Orffyreus’ last letter, addressed to Baron Schrader von Schliestedt, Karl’s right-hand man speaks a lot about his miserable condition towards end of his life. He wrote:

“Sir, Baron and Highly Respected Court Councillor,

  “I have written often and many times to you, Highly Honourable Sir, but have not received any answer. Meanwhile, I lack strength and will, through hunger, grief, frost and chill, since for a long time I have not received even a single piece of wood from the District Magistrate. Indeed, I have often had only dry bread to eat and water to drink. However, at last, thank God, I have had the good luck to finish preparing the model of perpetual motion which was commissioned from England, as demanded by the Senior District Magistrate, von Mannsberg. It was ready at midnight on April 14^th, and on the same day I travelled to Karlshafen, borrowing two gulden from the Rev. Pastor. On the 15^th of the same month I had to return home from church to my bed, because I suffered a violent attack of colica bilosia flatulente. It was the result of my cold, miserable life, and my general anxiety about the Fürstenberg project. It afflicted me for 8 or 9 days, so that I was sure that death was near. All this was also accompanied by the effects of an accident suffered during the work at Fürstenberg. However, my God so helped me to bring such a sudden change using only the good medicine of my mind, that I hope to return to Fürstenberg this week. To Him be only thanks and praise…

   “…it would be of great relief to me and help my health if I were to receive a pleasing reply to my letters from you. Moreover, it would also please God, because nothing else has produced so much willingness in my heart as to be of service and to have honest intentions, and so there is much that I deserve. I would wish that Your High and Honourable self were to be made aware and have insight into how matters really stand. You have the power to affect my life to an appreciable degree, either prolonging it or shortening it. Because if things continue in Fürstenberg as they have done, then I am absolutely certain to die of various heartbreaking anxieties. This could happen at any time and I am ready and willing; because I cannot live here any longer in absolutely unbelievable grief and deprivation, with mounting debts, and without money to repay the debts already incurred; and in addition to the pain, trouble and other difficulties experienced with the mechanical construction, which was started so late and had to be begun anew, furthermore there is nothing for me or my family to eat. The District Magistrate was unwilling to lend me one barrel or even sixteen pecks of grain, and so things have been impossible for a long time. It hurts my heart when I see and hear, sometimes daily, what is done or said against my Christian honesty, and there is nothing I can do, but only to bear it patiently. It all affects my spirit when rude comments are made in front of strangers, and am I to believe that you are my avowed foe? …  In short, I will state my honesty once and for all and, as well, recommend myself as a poor and weak man, who seeks your Honourable protection with due respect and honest modesty. Your most humble servant,

Karlshafen, April 26^th, 1745.” 

Orffyreus did not live long after writing this letter. While working on the upper levels of the building, on 30^th November, Orffyreus fell to his death at age 65.

Ramananda remarks:

“Gravity, which caused his wheels to move forever also became the cause of his death; gravity betrayed and killed him. It was end of his journey. Certainly, his journey of perpetual motion had been difficult, even torturous.  World saw him as an embittered wanderer who died along with his secret of perpetual motion machine.”

 Orffyreus’ widow offered his possessions to the state.

Elden E.Park remarks*:

“Despite his visible flaws (at some times in his life), and imperfections, there is much evidence that Bessler tried to be a man of God.  I believe that the “strangely invigorating dream” (p. 29 of Collins’ book) that he received was from God.  Bessler put his trust in God and God showed mercy to him.  As evidence that the information which Bessler received came from God, consider the persecution that was later heaped upon Bessler without reason.  The devil generally wants us to be bound down in ignorance (unless the knowledge can somehow be selectively filtered or altered to mislead us toward our own destruction or being controlled or the destruction of others or their being controlled).  I do not think that the devil and his fallen angels wanted the truth to come forward about Bessler’s “perpetual motion” machine.  Often the truth is attacked so as to keep it from going forward….. Bessler sufferer persecution for trying to stand for the truth and protect his invention at the same time.  ” 

We have learnt that despite his fair terms and conditions, all negotiations failed* and eventually Orffyreus took his secret   to graveyard. However, to tax the mind of millions, he put secret information in the form of codes and left some clues in his writings and drawings. .  Many researchers* like Collins and Elden E.Park have devoted a great time to decipher secret codes hidden in Orffyreus “Apologia Poetica and his drawings”. Their findings are speculative and far away from the truth, because neither they know of no correctly working model of Orffyreus’ machine, nor they have been able to analyze properly the evidences that were faithfully recorded in Orffyreus time by many learned man witnessing the test of Orffyreus machine as have been narrated in this story.  

