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Howard JOHNSON, Permanent Magnet Motor http://www.rexresearch.com/johnson/1johnson.htm - is that similar ?

( https://patents.google.com/patent/US4877983A/en expired 2006, https://www.freepatentsonline.com/4877983.html )

Edit: https://www.paranetics.com/electric-motors - there is more details. And parametric motor https://patents.google.com/patent/JPH04344155A/en is more similar.

(and magnetic experiments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZaRMt6xhoE explains a lot nicely)