The constant indication of the number 55, eventually pointed me to the final chapter in the first part of the Apologia Poetica, chapter 55. When he first began to write the book, Bessler had no intention, in my opinion, of writing it in two parts. So he intended all necessary clues would be built into part one, however as he says himself, he had to react to attempts by Gartner, Wagner and Borlach to blacken his reputation and chose to use part two of Apologia to refute the accusations made against him. So chapter 55 would have been the last chapter in the book, and for this reason it is important; for a start it is numbered 55, which we now know, has some important significance. 

The rhyming is, throughout the book, written according to the AABB scheme, or in other words, the first line rhymes with the second line and is a two line-rhyming scheme - rhyming couplets. However part of the way into chapter 55 the rhyming changes to ABAB, or to put it another way, the first and third lines rhyme, and the second and fourth, and this produces a four line stanza. The lines revert to rhyming couplets after chapter 55, so this implies that the text within the four-line stanzas section is of significance.
 

As if the insistence on recognising the number 55 had not been made sufficiently clear, Bessler has another device to persuade us of its importance. There are, in total, 54, yes 54, stanzas in chapter 55; and on the first page of the Declaration of Orffyreus, which appears on the second page of chapter 55, commencing with the four-line stanzas, there are just 5 stanzas (5 again!). On the five following pages (yes, its that number 5 again!) there are 8 stanzas per page. So far then, there are 45 stanzas. Now on the penultimate page of chapter 55 there are only seven and a half stanzas, or 30 lines – the total is now 52 and a half! Nearly every page in Apologia has 32 lines, allowing 8 stanzas, but on the penultimate page of chapter 55, there is quite clearly a gap where the last two lines should be. The last two lines of the last four-line stanza on that page have been left blank. But turn over to the last page and there they are! This produces a six line stanza on the last page, instead of a four line one. Looking at the total of stanzas again we find 5 + 8 + 8 + 8 + 8 +8 + 7½ + 1½ = 54. 

The bottom of pages 126 & 127. Notice two rows on the right are missing

Knowing of Bessler’s obsession with the number 55, I wondered, was this a hint that a stanza is missing - or, more likely, hidden? Perhaps two lines should have been added to the bottom of the penultimate page and two more at the top of the final page, making 55 in all?

There is, in this chapter, the not insignificant addition of no less than 141 Bible references, some of which do not connect with any actual verse in any known Bible - curious!

The truth was not that difficult to discover. On the first page of Chapter 55, was what I took to be a paragraph break, but upon consideration I realized it was another blank line. Further searches revealed one more blank line. 

So now I had the missing lines and to cut things short, I realized we were meant to count all the lines in Chapter 55 and number them, including the blank ones. Then it was a simple matter of using the 141 Bible references to determine which line was indicated and read the hidden text. That is what is required and I continue to try to decipher this but so far with no success. It is my opinion that Chapter 55 holds the complete instructions for buiklding Bessler’s wheel and it will be done if not by me then by another.

For more detail on my finding relating to Chaper 55, visit my web site at www.orffyreus.net/

For more information about Johann Bessler and to obtain copies of his books with English translations go to www.free-energy.co.uk

Copyright © 2009 John Collins.