Orffyreus’ last letter, addressed to Baron Schrader von Schliestedt, Karl’s right-hand man speaks a lot about his miserable condition towards end of his life. He wrote:

Remarks from the first chapter of the book entitled “Forbidden Inventions” by George Egely are also noteworthy. George Egely writes:

“…He chose destitution by his stubbornness, starving all his family and insisting on keeping his secret solely to himself, to his last breath. He did not realise that an invention of that nature would cause envy, hostility and of course beget hundreds of opponents. He thought that his persistence, diligence and keen insight would inevitably bring about a reward. Orffyreus and the inventors following him were similar in a way to a child-murderer: Orffyreus created his work and then destroyed it. His is a typical example of those inventors who can think only about themselves and money, who are incapable of showing responsibility to society and who allude to God hypocritically while they keep God’s present for themselves alone. The catastrophe of mankind is that people of Gärtner's type will go to any lengths to annihilate the inventions of such or similar significance – and inventors have contributed to their own failure in great measure with their own greed, selfishness and narrow-mindedness. Without doubt, developing an invention of such great significance needs incredible knowledge, zeal, persistence and stubbornness. Stubbornness is important in the phase of development, but is tragic when it comes to selling or spreading the idea. The total lack of flexibility, the covetousness and greediness of most inventors have so far ensured the death of their inventions. The inventor could not have served his opponents better than with his secretiveness. We can also see how naive is the belief that important ideas will proliferate, that important things sooner or later will come to light in the course of scientific research. No, this is not true, the reality is almost the opposite.”

Orffyreus will live in our memory forever. The need of the hour is to share the information and work together to reinvent his machine. J. Collins in his book speculates that the invention behind the Bessler wheel might have been known in times past*. 

Elden Park believes that in present times information about the Bessler wheel has been suppressed (either intentionally or unintentionally)*. Park deplores that not only did Bessler suffer many persecutions in his time (despite the profound evidences in his favor), many since his time have incorrectly labeled him as a fraud.     It is a great mistake of the history that historians have failed to appreciate his invention. It is also a great blunder that science has failed to recognize perpetual motion.  How would science have developed over the next 200 years if the work of Orffyreus had been recognized in his time in the scientific circles?

Elden E.Park remarks*:

“ Maybe the industrial revolution would have had a completely different character and science would have proceeded differently if say either Peter the Great or Karl the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel had just paid the large price that Bessler was asking for.  To me it seems amazing that Karl did not pay the price since he had the money and he knew by his actual observation within the covering (see Collins’ pp. 20, 89-90, 101, 111, 158) that it was an actual invention without any fraud.  The world might have been much different if it could have had the Orffyrean roller bearing sooner and Bessler had been allowed (using money from the sale of his invention) to establish his Fortress of God Christian school (see Collins’ pp. 44, 99, 191) to teach the crafts and sciences including mathematics and mechanics.”

rjyoung@simons-rock.edu gives good answer to above question. By chance I found it on a message board, I would like his message to quote here. 

“It is possible for the Industrial Revolution to occur a few hundred years earlier than it did in our history. Using perpetual motion completely bypasses the invention of the steam engine, and with the relatively cheap availability of perpetual motion, there would be many willing to exploit it.

However, in bypassing such developments, what do we miss? A large amount of thermodynamics, various mining technologies, some chemistry as it applies to refining oil and coal, and perhaps most importantly, the internal combustion engine and plastics. Since we've already assumed that perpetual motion isn't practical at small scales, we've essentially temporarily removed the possibility of cars. Though gasoline-based cars might work, without knowledge of the steam engine, internal combustion engines might not catch on. Mass transit will probably become the main transportation mode; it would be uneconomical to build a large-scale perpetual motion machine for a car. Finally, with no strong motive to drill for oil, the plastics industry may not be able to get beyond its first few steps.”

One can find a complete account of Orffyreus life and his work in the book "An ancient mystery solved by J. Collins. He has made a relentless effort to document various evidences of this type to prove that Orffyreus perpetual motion machine was genuine.  Collins has collected the facts from various sources as to the authenticity of which there is no doubt. To many writers his book has served as an excellent source book for the information and especially the quotations they have used in their writings. At the end of the story I would also like to express my indebtedness to John Collins for borrowing the quotations though from the secondary sources I have used on this web site.