Nikola Tesla

by Vitold Kreutzer

Edited by Beverley Viljakainen

INTRODUCTION

The progressive development of men is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative mind. Its ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of the forces of nature to human needs. This is the difficult task of the inventor who is often misunderstood and unrewarded. But he finds ample compensation in the pleasing exercises of his powers and in the knowledge of being one of that exceptionally privileged class without whom the race would have long ago perished in the bitter struggle against pitiless elements. Speaking for myself, I have already had more than my full measure of this exquisite enjoyment; so much, that for many years my life was little short of continuous rapture. I am credited with being one of the hardest workers and perhaps I am, if thought is the equivalent of labour, for I have devoted to it almost all of my waking hours.^[1]

These are the first words one reads in Nikola Tesla’s autobiography, a short but revealing narrative of his inner thoughts and motivations. Tesla described himself as a discoverer of hidden principles, equipped with a vivid imagination, and focused by design to seek harmony in the human condition. According to Tesla, inventors represent that branch of humanity responsible for the safe progress and wellbeing of the race and the preservation of our home’s natural resources. Their primary goal is to bring about a world where creativity, culture, and peace could thrive. Tesla’s particular talents made him an efficient and productive vehicle for interpreting cosmic intelligence.

Nikola Tesla was a prolific inventor who revolutionized the world, brought prosperity to scores of others and, through the utilization of his discoveries, rewrote the manual on wellbeing and human progress. He seemed to possess a limitless amount of energy as his oppressive schedule of activity over numerous decades can attest to. Tesla appeared to be everywhere. He gave lectures, interviews, performed spectacular demonstrations in his laboratory, and was constantly in the news or writing memorable articles. But, within a very short period of time, Tesla’s status diminished significantly. Although the scientific community was astonished by the constant barrage of discoveries that flowed from him, many in the electrical engineering field could not accept his unconventional public demonstrations nor his fantastic claims. Unfortunately, for Tesla, he was an outsider, a loner, and most importantly, a challenger to the academic and scientific establishment. His unique and radical methods of research, his outlandish descriptions, his old-fashioned European culture, and the magnitude of his revolutionary discoveries made Tesla an easy target for criticism and foul play. Challenges to his patents and the intellectual theft of his electrical devices and systems for the purpose of financial and academic recognition posed a constant threat to Tesla and his work.

As a result, Tesla’s name never entered academic texts for future generations to appreciate. It was understandable, then, that when the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (A.I.E.E.) bestowed upon Tesla the Edison Medal award in 1917, a new generation of electrical engineers in attendance at the award ceremony were mostly unaware of his contributions to the electrical industry. Tesla’s acceptance speech was a detailed sharing of some of his most personal experiences, some of which follow:^[2]

. . . nature has given me a vivid imagination which, through incessant exercise and training, study of scientific subjects and verification of theories through experiment, has become very accurate and precise . . . In the first place, it [my life] was charmed . . . In my youth my ignorance and lightheartedness brought me into innumerable difficulties, dangers and scrapes from which I extricated myself as by enchantment . . . I was nearly drowned a dozen times. I was almost cremated three or four times and just missed being boiled alive. I was buried, abandoned, and frozen . . . I have passed through dreadful diseases––have been given up by physicians three or four times in my life for good . . . I cannot think of anything that did not happen to me and to realize that I am here this evening, hale and hearty, young in mind and body, with all these fruitful years behind me [age 61] is little short of a miracle . . . What I wish to say particularly is that my early life was really extraordinary in certain experiences which led to everything I ever did afterwards . . . From childhood I was afflicted in a singular way––I would see images of objects and scenes with a strong display of light and of much greater vividness than those I had observed before . . . My theory is that they were simply reflex actions from the brain on the retina, superinduced by hyperexcitation of the nerves . . . My head was always clear as a bell and I had no fear . . . In order to free myself of these tormenting appearances [images of discomforting events], I tried to fix my mind on some other picture or image which I had seen and, in this way, I would manage to get some relief . . . Then I began to make excursions beyond the limits of the little world I knew, and I saw new scenes . . . and so I started to travel––of course in my mind. . . . when I hit upon the idea of travelling, it seemed to me that was the greatest discovery possible to me. Every night (and sometimes during the day), as soon as I was alone, I would start on my travels. I would see new places, cities and countries. I would live there, meet people and make friendships and acquaintances and these were just as dear to me as those in real life and not a bit less intense. That is the way I did until I reached almost manhood. When I turned my thoughts to invention, I found I could visualize my conceptions with the greatest facility. I did not need any models, drawings or experiments, I could do it all in my mind and I did . . . My method [of materializing inventive concepts] is different. I do not rush into constructive work. When I get an idea, I start right away to build it up in my mind. I change the structure, I make improvements, I experiment, I run the device in my mind . . . I then construct the final product of my brain. Every time my device works as I conceive it should and my experiment comes out exactly as I plan it. In twenty years, there has not been a single solitary experiment which did not turn out precisely as I thought it would, why should it not? . . .

What a monumental moment, as an appreciative assembly witnessed the divulging of an unorthodox inventive process of imaginative visualization which brought to fruition scores of revolutionary discoveries. These inventions would not only change the lives of those in the audience, but of the entire planet and, as such, the very direction of human evolution.

Due to the enormous impact of his discoveries, many have declared Nikola Tesla to be not only one of the greatest inventors in the history of mankind but also a human being who possessed an awareness of the highest order. The explosive flow of revelation in flashes of unearthly light was an indication of an illuminating process. Such a process was manifested in a number of Tesla’s distinctive qualities, i.e., photographic memory, highly sensitive sense organs, vivid visions, inner travel, prophecy, indefatigable energy, intense concentration and an apparently clear channel to the unknown.

As a discoverer of new principles, Tesla opened the gateway into the modern electrical age, where huge amounts of power could be generated and transmitted anywhere in the world. Some of his spectacular inventions include: the rotating magnetic field principle, the alternating current (AC) induction motor, the alternating current polyphase electrical system, the Tesla coil, the magnifying transmitter, remote control by wireless, and the foundation of the wireless (radio). His astonishing discoveries include: Tesla waves, electrical and mechanical resonance effects, stationary waves, cosmic rays, and the nature of ether. Although Tesla applied for more than seven hundred patents, many discoveries never reached the patent office. Often, he found himself unable to fully develop the practical aspect of a discovery, due to the immense pressure of inner visions awaiting unfoldment. Tesla shared numerous ideas with the scientific world, hoping that someone would investigate and mold his initial plans into their own creations. And when you add the secretive side to his investigations plus the mystery that surrounded the handling of his notes after his death, the total extent of his genius will continue to remain unknown.

The aura around Tesla’s gifts proved to be enigmatic. His psychic experiences and mystical episodes of brilliance were a perennial aberration. And yet, publicly, he denied any truth to the suggestions that he possessed such tendencies for fear of not being taken seriously, being misunderstood or just having his research discarded as nonsensical. During Tesla’s lifetime and for nearly a century after his death, inquisitive minds that have examined his life have described him as a prodigal genius, a prophet, a visionary, a wizard, and the greatest scientist of all time.

The question may then be posed: was Tesla an example of an individual who possessed the faculties, vision, and awareness of an advanced, enlightened, or gifted human being who consciously perceived realms beyond the reach of a normal person? Today, many spiritual seekers are attracted to information pertaining to the purpose of life and the evolutionary forces involved in the cosmos. A spark of this timely knowledge brings to light the divine essence, the life energy behind the evolutionary process, described by numerous spiritual adepts as Kundalini.

Based upon his own personal experience and attained knowledge of traditional philosophies in India, Pandit Gopi Krishna, a modern-day teacher and authority on Kundalini, has presented the world, not only a theoretical explanation, but a thorough roadmap for examining the evolutionary impulse that drives and guides humanity on its path to higher consciousness. In his own words, Gopi Krishna wrote, “Man is destined for a brighter and more glorious state of being than his present existence. This glorious state visualized as being solely due to the union with God or Universal is also due to the physical cause, a biological transformation of the brain and nervous system leading to the emergence of a blissful and expanded state of consciousness, the natural endowment of future man.” ^[3]He believed that there is no greater or more important field of human investigation than the study of the phenomenon of Kundalini. “The arousal of Kundalini is designed by nature to create a new physiological activity in the body in which the upward flow of the energy occurs spontaneously and becomes a natural biological function of the organism.”^[4] This mechanism of creation, Kundalini, involves processes that work continuously in the human body to awaken a higher state of perception where consciousness takes on a new reality.

Gopi Krishna has proposed certain characteristics common to expanded states of consciousness that can be observed in those historical figures considered exceptionally gifted, divinely inspired and/or well ahead of their time. Spread through history, as if by design, giants, in their particular branch of human activity, appear. These individuals exhibited unmistakeable symptoms of a transformed personality and levels of awareness far beyond the reach of normal individuals of their time. Gopi Krishna wrote, “Whether the emergence of these highly developed personality traits occurred spontaneously, were brought into this incarnation at birth, or slowly evolved by moderate life experiences, they, in fact, are representative of an evolutionary metamorphosis slowly taking place in the race through cosmic laws of which we have no precise understanding at present.”^[5]

Gopi Krishna also suggested, “Nature does not rest content with merely the calculated efforts of human minds. Most of the great discoveries in the past were stimulated by flashes of sudden insight in those whose brains were clearly in tune. But for this extraordinary phenomenon, human progress could never have been possible.”^[6] He concluded, “Every incentive to invention, discovery, esthetics, and the development of improved social and political organizations invariably comes from within, from the depths of . . . [man’s] consciousness by the grace of Kundalini, the super intelligent Evolutionary Force in human beings.”^[7]

A thorough study of such gifted individuals who exhibit characteristics of arousal of this evolutionary force is essential in bettering our understanding of the evolutionary process of creation and our role in this profound journey. These characteristics are summarized in Appendix A. Nikola Tesla is one such personality worthy of study. Using the appendix as a resource, and studying the life of Nikola Tesla, will bring to light that he was a prime example of a soul with undeniable symptoms of Kundalini arousal.

Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856, in Smiljan, a small hamlet situated high in the mountains in the Austro-Hungarian border province of Lika (Yugoslavia). His father, Milutin, was a minister in the Serbian Orthodox Church and his mother, Ojouka, was a tireless inspiration to the creative nature of her son Nikola.

YOUTH, EARLY YEARS

In his sixties, Tesla publicly remarked that something unusual took place at his birth: “I was born exactly at midnight, I have no birthday and I never celebrate it . . . I have learned that my heartbeat on the right side and did so for many years after. As I grew up, it beat on both sides, and finally settled on the left . . . Something that was quite unusual must have occurred at my birth and my parents destined me for the clergy then and there . . .” ^[8]

His formative years were conspicuously enriched with unusual experiences that molded his character and deeply influenced the course of his life. The natural setting of his birthplace was an enjoyable playground for the young Tesla. The deep impact of his older brother’s death, the dreadful diseases that drained his energies, and the weird mishaps and the near-death episodes that Tesla endured made his early years extremely eventful. His inner imaginative tribulations and mental excursions into other realms encouraged the development of enormous powers of discipline and will. Tesla believed that surviving his adolescence was the work of divine power, as if a miracle had occurred and enabled him to achieve adulthood. He described his internal experiences in the following manner: ^[9]

In my boyhood I suffered from a peculiar affliction due to the appearance of images, often accompanied by strong flashes of light, which marred the sight of real objects and interfered with my thoughts and action. They were pictures of things and scenes which I had really seen, never of those imagined. When a word was spoken to me, the image of the object it designated would present itself vividly to my vision and sometimes I was unable to distinguish whether what I saw was tangible or not. This caused me great discomfort and anxiety.

What also caused him distress was his inability initially to drive away nightly mental pictures of disturbing events. He would explain his method of solving this dilemma: “To free myself of these tormenting appearances, I tried to concentrate my mind on something else I had seen, and in this way obtain temporary relief; but in order to get it, I had to conjure continuously new images . . . As I performed these mental operations for the second or third time, . . .the remedy gradually lost all its force.” ^[10] Tesla’s next step to relief was to begin an inner travel scenario where he visited other realms, which became for him a new reality just as authentic as that which his external senses encountered: “Then I instinctively commenced to make excursions beyond the limits of the small world of which I had knowledge, and I saw new scenes . . . They gained in strength and distinctness and finally assumed the concreteness of real things.” ^[11]Tesla quickly learned to take lively explorative journeys in his mind. Although unable to explain the source of this ability, Tesla continued these inner travels until he reached the age of seventeen, when his attentions were focused on inventions.

From a very young age, Tesla wrote poetry and was so passionate about reading that often he would read throughout the entire night instead of sleeping. The more Tesla read, the more he retained and soon found an ability to remember all that appeared before him in a manner that would later be called photographic. This phenomenal memory continued for most of his life. His retentive abilities allowed him to acquire and master foreign languages. It was reported that he was fully conversant in at least eight languages as an adult. His ability to visualize was most notably evident in his proficiency in the language of mathematics, where he shone like a bright star performing arithmetic operations without thinking.

Around the eighth year of his life, the reading of a novel Aoofi resulted in an overwhelming need to discipline himself to such a degree that powers of self-control became a prominent feature of his personality for the remainder of his life. Tesla would explain the importance of this mastery as “ . . . there lies the secret to whatever I have achieved. These experiences are as intimately linked with my greatest achievements and inventions . . . as if they formed an essential part of [them].” ^[12]

Fruits of his inventive mind commenced at the early age of six and continued throughout his school years. Examples include the following:

1. He made his own hook and line for catching frogs;
2. He manufactured a type of popgun;
3. He dismantled and assembled his grandfather’s clocks;
4. He built a water moving device powered by June bugs;
5. During deep breathing moments and feeling as light as a feather, he jumped off a low roof armed with an umbrella; and
6. He publicly saved a community demonstration of a new fire engine by unplugging a submerged hose in the river.

At the age of ten, school demonstrations of scientific apparatus fascinated Tesla to such a degree that he undertook testing devices for continuous motion and flying machines, and then commenced experimentation with a force called electricity. In his own words, Tesla would explain, “I was interested in electricity almost from the beginning of my educational career.” ^[13] In his autobiography, he elaborated further on his attraction to electricity: “ . . . every impression regarding electricity produced a thousand echoes in my mind. I wanted to know more . . . I longed for experiment and investigation.” ^[14] By the age of thirteen, Tesla began to study the relationship between lightning and rain as one of cause and effect. Another memorable event occurred in the mountains while playing in the snow. He stumbled upon the natural principle of resonance, whereby a tiny snowball rolled down the hill would grow to an immense mass. To Tesla, this exhibited nature’s enormous hidden forces that could be triggered by a much smaller force.

A most significant event took place in Tesla’s second year at the Polytechnic School at Gratz, when his favourite teacher, Professor Poeschl, demonstrated a direct current (DC) Gramme dynamo and the device’s brushes sparked, which, for Tesla, was a major flaw. He proposed to change the motor to incorporate alternating energy and no commutator with brushes. For this outrageous suggestion, Tesla was severely reprimanded. His instinct held steadfast, however; he could not accept such flawed thinking. Later in life, Tesla reflected upon this moment: “But you know that instinct is something which transcends knowledge. We have undoubtedly certain finer fibres that enable us to perceive truth when logical deduction, or any willful effort of the brain, is futile. We cannot reach beyond certain limits in our reasoning, but with instinct we can go to very great lengths. I was convinced that I was right and that it was possible [to devise an alternating current motor without sparking flaws].” ^[15]

This instinct would start Tesla on a journey of imaginings that would eventually prove him correct and lead to some of his greatest inventions. But the ultimate motivation that directed his journey came from an innate feeling that Tesla expressed during a young son and minister father chat when he said to his father, “You say you love people. I don’t. It is mankind that I love.” ^[16]

ILLNESS

Nikola Tesla often made mention of the unusual frequency of mishaps, life threatening situations, and severe illness that plagued him during his formative years. Three times during his teenage years, he would experience an almost tragic malady that would change his life thinking and habits. At the age of fourteen, a relentless ailment deemed extremely serious by the attending physicians was overcome miraculously by Tesla’s captivation with the entire works of Mark Twain. The second illness occurred in Croatia at his aunt’s home, while studying at the higher Real Gymnasium. His health and energy levels were extremely depleted due to his miniscule diet and malaria fever hovering about for three years. After graduation, Tesla returned home and almost immediately was felled by cholera. This deadly disease took hold of him for nine months with frequent sinking spells that brought him ever so close to death. Unable to move and totally exhausted, Tesla, pushed by some unknown force, convinced his father to allow him to study engineering upon recovery. With Tesla’s spirits uplifted, a new source of energy within induced his complete recovery. His journey into the engineering field had taken a monumental step.

LIGHT

Light, in all its manifestations, played a dominant role throughout Nikola Tesla’s lifetime. Whether he experienced light internally, or worked with light’s physical manifestations, the relationship between light and Tesla was profound.

