I would like to think that J
acques Bergier - always on the cutting edge of experimental science and though - would find some humor in seeing himself referenced as a "guest blogger" on a minor weblog. Some of INEXPLICATA's younger readers may not remember Bergier, or have read
Le Matin des Magiciens, the cornerstone of the paranormal revolution of the 1960s. Bergier's thought process influenced millions, serving perhaps as sort of mental lubricant that allowed the hinges of the mind to open to new and outrageous possibilities - scientific, social, mystical and magical.
In 1992, the late
Ron Bonds of Illuminet Press considered publishing my translation of Bergier's
La Guerre Secréte de L'Occulte (The Secret War of the Occult), but desisted from the project. We offer our readers a chapter of the translation (no copyright violation intented - this is purely for purposes of study and admiration) that reappeared decades later on a diskette. Enjoy thewisdom of Jacques Bergier!
A Mental Wasteland or a Psi Paradise?By Jacques BergierIn the spring of 1978, as this book is written, ten years after "Prague Spring", it is natural to state in Paris that Czechoslovakia is hell, "a mental Biafra". This may seem a bit extreme, since no one is being executed there and no concentration camps have been set up. The greater part of the regime's critics do not speak a word of Czech and are unable to read what is published there. For example, they are unaware of the book Hledame Kosnicke Civilizace by Karel Tacner (Prague: Kotva). This work, whose title translates as "A Study of Cosmic Civilizations", is the best in the world on this subject both in text and illustrations. I could quote a dozen books of similar importance published in 1978 alone.
But what interests me foremost is that in the area of the occult, Czechoslovakia has had a great number of experimental discoveries. Toward 1973, the first congress of what the Czechs call "Psychotronics" was held in Prague. Furthermore, investigation into this field is authorized; researchers can be easily questioned and photographed, as is the case with Karel Drbal, Robert Pavlita, Jana Pavlitova-Zapadlova and Zdenek Rejdak. The patents of their inventions can be consulted without any problem. If their hypotheses are confirmed and if their applications become numerous, the Socialist bloc then has a significant advantage over the capitalist bloc, given its tight-fisted control over Czechoslovakia, to the extent that it has been in Prague that Brezhnev has chosen to give his most important speeches.
What discoveries are these? We shall begin with those by Pavlita, which are analogous to those by Volta in the late 18th century, and which still remain unexplained. Just as Volta demonstrated that two threads of different metals produced, when joined, an energy capable of making dead frogs move, and more so, the effects of static electricity, Pavlita has discovered that metallic objects produce energy under certain conditions, such as the metals being well-defined and the generator having a given shape.
To begin with, Pavlita is a textile engineer. He has been awarded several patents and has demonstrated close to 70 generators that can attract and reject matter or make it spin. One of them can make an aluminum wheel spin within a copper ring--in other words, all that is needed is to hook the wheel to a dynamo to produce free, non-polluting electricity. But where does this energy come from? According to Pavlita and his aides, among them his own daughter, the great principle of energy conversion, the most fundamental of thermodynamic laws, has not been violated. They do not claim to have achieved perpetual motion, which has always been considered impossible.
So then, does the energy come from matter, from the cosmos, or from the experimenter's own nervous system? The question still remains unanswered. In any case, it is a task rich with potential: one of Pavlita's assistants has stated that he could get extra mileage after having exposed his car's gasoline to a generator. I myself obtained an identical response when I introduced lithium hydride into fuel in 1938, an experiment that regrettably had to be interrupted.
Three explanations are possible. There is always a fourth--fraud, which has been excluded by all those who have known Pavlita, among them American researchers Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder. We would be dealing with the disintegration of matter, a hypothesis which is difficult to prove experimentally: if a generator weighing many kilograms lost a milligram a year, it would be enough to supply energy to the phenomena observed, and it is hardly measurable. Said lose of weight could be a factor of rust or surface reduction. But if some kilos of steel, copper or aluminum, arranged in a particular way, provided an indefinite supply of energy to move an electric car, light or heat a home, it would cause an unprecedented technical revolution and our entire civilization would be transformed.
The second possible explanation is that neutralization, interrupted by cosmic energies, would tend toward equilibrium by nature. Such a theory appears to confirm in various experiments carried out in the past by the German scientist Oscar Korschelt and by the American, Cameron, in which, by using metallic bobbins and coils, it would be possible to produce energy without any external force. This research has been properly verified, and Korschelt himself has been granted German patent #69340 in the post-war numeration. Experiments of the sort conducted in France have shown in the same manner that without an external energy source the bobbins can produce an energy field, creating radiation. I am not certain about this. Mathematician Jaroslav Mrkvicka is currently developing a theory about Pavlita generators.
