Vril (energy)

Vril is a hypothetical form of energy, being defined in several distinct ways by different authors, beginning with Edward Bulwer-Lytton who coined the term (in his 1871 novel The Coming Race) and linked it with Victorian conceptions of electro-magnetism (as an all-permeating fluid), while later esoteric authors allied the term with their ideas regarding mesmerism (animal magnetism) and with vitalistic, cosmic forces.

Vril in the world

as an Esoteric Force

• Arthur Lovell's Vril-ya Club, a London-based arcane society founded in 1903

as an Energy Source

• Charles W. Caryl and his Vril Industrial System, a utopian socialist planned-city concept based around Vril power.

for Alien Purposes

• In his book Through Alien Eyes (2000), Wesley H. Bateman describes a "frequency barrier" that envelopes the Earth, an apparent side effect of the destruction of the planet Maldec, whose peoples built the Great Pyramid to transmit vril energy to their planet, only to shatter it in the process; the feedback from this event caused the tectonic shifts that brought the barrier into existence. The "mutating powers" of the barrier would also come to be linked in Bateman's writings to "chimera" experiments conducted by malevolent aliens at the Dulce Base, an underground facility alleged to exist near Dulce, New Mexico.

Vril-branded products

• Bovril ("Beef Force"), an extract of beef product;
• Vrilium Tube, the Magic Spike, a radio-therapeutic nostrum;
• Vril, "The Drink with a Thrill", a fruit beverage sold by Vril Co. of Cincinnati, Ohio.