At the age of eighty-three, in a letter to the daughter of the Yugoslavian ambassador to the United States, Pola Fotsic, Tesla wrote about how sensitive, even at the age of three, his vision was to light: “People walking in the snow left a luminous trail behind them and a snowball thrown against an obstacle gave a flare of light like a loaf of sugar hit with a knife . . .” ^[17]Another incident, during the same year, was also mentioned in the letter: “I felt impelled to strike Macak’s (my cat’s) back. What I saw was a miracle which made me speechless. Macak’s back was a sheet of light, and my hand produced a shower of crackling sparks loud enough to be heard all over the place. [His father had told him this was electricity.] Is nature a gigantic cat? It can only be God, I concluded.” ^[18]Later, when the surroundings darkened, Tesla saw the cat’s furry body totally encompassed by a saintly halo.

During many years of his youth, Nikola Tesla, as he put it, suffered with an unusual ailment caused by the appearance of images in his mind. These were usually associated with strong flashes of light that overwhelmed his vision, both external and internal. Although Tesla eventually controlled the images, he found that he was unable to regulate or subdue the flashes of light. In his autobiography, he would confirm that “they were perhaps my strangest and most inexplicable experience. They usually occurred when I found myself in dangerous or distressing situations or when I was greatly exhilarated. In some instances, I have seen all the air around me filled with tongues of living flame. Their intensity, instead of diminishing, increased with time and seemingly attained a maximum when I was about twenty-five years old.” ^[19]

When Tesla was fourteen years old, swimming with friends, he dove into a pond and swam under a long floating structure. After three unsuccessful attempts to surface from under this wooden obstacle, he explained, “The torture of suppressed breathing was getting unendurable, my brain was reeling and I felt myself sinking. At that moment, when my situation seemed absolutely hopeless, I experienced one of those flashes of light and the structure above me appeared before my vision.” ^[20] The vision was enough to guide him to find air, and gain enough composure to escape the ordeal. Two years later, another experience of great intensity took place near a dam. While swimming alone, Tesla found the water level of the pool was significantly higher than normal and extremely dangerous around the dam. Tesla unfortunately recognized this too late as he approached the dam area and found himself, instantly, in a very precarious situation. Hanging on to the dam with water pounding against his body pushing him down under the surface, Tesla’s body had reached the end of its strength. Tesla remembered, “Just as I was about to let go, to be dashed against the rocks below, I saw in a flash of light a familiar diagram illustrating the hydraulic [movement] that . . .” ^[21]eventually showed him what he needed to do to save his life.

It was 1881 in Budapest when Nikola Tesla suffered a complete nervous breakdown that brought him close to death. The following year, Tesla, during a late afternoon walk, had a monumental vision that changed the world. While walking with a friend in the park, reciting poetry and watching the sun setting, Nikola Tesla was frozen in his tracks. He explained what transpired in his autobiography: “As I uttered these words [Goethe’s Faust], the idea came like a flash of lightning and in an instant the truth was revealed.” ^[22] Tesla quickly drew in the sand the plans of the rotating magnetic field and the alternating current induction motor that would revolutionize the electrical generation and distribution system worldwide.

In the following year, while in Paris, Tesla, having returned from a shooting expedition in the country, had the following experience: “I felt a positive sensation that my brain had caught fire. I was a light as though a small sun was located in me and I passed the whole night applying cold compressions to my tortured head. Finally, the flashes diminished in frequency and force, but it took more than three weeks before they wholly subsided.” ^[23] At age sixty-two, the time of his autobiography, he wrote that “these luminous phenomena still manifest themselves from time to time, as when a new idea opening up possibilities strikes me, but they are no longer exciting, being of relatively small intensity.” ^[24]

In the years that followed his Paris ordeal, Nikola Tesla worked with electrical devices and lighting apparatus (tubes, lamps, etc.) where physical flashes of light became constant companions to the inventor. But they could not match the excitement Tesla felt when witnessing an electrical storm with powerful bolts of lightning revitalizing the atmosphere around him. The apparatus in his laboratory produced spectacular displays of light streamers, lightning flashes, powerful blasts, illuminated lamps of great intensity, and enormous voltages of electricity passing through his body with no harmful effects. It was not uncommon for his assistants to notice that after performing experiments with his high frequency apparatus, Tesla’s body would radiate a halo type of brightness that oozed from every part of his body. A reporter from New York World, Arthur Brisbane, recalled that after a demonstration in his laboratory, “Nikola Tesla appeared to be an eerie radiant creature, with light flaming out from every pore of his skin and from the tip of his fingers and from every hair on his head.” ^[25]Nikola Tesla’s secretary of many years, Miss Dorothy F. Skerritt, described his face in his later years as “glowing with an almost ethereal radiance.” ^[26]

In 1907, Tesla related the sensation of electricity running through his body during an experiment in his New York laboratory:^[27]

When the body of a person is subjected to the rapidly alternating pressure of an electrical oscillator of 2-1/2 million volts, this presents a sight marvellous and unforgettable. One sees the experimenter [usually Nikola Tesla!] standing on a big sheet of fierce, blinding flame, his whole body enveloped in a mass of phosphorescent streamers like the tentacles of an octopus. Bundles of light stick out from his spine. As he stretches out the arms, tongues of fire leap from his fingertips. Objects in his vicinity bristle with rays that emit musical notes, glow, grow heat. He is the centre of still more curious actions which are invisible. At each throb of electrical force myriads of minute projectiles are shot off from him with such velocities as to pass through the adjoining walls. He is in turn being violently bombarded by the surrounding air and dust. He experiences sensations which are indescribable.”

While in Colorado Springs, Tesla witnessed and was irresistibly attracted to the powerful electrical storms that travelled through the area. He was able to reproduce, using his powerful electrical apparatus, identical qualities and intensities of lightning in his laboratory. One of his biographers commented, “The flashing lights that he [Nikola Tesla] had always experienced on the screen of the mind was dramatically externalized and his descriptions among the mass of mathematical formulas are detailed, loving, almost erotic in their lingering portrayal of the colours and grandeur of his Colorado electrical storms.” ^[28]

Light permeated Tesla’s whole being, with internal flashes and external expressions of light and lightning. Even in his later years, light was manifested in various fashions. It was 1915, and Nikola Tesla was taking his daily evening stroll on a wet cold night when suddenly he slipped and his body was transposed into a position of certain disaster. In his autobiography, Nikola Tesla recalled that “at that instant there was a flash in my brain. The nerves responded, the muscles contracted, I swung 180 degrees and landed on my hands.” ^[29]
Serious injury had been averted.

Later in life, over a span of three decades, Nikola Tesla would feed pigeons during his daily walks throughout New York. There was one white pigeon that Tesla mentioned to John O’Neill, who was a friend, with which he confessed having a special relationship. Nikola Tesla apparently had a long history with that particular pigeon and related that this pigeon became the joy of his life. Tesla’s story described the events of a night when the pigeon flew into his hotel room through the always opened window. “ . . . As I looked at her, I knew she wanted to tell me . . she was dying . . . And then as I got her message, there came a light from her eyes––powerful beams of light . . . Yes, it was a real light, a powerful, dazzling, blinding light more intense than I had ever produced by the most powerful lamps in my laboratory.” ^[30]

NERVOUS SYSTEM

In 1881, the twenty-five-year-old Nikola Tesla suffered a complete nervous breakdown. The intense sensitivity of all his sense organs became so exaggerated that living in Budapest became a torture. Up to this time, Tesla’s sight was extraordinary and his hearing was ten times more sensitive than that of an average person. But during this ailment, all of his senses were so affected by any stimulus that all concentration became impossible. He described his experience in the following way: ^[31]

. . . I was stone deaf in comparison with the acuteness of my hearing while under the nervous strain. In Budapest I could hear the ticking of a watch with three rooms between me and the timepiece. A fly alighting on a table in the room would cause a dull thud in my ear. A carriage passing at a distance of a few miles fairly shook my whole body. The whistle of a locomotive twenty or thirty miles away made the bench or chair on which I sat vibrate so strongly that the pain was unbearable. The ground under my feet trembled continuously. I had to support my bed on rubber cushions to get any rest at all . . . The sun’s rays, when periodically intercepted, would cause blows of such force in my brain that they would stun me. I had to summon all my will power to pass under any bridge or other structure, as I experienced the crushing pressure of the skull. In the dark, I had the sense of a bat, and could detect the presence of an object at a distance of twelve feet by a peculiar creepy sensation on the forehead. My pulse varied from a few to 260 beats and all the tissues of my body with twitchings and tremors, which was perhaps hardest to bear . . . I clung desperately to life, but never expected to recover . . . A powerful desire to live and to continue the work, [along with] the assistance of a devoted friend, an athlete, accomplished the wonder. My health returned and with it the vigor of mind.”

As part of his recovery, he would begin a daily regimen of walking throughout Budapest.

As the years passed, Nikola Tesla’s nervous system seemed to develop a safety device that improved with age. It was aroused when a certain task overwhelmed him or when his energies were overtaxed to the point of exhaustion. An unknown intelligence seemed at work to prevent the depletion of his energy beyond a certain point as a self-preservation mechanism. His system would basically shut down into a “preservative inducing lethal sleep” ^[32] that would interrupt any exertion of the brain, including his visualization process. This state of sleepiness usually lasted for thirty minutes. Upon awakening, an initial state of fogginess was transformed into renewed energy, clear visions and a zest for old and new challenges.

After Tesla’s Paris lecture in 1892 when, totally exhausted, another sleeping spell intervened to bring him back into equilibrium. As soon as he regained full conscious awareness, he was handed the sad message that his mother was dying. He quickly travelled to be by her bedside, when he suffered another breakdown. He was taken to rest a short distance away from the family home to recover. During this period of personal upheaval, Tesla was to experience his most notable supernatural premonition that his mother had died.

It was the fall of 1905, a time just preceded by numerous setbacks, when Tesla felt overall fatigue and suffered another nervous breakdown. When Tesla described this incident to a journalist in 1934, he touched upon a significant realization about his future that entered his thinking at that time. He experienced his recovery in the following manner: “ . . . What I experienced was not the awakening from a dream but the restoration of a particular department of my consciousness . . . the practical lesson to all this is to be aware of concentration and be content with mediocre achievement.” ^[33]This event did seem to indicate the end of his most prolific inventive era.

PERSONALITY

Whether one saw Tesla walking through the streets of New York or heard him speak at a social gathering, one was witness to a gracious and intriguing personality. Some of the features that made Tesla unforgettable were eyes set very far back in his head, intensity in his expressions, a high-pitched voice, large hands, the walk of a dreamer in a trance, and a gentleman with old-fashioned continental manners.

People who crossed paths with Nikola Tesla found him quiet, soft-spoken, extremely charming, well-educated, and in possession of an enchanting personality that intrigued people enough to seek him out. When the editor of Electrical World, T. C. Martin, met him in 1890, he made the following observation: “ . . . He is an omnivorous reader, who never forgets and he possesses the peculiar facility in languages that enables the educated native of Eastern Europe to talk and write in at least half a dozen languages. A more congenial companion cannot be desired . . . the conversation, dealing at first with things near at hand and next . . . reaches out and rises to the greater questions of life, and duty, and destiny.” ^[34]
Tesla’s world changed in 1891 and 1892 when he captivated large audiences with his amazing inventions, discoveries and views on the future of the electrical world. Scientists, engineers, and the general public were amazed by the magical, almost unbelievable sights and sounds that this highly energized wizard presented. He quickly became the world’s most celebrated and charismatic scientist whose life would no longer remain private. People from all walks of life including journalists, writers, industrialists, financiers, poets, scientists, actors, musicians, politicians, royalty, and occultists were attracted to him. Admirers and sceptics found him mysterious, revolutionary, and overflowing with an irresistible magnetism.

One of his biographers and good friend, John O’Neill, remarked that “he was a spectacular figure in New York in 1891. A tall, dark, handsome, well-built individual who had a flair for wearing clothes that gave him an air of magnificence and who spoke perfect English but carried an atmosphere of European culture which was worshipped at the time.” ^[35] People would eagerly visit his magical laboratory, where a wizard performed incredible feats with this little known phenomenon called electricity.

An article written by Franklin Chester in 1897 illustrated Tesla’s affect upon those who encountered him: ^[36]

So far as personal appearance goes, no one can look upon him without feeling his force . . . he possesses great physical power . . . His eyes are blue, deeply set and they burn like bolts of fire. Those weird flashes of light he makes with his instruments seem also to shoot from them . . . Never was a human being filled with loftier ideals. Never did a man labour so unceasingly, so earnestly, so unselfishly for the benefit of the race. Tesla is not rich. He does not trouble himself about money . . . Tesla is above all things a serious man . . . Yet he has a keen sense of humour and the most beautiful manners. He is the most genuinely modest of men. He knows no jealousy . . . When he talks, you listen. You do not know what he is saying but it enthralls you . . . He speaks the perfect English of a highly educated foreigner, without accent and with precision . . . all day long he lives in his weird, uncanny world, reaching forth to capture new power to gain fresh knowledge . . . there is no sacrifice that thousands of people would not make to gain admission to these experiments in his laboratory . . . The absence of natural light does not trouble him. Tesla makes sunlight in his workshop . . . “

Novelist Julian Hawthorne, after his first meeting with Tesla, gave a similar account of the personality of Nikola Tesla in 1900: ^[37]

“ . . . with long eyes whose lids were seldom fully lifted, as if he were in a waking dream, seeing visions which were not revealed to the generality. Withal he manifested a courtesy and amiability which were almost feminine, and beneath all were the simplicity and integrity of a child . . . To be with Tesla is to enter a domain of freedom even freer than solitude, because the horizon enlarges so . . . with music he stood on terms of a musician, and one can imagine the kind of transcendental symphony that a mind of that calibre may compose.”

Hawthorne continued later to reflect that when Tesla spoke, “[I could see] mankind rise as a Titan and grasp the secrets of the skies. I saw a coming time when the race would no longer be forced to labour for the means of livelihood, when the terms rich and poor would no longer mean difference of material conditions but of spiritual capacity and ambition, a time when intercommunication all over the earth should be immediate and universal and even when knowledge should be derived from sources now hardly recognized.” ^[38]

Editor of Electrical Experimenter, Hugo Gernsback, wrote about his first meeting with Nikola Tesla in 1916: “ . . . You become conscious at once that you are face to face with a personality of a higher order . . . A winning smile from piercing light blue gray eyes . . . fascinates you and makes you feel at once at home. You are guided into an office immaculate in its orderliness. Not a speck of dust to be seen. No papers litter the desk, everything just so. It reflects the man himself, immaculate in attire, orderly and precise in his every movement . . . “ ^[39]

Nikola Tesla’s secretary, Miss Dorothy F. Skerritt, was quick to point out the impressive presence and manners he exuded in his later years. After noting the glow in his face while working in his laboratory office, she added, “His general smile and nobility of bearing always denoted the gentlemanly characteristic that was so ingrained in his soul.” ^[40]

CAPACITY FOR WORK, CONCENTRATION

Throughout his life, Nikola Tesla possessed phenomenal amounts of energy that he could draw from. Once he began a journey or a specific task, a vigorous compulsion took hold.

Physically, Tesla showed no limits to what he could do. During school, he could apply himself seven days a week and surpass all other school mates in accomplishments. A grueling schedule of working up to eighteen hours each day, seven days a week with less than five hours of sleep each night was continued for almost four decades without an extended vacation. Only a rare personal illness or family tragedy would interrupt the superhuman pace that Tesla felt impelled to follow. There was one stretch of time when he worked for eighty-four hours without sleep and still performed all his laboratory duties without any decline in his mental or physical capacity.

Tesla’s discipline was an inherent quality that took form very early in his life. He described its origin in this way: “From childhood I was compelled to concentrate attention upon myself. This caused me much suffering . . . [however] it was a blessing in disguise for it has taught me to appreciate the inestimable value of introspection in the preservation of life, as well as a means of achievement. The pressure of occupation and the incessant stream of impressions pouring into our consciousness through all the gateways of knowledge make modern existence hazardous in many ways. Most persons are so absorbed in the contemplation of the outside world that they are wholly oblivious to what is passing on within themselves . . . it is a common mistake to avoid imaginary . . . [dangers] . . . And what is true of an individual also applies more or less, to a people as a whole.” ^[41] In time, this mental exercise of imagination and self-observation became second nature.

Tesla had an uncanny ability to work on numerous projects in different fields simultaneously and, without notes, to maintain complete knowledge of every detail of every experimental project. Almost all plans and details came directly from his mind when directing his assistants. It was also not uncommon for both Tesla’s assistants in the laboratory and his hotel’s employees to report how he would appear motionless, as if in a deep meditative trance for short periods of time while work continued all around him. No one questioned his authority or his accuracy on any topic whether it was pertinent to scientific laboratory work or intimate awareness in any field of human activity.

Robert Johnson, the editor of Century Magazine and a good friend of Nikola Tesla for many years, in his recommendation for bestowing an honorary doctorate upon Tesla from Columbia University, wrote the following in 1894: ^[42]

. . . I have never heard a subject of scientific importance mentioned in his presence upon which he did not seem to be thoroughly informed . . . As to his general culture, I may say that he knows the language and is widely read in the best literature of Italy, Germany and France, as well as much of the Slavic countries to say nothing of Greek and Latin. He is particularly fond of poetry and is always quoting Leopardi or Dante or Goethe or the Hungarians and Russians. I know of few men of such diversity of general culture or such accuracy of knowledge.

