Ideas for using the Force Square Law in Magnetism to generate Free Energy

Two magnets in series are twice as strong. Two magnets in parallel are four times as strong. Surely there must be a way that this extra (and free) magnetic energy can be used to generate usable electric or other forms of energy. I have an idea which I'm putting forward for comment and I hope that if anyone has other ideas as well, that those ideas will be posted here in order to move the creative process along and maybe inspire an idea that will actually work.

My idea is based on experimental observation. When I used my magnet to pick up a nail, I was then able to use that magnet/nail combination to also pick up four pennies. However, when my magnet picked up two nails, side by side ie. each nail was physically touching the magnet and not the other nail, then each nail was only able to hold a maximum of two pennies. What this tells me is that the magnet's magnetic flux, was divided in half by each nail. In other words, each nail had half the magnetic flux of the magnet itself. SO....suppose we used a magnet's north pole to attract two narrow iron bars(in place of the nails) such that each bar has one end touching the magnets north pole but neither bar is touching the other bar. Therefore each bar would carry half the magnet's flux. Now if you place another bar across the other ends of the small bars, so that those two smaller bar/magnets are connected in parallel, the force square law predicts that their combined force would be (4 times 1/2 =2) ie. twice as much as the original magnet by itself. What I'm wondering is if that combined force was then directed back into the magnet's south pole, would you have a repeating loop where the magnetic flux just keeps doubling everytime it flows up through the north pole to the two bars and then back around to the south pole, and if so, how can we tap this magnetic force to generate electricity?