The last possible explanation would state that the experimenter himself produces the effects of the Pavlita generator. Czech and Soviet researchers have created the term "bioplasma" to this effect, in order to designate a very unusual gas, consisting of polarized particles, surrounding every living being. The existence of "bioplasma" has never been proven in the laboratory. This third explanation, while not containing quite as many practical applications, would revolutionize parapsychology, since a Pavlita generator could instantly measure the psychokinetic potential of an individual.
After the experiments of Galvani and the implementation of the Volta battery, Benjamin Franklin supposed that the energy released was similar to that of lightning, and Cavendish went even further. Ultimately, the electromagnetic theory and the electron would take care of satisfactorily explaining the phenomenon, but technological creations such as electric lighting and the electric motor do not hold to such explanations. Will this be the case with the Pavlita generator? As far as he is concerned, Pavlita believes that setting these devices in motion requires a catalyst provided by the inventor's will, and he believes in starting them up by touching them or just looking at them. The weakness of all inventors is to believe that their presence is indispensable to insure the proper operation of their device. The history of technology is filled with similar anecdotes. Everything will be clarified when large-scale generators are built after the findings have been published.
Going back to Galvani and Volta, it is well known that metals contain a gas--electron gas--whose density varies according to the metal, and that a bit of electricity can be produced by joining a copper thread with an iron one. The results are better if a bit of acid is used to oxidize the metal, and that is the source of the different chemical batteries that we use for our flashlights. Meanwhile, the easiest way to produce electricity, suggested by Ampere and suggested by Gramme, consists in making a metal wheel spin inside a magnetic field. This is the method we still use to get the electricity that gives us light, only that sometimes the wheel is powered by a steam turbine, heated by atomic energy. It is possible that Pavlita will manage to produce an equally simple source of energy. One hundred and fifty years have been necessary to develop the electric industry, the electrochemical industry and the electronic and nuclear industries, starting from the superimposed metals of Volta and Galvani. Our means of investigation are faster today, and it would be possible to create a Pavlita industry in fifteen years or so. The energy crisis would then not just become a bad memory--we would see electric vehicles on the streets, and all methods of travel, including space, would undergo a vast transformation.
Another case that merits our attention is that of Karel Drbal. He plainly justifies, in my opinion, Chesterton's immortal phrase: "Life's most sublime lesson is that fools are often right". This learned engineer has paused to study what many have taken to be a typical example of foolishness: pyramid power. After many centuries, there are still some nuts preaching about the magical virtues of the Egyptian pyramids, believing that by placing any object within a pyramidal structure it becomes possible to interrupt the rotting process of organic matter, make oxidation disappear from metal surfaces and transform chemical substances. Foremost among these researchers was Antoine Bovis, who placed a dead cat within a scaled down pyramid and managed to mummify it. Before his death, Bovis wrote a book published in 1913, which attracted Drbal's attention.
Drbal verified all of Bovis' discoveries and was able to see for himself, as he said, how rust faded from spent razor blades. In 1959, he obtained Czech patent # 91304, and Drbal's pyramids began to sell in Czechoslovakia, the United States, and all over the world. They were made of either cardboard or plastic. Many took an interest in them, even Marshall McLuhan's son, Eric. Other researchers have managed to obtain similar results as far as the dehydration of substances and the growth of semiconductor crystals, but the vast majority obtained nothing at all.
Later on, Drbal replaced his pyramids for a beam of green light emanating from a laser. According to his claims, identical results were obtained: interruption of fermentation and the stabilization of certain chemical reactions. Some of his conclusions have been gainsaid by others, which means nothing, since all major scientific, physical, chemical and biological experiments have been replicated by researchers who found nothing at all, as was the case with Michelson and Morley, which was the springboard for Einstein's theory, whose research was declared null and void by hundreds of publications. (No discussion of the pyramids, incidentally, would be complete without mentioning my friend François le Lionnais' statement, which is the most beautiful revelation of the secret of the pyramids: "The pyramid's very shape tells us that, in Ancient Egypt as well as today, builders worked less every time").
The concept that the shape of a structure can produce effects akin to energy, regardless of the material it's made of, comes straight from occultism without a doubt. This idea is not entirely absurd. It is enough to see that shape does play a role in clearly scientific structures, such as that of radio telescope, for instance. Other shapes can apparently modify or suppress the reception of microwaves, so its effects could have military value. German scientist Ottmar Stehle, with NASA, devotes himself to the study of pyramids on the generation and interruption of radio waves. In Czechoslovakia, there exists the study of natural structures where radio waves cannot be broadcast, such as the Arabian deserts and Brazil. All of the Czech researchers agree that the material substance is not important, and they delve into all kinds of forces produced by different shapes: cones, pyramids...