LECTURES

Although possessing a high piercing voice, Tesla had the knack for the dramatic and could mesmerize an audience with his magical electric displays. He was a natural lecturer using language that most in attendance could understand. His first major lecture was given in May of 1888 before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (A.I.E.E.) in New York. It was here that he presented the theory and practical application of his single-phase, two-phase and three-phase motors of alternating current (AC) electrical system, which he originally visualized many years before in Budapest.

This lecture was the start of a string of public appearances where the results of his experiments and his deep insights could be shared and explained. In the 1890s, Tesla became the world’s most celebrated and acknowledged scientist. During this time, his energies were stretched to their limits, as he appeared to be everywhere, working and demonstrating the mysterious agent, electricity.

It was May 20, 1891, at Columbia University, before the A.I.E.E., when Tesla spoke about and demonstrated the topic “Experiments with ACs of Very High Frequencies”. For hours, his hypnotic descriptions and displays of fireworks, lamps and experiments never seen before would captivate his audience. Using the flair of a poet, Tesla would share his philosophy and his research into the very nature of electricity. Those in attendance were bewildered by Tesla’s fascination with the mysterious nature of electricity and magnetism, by his portrayal of ether, and by the visual impact of the effects of his oscillating transformer, the Tesla coil.

Tesla began the lecture in the following way: ^[43]

There is no subject more captivating, more worthy of study, than nature. To understand this great mechanism, to discover the forces which are active and the laws which govern them, is the highest aim of the intellect of man. Nature has stored up in the universe infinite energy. The eternal recipient and transmitter of this infinite energy is the ether. The recognition of the existence of ether, and of the functions it performs, is one of the most important results of modern scientific research . . . the assumption of a medium pervading all space and connecting all gross matter. Phenomena upon which we used to look as wonders baffling explanation, we now see in a different light . . . the manifestations of the mechanical forces of currents and magnets are no longer beyond our grasp . . . We will admire these beautiful phenomena, these strange forces, but we are helpless no longer . . . In how far we can understand the world around us is the ultimate thought of every student of nature. The coarseness of our senses prevents us from recognizing the ulterior construction of matter . . . But far beyond the limit of perception of our senses, the spirit still can guide us and so we may hope that even these unknown worlds––infinitely small and great––may in a measure become known to us . . . Of all the forms of nature’s immeasurable, all pervading energy, which [is] ever and ever changing and moving, like a soul animates the inert universe, electricity and magnetism are perhaps the most fascinating . . . We are now confident that electric and magnetic phenomena are attributable to ether . . .
. . . What is electricity? . . . We know that electricity acts like an incompressible fluid, that there must be a constant quantity of it in nature, that it can neither be produced or destroyed and that electric and ether phenomena are identical . . . calling electricity ether associated with matter, or bound ether . . . electricity is concerned in all molecular actions.

Following his initial insights, Tesla would demonstrate his energized coil with the cracking of electric sparks and streamers of electric flames. With hundreds of thousands of high frequency volts surging through his body, two gas-filled tubes held in his hands glowed brilliantly. The response of the spectators could be represented by reporter, Joseph Wetzler’s words: “Tesla had gone far beyond others in his production of light by use of vacuum tubes and his refinement of the incandescent lamp . . . but went further in creating a lamp without any external connection to wires . . . [that] would glow brightly.” ^[44] Electrical Review reported that “Mr. Tesla seemed to act the part of a veritable magician .. . . in each and every case the filaments were brought to incandescence to the supreme delight of the spectators.” ^[45] Tesla himself became the connection between the energy source and the lamps, and thus proved the safety of his high frequency alternating currents.

Tesla ended this memorable lecture with the following words: “ . . . We are whirling through endless space with an inconceivable speed, all around us everything is spinning, everything is moving, everywhere is energy. There must be some way of availing ourselves of this energy more directly. Then, with the light obtained from the medium, with the power derived from it, with every form of energy obtained without effort, from the store forever inexhaustible, humanity will advance with giant strides. The mere contemplation of these magnificent possibilities expands our minds, strengthens our hopes and fills our hearts with supreme delight.” ^[46]

In the following year, Tesla travelled to Europe to give three impressive lectures before three electrical engineering associations in London and in Paris. Tesla opened the first London lecture with, “Of the various branches of electrical investigation, perhaps the most interesting and the most immediately promising, is that dealing with alternating currents.” ^[47]Tesla would discuss the importance of the research and the sheer pleasure of directing an inventive energy towards discoveries that would improve human life. He spoke of energy in space everywhere free for the taking if we had the proper equipment. In his own words, “we shall have no need to transmit power at all. Ere many generations pass our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe. This idea is not novel. Men have been led to it long ago by instinct or reason.” ^[48] Tesla’s visual demonstrations, which lasted for hours, were crammed with new equipment and original insights that completely fascinated the spectators. A reporter from Nature wrote: “The interest of the audience deepened into enthusiasm . . . His marvellous skill as an experimentalist was evident and unmistakable.” ^[49]

The Electrical Review reported on his second London lecture: “The lecture given by Mr. Tesla will live long in the imagination of every person that heard him, opening as it did, to many of them, for the first time apparently limitless possibilities in the applications and control of electricity. Seldom has there been such a gathering of all the foremost electrical authorities of the day, on the tiptoe of expectation.” ^[50] The London lectures encompassed a wide variety of Tesla’s discoveries some of which were not commercially pursued by Tesla and were later rediscovered by others, netting them Nobel prizes without any mention of Nikola Tesla. He touched upon lamps that were phosphorescent, neon, and gas-filled vacuum tubes, all of which were wireless; high frequency coils; atom smasher, electron microscope, electronic tubes similar to those used in radio many years later, blacklight (ultraviolet), and cosmic rays.

Tesla’s lecture in Paris the following year was greeted with similar reactions, as illustrated by an Electrical Review report: “No man in our age has achieved such a universal scientific reputation in a single stride as this gifted young electrical engineer.” ^[51] The French electrician Edouard Hospitalier observed, “The young scientist is . . . almost as a prophet. He introduces so much warmth and sincerity into his explanations that faith wins us, and despite ourselves, we believe that we are witnesses of the dawn of a nearby revolution in the present processes of illumination.” ^[52] And finally, another report in the Electrical Review stated: “Exhausted tubes . . . held in the hand of Mr. Tesla . . . appeared like a luminous sword in the hand of an archangel representing justice.” ^[53] These represent the reaction Nikola Tesla received when he demonstrated his inventions and uttered his visions for the future. Tesla would leave Paris exhausted, his nerves overwhelmed and his emotions in turmoil at the news of his mother’s failing health.

It was not until February of 1893 that Tesla would speak again of his wondrous discoveries and the direction of future investigation into the fields of electromagnetic manifestations of energy and electrostatic molecular forces, first at the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia and one week later in St. Louis at the request of the National Electric Light Association. Many times, Tesla’s spiritual side would speak out: “In no way can we get such an overwhelming idea of the grandeur of Nature, as when we consider that in accordance with the law of the conservation of energy, throughout the infinite, the forces are in a perfect balance, and hence the energy of a single thought may determine the motion of the Universe.” ^[54] Most of his demonstrations on lighting and wireless were new and original. Tesla would describe the principles of radio broadcasting and then demonstrate a wireless message being sent and received instantly by devices unconnected and thirty feet apart. After charging his body with two hundred thousand volts of high frequency alternating current from his transformer and lighting bulbs held in his hands, a stream of weak, dim light encompassed Tesla’s entire body and was easily seen when the lights in the auditorium were turned down.

During his demonstrations, Tesla would enlighten the audience with his penetrating visions about the nature of life, energy, ether, and electricity. A highlight of his discourse follows: ^[55]

Thus electrical science has become the mother science of all . . . The day when we shall know exactly what ‘electricity’ is, will chronicle an event probably greater, more important, than any other recorded in the history of the human race. The time will come when the comfort, the very existence, perhaps, of man will depend upon that wonderful agent. For our existence and comfort, we require heat, light and mechanical power . . . How do we now get all these? We get them from fuel, we get them by consuming material. What will man do when the forests disappear, when the coal fields are exhausted? Only one thing, according to our present knowledge will remain; that is, to transmit power at great distances. Men will go to the waterfalls, to the tides, which are the stores of an infinitesimal part of Nature’s immeasurable energy . . . But how will they transmit this energy if not by electricity? Judge then, if the comfort, nay the very existence, of man will not depend on electricity . . . It is certain that power transmission, which at present is merely a stimulus to enterprise, will some day be a dire necessity.”

LABORATORIES

Throughout his adult life, Nikola Tesla felt most at home in his laboratory where countless hours of diligent research and experimentation were conducted in unexplored spheres of electrical phenomena. Tesla’s laboratory was well known by all local officials and citizens as being a magical chamber where mysterious sounds, lights and strange events occurred. Tesla’s laboratory attracted a great deal of attention from those wishing to tour his facilities and those who wished to partake in his research work. Those who Tesla did employ as assistants needed to possess energy and high levels of engineering and electrical expertise, clean working habits and loyalty. He rewarded ingenuity publicly, but was private with criticisms. Due to the type of high pressure, high potential electrical devices employed, order and cleanliness were a necessity at all times. General observations of his laboratory would include:

1. a loop of permanent lighting around the ceiling without visible connections;
2. a well-used blackboard covered with figures and signs of the occult;
3. dynamos spinning;
4. blasts of electrical discharges crashing and exploding branches of flame;
5. a huge variety of coils and transformers unconnected but still vibrating or sparking crowns of fire;
6. electric lights of all sorts––globes and tubes glowing;
7. radio broadcasting equipment; and
8. immense amounts of high frequency energy flowing about the room and sometimes throughout his body to light bulbs and tubes held in his hands and causing no bodily harm.

A visitor to the laboratory in 1899, Chauncey McGovern, described his experience: “Fancy yourself seated in a large well lighted room, with mountains of curious looking machinery on all sides. A tall young man walks up to you, and by merely snapping his fingers creates instantaneously a ball of leaping red flame and holds it calmly in his hands. As you gaze, you are surprised to see it does not burn his fingers. He lets it fall back upon his clothing, on his hair, into your lap and finally puts the ball of flame into a wooden box. You are amazed that nowhere does the flame leave the slightest trace, and you rub your eyes to make sure you are not asleep.” ^[56] Other visitors remarked about seeing glowing purple streamers of electricity and described the rich purple violet light that filled the room as dazzling and unearthly.

It was the mid 1890s and Tesla was extremely productive and happy. Every day was crammed with new ideas, experimental work, visitors, and enquiries about his claims and discoveries. He told a reporter, “I am completely worn out, in fact, and yet I cannot stop my work. These experiments of mine are so important, so beautiful, so fascinating, that I can hardly tear myself away from them to eat, and when I try to sleep, I think about them constantly. I expect that I shall go on until I break down altogether.” ^[57] Almost on cue, Tesla received news that his laboratory was on fire. It was the thirteenth of March, 1895, when the entire building that housed Tesla’s laboratory was destroyed. The loss of uninsured equipment and the results of a decade of hard work was devastating to Tesla. Although set back, his inner drive could not be crushed, and his thoughts turned quickly to resuming his experiments.

In his new laboratory, Tesla redesigned and improved much of his equipment that allowed for continued research in wireless transmission, radio research, work with radiations such as x-rays, medical therapy and guided robotic devices. Using highly explosive and possibly dangerous levels of electrical energy for the first time in human history, it was almost a miracle that serious injuries to Tesla and his assistants were not a common occurrence. Only once was an assistant injured during an experiment. Nikola Tesla was adamant not to place anyone else but himself in harm’s way during experimental work. He apparently suffered only one serious injury from which he recovered quickly, although an occasional minor episode of discomfort was encountered over the many years of exposure to previously unexplored levels of radiation and energy. Tesla’s nervous system had its own manner of dealing with the radiations he was exposed to and the electrical energy that rushed through his body on numerous occasions in his life. Tesla was also quick to point out that no one was ever killed by one of his machines and that all of his apparatus was built and operated in a manner that would not kill anyone.

INVENTION – IMAGINATION

Nikola Tesla was interviewed in the summer of 1896 and, while discussing his thoughts of transmission of sight by wire, he revealed the essential elements of his creative process. Tesla would explain how an idea would evolve in his mind, how after rigorous analysis on the underlying principles involved, a clear imaginative faculty would take over and give the idea a fully practical expression in the form of an invention. Tesla described the initial stage of his perceptive method in this way: ^[58]

After many fruitless efforts, I have conceived an idea. I have for a long time scrutinized it and found it agreed with all the established facts I knew . . . Next I have examined the difficulties which I had to overcome in carrying the idea into practice and have found that they were not insuperable; hence my scheme is practicable . . . Now when through so long a time (weeks, months or years) no flaw in an idea can be found . . . when as the knowledge of the subject increases and the desire to accomplish grows more intense by approach to realization, it returns after each period of exhaustion with increased force, then this idea is a truth.”

Later in the interview, Tesla revealed the basic thrust of his imaginative process: ^[59]

Have you ever abandoned yourself to the rapture of contemplation of a world you yourself create? You want a palace, and there it stands . . . You fill it with marvellous paintings . . . and all kinds of objects of art. You summon fairies if you are fond of them. Now, perhaps, you want to sit on a throne, and there is your throne . . . And all your subjects are around you . . . Now you walk out in the streets of a wonderful city . . . You are endowed with giant strength . . . You grapple with a tramp over money . . . you continue your adventurous voyage peacefully and contented. Suddenly you throw yourself in the roar of a battle . . . Then you may witness a terribly impressive scene of years gone by. You witness the death of your father or your mother, and you go through all the agonies again . . . So your imagination leads you on, from sorrow to joy, from work to play, and all this world is ever present, ever ready for your pleasure and enlightenment, and at your wish and command.”

For Tesla, the process of invention required a vibrant childlike imagination in harmony with the external world. He also believed that the prime prerequisite for enhancing an inventor’s intensity of visualization was the solitude of a meditative setting. And so, when Tesla’s internal adventures shifted towards inventions, he had molded the foundation for an imaginative process that would operate for the remainder of his life: ^[60]

I observed to my delight that I could visualize with the greatest facility. I needed no models, drawings or experiments. I could picture them all as real in my mind. Thus, I have been led unconsciously to evolve what I consider a new method of materializing inventive concepts and ideas, which is radically opposite to the purely experimental and is in my opinion ever so much more expeditious and efficient. . . . My method is different. I do not rush into actual work. When I get an idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements, and operate the device in my mind . . . In this way I am able to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching anything. When I have gone as far as to embody in the invention every possible improvement I can think of and see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form this final product of my brain. Invariably my device works as I conceived that it should . . . Why should it be otherwise? . . .”

It was only the limitations of physical construction and materials that had any retarding force opposing his inventive schedule. As an aid to minimizing any limiting agents, Tesla was blessed with a photographic memory that allowed him to perform simultaneously numerous experiments and lines of scientific research without any loss of time or accuracy. With this inherent gift, Tesla was able to recite complete literary works, perform mathematical calculations in a flash, reproduce measurements and every detail of any apparatus in his laboratory instantly, and exhibit a never-ending fountain of knowledge.

INVENTIONS

After Tesla’s initial major leap into the realm of invention that included the rotating magnetic field, the first induction motor, two-phase and three-phase alternating current systems, dynamos for generating alternating currents, polyphase induction motors for adjusting voltages, and other electrical devices for generating and transmitting power over large distances economically, the fruitful stream of his inventive process would flow for almost two decades. A constant flood of patent applications astonished the scientific community. Reaction to Tesla ranged from bewilderment to endearment to criticism. Tesla’s motivation and methodology were not always appreciated by his fellow electrical engineers. Tesla’s standards and ethics brought a character to his discoveries that placed benefit to civilization over personal and monetary rewards for the inventor.

In an 1892 London lecture, Tesla spoke of the genuine allure and purpose of experimental study in the field of electrical phenomena: ^[61]

. . . with wonder and delight we note the effects of strange forces which we bring into play, which allow us to transform, to transmit and direct energy at will . . . We observe how the energy of an alternating current transversing the wire manifests itself . . . taking the forms of heat, light, mechanical energy and most surprisingly of all even chemical affinity. All these observations fascinate us and fill us with an intense desire to know more about the nature of these phenomena. Each day we go to work in the hope of discovery--in the hope that someone, no matter who, may find a solution to one of the pending great problems-- and each succeeding day, we return to our task with renewed ardor; and even if we are unsuccessful, our work has not been in vain, for in these strivings, in these efforts, we have found hours of untold pleasure, and we have directed our energies to the benefit of mankind.”

A concise examination of Tesla’s accomplishments would illustrate his enormous capacity and creative talents that set him apart from others in the field of scientific research.

