John Murray Spear: The Real-Life Kagrenac
[John Murray Spear](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Murray_Spear) was a 19th century Spiritualist born in Boston. He was originally associated with the Universalist Church of America and championed causes such as equal rights for women and the abolition of slavery and the death penalty. He would eventually turn his attentions and passions toward the increasing interest in mysticism and the novel philosophies of new religious movements that influenced and became popular amongst so many of his time. He eagerly began attending séances and channeling various ghosts and spirits, including a group he termed the "Association of Electrizers" which included such individuals as Benjamin Franklin. It is the endeavor which these alleged spiritual entities [inspired him to accomplish](http://iapsop.com/archive/materials/new_era/new_era_v2_n14_feb_1_1854.pdf) which is what I believe will be of interest to those on this sub.
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John Murray Spear and a number of his followers attempted to create an electrically-powered metallic machine god which was dubbed "The New Motive Power". This device would uplift and remake all of humanity and the world, leading to a new state of being and lasting utopia.
>Through the etheric transmission of humankind’s collective thoughts, knowledge, and desires, the New Motive Power would remake the world, an action Spear compared to fire boiling a pot of water. In essence, by removing humanity’s material limitations, the New Motor was a God-like machine that would bring out the God-like qualities in man. [^(\[1\])](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/571569/spiritualist-god-machine) [^(\[2\])](https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735066224365/viewer#page/18/mode/2up)
The method for this miraculous divine endeavor involved a woman dubbed the "New Mary" attempting to charge and empower the machine and ritualistically birthing the New Motive Power in order to give it life. These efforts ultimately ended in failure and were estimated to cost $2000 (roughly adjusted to what would amount to $50,000 today). This summary is brief and I recommend anyone interested to delve deeper into Spear's story, there's plenty of bizarre gonzo details beyond what I've mentioned.
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I have no idea if John Murray Spear and his New Motive Power were known to any devs at Bethesda or served as an influence when they were conceptualizing Kagrenac or the Numidium. At the least the coincidence seems striking. An idealistic iconoclastic figure attempting to transcend the limits of his people's mortality and bring them all closer to the divine through the creation of a machine god isn't exactly a cliché trope and I certainly didn't expect to learn that such an idea existed beyond the bounds of fiction and was actually attempted in reality with historic records to prove it. Sorry for the not-so-well-thought-out or formatted post, but I haven't seen this discussed within the community before and thought it would be of interest.
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TL;DR: John Murray Spear, a real guy who really lived, attempted to create a machine god called The New Model Power in an attempt to divinely empower and transcend the limits of humanity for the good of all human beings. Sounds a lot like High Craftlord Kagrenac and his Numidium, don't it?