The following year, Spear and a handful of followers retreated to a wooden shed at the top of High Rock Hill in Lynn, Massachusetts, where they set to work creating the “New Motive Power”, a messianic perpetual motion machine. Spear compared the machine to Jesus Christ, which was intended to power the world with supernatural energies and herald a new era of Utopia. The New Motive Power was constructed of copper, zinc, and magnets, all carefully machined, as well as a dining room table. At the end of nine months, Spear and the “New Mary”, an unnamed woman, ritualistically birthed the contraption in an attempt to give it life. This failed to have the desired effect, and the machine was later destroyed by hostile Spiritualists.

I’m sorry but this is hilarious. My god, imagine being one of the people watching a woman pretend to give birth to robo-Christ and it’s a stillbirth! 🤣