MAJOR INVENTION—BUDAPEST

After recovering from an extreme nervous breakdown, Nikola Tesla enjoyed taking daily walks in the city park of Budapest with his friend and classmate Szigeti. One late afternoon in February of 1882, while walking, Tesla was reciting the poetry of Goethe, in particular, Faust, when suddenly he stopped as if in a daze. “As I uttered these inspiring words, the idea came like a flash of lightning and, in an instant, the truth was revealed. I drew with a stick in the sand the diagram shown six years later in my address before the A.I.E.E., and my companion understood [it] perfectly. The images I saw were wonderfully sharp and clear and had the solidity of metal and stone, so much so that I told him, ‘See my motor here; watch me reverse it.’ I cannot begin to describe my emotions.” ^[62]

In a moment, Tesla saw with great clarity the rotating magnetic field produced by his alternating current motor with no sparking, plus all the other machines and connections working as if all was real. This, for Tesla, was a monumental moment when his life’s path of invention was revealed to him. Over the next two months, he was flooded with mental images and very quickly devised all the necessary equipment needed in his alternating current system. The pictures in his mind were in such detail that no blueprints were needed for their actual construction. The principle of the rotating magnetic field created by alternating currents was a stroke of genius that not only set him apart from all others in the electrical profession, but brought to the scientific world a completely new method of discovery and invention.

Tesla described his state of mind after the initial flash of inspiration in the park: “ . . . it was a mental state of happiness about as complete as I have ever known in my life. Ideas came in an uninterrupted stream and the only difficulty I had was to hold them fast. The pieces of apparatus I conceived were to me absolutely real and tangible in every detail, even to the minutest marks and signs of wear. I delighted in imagining the motors constantly running, for in this way they presented to the mind’s eye a fascinating sight.” ^[63] This strange visualization ability allowed Tesla to produce numerous discoveries very quickly. By April of 1887, all the motors and equipment that he had imagined were built and fully operational.

In addition, Tesla invented polyphase induction motors that involved three or more circuits of the same frequency. Although a harsh war broke out between the proponents of DC and AC, the advantages of AC were too many to ignore. Tesla’s initial polyphase AC system allowed electrical power to be transferred much further than the DC systems in use at that time, and at substantially higher levels of power. Tesla’s system removed the limitation of distance in the distribution of electric power; it also allowed for the inverting of currents from DC to AC and vice verse while removing the need of polluting powerhouses in every neighbourhood.

Over the next few years, Tesla would apply for more than forty patents and constructed complete systems of single-phase, two-phase and three-phase currents that would transform society. His system of supplying reliable power was so broad in scope that very quickly, electrical engineers would modify his system and take credit for its entirety, which began to blur Tesla’s role and reduce the significance of his patents.

LIGHTING

At first, Tesla made significant improvements to the arc lighting being used in factories and public domains. His experiments with high intensity lighting using high frequency currents led eventually to demonstrations in 1892 of lamps of various types never seen before, including those that lit up magically with no wires. Tesla invented an incandescent button lamp that was twenty times brighter than any other incandescent lamp known. Work on high intensity button lamps used the same principle as future laser beams. Tesla’s research work also led him to discoveries of blacklight, now referred to as ultraviolet, and a very special radiation which he used to obtain shadowgraphs, a type of x-ray radiation. Tesla was also known to experiment in the phosphorescent field, developing the fundamental basis of fluorescent light; he also later disclosed his neon lamps.

INVENTION—TESLA COIL

In 1889, Tesla was performing experiments with high frequency electromagnetic waves. This work led to the invention of the Tesla coil, a step-up transformer that converted low voltage high current to a high voltage low current at high frequencies. This oscillatory transformer could generate currents of almost any frequency and magnitude, produce significant resonance effects and build up extremely high voltages. The Tesla coil transformer was the foundation for Tesla’s future endeavours with wireless power and was applied in a wide variety of systems and electronics worldwide. By 1893, Tesla was able to produce pressures of one hundred million volts with this transformer, which was very similar to the voltage in a lightning bolt.

An interesting side effect of this device made Tesla appear to be a magician. He could touch the terminals of this transformer and not be harmed while metal that he held in his hand would melt and light bulbs could illuminate. The general public was amazed, not realizing that the current content of this high voltage machine would be quite low, and therefore not harm human tissue. Tesla had determined that the nervous system of the human body had a threshold of stimulation below a certain frequency of seven hundred cycles per second. Any frequency above this threshold could be classified as not being harmful. His high frequency transformer was easily adjusted to meet this threshold in his demonstrations.

The Tesla coil is the foundation for the application of electrical power in every electrical appliance and device used by society today, industrially and domestically.

TESLA WAVES

According to Tesla, the electromagnetic effects produced by his Tesla coil were of a nature significantly different and extremely more powerful than those effects produced by any other known electrical device. Tesla believed that the electromagnetic oscillations produced displayed characteristics far different than the basic traditional Hertzian transverse waves that science was aware of. The oscillations produced displayed longitudinal wave characteristics. Tesla’s electromagnetic frequencies travelled in powerful longitudinal impulses similar to projectile type bursts of unlimited energy. This discovery would open doors for experimentation into the wireless transmission of energy.

WESTINGHOUSE, NIAGARA FALLS

It was July 7, 1888, when Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse signed a deal for the public utilization of Tesla’s patents concerning his alternating current polyphase system. This agreement would give Tesla financial security from the sale of his patents and produce royalties that he could collect on equipment, motors, and the application of his alternating current system patents. He would also have a powerful ally to fight not only competitive battles in the electrical generation and distribution world (i.e., the battle between DC and AC camps), but also legal battles over legitimate patents that would hound both gentlemen for many years.

Westinghouse soon was to find himself in a dire financial condition as a result of various pressures that put his company at risk. In order to maintain control over his company, he needed to somehow terminate his obligation to Tesla. The royalties represented a financial weight of billions of dollars. Tesla saw this troublesome state of affairs as a huge roadblock to giving the world his polyphase system. So, at a great financial loss to himself personally and to his future scientific investigations, he tore up his contract with Westinghouse. This remarkable sacrifice was an act of loyalty that would financially handicap Tesla for the remainder of his inventive life. As Tesla saw it, however, he wanted to continue his experimental work and have his loyal friend publicly promote and develop his inventions, which Westinghouse wouldn’t have been able to do had he not been able to avoid bankruptcy.

The first public display of Tesla’s single-phase alternating current system occurred when Westinghouse installed all the power and lighting equipment for the Chicago’s World Fair in 1893. More than two million visitors experienced the magical illumination of two hundred and fifty thousand lamps that turned night into day. People were also able to witness the spellbinding exhibits and experimental wizardry of Nikola Tesla in his own display room.

Then, in May of 1893, Westinghouse signed a contract to build the first generators at Niagara Falls using Tesla’s polyphase inventions. This would prove to be the critical turning point for Tesla and his polyphase system. Power from ten mammoth generators would travel more than twenty-five miles to Buffalo in 1896. The chairman of the Niagara Commission, Lord Kelvin, who initially favoured DC, stated, “Tesla has contributed more to electrical science than any man to this time.” ^[64] The New York Times reported, “ . . . he [Tesla] has given to the world a complete solution of the problem which has taxed the brains and occupied the time of the greatest electric scientists of the last two decades—namely the successful adoption of electrical power transmitted over long distances. . . . To Tesla belongs the undisputed honour of being the man whose work made the Niagara enterprise possible. There could be no better evidence of the practical qualities of his inventive genius.” ^[65]

Within a few decades of the Niagara plant becoming operational, the generation, transmission and equipment of the Tesla system was being incorporated around the world. This Niagara marvel was the commencement of Tesla’s dream for providing much needed inexpensive power distributed over vast distances to relieve the populace of unnecessary pain and labour. Tesla looked upon “the conversion of the mechanical energy of running water into electrical energy and the transmission of this energy” ^[66] at Niagara, as the fulfillment of a premonition he had as a child thirty years prior.

RADIO

Of all the pioneers in the research of the wireless field, Tesla was the first to experiment with the conveyance of energy to a distance without wires. He unveiled the first electronic tube that would be used as a detector in a radio system in 1892 before an audience that included the key forefathers of the wireless. An 1897 article in Electrical Review reported that Tesla had transmitted, without the use of any wires, power through the earth and the air that now resembles radio transmission and reception. In fact, Tesla’s equipment involved oscillations transmitted from his laboratory in New York that were received by his apparatus on the Hudson River thirty miles away well before anyone else had any results in this area.

The refinement of his wireless communication system employed energy transmission through the air (corresponding to FM radio) and through the ground (corresponding to AM radio); it also employed specific tuning mechanisms (corresponding to the tuning of different stations on the radio). Further experiments on the transmission of energy over greater distances occurred in Colorado, but as was the usual practice of Tesla, there was no evidence of allowing a third objective party in the electrical profession to witness the results. The lack of any independent verification of the outcome of Tesla’ experimental work, affected how historians would look upon the evolution of wireless transmission.

In Tesla’s major Century Magazine article of 1900, he would describe his world telegraphy system and how it would beneficially change society: “It involves the employment of a number of plants, all of which are capable of transmitting individualized signals to the uttermost confines of the earth . . . A cheap and simple device, which might be carried in one’s pocket may then be set up anywhere . . . and it will record the world’s news or such special messages as may be intended for it. Thus, the entire earth will be converted into a huge brain . . . “ ^[67] Tesla’s paper “envisioned the entire concept of transmission of intelligence” and illustrated “what radio was to become and as we know it today.” ^[68]

Nikola Tesla, upon hearing of Marconi’s bid to become the inventor of the wireless, remarked in a letter to J. P. Morgan, the financier of his world transmission system: “ . . . All the essential elements of these new arrangements [Marconi’s] . . . are broadly anticipated by my patents of 1896 and 1897 . . They have adopted my resonating transmitter . . . my grounded receiving circuit or multiplier, my transforming circuits at both ends, my Tesla coil, the Tesla transformers, my system of dependent tuned circuits and numerous minor improvements . . . “ ^[69] The U. S. Supreme Court agreed with Tesla and gave him the legal distinction of having proprietary rights in the wireless field. Unfortunately, this decision occurred in 1943 after Tesla’s death.

OSCILLATORS

In 1893, while observing an approaching thunderstorm, it dawned upon Tesla the concept of applying a small force upon the earth to unleash the enormous forces stored in the planet. By modifying and improving the power output of his transformers, they could act as triggers for harnessing untold amounts of power. Tesla’s efforts were rewarded by the invention of a totally unique transformer that converted steam into electrical power of continuous current with incredibly high tension. This oscillator could also produce the frequencies required for his wireless power transmission experiments.

Tesla described this oscillator as “a transformer or induction coil on new principles where electrical effects of any desired character and of intensities undreamed of before are now easily producible by such apparatus. Therefore, transmission of energy in great amounts and communications to any distance without wires was possible . . . " ^[70] Of the fifty or so types of such transformers that Tesla would build, the most notable was the construction of his magnifying transmitter (M.T.), which was specifically designed to work with the entire globe as part of his world transmission system; this he tested in Colorado and intended for his Wardencliffe project.

EARTHQUAKES

There were two separate events that illustrated the power and unique resonant qualities of Tesla’s mechanical oscillator. The first occurred in 1898 at his New York laboratory facility. Tesla had attached a small pocket-sized mechanical oscillator to the centre beam of the building and the device began producing constant vibrations from a high frequency alternating current. While he was distracted by other projects, the building and approximately twelve square city blocks entered into a resonant vibration with the oscillator. Mild tremors slowly developed into trembling buildings, shattering glass, pipes breaking, and the roaring of objects shaking. These were all indications of an earthquake.

The police knew of only one mad scientist who dealt with mysterious forces capable of such mischief. As they entered his laboratory, they were greeted with a complete silence and stillness, and Tesla with a sledge hammer in his hand. Having noticed the ominous commotion, Tesla had smashed his mechanical oscillator. He politely invited the police to return to the laboratory later when a new oscillator would be operational and quickly bid them a good day.

On another occasion, Tesla travelled to another part of New York and came across an unfinished building. To a steel beam of the ten-storey frame, he attached a small oscillator that was in his pocket. Tesla quickly dismantled the device when earthquake conditions similar to those experienced in his laboratory occurred again. Tesla appreciated that the awareness of and tampering with universal processes had serious consequences.

X-RAYS

Well before the public announcement of the discovery of x-rays, Tesla was producing pictures he called shadowgraphs on photographic plates. At the time of this announcement, Tesla was producing more powerful x-ray photographs than anyone associated with this field of radiation. When he finally pursued his interest in this strange form of radiation, Tesla personally witnessed that constant bombardment of these rays could create serious health issues. He recommended using grounded shielding and a limit on exposure time. Work with this radiation led Tesla to future advances in his particle beam weaponry research.

 

HEALTH AND THERAPEUTIC EFFECTS

During Tesla’s work with high frequency currents, he noticed that the heating effect of these currents could have therapeutic benefits for the treatment of arthritis and other ailments. In 1893, Tesla referred to such treatment as medical diathermy, or cold fire, that could stimulate the brain. After his first laboratory was destroyed, Tesla commenced exposing himself to the vibrational frequencies of his various oscillating transformers. His experience was portrayed in a magazine article wherein he stated: “I was so blue and discouraged in those days that I don’t believe I could have borne up but for the regular electric treatment which I administered to myself. You see, electricity puts into the tired body just what it most needs—life force, nerve force. It’s a great doctor, I can tell you, perhaps the greatest of all doctors.” ^[71]

Later in life, Tesla would describe electrical therapy in an article titled “Mechanical Therapy”: “ . . . While investigating high frequency currents, I observed that they produced certain physiological effects offering new and great possibilities in medical treatment . . . The currents furnished by them [apparatus] have proved an ideal tonic for the human nerve system. They promote heart action and digestion, induce healthful sleep, rid the skin of destructive exudations and cure colds and fever by the warmth they create. They vivify atrophied or paralyzed parts of the body . . . “ ^[72]

Tesla later developed a mechanical therapy device that would promote regularity in the body to make its functioning healthier. Some of the ways that Tesla believed this would benefit humanity included:

1. a decrease in the number of heart failures due to digestive difficulties;
2. removal of toxic excretions would be quickened;
3. ulcers and internal lesions or cancers could be cured;
4. stimulation of the liver, spleen, kidneys, bladder, and other organs;
5. anemic conditions would be helped;
6. women’s complexion and beauty would be affected positively; and
7. elimination of drugs, patent medicine and remedies taken internally.

Nikola Tesla believed he had touched upon a universal healing agent or unknown energy waves that restored his entire body and sometimes surrounded his whole body. He was so convinced about the positive energizing aspect of his device that he maintained a silent running vibrating oscillator in the corner of his laboratory at all times.

AUTOMATON, TELAUTOMATICS

If one wishes to determine the origins of robotry, one can obtain hints from Tesla’s concept of an automaton in his article “Problem of Increasing Human Energy”: “I have . . . demonstrated to my absolute satisfaction that I am an automaton endowed with power of movement which merely responds to external stimuli beating upon my sense organs. I conceived the idea of constructing an automaton which could mechanically represent me and which would respond . . . to external influences . . . to act like an intelligent being . . . A new art came into existence. Telautomatics means the art of controlling the movements and operations of distant automatons . . . the sensitive device of the machine should correspond to the ear of a human being . . . to use, in the control of the automaton, . . . waves or disturbances which propagate in all directions through space, like sound . . . an automaton may be contrived which will have its own mind . . . to perform in response to external influences affecting its sensitive organs, a great variety of acts and operations as if it had intelligence.” ^[73]

The idea of first constructing an automaton occurred five years before this article. The first actual public demonstration of a fully operational automaton was held in 1898 at Madison Square Garden in New York before fifteen thousand excited spectators. The model of Tesla’s radio-controlled robot, using a tuned electrical oscillator, came in the form of a boat. It could be signalled to perform a multitude of operations either through mechanical devices or by wireless instructions. The transmitter of the commands could either be in sight of the boat or in a totally distant location. The automaton employed the wireless transmission of power as the carrier of instructions and distinct tuning circuits to determine what instructions to follow with such technological accuracy that someone would believe that it was equipped with the ability to think. Furthermore, each automaton built would have its own tuning band, which would give it apparently its own individual identity.

Tesla eagerly divulged to a reporter at the event, “ . . . you see, there is the first of a race of robots, mechanical men which will do the laborious work of the human race.” ^[74]Although many saw this robotic device as a workable instrument of war, Tesla emphasized that his main motivation for designing robots was for their daily service to humanity in peace time.

COLORADO SPRINGS

A significant awakening occurred within Tesla as a youth in the mountains of Croatia. While engaged in throwing snowballs down the side of a mountain, Tesla became fascinated when these small balls of snow grew to such enormous dimensions as to do severe damage at the end of their journey. The concept of a relatively small force, when inserted into an apparently benign entity of great energy, could entice the liberation of enormously powerful energies was irresistible to Tesla. This property, called resonance, became a significant factor in his future experimentation.

Years later in a European lecture, Tesla stated: “It is very likely that resonant vibration plays a most important part in all manifestations of energy in nature. Throughout space all matter is vibrating and all rates of vibration from the lowest musical note to the highest pitch of the chemical rays, hence an atom, or complex of atoms, no matter what its period, must find a vibration with which it is in resonance.” ^[75] Tesla was outlining his path into the realm of wireless energy transmission.

