___________________________________________________________________________ | From : KeelyNet BBS | DataLine : (214) 324-3501 | | Sysop : Jerry W. Decker | Voice : (214) 324-8741 | | Co-Sysop : Ronald Barker | Voice : (214) 242-9346 | | File Name : GRAV10.ASC | Online Date : 07/18/94 | | Contributed by : SYSOP | Dir Category : ENERGY | | KeelyNet * PO BOX 1031 * Mesquite, Texas * USA * 75149 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- For many years, I have studied levity (not THAT kind) stories and anecdotes for both organic and inorganic bodies. In all that time, this case was never stumbled across, until now. And it needs to be listed because of it's oddity. Imagine, being able to FLOAT in the air WITHOUT equipment. The only problem with this fellow was that he could NOT CONTROL the effect. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- This file is from the book, 'The Enigma of the Unknown' by John Macklin. The Man who Defied Gravity Between 1885 and 1890, countless thousands of people trooped cynically into a canvas booth on fairgrounds in America's mid-west and invariably emerged convinced that they had seen the impossible. Indeed, it seems as though they had. What they HAD SEEN - or, at least, what they THOUGHT they had seen - was a man floating serenely in mid-air like a gas-filled balloon. If Reynard Beck, known throughout America as "the Floating Wonder," was a hoaxer, he was an incredibly brilliant one, for the dozens of skeptics, doctors and scientists who had subjected him to EVERY KNOWN TEST, came away WITHOUT EXCEPTION more bemused and baffled than when they went in. Beck, it seemed, was a man who laughed at gravity. To enable him to lead a normal earthbound life he needed a special belt hung with lead weights. At night, he was lashed firmly into his bed. On one occasion when the straps came adrift, he rose up and floated gently through an open window. Everyone knew that MEN CAN'T FLY. The trouble was that in Beck's case, they just couldn't PROVE IT. Beck himself seemed utterly at a loss to explain his uncanny gift. When he recalled the day that he began to "float," he was unable to put forward any sort of rational explanation. Years later, he wrote of his experience: "It was in June 1884 that I went to bed quite normally, not dreaming that anything was wrong. When I woke up. I felt remarkably fit and was anxious to get out of bed and start the new day. But I did not land on my feet beside the bed - as I had anticipated. To my utter astonishment, I remained in mid-air - FLOATING AROUND THE ROOM." Petrified with fright, he grabbed hold of the headboard and slowly forced his feet down to touch the ground. "Then I sat down on the bed and did some serious thinking, I reached for the mirror hanging on the wall beside the bed and examined my face to see if any radical changes had occurred to it during the night. But there didn't seem to be anything wrong with me - and I didn't feel ill. Tentatively, I stood up again and tried to walk around the room. To my horror, I at once floated into the air again and remained there as though suspended on hidden strings. "I realized that if anyone ever found out about this, I was going to be in Page 1 big trouble. Either I would be regarded as a freak and carted off for all kinds of experiments, or people might get the idea that I had made a deal with the Devil to make myself float in mid-air!" He floated around towards his chest of drawers, dug out a belt and to this fastened some lead weights he used for fishing. With the belt fastened around his waist, he found that he could remain on the floor and move about normally. For several days, the devastating discovery worried him intensely, but eventually, and perhaps inevitably, he soon got around to considering his fantastic discovery in an entirely new light. "Being able to float in the air might have all sorts of compensations. I began to realize what a new world it would open up." Eventually, he decided to give up his job and make his fortune. All he had to do was set himself up as a side-show - the people would flock to see the only man in the world who could FLOAT without artificial aids, and the money would come rolling in! So Reynard Beck billed himself as "the Floating Wonder" and became a side- show. People DID flock to him by the thousands - and all he did was SIT AND READ - but he sat FLOATING IN THE AIR while HE did so! His brother ran the side-show and they began to make big money. But they did not escape without trouble. On one occasion, spectators smashed up the side-show booth, believing they had been fooled, but were frustrated because they COULD NOT DISCOVER by what