Other Czech researchers have taken an interest in obtaining antigravity through the use of a particular shape. Pavlita has already demonstrated the effects of attraction and repulsion between metal objects submerged in water. One such application is that the force field produced is converted into ultrasounds that move the metallic object. For this very reason, it becomes necessary to build an entire net of detectors for the radiations known to science and for others that remain hitherto undiscovered. This is how, in 1970, another Czech émigré in the U.S., Jan Merta, created a detector that can pick up the energy emitted by a subject producing a psi effect. The UNESCO magazine Impact provides copious details on this, in an issue devoted to paranormal phenomena, as well as in the important Handbook of Psychic Discoveries, by Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder, published by Berkeley Medallion, U.S.A. The totality of Czech research goes toward the detection and eventual utilization of non-electrical, chemical or nuclear energies that exist around us. In my opinion, I believe that theoretically, what we have come to know as electricity, electromagnetism and nuclear energy can also manifest themselves under guises that remain unknown to us.
A Czech scientist wrote me to say that he had obtained results worthy of an alchemist's interest: if the large-scale transmutation of elements by simple procedures became a reality, this would allow the industrial transmutation of radioactive wastes into non-radioactive substances, making the development of nuclear energy a lot easier and compensating for the horrors of a nuclear accident. Even the effects of a neutron bomb bombardment could conceivably be neutralized. And, without a doubt, we would see the inception of nuclear powered cars. I will pause here to make a few technological explanations: atoms, like electrons, possess wave properties. This great idea by Louis du Broglie allowed my cousin George Gamov and Professor Edward U. Condon, who later attempted to demonstrate the non-existence of UFOs and explain natural radiation to me. This is the same wave effect that causes the electron cloud surrounding the atomic nucleus to penetrate it in a certain way. This permits nuclear reactors to be influenced by chemical means, a fact that has been confirmed in recent years. Centuries ago, the alchemists maintained, contrary to official science, that it was possible to transmute elements based on chemical reactions. Recently, Dr. Novak has discovered a catalyst in this type of phenomena, possibly what alchemists referred to as the "Philosophers' Stone". Bear in mind that a catalyst is a substance that brings about a reaction and remains intact after the reaction has taken place. It exists in nuclear chemistry, such as the carbon that permits the Sun to function and the mobile mesotron that facilitates the transmutation of hydrogen. Dr. Novak has also managed the transmutation of sodium into beryllium, the basic compound of emeralds. This transmutation is a true achievement of alchemy, more so than changing lead into gold.
The alchemical method of transmutation in principle allows the experimenter to work with large quantities of matter. Atomic waste, on the other hand, consists of low-energy radioactive byproducts, but even so, their half-life is longer and they are dangerous is brought into contact with the human body.
If a catalyst similar to Dr. Novak's were discovered in liquid form, it could transform the radioactive product into a stable isotope, totally harmless, and the release of energy would then be very weak--a fraction of its power. Military applications are clearly evident, but the civilian ones aren't quite so obvious: it is possible to set a car in motion with atomic waste originating from a power plant. It would suffice to vent the radiation of these wastes into the air, which would produce hydrazine upon contact with atmospheric nitrogen and air humidity. Hydrazine can be burned in an internal combustion engine and power a car much like gasoline: as it burns, it would produce air and water vapor. The nuclear industry would be overjoyed to be thus relieved of its wastes.
The hitch is that those wastes are radioactive. In the event of a head-on car crash in Place de la Concorde, it would become necessary to evacuate all of Paris, or to find a means of neutralizing the radiation immediately. This is where alchemy steps in.
I remember that Louis Pawels and I obtained a prize in 1975 for the best European TV drama, entitled Le Président Faust, in which the consequences of a similar discovery were described: Faust had reached the presidency of a multinational conglomerate in our times, and his counselor, Mephisto, suppressed the application of the alchemical product that the conglomerate was about to acquire in order to keep mankind suffering from energy crises and oil wars.
I shall not discuss here other applications of the occult that have been formulated in Czechoslovakia, such as a means for birth control that requires no pills or devices. It simply uses the natural rhythms of astrobiology, with statistically significant results.
The chapter closes on a question: why this concentration of amazing discoveries in Czechoslovakia only? The regime's adversaries will say that the wretched inhabitants of that country study the occult in order to escape the persecution that they are subjected to. This reasoning is obviously ridiculous--if it were true, we would be witnessing a prodigious display of scientific and technical developments in the land of Idi Amin Dada. I am aware that my explanation will disturb the most obtuse rationalists, those of the rationalist "union", for if we were discussing genuine rationalism, I would promptly enlist in their ranks. I believe that we are dealing with a
genius locii, as the streets of Prague still contain the magic and alchemy practiced in that land for centuries.