In the same lecture, Tesla said, “I mean the transmission of intelligible signals or perhaps even power to any distance without the use of wires . . . I do firmly believe that it is practicable to disturb by means of powerful machines the electrostatic conditions of the earth and thus transmit intelligible signals and perhaps power . . . it is of the greatest importance to get an idea of what quantity of electricity the earth contains . . . If ever we can ascertain at what period the earth’s charge, when disturbed or oscillates with an oppositely electrified system or known circuit, we shall know a fact possibly of the greatest importance to the welfare of the human race.” ^[76]

And so, with Tesla’s journey into wireless power, we witness the launching of his second electrical revolution. Nikola Tesla would spend years on developing an oscillatory transformer of immense power, which could influence the earth to distribute electrical power. In 1897, Tesla wrote, “But among all these many departments of research, these many branches of industry, there is one dominating all others in importance--one which is of the greatest significance for the comfort and welfare, not to say, for the existence of mankind, and that is the electrical transmission of power . . . we are dependent on power . . . if we want to reduce poverty and misery, if we want to give to every deserving individual what is needed for a safe existence of an intelligent being, we want to provide power. . . . Power is our mainstay, the primary source of our many-sided energies . . . the progress of the whole human race is regulated by the power available.” ^[77]

With power available from Niagara Falls, Tesla’s vision for distributing it successfully went far beyond the scope of wires, transmission lines and relay stations. Wireless transmission was the future. In a Buffalo newspaper article, he wrote: “We have a greater task to fulfill to evolve means of obtaining energy from stores which are forever inexhaustible, to perfect methods which do not imply consumption and waste of any material whatever—the transmission of power from station to station without the employment of any connecting wire.” ^[78]

In bringing his vision of a worldwide system of wireless transmission to fruition, Tesla developed what he claimed was his greatest and most taxing invention. He described his magnifying transmitter in the following way: “It is a resonant transformer . . . it is suitable for any frequency and can be used in the production of currents of tremendous volume and moderate pressure, or of smaller amperage and immense electromotive force . . . there is no limit to the possible voltage developed . . . it is accurately proportioned to fit the globe and its electrical constants and properties by virtue of which design it becomes highly efficient and effective in the wireless transmission of energy, and ^[79] distance is absolutely eliminated, there being no diminution in the intensity of the transmitted impulses . . . “

In order to fully research the power that could be transmitted in his wireless system, Tesla needed to move his experiments away from the confines of New York City. The move to Colorado Springs, in 1899, was the natural next step in his experimental research. Tesla’s new Colorado laboratory became a home to many sizes and shapes of Tesla coils and high frequency transformers that could produce the required electromotive forces needed to drive his magnifying transmitter. His hope was to disturb the electric state of the entire planet and thereby transmit intelligence over great distances without wires. He believed that the earth had a resonant frequency that could be used to distribute electric power. The strength of his transmitter was equal to that produced by natural lightning. His electric wonder produced pressures of twelve million volts, which affected lightning arresters more than ten miles away.

The intensity of the natural electrical storms in the Colorado Springs area fascinated Tesla. On the eve of July 4, 1899, during the measuring of lightning discharges from a spectacular thunderstorm, his instruments continued to signal discharges well after the storm had passed. Tesla concluded that these results indicated stationary electromagnetic waves or periodic electronic vibrations imprinted upon the physical planet. This was the missing piece to his wireless puzzle. It suggested to Tesla that the earth was filled with electricity and that this electricity could be distributed in tremendous quantities through resonant vibrations or waves produced by an oscillator. Stationary waves are “created when two waves travelling in opposite directions add in phase to create a new single wave whose amplitude is stationary in time.” ^[80] The discovery of these stationary waves suggested to Tesla that “not only was it practicable to send telegraphic messages to any distance without wires . . . but also to impress upon the entire globe the faint modulations of the human voice, far more still, to transmit power in unlimited amounts to any terrestrial distance and almost without loss.” ^[81]

Tesla was profoundly affected by this revelation. He now saw the earth as a pure electrical resonating entity and power could be provided everywhere on the planet’s surface. Now he had to set his huge electrical machines into electrical vibration at earth’s resonant frequency in order to produce waves upon which energy and communication signals could be transmitted. When Tesla’s grand system was ready for operation and the switch was turned on, one hundred million volts of electricity at frequencies of thirty thousand cycles produced the following effects: a weird blue light, strong odour of sulphur, ghostly sparks, sprouting needles of flame, tremendous bomb like blasts, and then one hundred and thirty-five foot lightning bolts shot into the air above the roof of the building. This was immediately followed by the deafening snaps of thunder that were heard up to fifteen miles way and then, suddenly, dead silence. The generator at the local power plant was blown up and on fire and all was dark in the area. Tesla fixed the damaged equipment and continued his testing with a few modifications suggested by the local electric company.

During a later experiment, two hundred incandescent lamps with no wires and each consuming fifty watts were lit up twenty-six miles from the laboratory. On numerous occasions, bright circular balls floated in the air for short periods of time. There was also the time when Tesla detected weak regular bleeps on his apparatus. Whether these disturbances were due to the interruption of a competitor’s transmission or the communication from another planet, Tesla felt sure he had observed an intelligent signal rather than a natural phenomenon.

While in Colorado Springs, Tesla carried out his experiments with the help of a trustworthy assistant. There were, however, no third-party witnesses to confirm any of his results regarding the movement of currents through the earth, or any other results in the field. Although Tesla began taking daily notes, the lack of written reports of his experiments for public inspection resulted in many discoveries never being made public until he spoke of them much later in his life. As more is discovered about the Tesla experiments with his magnifying transmitter, only time will demonstrate the full extent of his work in Colorado.

We do know, however, that with an imagination fully at work and a supremely confident attitude in his abilities, Tesla needed only a small amount of confirmatory evidence of physical principles to convince him that he was on the right path. It was no surprise, then, that as soon as Tesla was satisfied that power and intelligence could be transmitted to any point on the planet without the use of wires, his work in Colorado Springs was over. He returned to New York in 1900 to commence work on his grand world system project.

WARDENCLIFFE

When Nikola Tesla returned to New York, he possessed the knowledge, insight and apparatus required for developing a world system that “makes possible not only the instantaneous and precise transmission of any kind of signal, message or character, to all parts of the world, but also the inter-connection of the existing telegraph, telephone and other signal stations without any change in their present equipment . . . This great scientific advance . . . annihilates distance and makes that perfect natural conductor, the earth, available for all the innumerable purposes which human ingenuity has found for a line wire.” ^[82]

The only roadblock that could prevent Tesla’s dream from becoming a reality was financial. Throughout his career, Tesla was so occupied with his visions and incentive endeavours that financially he proved to be impractical. Whether it was loyalty to Westinghouse, lack of commercializing any of his inventions, or allowing patent rights to be pirated, the lack of monetary assets was a heavy burden upon the realization of Tesla’s world system. He was able to obtain some funding from J. P. Morgan, but at the hefty price of fifty-one per cent of his wireless patents. This arrangement, plus his claims of bringing to an end the current power, communications and financial systems, would seriously retard any further investment from any other financier. Tesla quickly commenced the construction of his enormous World Telegraphy Centre on two hundred acres in Long Island in July of 1901. This centre, named Wardencliffe, included a 187-foot-tall tower with a mushroom-shaped ball sixty-eight feet in diameter on top, anchored by a central shaft that was grounded 120 feet into the earth, as well as a facility for manufacturing all the apparatus that would be required for a fully operational system. The basic purpose, properties and devices involved in Tesla’s world system are outlined in Appendix B.

Once the plant was built, Tesla felt that his apparatus would produce sufficient high voltage, high frequency current to encourage stationary waves within the earth. By using the earth’s electromagnetic resonant frequency, energy signals could be received at any location on the earth’s surface. However, plans had to be changed when funds dried up due to spiraling costs that resulted from an economic crisis that hit the country the same year. Numerous attempts to secure more funding from Morgan and other investors failed and eventually caused the stoppage in construction of the centre.

As every further attempt to obtain funds proved fruitless, Tesla became frustrated and showed it publicly. For a few days, with his equipment powered up, he produced incredible light displays seen for many miles. A New York paper reported, “ . . . For a time the air was filled with blinding streaks of electricity which seemed to shoot off into the darkness on some mysterious errand.” ^[83] Tesla was forced to close the Wardencliffe laboratory in 1905. There were too many obstacles opposing him and his vision to proceed. Tesla would spend years holding back his creditors, while at the same time, using any means at his disposal to keep his dream alive with articles, interviews, lectures, consulting work, and royalties from minor inventions.

Tesla, always hopeful, explained the forces working against his ideas in this way: “ . . . there is such a thing as ‘inertia of human opinion’ resisting revolutionary ideas . . . If the genius of invention were to reveal tomorrow the secret of immortality, or eternal beauty and youth, for which all humanity is aching, the same inexorable agents which prevent a mass from changing suddenly its velocity would likewise resist the force of the new knowledge until time gradually modifies human thought.” ^[84]

The following year in an interview, Tesla was quoted as saying, “A mass in movement resists change of direction. So does the world oppose a new idea . . . Ignorance, prejudice and inertia of the old retard its early progress . . . Eventually, though, all barriers are thrown down, and it spreads like fire. This will also prove true of the wireless art . . .” ^[85]

By 1911, we witness Tesla’s frustration at the lack of interest in his vision at Wardencliffe, expressed in the following words: “There is no enjoyment that I could picture in my mind so exquisite as the triumph which follows an original invention or discovery. But the world is not always ready to accept the dictum of the inventor and doubters are plentiful so that discoverers have often to swallow bitter pills along with their pleasure.” ^[86]

Although Tesla kept fighting to somehow save his Wardencliffe plant, in August 20, 1917, while in Chicago, he heard that his laboratory was physically demolished. One could surmise that Tesla’s devotion to his world system project blinded him from reaping sufficient financial gains from one of the minor projects that encompassed Wardencliffe, which could have saved the larger project from being dismantled. This single monumental Wardencliffe vision remained with Tesla for the rest of his life.

TELEGEODYNAMICS

As part of Tesla’s world telegraphy system and his experimentation with the wireless transmission of energy, he would apply a system of mechanical resonance, which he called telegeodynamics, that could detect any object in any remote location or establish the presence of any mineral beneath the earth’s surface. Such a system could easily be considered the foundation of modern radar.

INVENTIONS—SUMMARY

For two decades, the steady stream of patents, inventions and timeless insights that flowed from Tesla’s mind amazed the outside world. Some of his inventions had an immediate impact, while a majority of his discoveries laid the foundation for future generations to explore and develop creations for the betterment of the planet.

Tesla’s alternating current polyphase power system made efficient transmission of huge amounts of power over large distances a reality. He introduced to the world the basic fundamentals of radio, remote control robots, x-ray equipment, efficient lighting, medical therapy, television, television scramblers, facsimile machinery, computers, and countless electric motors for appliances, industrial machinery and electrical gadgets. Tesla paved the way for modern technologies such as cell phones, guided missiles, drone airplanes, satellites, artificial intelligence, lasers, microwaves, and nuclear fusion to name just a few. He was also a pioneer in his awareness of the finiteness of planetary resources. Tesla looked to the utilization of renewable sources of energy in favour of the depletion of our natural resources.

Tesla’s devotion to his inventive work and to solving the problems facing civilization were so deep-rooted that nothing could hinder his striving for alleviating human suffering and stagnation. Even the total destruction of his first laboratory could not impede his inventive journey, as illustrated in an interview in 1896: “ . . . In the main, my life is very happy, happier than any life I can conceive of. I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that feat by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success. Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.” ^[87]

ARTICLES:General

As Tesla grew older, and with his mind as keen as ever, nature presented to him an alternate vehicle for the expression of his thinking and genius. Physical inventive work was slowly being replaced by the power of the pen, by personal interviews and public appearances. Tesla’s thinking took on a more cosmic and spiritual orientation. This included visions of discoveries to help with the peaceful advancement of the human species and the role of his wireless world transmission system in that process.

ARTICLES: “Problem of Increasing Human Energy”

When Tesla returned to New York from his experiments in Colorado Springs, his friend Robert Johnson, editor of Century Magazine, suggested that he write an essay about his Colorado experience. Tesla’s response was a timely, sometimes philosophical document described by a biographer in the following way: “The inventor composed a once in a lifetime apocalyptic treatise on the human condition and technology’s role in shaping world history instead of demonstrating his inventions and experiments in Colorado.” ^[88] Tesla’s article included personal thoughts on universal laws, human evolution, his world system’s role in affecting evolution, alternative energy sources, telautomatics, and his concern for the health of the environment.

When the article appeared in the June edition of Century Magazine, it caused a sensation in the general public but was attacked mercilessly by the scientific community. Highlights of his article follow:

Of all the endless variety of phenomena which nature presents to our senses, there is none that fills our minds with greater wonder than that inconceivably complex movement which, in its entirety, we designate as human life. Its mysterious origin is veiled in the forever impenetrable mist of the past, its character is rendered incomprehensible by its infinite intricacy, and its distinction is hidden in the unfathomable depths of the future. ^[89]

Though we may never be able to comprehend human life, we know certainly that it is a movement of whatever nature it be . . . wherever there is life, there is a mass moved by a force . . . every movement in nature must be rhythmical. ^[90]

. . . Can anyone doubt today that all the millions of individuals and all the innumerable types and characters constitute an entity, a unit? Though free to think and act, we are held together, like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable. These ties cannot be seen, but we can feel them. I cut myself in the finger, and it pains me: this finger is part of me. I see a friend hurt, and it hurts me too: my friend and I are one. And now I see stricken down an enemy, a lump of matter which of all the lumps of matter in the universe, I care least for, and it still grieves me. Does this not prove that each of us is only part of a whole . . . ? We are all one . . . ^[91]

. . . Science, too, recognizes this connectedness of separate individuals . . . there can be no doubt that it will be experimentally confirmed in times to come, when our means and methods for investigating psychical and other states and phenomena shall have been brought to great perfection . . . The individual is ephemeral, races and nations come and pass away, but man remains. ^[92]

Everyone should consider his body as a priceless gift from one whom he loves above all, as a marvellous work of art of indescribable beauty and mastery beyond human conception, and so delicate and frail that a word, a breath, a look, nay, a thought, may injure it. ^[93]

Tesla spent much effort in the article looking for ways to increase human energy so that mankind could evolve in a healthy manner. To achieve this goal, a state of health must include pure water, proper nutrients in food, a diet inclined towards plant life, moderation, regularity of habits, and proper attention towards hygiene and moral loftiness with an emphasis on education. Tesla wrote of an avoidance of forces associated with ignorance, malice, delusions, religious fanaticism, insanity, and warfare. And, finally, he wrote of the need to live and work together harmoniously by the usage of available power from sources that are renewable without the destruction or consumption of our natural resources.

Tesla believed that an appropriate solution to maintaining a healthy environment for the progress of the species would include the harnessing of the energy of the sun and distributing this energy in the form of electricity without the use of wires. Tesla then described his wireless transmission system, the application of his massive equipment and the principle of stationary waves in the earth. He also mentioned his thoughts on interplanetary communication: “That we can send a message to a planet is certain, that we can get an answer is probable; man is not the only being in the Infinite gifted with a mind.” ^[94] Was Tesla expressing a hope or an opinion or relating knowledge from his inner vision experiences?

ARTICLES: “How Cosmic Forces Shape Our Destinies”

This article, which appeared in newsprint on February 7, 1915, gives us Tesla’s thoughts on man’s connection with universal forces, the nature of the human species and his mechanistic theory of life. The article begins:

“Every living being is an engine geared to the wheelwork of the universe. Though seemingly affected only by its immediate surrounding, the sphere of eternal influence extends to infinite distance . . . There is no thing endowed with life—from man who is enslaving the elements to the humblest creature—in all this world that does not sway it in turn. Whenever action is borne from force, though it be infinitesimal, the cosmic balance is upset and universal motion results . . . Even matter called inorganic . . . gives unmistakable evidence of the presence of a living principle within . . . Thus, everything that exists, organic or inorganic, animated or inert, is susceptible to stimulus from the outside . . . The same law governs all matter: all the universe is alive.” ^[95]

Tesla discussed his belief that the sun is the engine of life on this planet and since all processes concerning the sun’s nature are electrical, the study of electricity would bring us all closer to the secret of life.

ARTICLES: “Man’s Greatest Achievement”

In 1930, at age seventy-four, Tesla gave the world an intuitive revelation of human history and destiny. He presented his vision of humanity’s evolutionary journey, our active role as co-creators of our environment and our ultimate position beside our Creator. Some of his words follow: ^[96]

“What has the future in store for this strange being, born of a breath, of perishable tissue, yet immortal, with his powers fearful and divine? What magic will be wrought by him in the end? What is to be his greatest deed, his crowning achievement?

Long ago he recognized that all perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, of a tenuity beyond conception and filling all space—the Akasha or luminferous ether—which is acted upon by the life-giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles, all things and phenomena.

The primary substance thrown into infinitesimal whirls of prodigious velocity becomes gross matter, the force subsiding, the motion ceases and matter disappears, reverting to the primary substance.” ^[97]

There can be no doubt that Tesla’s perspective of human evolution has the wondrous achievement of our union with the Creator as our designed heritage.

ETHER

Nikola Tesla mentioned on numerous occasions his inability to totally grasp the fullness and expansive nature of the wondrous theatre being performed in his mind. One insightful jewel that did not fully escape Tesla’s attention was the nature of ether and its significance in human understanding of cosmic intelligence.