trick the Floating Wonder performed his seemingly impossible feat! But Beck did not just float when on exhibition. Friends testified that, in his private life, he found it impossible to keep his feet on the ground without help. To enable him to walk around NORMALLY, he wore the belt weighted with several pounds of lead. Obviously, he couldn't walk long distances with this added burden, which was not helped by the voluminous overcoat he wore to conceal the weights. When he sat down to eat, he strapped or tied himself into his chair, otherwise he would float to about ceiling height and JUST HANG THERE until someone hauled him down. Was it a trick? For years, every known method was used in an attempt to expose the Floating Wonder as the fraud everyone KNEW HE MUST BE. One investigator wrote: "Before the exhibition, I thoroughly searched the room, looking for wires, hydraulic ramps, hidden supports - anything that might prove a clue to the mystery. I found NOTHING. While Beck sat in a reclining position THREE FEET from the floor. I beat the air below and above him with a cane but met with no resistance. I came, with the utmost reluctance, to the conclusion that he WAS FLOATING UNSUPPORTED in thin air." After five years of touring the halls and fairgrounds - and getting rich on the strength of it - Reynard Beck abruptly announced one day that the uncanny gift to defy gravity had departed as suddenly as it had come. Certainly, he never made another public appearance. He returned home to the town of Dexter, in Kansas, and attempted to resume his life as an Page 2 ordinary human being. But it was impossible. "For once a man has FLOWN IN THE AIR," he wrote with the simplicity of someone stumbling on a profound truth, "he can never be quite the same again..." --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vangard note There are numerous accounts of religious ecstasy producing flight in devout believers. Spiritualist Daniel Home was photographed floating out of a 2nd story window as well as on many other occasions where people saw him levitate. Home said the spirits lifted him up. In India, at the Sifi shrine of Qamar Ali, there are two very large boulders that are routinely levitated by visitors who touch the stone with their index fingers and chant "Qamar Ali Dervish" in a certain chant as instructed by the resident priest. When this happens, the stone simply levitates. If just one finger is removed, the stone crashes to the ground. God, I want to DO THIS, videotape and make measurements. In the 1920's the Kowsky/Frost experiment used a quartz crystal excited by microwaves. The crystal expanded and levitated EVEN WITH A 1.5 kilogram weight suspended from it! In Homestead, Florida, Edward Leedskalnin built the Coral Castle from native coral. He did this single-handedly, without benefit of hoists or block and tackle. The story is that he RE-DISCOVERED the secret the Egyptians used to build the pyramids. I've been there and seen how he cracked the stones apart with automobile leaf springs, heated up, inserted in a crack, then cold water poured on them to POP the stone apart. As to the way of lifting and moving these very large stones, the word is Leedskalnin SANG to them. An Egyptian painting showed the use of a vibrating wooden rod which caused stone to levitate when excited by a slap with this rod. There are numerous references such as 'stone floats in air as iron floats in water', a reference to the Biblical levitation of an iron axehead that had been accidentally thrown into the water. When the priest touched the water with his staff and chanted, the axehead floated to the surface to be retrieved. In various occult/metaphysical books, mention is made of the NAVAZ force, the dark side of Nature or it's equivalent. "Night is as pregnant as Day", for the seven colors of light that we see, there are seven 'black' colors that we cannot see. It is from these 'black' colors that the wheelwork of the Universe is driven. There are Fortean stories of voices coming from the sky throughout recorded history and in one case, an anchor that was caught in a church steeple. This anchor was attached to a rope that went up into the clouds. A man was shimmying down the rope to release it as people watched. They report that he seemed to have to 'swim' to get lower. The witnesses grabbed him from the rope when he got within reach and he appeared to be 'drowning'. The man died. So what gives? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- KeelyNet (214) 324-3501 is a FREE Alternative Sciences BBS Your file contributions and financial support are much appreciated! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 3