shaked on their foundations. These spirits identified themselves as
"of the most ancient and primal order of man." They spoke of the 
biblical Adam as of a "comparatively modem date, " and indicated that 
they were "by no means the first of earth's inhabitants,
though antedating the biblical Adam by "thousands of years. "40
In the year that Spear had his revelation at Niagara Falls that would
lead to the construction of his New Motor, Koons entrusted to paper a 
religious philosophy given to him by his visiting spirits. He wrote
that the spirits declared that, "the electric element forms the various 
paths in which planets and all other known bodies in space travel and 
move in their respective orbits, but that nothing...can penetrate the 
realms of the 'subtler fluid,' yet it divides and permeates all space, and
seems to hold in control the infinite realms of the electric 
element. ...There is a grand central territory in the universe. ...It 
embraces illimitable though unknown realms; yet its position as a vast 
central point is defined, from the fact that from thence, and to thence, 
seem to tend all the illimitable lines of attraction, gravitation and force, 
which connect terrestrial bodies, and link together firmaments teeming 
with lives and systems."

Koons' spirits even imparted to him a philosophy regarding the
working of their spirit machines. From it, we learn that one of its 
purposes was to overcome gravity. This detail alone may very well class 
Koons' and Tippie's spirit machines as two of the very first recorded 
instances of antigravity devices that were actually built with that purpose 
in mind.

"It is said that spirits, in their communion with earth, manifest
through two primitive elements; first, an electro magnetic element of 
which the spiritual body is composed; next, a physical aura, which 
emanates from the medium, or can be collected from material 
substances, analogous,it is supposed, to the element of ,vitality.' ...From 
the combinations of these two, namely the emanations of the spirit and 
the medium, a third or composite is formed, which is affected by the 
atmosphere and human emanations. From the preponderance of the 
electro magnetic or spiritual element, the laws of cohesion and 
gravitation can beovercome, and through this spirits are enabled to 
dissolve and recompose substances with great rapidity, heave up and 
carry material bodies through the air, and causing them to float or sink 
in proportion to the strength of the battery formed. "

Thus, visitors of those strange log cabins would witness the musical 
instruments floating in the air, suspended from gravity while a horn,
"a tin trumpet of two feet long, " would produce "speaking, whistling, 
singing and addresses. " Each time it would rise into the air,
produce the sounds after which it would "fall to the table. " The 
phenomena seemed to begin each time with "tremendous blows on the 
table, ceiling and walls."

In 1854, Koons' and Tippie's log cabins were still shaking "like a
tree in a gale of wind," the spirits exhibiting "extraordinary pyrotechnics, 
seemingly to consist of luminous bodies flying about with the
swiftness of insects." Koons would pick up a violin and drew a bow 
across it; "immediately" another violin was sounded. Tippie's cabin also 
exhibited the same phenomena; although persons there "neither saw 
writing nor a spirit hand. " The music in Tippie's cabin, however, 
was "all produced by spirits," and was "more varied and interesting
than Koon's. 

Numerous people visited the strange cabins where gravity seemed to 
exist no more. Affidavits were signed. The cabins were searched, but 
nothing of a fraudulant nature was found. Not all was well though; 
Koons' and Tippie's houses were attacked by mobs, their barns and 
crops destroyed by fire, "their children set upon and ill treated." The 
phenomena seemed to have waned in later years and would ultimately 
come to a complete standstill; it was suggested that the reason for
this was that Koons and Tippie lost their mediumistic gifts: "it must be 
remembered that ... the presence of a large family of highly
mediumistic children and the electrical nature of the locality where the 
circleswere held must be taken into account. "'I Koons and Tippie split 
up, and the ultimate fates of those wonderful spirit machines which 
according to witnesses were able to suspend gravity, is unknown.
I am indebted for the previous passages about Spear, Koons and
Tippie to Emma Hardinge, in her time a well known medium and one of 
the founding members of the Theosophical Society (See my part I of 
Origins) 

Bri.