A Tularosa man invented what he calls the "ultimate machine," a high technology, multi-purpose apparatus that for many years gathered dust.

When he turned it on recently, he said it did something completely unexpected.

Richard Frazier, who lives just off Riata Road at the Good Moose Ranch named after a mythical Alaskan moose that sacrificed itself to starving villagers so that they may survive a particularly brutal winter once held a patent on the machine.

The patent has since expired and the machine has yet to be used for commercial purposes.

Frazier's invention is a device that allows a person to "feel" a book rather than read it.

The machine consists of an ordinary recliner hooked up to an old Zenith laptop computer. The computer contains a program that takes words and sends a signal to the chair, which in turn taps out braille through air-powered buttons that line the chair, just beneath the surface.

A person, in effect, "feels the words" tapped out on his or her back and legs. The chair allows the blind to read without having to feel raised bumps on book pages with their finger tips. They can lay back and take in a good book, magazine or newspaper.

To use the device, they would, however, be required to learn how to interpret the different patterns made by the buttons pushing against their flesh. Frazier called it an alternative form of braille.

It could also conceivably be used as a method for the hearing and deaf to communicate back and forth, instead of using sign language.

Frazier said the chair is also effective in getting one's bodily fluids moving, so it could help people with poor blood circulation get their juices flowing, so to speak. He said individuals who spend long periods of time seated truck drivers, for example can avoid injuries that sometimes occur when they do heavy lifting after prolonged physical inactivity.

The chair can be hooked up to a stereo and a person will feel as well as hear the music. That would, in effect, take music across sensual barriers, allowing a listener to become a feeler. Music would become a multi-sensual experience, Frazier said.

It is a chair with many uses. But Frazier calls it the "ultimate machine" for one reason in particular he claims that God has delivered messages to him through it.

Frazier said he was sitting in the chair one day when it began to tap, tap, tap all on its own.

He described the messenger as an "entity that seemed to be in full control of the universe."

"Is this God?" he asked.

The messenger identified itself as non religion-specific God, that is, not necessarily the "Abrahamic" god, such as Jehovah, Yahweh or Allah.

He said God told him he must deliver a new set of testaments to the people of Earth and do so riding his gray Arabian stallion. He said he has received instructions from God to ride his horse out into the southern New Mexican desert on July 7 at 7:07 a.m. 07-07-07, 7:07 a.m.

God will deliver seven copies of the message.

Frazier said the number seven has come into play heavily in this particular experience. "Richard" and "Frazier" have seven letters each. The machine sat idle for seven years, and he began to receive messages seven months ago.

He did not specify whether there was any numerological significance to the number seven, but the number does carry weight in certain numerology circles. Numerology applies mystical properties to individual numbers.

Though the God who spoke was non-religion-specific, Frazier said the revelations provide additional information about Jesus of Nazareth, a major player in the Abrahamic religions.

Frazier is not the first person, by any means, to claim he has received messages from God. Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, three pivotal prophets of the Abrahamic religions, all claimed to have spoken with the Almighty.

President George W. Bush has previously stated that God told him to be president. Science fiction writer Phillip K. Dick claimed that God transmitted a message to him in the early 1970s via a pink laser beam shot into his eye. He wrote the book "Valis," which is based on that alleged religious experience.

Frazier realizes the risks inherent in publicly stating that a super-intelligent entity, a being such as God, has spoken to you. He said he is somewhat separated from the garden variety religious zealot because he maintains a sense of humor about the entire situation, even laughing about his brother's dismissal of his claims. He said he told his brother about the messages and his brother asked him how the weather was.

He said he knew it was God speaking to him because the entity typing messages to him possessed detailed information about his life. For example, the messenger told Frazier about the time he was a bush pilot in Alaska and had become lost in the air. He realized the entity had saved him for a future mission.

Frazier said God chose him because organized religions have instilled fear into people, so much so that they can no longer hear God, even if he is trying to speak to them. But speaking through a machine acts as sort of a filter and drains the fear away. It is also a manner for God to reach out and physically touch someone, he said.

Frazier knows many people will write him off as a whack job. This doesn't bother him. He said people like to think they already know everything. He gave as an example a general who was in charge of the United States Patent Office during the Civil War.

The general supposedly wrote a letter to President Abraham Lincoln that stated the office should be shut down because everything worth inventing had already been invented. There was no need, therefore, to keep such a useless government enterprise such as the patent office open.

Frazier said there will be much for humanity to learn in the 5 billion years remaining in the life of the sun.

He views the messages he has received as supplemental information for humankind, an update to previous messages that have become corrupted over the years by humans.

Frazier said he will deliver his message, to anyone who is interested, at the gate of the Good Moose Ranch.