In an 1891 lecture before the A.I.E.E., Tesla fascinated the audience with the following words: ^[97]

Nature has stored up in the universe infinite energy. The eternal recipient and transmitter of this infinite energy is the ether. The recognition of the existence of ether, and of the functions it performs, is one of the most important results of modern scientific research . . . the assumption of a medium pervading all space and connecting all gross matter has freed the minds of thinkers of an ever present doubt, and by opening a new horizon . . . has given fresh interest to phenomena with which we are familiar of old. . . . We are now confident that electric and magnetic phenomena are attributable to ether, and we are perhaps justified in saying that the effects of static electricity are effects of ether under strain, and those of dynamic electricity and electromagnetism effects of ether in motion . . . The electromagnetic theory of light and all facts observed teach us that electric and ether phenomena are identical . . . Nothing would seem to stand in the way of calling electricity ether associated with matter, or bound ether or . . . the so-called static charge of the molecule is ether associated in some way with the molecule . . . My view of nature . . . [is as] an infinitesimal world, with the molecules and their atoms spinning and moving in orbits, in much the same manner as celestial bodies, carrying with them and probably spinning with them ether or, in other words, carrying with them static charges . . .

During 1905, Tesla would describe ether as a medium of coarse particles or bodily carriers of force. A few years later, in an article entitled “Tesla’s Vision,” he explained that awareness of the true nature of the medium, and the energy harnessed from it, would lead to investigations into a hidden world that could uplift humanity towards unbelievable achievement. His exact words were: “According to an adopted theory, every ponderable atom is differentiated from a tenuous fluid, filling all space merely by spinning motion . . . By being set in movement, this fluid, the ether, becomes gross matter. Its movements arrested, the primary substance reverts to its normal state. It appears, then, possible for man through harnessed energy of the medium and suitable agencies for starting and stopping ether whirls to cause matter to form and disappear . . . He could originate life in all its infinite forms. To cause at will the birth and death of matter would be man’s grandest deed . . . [It would] make him fulfill his ultimate destiny.” ^[98]

Near the end of his life, during a lecture in 1938, Tesla made the following prophecy: “ . . . all attempts to explain the workings of the universal [are futile] without recognizing the existence of the ether and the indispensable function it plays in the phenomena . . .” ^[99]

CONSERVATION, ENVIRONMENT

In his early thirties, Tesla was publicly stating his concern about the finite supplies of coal and timber which were the primary raw materials used in the generation of energy. He understood that the fragility in nature’s planetary resources would be exposed by human craving for more power in the future. Tesla, therefore, devoted more energy into wind and solar opportunities in producing power.

In the years that followed, Tesla became more outspoken in his belief that electrical power from waterfalls, wind, tides, and solar rays was significantly more efficient and ecologically sustainable than that produced from coal, oil, natural gas or any other fossil fuel that was finite, wasteful and polluting. He spent more time in making others aware of the impact of waste and inefficiencies of human activity on this planet, and on how we must eventually change our habits: ^[100]

We build but to tear down. Most of our work and resource is squandered. Our onward march is marked by devastation. Everywhere there is an appalling loss of time, effort and life. A single example . . . will suffice. The energy necessary to our comfort and safe existence is largely derived from coal. In this country . . . about seven hundred tons per minute [is extracted from the earth] . . . But only a small percentage of this is usefully applied. . . . In heating, most of the precious energy escapes through the flue . . . In the use of coal for power purposes, we hardly capture more than ten per cent. The exhaust of engines carries off more energy than obtained from live steam.

Nature, Tesla believed, had abundant supplies of energy in other forms that could safely and efficiently be utilized: “The sun’s rays falling upon the earth’s surface represent a quantity of energy so enormous that but a small part of it could meet all our demands . . . The energy of light rays, constituting about ten per cent of the total radiation, might be captured by a cold and highly efficient process in photoelectric cells which may become of practical importance in the future.” ^[101] In the same article, Tesla explored other opportunities to help future man live in a sustainably oriented society. Some of these included cosmic rays, wind power, tides, and terrestrial heat.

Always in the back of his mind, Tesla had visions of unlimited reservoirs of energy available, so that humankind could fully enjoy the environment.

WAR AND PEACE

Throughout his adult life, Nikola Tesla was quite outspoken about the barbarity and chaos of war. He had a longing for peaceful relations amongst all people and saw his world system of wireless transmission as having an integral unifying effect upon the planet. In his paper of 1900, he commented: “ . . . when all darkness shall be dissipated by the light of science, when all nations shall be merged into one, and patriotism shall be identical with religion, when there shall be one language, one country, one end, then the dream will have become reality: peace.” ^[102]

Five years later in another article, Tesla theorized about the attainment of Universal Peace: ^[103]

. . . But just as no effect can precede its cause, so this state [Universal Peace] can never be brought on by any pact between nations, however solemn. Experience is made before the law is formulated, both are related like cause and effect . . . To stop war by the perfection of engines of destruction alone might consume centuries and centuries. Other means must be employed to hasten the end . . . Fights between individuals, as well as governments and nations, invariably result from misunderstandings . . . [these] are always caused by the inability of appreciating one another’s point of view. This again is due to the ignorance of those concerned . . . it is important to aid exchange of thought and intercourse . . . To know each other we must reach beyond the sphere of our sense perceptions . . . that which is most helpful in the establishment of universal peaceful relations is the complete ANNIHILATION OF DISTANCE . . . To achieve this wonder, electricity is the one and only means [in its role of being the agent of] dissemination of intelligence, transportation and transmission of power.

Some years later at the outset of World War I, in an interview, Tesla promoted a solution to warfare and the combative nature of nations with two broad approaches. The first was to equip every combatant nation with an electrically based defense shielding that was impenetrable and fitted with weaponry so powerful no force could withstand its deadly impact. Secondly, he proposed “the eradication from our hearts of nationalism.” ^[104] Tesla proposed that if irrational patriotism could be abandoned and substituted by a “love of nature and scientific ideal . . . permanent peace [could] be established.” ^[105]

In his autobiography, written after World War I, Tesla wrote: ^[106]

War cannot be avoided until the physical cause for its recurrence is removed and this, in the last analysis, is the vast extent of the planet on which we live. Only through annihilation of distance in every respect, as the conveyance of intelligence, transport of passengers and supplies and the transmission of energy, will conditions be brought about some day, insuring permanency of friendly relations. What we now want most is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth and the elimination of that fanatical devotion to exalted ideals of national egoism and pride, which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife . . .

. . . Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment and merging of races and we are still far from this blissful realization, because few indeed, will admit the reality—that God made man in His image—in which case all earth men are alike. There is in fact but one race of many colours. Christ is but one person, yet he is of all people, so why do some people think themselves better than some other people?

RELIGIOUS IMPULSE, BELIEF

The son of a strict, well-disciplined minister and a deeply religious, loving mother had only two options for his life’s path as he was growing up: the ministry or the army. Neither of these options appealed to Tesla, and his love of electrical engineering eventually won out. Those who came in contact with Tesla used many different words to describe him, some of which follow: inventive, energetic, cultured, esoteric, visionary, scholarly, old-fashioned, a dreamer, a humanitarian, and with a resolute sense of purpose. But only Tesla referred to himself as deeply religious. At the Edison Medal Awards ceremony, he said, “ . . . I am deeply religious at heart, although not in the orthodox meaning, and I give myself to the constant enjoyment of believing that the greatest mysteries of our being are still to be fathomed and that, all the evidence of the senses and the teachings of exact and dry sciences to the contrary notwithstanding, death itself may not be the termination of the wonderful metamorphosis we witness. In this way I have managed to maintain an undisturbed peace of mind, to make myself proof against adversity, and to achieve contentment and happiness . . .” ^[107]

There were many occasions in his life when Nikola Tesla expressed or demonstrated his affinity towards the spiritual realm. After experiencing a painful personal matter and physical impairment in Europe in 1892, Tesla’s recovery was aided by his mother’s thoughts. He would absorb these into his own being: “The gift of mental power comes from God, Divine Being, and, if we concentrate our minds on that truth, we become in tune with this great power. My mother had taught me to seek all truth in the Bible; therefore, I devoted the next few months to the study of this work.” ^[108] Upon returning to New York, Tesla began work on developing electrical forces equal to those he had witnessed during lightning storms, and related how he again “made a further careful study of the Bible, and discovered the key in Revelation.” ^[109]

A few years later, while rebuilding his laboratory, Tesla’s interest in eastern philosophies was stimulated by encounters with Swami Vivekananda. The Swami told Tesla “about Vedantic Prāna (life force) and Akāsa (ether) which according to [Tesla] are the only theories modern science can entertain.” ^[110]They both shared common views on the eternal nature of creation. Tesla, later in life, would opine that Buddhism and Christianity would encompass the religion of the future. Prior to his encounters with Swami Vivekananda, Tesla had already encountered the theosophical work of Madame Blavatsky, which included ideas on the Akashic Chronicle and the eternal nature of life. Tesla blended these eastern philosophies with the works of western philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer.

In his autobiography, Tesla revealed his beliefs and understanding of the supernatural: “ . . . every individual clings to faith in a supreme power of some kind. We all must have an ideal to govern our conduct and insure contentment, but it is immaterial whether it be one of creed, art, science, or anything else, so long as it fulfills the function of a dematerializing force. It is essential to the peaceful existence of humanity as a whole that one common conception should prevail.” ^[111]

Through personal observations spanning numerous decades, Tesla concluded the basis of his belief process was represented by the truth, “ . . . whenever either myself or a person to whom I was attached, or a cause to which I was devoted, was hurt by others in a particular way, . . . I experienced a singular and indefinable pain which . . . I have qualified as ‘cosmic’ and, shortly thereafter, and invariably, those who had inflicted it came to grief . . . Our bodies are of similar construction and exposed to the same external forces . . . The movements and other actions we perform are always life preservative and though seemingly quite independent from one another, we are connected by invisible links . . . the moment that there is some derangement in any individual, his self-preservative power is impaired.” ^[112]

Tesla fashioned himself to be a very sensitive and observant being, endowed with what he called a transcending mechanical sense that enabled him to see and feel forces beyond the physical. He saw the majority of the human species experiencing daily life in an automatistic manner. The full purpose for his mechanistic theories may never be known. But Tesla needed the scientific and financial worlds to take him seriously in order to allow his inventions to be implemented for the benefit of human kind. To this end, Tesla opposed any suggestions that he possessed any mystic, psychic or telepathic qualities, and avoided any contact with those associated with the supernatural. And yet, upon reflection, the results of his intimate relationship to that world were undeniable.

MOTIVATION

On January 8, 1943, Nikola Tesla was found dead, alone and penniless in his hotel room at the age of eight-six. Money management, protecting his inventions and patents from thievery and deriving any wealth from the practical applications of his inventions were never high on Tesla’s priority list. In his Edison Award acceptance speech, Tesla remembered his thoughts as a youth: “If I really have a gift for invention, I will bend it to some great project or task, and not squander my efforts on small things.” ^[113]

Many of Tesla’s visions seemed to lead to discoveries that would transform the whole planet and improve the conditions of human living. Harnessing the power of the sun and the waterfall for human amelioration brought to Tesla a sense of purpose where “consideration of mere utility weigh little in the balance against the high benefits of civilization.” ^[114] Tesla wrote, “We are confronted with portentous problems which cannot be solved just by providing for our material existence . . . On the contrary, progress in this direction is fraught with hazards and perils not less menacing than those born from want and suffering.” ^[115]

Tesla’s greatest act of friendship and financial sacrifice was the tearing up of his contract with George Westinghouse. By so doing, he turned away a fortune in past monies owed and in royalty fees that would have provided handsomely for all of his lifetime efforts. This act of loyalty, Tesla felt, was needed for the practical application of his polyphase system to become a reality and thus enable the species to take a giant step in its evolutionary journey with its implementation.

On his way to Colorado Springs, Tesla told a reporter about his work in the wireless transmission of energy: “What I am doing is to develop a new art . . . I do not care for practical results in the immediate present. Where I have time, I stop to develop the application of the principles that I have announced, but that is part of the work which it is usually safe to leave to others . . . For myself, I am content to find the new principles through the knowledge of which the applications become possible.” ^[116]

When it was reported that he and Edison were to share the 1914 Nobel Prize in Physics, Tesla was not impressed and stated in a letter to his friend Robert Johnson, “ . . . I have not less than four dozen of my creations identified with my name in technical literature. These are honours real and permanent which are bestowed, not by a few who are apt to err, but by the whole world which seldom makes a mistake, and for any of these I would give all the Nobel prizes during the next thousand years.” ^[117] Neither scientist would end up with the award.
Two years later, Tesla was awarded the Edison Medal. Tesla’s response was quick: “I do not need its honours . . . “ ^[118] Although Tesla initially declined the award, B. A. Behrend, a friend and chairperson of the Edison Medal committee, convinced him to take part in the award ceremonies.

In the 1930s, Tesla’s life forces were waning and yet he continued to publicly declare his hope and optimism: “It is impossible for anyone to gain any idea of the inspiration I gain from my applied inventions which have become a matter of history, and of the force it supplies to urge me forward to greater achievements. I continually experience an inexpressible satisfaction from the knowledge that my polyphase system is used throughout the world to lighten the burden of mankind and increase comfort and happiness, and that my wireless system, in all of its essential features, is employed to render a service to and bring pleasure to people in all parts of the earth.” ^[119]

John O’Neill, Tesla’s first biographer and friend, made the following comment: “The fact that he always spoke of the value of his inventions to the world, and not of the greatness of his own accomplishment, endeared him to all who met him.” ^[120]

 

PROPHECY, PSYCHIC

Nikola Tesla spent much energy separating himself publicly from any association with matters concerning mysticism, psychical experiences and the world of the supernatural in order to be taken seriously by the scientific world. However hard he tried, Tesla’s true nature kept cropping up.

An incident that occurred when Tesla was about seven years of age was an indication of things to come: “I was fascinated by a description of Niagara Falls I had perused, and pictured in my imagination a big wheel run by the falls. I told my uncle that I would go to America and carry out this scheme. Thirty years later I saw my ideas carried out at Niagara and marvelled at the unfathomable mystery of the mind.” ^[121]

Sava N. Kosanovich, a nephew of Tesla’s, described a discussion that he had with his uncle: “I heard from Tesla that he had premonitions. He explained this in a mechanical way, saying he was a sensitive receiver that registers any disturbance . . . He told me of one instance in which he had held a big party in New York for some of his friends who planned to take a certain train for Philadelphia. He felt a powerful urge not to let the friends depart as planned and forcibly detained them so that they missed the train on which they had planned to travel. This train met with an accident in which there were a large number of casualties. This happened sometime in the nineties.” ^[122]

Another interesting anecdote just after the passing of his sister Angeline was that the family received a note from Tesla saying that he had felt there was a serious issue, since he had had a vision wherein his sister was arising and disappearing.

The most profound experience that Tesla recalled occurred when his mother was dying. Tesla explained that while lying in bed exhausted, away from his mother’s bedside, he hoped for a sign of any change in her condition. “ . . . when I fell in a sleep, or perhaps a swoon and saw a cloud carrying angelic figures of marvelous beauty, one of whom gazed upon me lovingly and gradually assumed the features of my mother. The appearance slowly floated across the room and vanished, and I was awakened by an indescribably sweet song of many voices. In that instant, a certitude, which no words can express, came upon me that my mother had just died. And that was true. I was unable to understand the tremendous weight of the painful knowledge I received in advance . . . “ ^[123]

Tesla’s last encounter with the non-physical realm occurred days before his own death. He reported having a lengthy discussion with Mark Twain even though the latter had died many years before. Tesla then requested a hotel employee deliver an envelope of money to Mark Twain to an address that no longer existed.

Throughout his life, Tesla revealed that the motivation behind all his discoveries was a genuine yearning for a harmonious and peaceful future for humanity. In the last third of his life, Tesla’s thoughts were disclosed more often in articles and interviews, than in practical displays of inventions. One particular article in 1916 was a good example of his thinking about the future.^[124]

. . . What has been so far done by electricity is nothing as compared with what the future has in store . . . But the time is very near when we shall have the precipitation of the moisture of the atmosphere under complete control, . . . and completely transform the globe by irrigation and intensive farming . . .

. . . The beneficial effects of electricity of high tension have been unmistakenly established, so that we are warranted in believing that a revolution will be brought about through the extensive adoption of agricultural electrical apparatus. The safeguarding of forests against fire, the destruction of microbes, insects, and rodents will, in due course, be accomplished by electricity . . .

Oher specific fields of human activity where electricity would play an important role in the future included: radar, refrigeration, picture transmission telegraphically, dictaphones, sterilization of water, air, food, and clothing, electrotherapy and cleansing of the human body. A short list of other devices that Tesla, in other articles, foresaw would become commonplace included: drones, rockets, remote control missiles, pocket-sized instruments used to see and hear anything from any location, and solar energy for domestic use.

Tesla saw that the role of the female in the world would change dramatically. He saw the female surpassing the male intellectually and become the dominant sex in the future. He saw all developed countries placing the greatest emphasis on education; that water pollution would be intolerable; that the world would be fed by grains; and that, eventually, humanity would employ sound scientific principles to sustainably manage the earth’s natural resources.

