Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 18:11:40 -0700 (PDT) From: William Beaty To: freenrg-l@eskimo.com Subject: Prometheus game (fwd) On Tue, 27 Aug 1996, Zack Widup wrote: > "Entering research to tap the zero-point energy is playing > what I call the Prometheus game. In mythology, Prometheus gave > fire to man, and for this the Gods punished him for eternity. An > inventor who believes he alone is giving 'free energy' to mankind > is a pawn in this game. If his invention is successful, he will > find himself under attack and ridicule. How can one safely play > and win the game?" > > "The answer lies within your higher self. Ask yourself > the following question: If you were an angel who had the knowledge > to seed the discovery of free energy on planet earth, would you love > this planet and its beings enough to share your gift without any > reward or recognition? If you can answer yes, then you are a master > of the Prometheus game and you will find, as I have, that wonderful, > synchronistic events and experiences accrue that yield inspiration > and guidance. For in actuality you ARE that angel." ... [Moray B. King, in TAPPING THE ZERO-POINT ENERGY, ISBN 0-9623356-0-6 Paraclete Publishing 1989] Excellent quote! The "free energy" arena is like no other. The forces arrayed against its development create a set of rules which is very different than those of a mature field where new discoveries are logical extentions of earlier ones. "Free energy" work is more akin to the discovery of powered flight than to the creation of useful products. If we look at the details of the history of the Wrights, we find that their discovery was ALMOST suppressed. Numerous other inventors were building devices, but they were based on some faulty wing research and none of them worked well. At the same time, mainstream science was sneering at all these obviously ignorant flying machine inventors. Claims of success were met with accusations of hoax and refusal to inspect evidence. The Wrights spent more than a year testing their device in an open field near highways and rail lines, yet the local papers published nothing, refused to send reporters to check the story, and treated the many questioning letters from the public as a nusiance. The Scientific American and NY Herald rejected the Wrights' claims as hoaxes, saying that, if their claims were real, it would already be in all the papers(!) Scientists turned away, referring to Newcomb's science paper which proved that flight was impossible using known power supplies. What broke the barriers? Breaking of secrecy, for one. The Wrights published their early glider designs in a flying-machine inventor's magazine. Numerous hobbyists, mostly in France, started building boxkite-winged machines based on the articles and on their early glider patent, and making straight line flights of many hundreds of feet. The presence of this crude, simple competition forced the Wrights to finally take their plane before the public in France, which caused a worldwide uproar and opened the floodgates. They became famous beyond their wildest dreams, but financially they only did well, and did not attain fabulous riches. I'm fairly convinced that, had the Wrights stayed secretive, pursued riches, and never published, they probably would have taken their secrets to the grave. The barriers against new discoveries are that strong. Many modern inventors would say that the Wrights made a mistake, they should have kept their secret, and that screwed-up mankind didn't deserve to attain flight if inventors are not paid fairly for their work. But this just plays into the hands of the closeminded forces and destroys the dream. The way I see it, there are several options for a free energy inventor: 1. Demand payment before releasing secrets. Attract ridicule and derision. Finally die, safe with the knowledge that no one stole your hard-won discoveries. 2. Demand payment before releasing secrets. Sell your secrets to those who want to prevent their release, or to those whose greed makes them incompetent at developing the ideas. You've got your money, and the world will never benefit from your discovery. 3. Fight for inventor's rights. But this is a losing proposition in regards to your invention, since winning this battle takes more than one lifetime. If you have an amazing discovery yourself, your energies are split, and the conflict of interest may lose you both the fight for rights and the fight to sell your works. Better to go into patent politics fulltime. 4. Release detailed instructions for reproducing your discoveries. But people will mostly ignore you: witness all the patents which now gather dust in the archives. The few who attempt to duplicate your device will most likely make a mistake, fail, and assume that the invention was bogus to begin with. More is needed. 5. Release detailed instructions, then spend all your time developing simple kits which can be built by anyone, which always work, and which demonstrate obvious phenomena which cannot be explained away by skeptics. Then SELL the kits. Write construction articles and get them published in hobbyist magazines. Spread your articles and instructions all over internet. Give personal help to any who try building your devices. Tunnel under the walls of skepticism and collapse them, rather than attacking them at their strongest points as is done in 1, 2, and 3. Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are that good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats. - Howard Aiken DON'T see your discovery as the source of fantastic riches. DON'T quit your day job, stay a hobbyist always. DON'T patent your unusual technology, that's the kiss of death. DON'T treat it as the most important discovery ever made, treat it as merely something useful. If it's really important, its up to others to say so. It's not up to you. DON'T sell your idea to outsiders for big bucks. Your idea will die. DON'T hide it away as a precious secret, instead cast it to the four winds. DON'T refuse all aid to the competition, give detailed help to any fellow hobbyists who want to copy your discovery. But think of the fame this throws away! Think of the wealth! Yeah. Right. Now think the opposite.