Edward Leedskalnin (Latvian: Edvards Liedskalniņš) (January 12, 1887, Stāmeriena parish, Livonia; December 7, 1951, Miami) was an eccentric Latvian emigrant to the United States and amateur sculptor who single-handedly built the monument known as Coral Castle in Florida. He was also known for his unusual theories on magnetism.
Contents |
(1887 - 1951) Edward Leedskalnin was born January 12, 1887, according to World War I draft registration records, in Stāmeriena parish, Latvia. Little is known of his childhood, aside from the fact that he was not wealthy and achieved only a fourth-grade education. However Edward was a sickly boy, and often spent his time inside reading books - eventually leading him to discontinue his schooling as it "bored him". For Ed, his development of a yearning to obtain knowledge became a passionate and potent driving force in many endeavours throughout his later life.[1] At the age of 26, he was engaged to marry Agnes Scuffs, a girl ten years younger.[2] However, the girl that Leedskalnin referred to as his "Sweet Sixteen" broke the engagement the night before their wedding.
Several years later for reasons of which are unclear (yet most likely involving his lost love Agnes) (<--speclation?), he emigrated to North America where he found work in various lumber camps at Canada, California, and Texas.
Then, after contracting a case of tuberculosis, Leedskalnin moved to the warmer climate of Florida around 1919, where he purchased a small piece of land in Florida City. Over the next 20 years, Leedskalnin putatively constructed and lived within a massive coral monument he called "Rock Gate Park", dedicated to the girl who had left him years before. Working alone at night, Leedskalnin eventually quarried and sculpted over 1,100 short tons (997903 kg) of coral into a monument that would later be known as the Coral Castle. Leedskalnin gave polite, but cryptic answers to visitors' questions regarding his construction methods, which to this day remain a mystery. In spite of his private nature, he eventually opened his monument to the public, offering tours for 10 cents. He was a surprisingly accommodating host, even cooking hot dogs for visiting children in a pressure cooker of his own invention.
When people asked Ed how he had moved all of the stone by himself, he refused to give up his method and would only reply to whomever was asking with the same statement of; "I understand the laws of weight and leverage and I know the secrets of the people who built the pyramids (being those at the site at Giza in Egypt)".
This building was originally located in Florida City in the 1920s; then in the mid 1930s Leedskalnin moved it single-handedly to its present location on a 10-acre (4.0 ha) site near Homestead, Florida. "On November 9, 1951, he checked himself into Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. Ed suffered a stroke at one point, either before he left to the hospital or at the hospital. He died twenty-eight days later of pyleonephritis a kidney infection, at the age of 64. His death certificate noted that his death was a result of "uremia;" failure of kidneys, as a result of the infection and abscess."[3]. It should also be noted that Edward Leedskalnin was a man of slight build and stature, measuring no more that 5 feet (152 cm) tall and never exceeded a weight of more than 120 lbs (54.43 kg).
During his lifetime, Ed Leedskalnin published five pamphlets, advertising them in local newspapers:
His first and longest booklet, a treatise on moral education, is printed on only the left-hand pages, and begins with the following preface:
Reader, if for any reason you do not like the things I say in the little book, I left just as much space as I used, so you can write your own opinion opposite it and see if you can do better.
The Author
In the first section, Leedskalnin vents his anger at his "Sweet Sixteen", arguing that girls should be kept pure, and that boys are primarily a soiling influence upon them. On page 4 of A Book in Every Home, Leedskalnin writes:
Everything we do should be for some good purpose but as everybody knows there is nothing good that can come to a girl from a fresh boy. When a girl is sixteen or seventeen years old, she is as good as she ever will be, but when a boy is sixteen years old, he is then fresher than in all his stages of development. He is then not big enough to work but he is too big to be kept in a nursery and then to allow such a fresh thing to soil a girl — it could not work on my girl. Now I will tell you about soiling. Anything that is done, if it is done with the right party it is all right, but when it is done with the wrong party, it is soiling, and concerning those fresh boys with the girls, it is wrong every time.
The second section continues along the theme of moral education, with several aphorisms aimed at parents regarding the proper way to raise children. The last, "Political" section, reveals that the reclusive Leedskalnin had strong political views. He advocates voting for property owners only (and in proportion to their holdings), and argues that "Anyone who is too weak to make his own living is not strong enough to vote."
Some writers have suggested that Leedskalnin's booklet contains further information on his electromagnetic research and philosophies encoded in its pages, and the blank pages are provided for the reader to fill in their decrypted solutions. It has also been suggested that Leedskalnin's frequent referral to his "Sweet Sixteen" may in fact refer to the numerological and/or scientific relevance of the number sixteen to his research and theories.[7]
Leedskalnin's other four pamphlets addressed his theories on magnetism, detailing his theories on the interaction of electricity, magnetism and the body; Leedskalnin also included a number of simple experiments to validate his theories.
Most importantly, Edward Leedskalnin claimed that all matter was being acted upon by what he called "individual magnets". Simply a positive and a negative like a battery. It is obvious from the pamphlets that he produced that this theory became the base of all of his work, and most likely thoughts as well. He also attempted to claim that scientists of his time were looking in the wrong place for their understanding of electricity, and that they were only observing "one half of the whole concept" with "one sided tools of measurement". (Info from Ed's own scientific pamphlets).
The final solution to deciphering the riddle of levitation was left by Ed, and is very elementary. A 24 pole flywheel having a large magneto mounted on its side was used to run two motors in sync simultaneously. A feat which would normally be impossible without the use of magnetic blocking (the use of chain). Further, he used a brass mass (flywheel handle) before particle current could re-enter the flywheel's center off the hook above it. This is where only the energetic particles from both magnetic poles would transit. The more massive particles existing at the ends of both poles would concentrate in the system, unable to return to ground until they literally formed mass without matter, thus causing stones to levitate by draining off them.
This simple solution is part of a fractal energy transfer which one may learn about by studying the Mandelbrot and Julia set equations. Energy(negative ionization) separates from mass (positrons/ positive ionization) which for a short time imitates the presence of elements of heavy matter such as platinum all they way up to element 140 (this element must be grown, but is proven to exist as other 'aligned' elements.)
In short; some people beleive Ed's device was capable of using ever present magnetic current to create massive amounts of free energy, as well as energy's waste product; positrons/ positive heavy ions. The system exploits the nature of the difference in length between the positive and negative poles, mixing them together, aligning them to a like center, then forcing them to fold up or down to form a funnel shape. Ultimately the sum of the poles concentrates to an infinitely small center, so that any kinetic particle reaction resulting after focus will be the sum of all random kinetic interactions of surrounding space causing those poles to have continuous magnetic current in the first place. Particles large than K-Mesons responsible for thermal kinetics cannot move through solid brass, and therefore continue to spin loops to the 2 motors run by the flywheel until there are no longer enough small particles to hold them together in their usual neutral ion state, which is a mix of all particle sizes having no specific concentrations.
Ed Leedskalnin, Coral Castle and the mystery surrounding how he built it are plot foundations of the novel Cincinnatus.
The Brooklyn-based history band, Piñataland, recorded a song about Leedskalnin entitled "Latvian Bride" for their 2003 album Songs for the Forgotten Future Vol. 1.
The Billy Idol song "Sweet Sixteen" was written about the events in Leedskalnin's life. Some memorable lyrics include: "Someone's built a candy castle for my sweet sixteen/Someone's built a candy house to house her in."