Tesla’s predictions knew no bounds and were filled with high hopes for the future of humanity. In his article of 1912, Tesla’s vision of the future was extremely alluring. “Great as are the past achievements, the future holds out more glorious promise. We are getting an insight into the essence of things . . . a new specialized race is developing with knowledge deep and precise, with greater powers and keener perceptions. Mysterious as ever before, nature yields her precious secrets more readily and the spirit of man asserts its mastery over the physical universe. The day is not distant when . . . he will command the wild elements; he will push on and on from great to greater deeds until with his intelligence and force, he will reach out to spheres beyond the terrestrial.” ^[125]

LATER YEARS

The sunset of Tesla’s life was filled with deep thinking, concentration and meditative imaginings, but the mammoth scale of physical inventions took on a more refined and humble role in his life. Minor inventions and theoretical solutions to human needs appeared to apply less pressure on his nervous system. A string of discoveries of lesser importance kept Tesla reasonably stable financially. Some of these included a bladeless turbine engine, speedometers, fluid diodes, hovercraft designs for aircraft, air conditioning systems, synchronized clocks, and a pocket-sized mechanical oscillator.

Tesla continued to share with the world his visions and inspirations. He never seemed to lose his enthusiasm and his prodigious mental activity. Tesla remained dedicated to the Wardencliffe project for the rest of his life. He always maintained cautious confidence in his insightful nature, as reflected in a 1931 letter: “My ideas are always rational because I am an exceptionally accurate instrument of reception--in other words, a seer. But be this true or not, I am always mighty glad when I get through, for there can be no doubt that such a surtax on the brain is fraught with great danger to life.” ^[126]

At his seventy-fifth birthday party, Tesla talked about the nature of cosmic rays, a new source of power that would become available for global use in the future, and his concerns about the level of his own energy. “I have been leading a secluded life, one of continuous concentrated thought and deep meditation. Naturally enough, I have accumulated a great number of ideas. The question is whether my physical powers will be adequate to working them out and giving them to the world.” ^[127]

Later that month, an article, “Tesla at 75,” disclosed a new Tesla device for conversing with other star systems. “I think that nothing can be more important than interplanetary communication. It will certainly come some day and the certitude that there are other human beings in the universe, working, suffering, struggling like ourselves, will produce a major effect on mankind, and will form the foundation of a universal brotherhood that will last as long as humanity itself.” ^[128]

At his seventy-eighth birthday event, Tesla shared that his particle beam weapon had been perfected and was ready for use as a deterrent against aggression and against which there was no defense available. In his last decade, Tesla’s thoughts encompassed: cosmic principles, electricity and magnetism, matter and energy, the nature of cosmic rays, a theory of gravity that included the existence of ether, and the human evolutionary journey.

COSMIC RAYS

In the last few decades of his life, Tesla would talk frequently about the nature of and the harnessing of cosmic rays. These were unique and powerful energy emanations that Tesla became aware of during experiments at the turn of the century. In a 1932 article, he made the following statement: “I made some progress in solving the mystery until, in 1899, I obtained mathematical and experimental proofs that the sun and other heavenly bodies similarly conditioned emit rays of great energy which consist of inconceivably small particles animated by velocities vastly exceeding that of light. So great is the penetrative power of these rays that they can traverse thousands of miles of solid matter with but slight diminution of velocity. In passing through space, which is filled with cosmic dust, they generate a secondary radiation of constant intensity day or night, and pouring upon the earth equally from all directions.” ^[129]

Tesla declared that cosmic rays from our sun were a source of unlimited energy present throughout all space and bombard every square foot of the earth’s surface constantly. A device that he patented in 1901, when attached to a condenser, could capture freely produced electric charges of the cosmic rays and discharge the energy to any distributing plant around the globe. This Tesla hoped would bring to an end our reliance on any non-renewable fuel (coal, oil, gas) for our energy needs. However, testing on a large practical scale never took place.

CELIBACY

As a young, single and handsome gentleman, Nikola Tesla was well known for his amicable socializing in New York up until his mother’s death. Upon return from Europe in 1892, all his attention and energy went towards his research and inventions. Throughout his adult life, Tesla was friendly and respectful with women, but never encroached upon love and intimacy. Tesla never married and refrained from any amorous activity with any person, male or female. Only his mother and sisters were allowed easy access to his inner feelings. In 1927, Tesla told of one exception when very young. “I have never touched a woman. As a student, and while vacationing at my parents’ home in Lika, I fell in love with one girl. She was tall, beautiful and had extraordinary understandable eyes.” ^[130]

It was absolutely vital to Tesla that, in order to maintain his energy, he could not become distracted by any temptation of the heart. Tesla mentioned to a New York reporter in the 1890s, “I have planned to devote my whole life to my work and for that reason I am denied the love and companionship of a good woman . . . But an inventor has so intense a nature with so much in it of a wild, passionate quality that, in giving himself to a woman, he would give up everything, and so take everything from his chosen field. It is a pity too; sometimes we feel so lonely.” ^[131]

BEHAVIOUR, HABITS

Modern day psychologists and health professionals might find Nikola Tesla a bewildering specimen. Tesla’s extraordinary passions and compulsions, his visions, and uncommon creative talents could be either a) simply categorized or b) symptoms of an internal evolutionary process.

As a young child and up through his early adult life, Tesla’s visions, senses and thinking were almost supernaturally refined. Even at the writing of his autobiography at age sixty-three, Tesla professed that he possessed perfect eyesight, acute hearing, clarity in thinking and consistency in physical appearance and strength.

Although he would doze off occasionally or remain in a meditative trance while working through complex issues, Tesla was completely focused on every detail of every project that was being researched. He very rarely slept more than two hours per night, even into his senior years. During his daily eight- to ten-mile walks, Tesla would talk to himself or count his steps, while avoiding any cracks in the sidewalks.

With his remarkable discipline, Tesla overcame a variety of vices, such as gambling, smoking cigars, coffee, and alcohol with ease. The history of Tesla’s dietary regimen was noteworthy in its gradual changes. From meat consumption to a vegetarian based diet to a daily intake of warm milk and crackers in his later years, Tesla was always conscious of his health needs to supply the energy required to match his mental and physical demands.

Tesla exhibited many symptoms of a severe case of germ phobia. He lived mainly in hotels during his adult life. At every meal, he would demand the following: fresh tablecloths, twenty-four napkins on the left side of the table, silverware sterilized, all plates, bowls and cups sterilized, pure drinking water, extreme food handling practices, and attentive service. Tesla washed his hands constantly throughout the day. He avoided shaking hands and would never touch the hair of another individual. He could not tolerate flies anywhere.

Everything about his appearance was elegant, cultured and fitted especially for him. Shoes were made specially for him. White gloves, silk shirts and red ties were either replaced or laundered constantly. Other quirks in public view included: dislike of earrings and pearls on women; all repetitive acts had to be divisible by three; and constant calculations of the cubical contents of cups, bowls or any object before him. In the privacy of his spotless laboratory, Tesla would applaud, converse with and name each lightning bolt that he witnessed through his office window.

After his disappointments at Wardencliffe, Tesla’s idiosyncrasies became more noticeable. He enjoyed spending more time in the dark, feeding pigeons, circling the block three times before retiring, and basically avoiding human contact as much as politely possible.

PIGEONS

For the last thirty or so years of his life, Nikola Tesla entered into a relationship with New York’s pigeons that could be characterized as fantastically eccentric. In a 1926 magazine article, he divulged his affection towards pigeons and his midnight excursions into the streets of the city, feeding hundreds of his feathery friends daily. “Sometimes I feel that by not marrying, I made too great a sacrifice to my work, so I have decided to lavish all the affection of a man no longer young on the feathery tribe . . . To care for those homeless, hungry or sick birds is the delight of my life. It is my only means of playing.” ^[132]

This playful attitude caused much concern nine years prior, when during the Edison Award ceremony, Tesla disappeared. His friend, B. A. Behrend found him outside totally engulfed by a sea of pigeons who responded to his every wish.

His hotel room became a bird sanctuary, where nests and food were always available for the pigeons who could enter through the open window anytime. No matter what his personal financial situation, the devotion and care for his pigeons seemed to take priority in Tesla’s life. Forced to move several times due to the pigeon situation in his room and his diligence towards feeding the birds daily no matter what, were signs of his total devotion to them. Even during times of sickness or recovery from an accident, Tesla made sure that his pigeons were taken care of. When a pigeon became ill, Tesla would set aside all personal activities and remain with the bird until it had recovered.

A discussion with J. J. O’Neill and William Laurence in the Hotel New Yorker regarding one particular pigeon illustrates the intensity of Tesla’s affection:^[133]

I have been feeding pigeons, thousands of them, for years; thousands of them, for who can tell—

But there was one pigeon, a beautiful bird, pure white with light gray tips on its wings, that one was different. It was a female. I would know that pigeon anywhere. No matter where I was that pigeon would find me; when I wanted her, I had only to wish and call her and she would come flying to me. She understood me and I understood her. I loved that pigeon. Yes, yes, I loved that pigeon, I loved her as a man loves a woman, and she loved me. When she was ill, I knew and understood; she came to my room and I stayed beside her for days. I nursed her back to health. That pigeon was the joy of my life. If she needed me, nothing else mattered. As long as I had her, there was a purpose in my life.

Then one night . . . she flew in through the open window . . . I knew she wanted to tell me something important . . . As I looked at her, I knew she wanted to tell me that she was dying . . . When that pigeon died, something went out of my life . . . I knew my life’s work was finished.

Yes, I have fed pigeons for years; I continue to feed them, thousands of them, for after all, who can tell . . .

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

During Tesla’s life, many individuals were deeply affected by the spirit and personality of the man. Admired, respected, misunderstood or attacked, Tesla inspired entire generations to boldly extend their awareness into new realms of knowledge. There were many portrayals of the almost supernaturally gifted or visionary abilities that the inventor possessed. Two examples follow.

Charles Barnard, after a ceremony celebrating the commencement of power distribution from Niagara Falls to Buffalo in 1897, commented:

“ . . . he [Tesla] is a dreamer of wise dreams, a poet and a humanitarian, working with new tools for the benefit of all. He is a man who wonders at the folly of men who invent guns when they might invent tools. His spirit is naturally hopeful . . . He looks not so much at the world as at the universe . . . looks forward to a time when we may, perhaps, tap the unseen forces of the planets and use the cosmic energy that swings the stars in their courses. He looks to a time when power shall be so cheap, so universal, that all labour shall be done by tireless machines and every man’s life be thus so much more worth living.” ^[134]

A pioneer in the field of wireless (radio), John Stone Stone testified in court, and gave evidence supporting Tesla, in his patent suit against Marconi in 1919: ^[135]

I misunderstood Tesla. I think we all misunderstood Tesla. We thought he was a dreamer and visionary. He did dream and his dreams came true, he did have visions, but they were of a real future, not an imaginary one. Tesla was the first man to lift his eyes high enough to see that the rarefied stratum of atmosphere above our earth was destined to play an important role in the radio telegraphy of the future . . . But Tesla also perceived what many of us did not in those days, namely, the currents which flowed away from the base of the antenna over the surface of the earth and in the earth itself . . . Tesla with his almost preternatural insight into alternative current phenomena, that enabled him some years before to revolutionize the art of electric power transmission . . . knew how to make resonance serve . . . the role of a stereopticon to render spectacular to large audiences the phenomena of electrical oscillations and high frequency currents . . . He did more to excite interest and create an intelligent understanding of these phenomena in the years 1891-1893 than anyone else . . . In the light of modern experience and knowledge [one might] admit he was a prophet . . . [It is] difficult to make any improvements in the art of radio-telegraph without travelling part of the way, at least, along a trail blazed by this pioneer who, though eminently ingenious, practical and successful in the apparatus he devised and constructed, was so far ahead of his time that the best of us then mistook him for a dreamer.

After Tesla’s death, there was much confusion in the handling of his personal documents and written notes. Amongst all the commotion around his death, various personalities would share their admiration and affection for the man who had transformed their world. Tesla’s creations had improved the human condition by bringing into being a new electrical era. A newspaper editorial appeared many months after Tesla’s death. It read: ^[136]

Mr. Tesla was eighty-six years old when he died. He died alone. He was an eccentric . . . He delighted in talking nonsense, or was it? Granting that he was a difficult man to deal with, and that sometimes his predictions would affront the ordinary human’s intelligence, here, still was an extraordinary man of genius. He must have been. He was seeing a glimpse into that confused and mysterious frontier which divided the known and the unknown . . . But today we do know that Tesla . . . was trying with superb intelligence to find the answers. His guesses were right so often that he would be frightening. Probably we will appreciate him better a few million years from now.

CONCLUSION

The name Nikola Tesla has been fundamentally missing from the pages of our history books, scientific texts and the halls of museums. The reasons for this omission are plentiful. Some of these are: professional envy, intellectual theft, scholastic conflicts of interest, and his status as a loner and outsider. Tesla’s unconventional method of research and his flair for public demonstrations infuriated the establishment. He usually worked alone without supervision or third-party collaboration and/or verification, and many of his experiments were performed in secrecy. He had no organization or institution to fall back on for financial and intellectual support.

Recently, however, more interest in Tesla and his many discoveries and predictions have encouraged modern generations of inquisitive minds to investigate this visionary genius. Various biographers and seekers of truth have proposed that Nikola Tesla was, indeed, far ahead of his time, created unique technology with an unusual faculty within and shared timeless insights beyond the reach of the average human being.

We, in today’s world, have the opportunity to study this individual soul and recognize within him indications of an evolutionary process intently at work. Nikola Tesla exhibited numerous symptoms of a human being dwelling in an expanded state of consciousness as outlined by Pandit Gopi Krishna. This being accurate and acceptable, the results of this study maintain that Tesla’s life is recognizable proof of an evolutionary force residing and subtly guiding the human species through people like Tesla towards a wondrous future.

Gopi Krishna shared the following: “The human race is evolving toward a model that is completely different from any forecast and that can be made in our present conditioned state. We find it difficult to envisage a model of consciousness endowed with supersensory faculties, with power to penetrate into regions of life and mind entirely inaccessible to a normal man at the present time. That such channels of perception are possible we can readily infer from the fact that various specially gifted men and women throughout history have displayed some aspects of these faculties.” ^[137]

Nikola Tesla’s contribution to the world is fully on display in his inventions and his insights. The most profound aspect of Tesla’s inventive process was its practical application for the benefit of all humanity. His entire life experience was a manifestation of his luminous inner world of imagination. Gopi Krishna’s words expand upon the faculties Nikola Tesla displayed: “Inside the gross tabernacle of human flesh there is slowly developing a radiant body of ethereal living light for the man and woman of the future. Many individuals of our day have occasional glimpses of this slowly developing luminous garment of the soul within—in vivid resplendent dreams, in lustrous visionary experiences, in the perception of a luminous glow of brilliant flashes of light during meditation or other forms of spiritual exercise. Clothed in this vesture of light, the individual consciousness of the future will find itself surrounded by regions of everlasting glory and bliss, heralding its entry into the subtler levels of Creation. From this point, the world of consciousness will open its door wide for the future race to explore the most marvellous inner universe now opened to its sight.” ^[138]

Nikola Tesla was, in many ways, a guide. His life experience continues to be a beacon for all who follow. Tesla spoke of the high purpose of a scientist and his role in human evolution: “His [the scientist’s] work is like that of the planter—for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come and point the way . . . “ ^[139] So, when you witness lightning bolts in a thunderstorm, or feed bright-eyed pigeons, or experience a burst of cosmic wisdom in a flash of brilliant light, step back and utter in gratitude, “Hello, Tesla!”
 

APPENDIX A

Pandit Gopi Krishna, in his book Higher Consciousness, very clearly reveals, based upon his own research and personal experiences, thorough insights into the many aspects of the awakening of Kundalini and the possible impacts upon individuals chosen to influence the evolution of the species in a profound manner. These key souls, who offer the world evidence of elevated states of awareness beyond the norm, can be observed and studied to ascertain whether they exhibit qualities easily identifiable with an active Kundalini. It is the descriptions given in Higher Consciousness that will be used as reference points and guides in determining whether the individual under study possessed undeniable indications of an evolutionary force at work.

