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Authors: Robert Schneck
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York, in 1853, when Spear’s special mission was revealed. (Rochester is also where the Foxes made their first public appearance in 1849.)
Spear began producing automatic writing, which proclaimed him to be the earthly representative for the “Band of Electricizers.” This was a fraternity of philanthropic spirits directed by Benjamin Franklin and dedicated to elevating the human race through advanced technology. Other groups that made up the “Association of Beneficence” were the “Healthfulizers,” “Educationalizers,” “Agriculturalizers,” “Elementizers,” and “Governmentizers,” each of which would choose their own spokesmen to receive plans for promoting “Man-culture and integral reform with a view to the ultimate establishment of a divine social state on earth.” The Electricizers began speaking through Spear, transmitting “revealments” that ranged from a warning against curling the hair on the back of the head (it’s bad for the memory), to plans for electrical ships, thinking machines, and vast circular cities.(7) These would come later, though.
The first and most important task would be the construction of the New Messiah (“Heaven’s last, best gift to man”), a universal benefit that would infuse “new life and vitality into all things animate and inanimate.” Spear—or the Electricizers—chose High Rock as the place to build it. High Rock is a hill rising 170ft (52m) above Lynn, a town north of Boston. Lynn is now a poor city suffering from high unemployment, but it was once a center for shoe manufacturing and has a Lovecraftean history full of witchcraft, sea serpents, spontaneous human combustion, and rioting Quakers.(8) Spiritualism received an enthusiastic reception in Lynn, and some of its most devoted followers owned a cottage and observation tower on the site Spear needed.
High Rock Cottage belonged to the Hutchinson family, who were both spiritualists and reformers. The cottage was a favorite destination for visitors, especially after 1852, when Andrew Jackson Davis witnessed a meeting of the Spiritual Congress from the tower, and was introduced to the disembodied representatives of 24 nations. Spear had known the Hutchinsons when he was minister in Boston and allowed them to rehearse in his church when they began singing professionally.(9) Spear was given the use of a woodshed and work on the “Physical Saviour” began in October, 1853.
Assisting Spear and the Electricizers was a small group of followers that included Rev. S.C. Hewitt, editor of the Spiritualist newspaper New Era ; Alonzo E. Newton, editor of the New England Spiritualist ; and a woman referred to as “the Mary of the New Dispensation.” The identity of this “New Mary” has never been clear.(10)
Bringing the Messiah to life was a four-step process that began with Brother Spear entering a “superior state” and transmitting plans from the Electricizers. Building the machine required nine months for construction (gestation), and in that time he received 200 “revealments” providing detailed instructions on the materials to be used, and how the different parts should be shaped and attached. The group was not given an overall plan, but built it bit by bit, adding new parts “to the invention, in much the same way ... that one decorates a Christmas tree.”(11)
Spear’s total lack of scientific and technical knowledge was considered an advantage, as he would be less inclined to alter the Electricizers’ blueprints with personal interpretations or logic (what remote viewers today might call “analytical overlay”). The parts were carefully machined from copper and zinc with the total cost reaching $2,000 at a time when a prosperous minister earned around $60 a week.(12)
No images of the New Motive Power exist, but a description does appear in Slater Brown’s The Heyday of Spiritualism , and it must have looked impressive sitting there on a big dining room table. “From the center of the
Spear began producing automatic writing, which proclaimed him to be the earthly representative for the “Band of Electricizers.” This was a fraternity of philanthropic spirits directed by Benjamin Franklin and dedicated to elevating the human race through advanced technology. Other groups that made up the “Association of Beneficence” were the “Healthfulizers,” “Educationalizers,” “Agriculturalizers,” “Elementizers,” and “Governmentizers,” each of which would choose their own spokesmen to receive plans for promoting “Man-culture and integral reform with a view to the ultimate establishment of a divine social state on earth.” The Electricizers began speaking through Spear, transmitting “revealments” that ranged from a warning against curling the hair on the back of the head (it’s bad for the memory), to plans for electrical ships, thinking machines, and vast circular cities.(7) These would come later, though.
The first and most important task would be the construction of the New Messiah (“Heaven’s last, best gift to man”), a universal benefit that would infuse “new life and vitality into all things animate and inanimate.” Spear—or the Electricizers—chose High Rock as the place to build it. High Rock is a hill rising 170ft (52m) above Lynn, a town north of Boston. Lynn is now a poor city suffering from high unemployment, but it was once a center for shoe manufacturing and has a Lovecraftean history full of witchcraft, sea serpents, spontaneous human combustion, and rioting Quakers.(8) Spiritualism received an enthusiastic reception in Lynn, and some of its most devoted followers owned a cottage and observation tower on the site Spear needed.
High Rock Cottage belonged to the Hutchinson family, who were both spiritualists and reformers. The cottage was a favorite destination for visitors, especially after 1852, when Andrew Jackson Davis witnessed a meeting of the Spiritual Congress from the tower, and was introduced to the disembodied representatives of 24 nations. Spear had known the Hutchinsons when he was minister in Boston and allowed them to rehearse in his church when they began singing professionally.(9) Spear was given the use of a woodshed and work on the “Physical Saviour” began in October, 1853.
Assisting Spear and the Electricizers was a small group of followers that included Rev. S.C. Hewitt, editor of the Spiritualist newspaper New Era ; Alonzo E. Newton, editor of the New England Spiritualist ; and a woman referred to as “the Mary of the New Dispensation.” The identity of this “New Mary” has never been clear.(10)
Bringing the Messiah to life was a four-step process that began with Brother Spear entering a “superior state” and transmitting plans from the Electricizers. Building the machine required nine months for construction (gestation), and in that time he received 200 “revealments” providing detailed instructions on the materials to be used, and how the different parts should be shaped and attached. The group was not given an overall plan, but built it bit by bit, adding new parts “to the invention, in much the same way ... that one decorates a Christmas tree.”(11)
Spear’s total lack of scientific and technical knowledge was considered an advantage, as he would be less inclined to alter the Electricizers’ blueprints with personal interpretations or logic (what remote viewers today might call “analytical overlay”). The parts were carefully machined from copper and zinc with the total cost reaching $2,000 at a time when a prosperous minister earned around $60 a week.(12)
No images of the New Motive Power exist, but a description does appear in Slater Brown’s The Heyday of Spiritualism , and it must have looked impressive sitting there on a big dining room table. “From the center of the
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