The arousal of the mechanism of Kundalini has various signs, characteristics and symptoms that occur on the awakening. Ancient masters “mention the phenomenon of lights that attend the arousal or have meticulously described the nature of the sounds heard, likening them to thunder, humming of bees, roaring of waterfalls, or the pealing of bells . . . and the lights to the luster of the moon, the radiance of the sun, the sizzling flash of lightning, or the glow of fire.” ^[140]

Mystical experience “may sometimes take a visionary aspect involving the form of a Divine Being in glory, or in a Divine order of things. Or one may find oneself transported to other spheres and other worldly realms. In the genuine experience the characteristic symptoms are: (1) sensation of light, which can be both internal and external . . . The sensation is at times so realistic as to give the impression of an inner or outer conflagration; (2) an overwhelming sense of wonder and awe; (3) unshakable conviction about the reality of the experience; (4) a sense of infinitude and unbounded knowledge; (5) certainty of immortality; (6) intellectual illumination; (7) a vivid feeling of encounter with an inexpressible, all-knowing Intelligence of an omniscient Divine Being; (8) a flood of pure emotion, an overwhelming feeling of devotion, reverence, submission, love, and adoration, cascading tears, or hair standing on end . . . the observer finds himself transformed . . . he may see himself surrounded by a super earthly scene of unequalled beauty and grandeur . . . In genuine mystical experience, there is often a permanent effect on the mind that has a transforming action on the whole of life. It leads to unshakable belief in the existence of God . . . It also leads to . . . unparalleled acts of altruism, charity, and benevolence, heroism, self-sacrifice and even martyrdom . . . It has conferred unmatched creative powers on the more advanced recipients of the favour and fashioned them into vessels to enlighten humanity.” ^[141]

“In the genuine mystical experience . . . the acuity of perception is heightened, the hues and colours become more clear and brilliant, the sounds more harmonious, and touch more sensitive. It is in this state of heightened sensibility and magnified power of perception that the mystic beholds the vision of a deity, or an external panorama of nature, often completely overwhelmed by his own highly enlarged power of observation and a new meaning it gives to every object observed through the amazing transformation experienced within.” ^[142]

“As a rule, [one who has attained to a higher state of consciousness] should be characterized by four exceptional attributes, namely, genius, psychic talents, lofty traits of character, and an expanded state of consciousness. By the term psychic talents . . . I mean higher mental faculties, such as clairvoyance, precognition, highly developed intuition, and the like. According to Indian authorities, the most remarkable characteristic of enlightenment is jnāna or the outflow of perennial wisdom . . . It is intended to guide the footsteps of the race on the winding and tortuous path of evolution . . . the psychic powers exercised by the enlightened . . . have a universal value for all mankind.” ^[143]

“Nature does not rest content with merely the calculated efforts of human minds. Most of the great discoveries in the past were stimulated by flashes of sudden insight in those whose brains were already in tune. But for this extraordinary phenomenon, human progress could never have been possible.” ^[144]

“Those who attained to the state of transhuman consciousness invariably demonstrated irrefutable evidence of lofty traits of character and conduct . . . This is the target of the evolutionary process for us all.” ^[145]

“In the expanded state of consciousness, the soul . . . realizing its own unconditioned and deathless nature, . . . soars to immeasurable heights of ecstasy and bliss. This is the reason for the unshakable conviction of immortality that pervaded the mind of every mystic and sage who had the supreme experience . . .” ^[146]

“It is well known that almost all outstanding men of genius possess the faculty (flashes of intuition, prophetic glimpses of the future, revelations in dreams, sudden insights) to a greater or lesser extent in relation to the particular branch of knowledge in which they excel . . . Apart from geniuses, we also find this faculty operative in the case of children who exhibit extraordinary talent in music, painting, mathematics, invention, and the like at an extremely young age, even before intellect has begun to function fully. There is no explanation for these sudden flashes of insight or sudden developments of precocious talents, sometimes even without education . . . “

“ . . . to develop the characteristics of higher consciousness . . . to always keep in mind that there is no barrier, no distinction, no wall between man and man . . . that it is one substance, one cosmic medium, that is expressing itself in all human beings.” ^[148]

Other characteristics to be watchful of in a gifted individual are: the age of the one who is experiencing surges in Kundalini activity; an undiminished old age; awareness of a cosmic expansion in the mind; a love of nature; a strong feeling of oneness with the environment; and a detachment from the materialistic world. Personality traits of an individual with an aroused Kundalini would include: charisma; magnetism; well-developed emotional nature; exceptional high moral standards; compassionate; exhibiting healing powers; high level of concentration; unrelenting capacity for succeeding; and indefatigable work habits. Some individuals may also exhibit the results of excessive application of new energies aroused or become more sensitive to unhealthy situations. This would be expressed in the form of illness, mental and/or nervous disturbances and vigorous or deflected sexual urges. G. Krishna in his book Real Nature of Mystical Experience refers to a celibate lifestyle in a gifted individual: “Total suppression of the reproductive urge means extinction of the race. It is only in exceptional cases, where the desire is partly or wholly absent, as a sign of highly accelerated evolution in a born mystic or genius, that it can be considered to be a natural state in such an individual.” ^[149]

Throughout history, those with an aroused Kundalini, have been described as possessing exceptional talent, uniqueness, genius, creativity, or just bringing to the world something so new and ahead of its time that it would stand out as beyond the scope of normal thought or mental activity. Any of these characteristics or personality traits mentioned should be examined in an individual as possible evidence of kundalini activity within that person.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Carlson, W. Bernard. Tesla, Inventor of the Electrical Age. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 2013.
• Cheney, Margaret. Tesla, Man Out of Time. Simon and Schuster, New York, N. Y., 1981, Touchstone Edition 2001. .
• Heyn, Ernest V. Fire of Genius: Inventors of the Past Century. .
• Hunt, Inez and Wanetta W. Draper. Lightning in His Hand: The Life Story of Nikola Tesla. Omni Publications, Hawthorne, California, 1964. .
• Krishna, Gopi. Higher Consciousness. The Julian Press, New York, 1974. .
• _______. Real Nature of Mystical Experience. New Age Concepts Publishing,
  New York, 1978. .
• Martin, Thomas. The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla. Skytower Press, 2013. .
• O’Neill, John J. Prodigal Genius, The Life of Nikola Tesla. Ives Washburn, Inc., New York, 1944.
• Petrovic, Anya. Tesla Metamorphosis. Ana Draslar, San Bernardino, California, 2017. .
• Seifer, Marc J. Wizard, The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla. Citadel Press, Kensington Publishing Company, New York, 1996. .
• Tesla, Nikola. Tesla Said. Compiled by John T. Ratzlaff, Tesla Book Company, Millbrae, California, 1984. .
• _______. My Inventions, The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla. Merchant Books, 2013. .
• Wilson, Colin. Dark Dimensions. (Nikola Tesla by Kit Pedler, 1977. Beaverbooks, Pickering, Ontario, 1977. .

ARTICLES BY NIKOLA TESLA:

• The Problem of Increasing Human Energy, 1900, June, Century Illustrated Magazine.
• How Cosmic Forces Shape Our Destinies. February 1915, New York American. .
• The Eternal Source of Energy of the Universe, Origin and Intensity of Cosmic Rays. October, 1932, New York. .
• Man’s Greatest Achievement, July 1930, New York American. .

 

REFERENCES

1. ^ Nikola Tesla, My Inventions, Merchant Books 2013, p. 5.
2. ^ Ibid., “Tesla Said,” compiled by John T. Ratzlaff, pp. 182-184, Minutes of AIEE Annual Meeting, New York, May 18, 1917.
3. ^Gopi Krishna, Higher Consciousness, Julian Press, 1974, pp. 66, 67.
4. ^ Ibid., p. 12.
5. ^ Ibid., p. 67. .
6. ^ Ibid., p. 133. .
7. ^ Ibid., p. 160. .
8. ^ Nikola Tesla, “Tesla Said”, p. 184, May 18, 1917 Ceremony Speech. .
9. ^ Ibid., My Inventions, pp. 9, 10. .
10. ^Ibid., pp. 10, 11. .
11. ^ Ibid., p. 11. .
12. ^ I. Hunt and W. Draper, Lightning in His Hand, Orion Publications, 1964, p. 12 (Nikola Tesla 1856-1943 Lectures, Patents and Articles, Nikola Tesla Museum, Yugoslavia, 1956, p. 186).
13. ^ Marc J. Seifer, “Wizard”, Citadel Press, 1996 (Nikola Tesla April 23, 1893 correspondence).
14. ^ Tesla, op. cit., p. 34.
15. ^ Tesla, “Tesla Said”, p. 186, May 18, 1917 Ceremony Speech.
16. ^ Hunt and Draper, op. cit., p. 28 (Arthur Bickhard, Electrical Genius, New York, 1959, pp. 57, 58).
17. ^ Margaret Cheney, Tesla, Man Out of Time, 2001, p. 279 (Nikola Tesla, “A Story of Youth Told by Age,” Smithsonian Institution).
18. ^ Ibid., pp. 279, 280.
19. ^ Tesla, My Inventions, p. 13, 14.
20. ^ Ibid., p. 23.
21. ^ Ibid.
22. ^ Ibid., p. 42.
23. ^ Ibid., p. 14.
24. ^ Ibid.
25. ^ Hunt and Draper, op. cit., p. 85.
26. ^ John J. O’Neill, Prodigal Genius, 1944, pp. 288, 289.
27. ^ Tesla, “Tesla Said, “ op.cit., p. 95 (Nikola Tesla, “Tuned Lightning”, English Mechanic World of Science, March 18, 1907, pp. 107, 108).
28. ^ Cheney, op. cit., p. 176 (Tesla, “Colorado Springs Notes, pp. 127-133, 165, Tesla Museum, 1978).
29. ^ Tesla, My Inventions, op. cit., p. 20.,
30. ^ Cheney, op. cit., pp. 282-283.
31. ^ Tesla, op. cit., pp. 41, 42.
32. ^ Ibid., p. 70.
33. ^ W. B. Carlson, Tesla, Inventor of the Electrical Age, p. 367 (Nikola Tesla letter to P. Vierick, December 17, 1934).
34. ^ Marc J. Seifer, “Wizard”, p. 43 (T. C. Martin, Nikola Tesla, 1890, p. 106).
35. ^ O’Neill, op. cit., p. 92.
36. ^ Ibid., pp. 282, 283 (Franklin Chester, Citizen, Aug. 22, 1897).
37. ^ Cheney, op. cit., p. 107 (Julian Hawthorne, Current Literature, “Personality of Tesla,” November 1900, p. 222).
38. ^ Ibid., p. 110.
39. ^ Seifer, op. cit., p. 396 (Hugo Gernsback, Current Literature, “Personality of Tesla”, November 1900, p. 222).
40. ^ O’Neill, op. cit., pp. 288, 289.
41. ^ Tesla, op. cit., p. 19.
42. ^ W. B. Carlson, Tesla, Inventor of the Electrical Age, p. 204 (Robert Johnson letter to Columbia University, 1893).
43. ^ Thomas Martin, Inventions, Researches, and Writings, pp. 108, 109.
44. ^ Seifer, op. cit., p. 71 (Wetzler, “Electric Lamps Fed from Space,” Harper’s Weekly, February 21, 1891, pp. 128-130).
45. ^ Carlson, op. cit., p. 135 (Electrical Review, “Alternating Currents of High Frequency,” May 30, 1891, p. 185).
46. ^ Martin, op. cit., p. 146.
47. ^ Ibid., p. 147.
48. ^ Ibid., p. 175.
49. ^ Carlson, op. cit., p. 148 (Nature, February 11, 1892).
50. ^ Seifer, op. cit., p. 83 (Electrical Review, “Mr. Tesla Before the Royal Institution, London,” March 19, 1892, p. 57).
51. ^ Carlson, op. cit., p. 153 (Electrical Review, April 9, 1892).
52. ^ Ibid.
53. ^ Seifer, op. cit., p. 71 (Electrical Review, E. Raverot, March 26, 1892).
54. ^ Martin, op. cit., p. 217.
55. ^ Ibid., p. 218.
56. ^ Cheney, op. cit., p. 22 (Chauncey McGovern, “The New Wizard of the West,” Pearson’s Magazine, London, May, 1899).
57. ^ Carlson, op. cit., p. 216 (Stephenson, “Tesla the Electrical Light of the Future,” p. 384).
58. ^ Ibid., pp. 244, 245 (New York Herald, “N. Tesla on Far Seeing,” August 30, 1896).
59. ^ Ibid., p. 245.
60. ^ Tesla, op. cit., pp. 11, 12.
61. ^ Martin, op. cit., pp. 147, 148.
62. ^ Tesla, op. cit., pp. 42, 43.
63. ^ Ibid., p. 45.
64. ^ O’Neill, op. cit., p. 105.
65. ^ Seifer, op. cit., p. 175 (New York Times, “Tesla’s Work at Niagara,” July 16, 1895).
66. ^ Tesla, “Tesla Said,” op. cit., p. 34 (The Age of Electricity, March 1897, pp. 378-386).
67. ^ Cheney, op. cit., p. 224 (Electrical World and Engineer, March 5, 1904).
68. ^ Ibid., p. 223
69. ^ Carlson, op. cit., p. 338 (letter from N. Tesla to J. P. Morgan, June 9, 1902).,
70. ^ Nikola Tesla, “Problems of Increasing Human Energy,” p. 28.
71. ^ Seifer, op. cit., p. 158 (J. M. Davis, Comfort, “Great Master Magician is Nikola Tesla,” May 1896).
72. ^Tesla, op. cit., pp. 286, 287 (“Mechanical Therapy”).
73. ^Tesla, op. cit., pp. 9, 10.
74. ^ O’Neill, op. cit., p. 106.
75. ^ Martin, op. cit., p. 261.
76. ^ Ibid., p. 248.
77. ^ Tesla, “Tesla Said,“ op. cit., pp. 33, 34 (“The Age of Electricity,” Cassier’s Magazine, London, March 1897).
78. ^ Seifer, op. cit., p. 176 (Buffalo Evening News, January 12, 1897).
79. ^ Tesla, My Inventions, op. cit., pp. 61, 62.
80. ^ Carlson, op. cit., p. 270.
81. ^ O’Neill, op. cit., p. 181.
82. ^ Tesla, op. cit., pp. 62, 63.
83. ^ Carlson, op. cit., p. 346 (New York Sun, “Tesla Flashes Startling,” July 17, 1903).
84. ^ Tesla, “Tesla Said,” op. cit., p. 102 (New York World, “Mr. Tesla on the Wireless Transmission of Power,” May 19, 1907).
85. ^ Ibid., p. 108 (Walter W. Massie and Charles R. Underhill, “The Future of the Wireless Art”).
86. ^ Seifer, op. cit., p. 350 (Nikola Tesla address to the National Electric Light Association, 1911).
87. ^ Carlson, op. cit., p. 237 (New York Herald, 1896, Tesla Papers, Butler Library, Columbia University).
88. ^ Seifer, op. cit., p. 239.
89. ^ Tesla, “Problem of Increasing Human Energy,” op. cit.,
    p. 1.
90. ^ Ibid.
91. ^ Ibid., p. 2.
92. ^ Ibid.
93. ^ Ibid., p. 4.
94. ^ Ibid., p. 30.
95. ^ Nikola Tesla, “How Cosmic Forces Shape Our Destinies,” New York American, February 7, 1915.
96. ^ Nikola Tesla, “Man’s Greatest Achievement,” New York American, July 6, 1930.
97. ^ Martin, op. cit., pp. 108, 109, 110.
98. ^ Tesla, “Tesla Said,” op. cit., p. 112 (“Mr. Tesla’s Vision,” New York Times, April 29, 1908).
99. ^ O’Neill, op. cit., p. 248.
100. ^ Tesla, op. cit., p. 119 (“What Science May Achieve This Year,” Denver Rocky Mountain News, January 26, 1910).
101. ^ Ibid., pp. 231, 232 (“Motive Power,” Everyday Science and Mechanics, December 1931).
102. ^ Tesla, “Problem of Increasing Human Energy,” op. cit., pp. 11, 12.
103. ^ Tesla, “Tesla Said,” op. cit., pp. 80, 81 (“Transmission of Electrical Energy,” Electrical World and Engineer, January 7, 1905).
104. ^ Seifer, op. cit., p. 376 (“Science and Discovery . . . Consummation of War,” New York Sun, December 20, 1914).
105. ^ Ibid., p. 376.
106. ^ Tesla, My Inventions, op. cit., p. 79.
107. ^ Tesla, “Tesla Said,” op. cit., p. 182 (Edison Award ceremony speech, 1917).
108. ^ Tesla, My Inventions, op. cit., pp. 58, 59.
109. ^ Ibid., p. 60.
110. ^ Seifer, op. cit., p. 164.
111. ^ Tesla, op. cit., p. 84.
112. ^ Ibid., p. 85.
113. ^ Tesla, “Tesla Said,” op. cit., p. 188 (Edison Award speech, 1917).
114. ^ Tesla, My Inventions, op. cit., p. 71.
115. ^ Ibid, p. 72.
116. ^ Carlson, op. cit., p. 265 (Chicago Tribune, “The Wizard,” May 14, 1899).
117. ^ Seifer, op. cit., p. 380 (Nikola Tesla letter to R. Johnson, November 10, 1915).
118. ^ O’Neill, op. cit., p. 229.
119. ^ Ibid., pp. 274, 275.
120. ^ Ibid., p. 281.
121. ^ Tesla, op. cit., p. 24.
122. ^O’Neill, op. cit., p. 264.
123. ^ Tesla, op. cit., p. 83.
124. ^ Tesla, “Tesla Said,” op. cit., pp. 161, 162, 163 (“Wonders of the Future,” Collier’s Weekly, December 2, 1916).
125. ^ Ibid., p. 121 (“Mr. Tesla on the Future,” Modern Electrics, May 1912).
126. ^ Cheney, op. cit., p. 30 (Tesla letter to Viereck, December 17, 1934).
127. ^ Hunt and Draper, op. cit., p. 217 (“Tesla Electrical Wizard,” New York Times, July 5, 1931).
128. ^ Seifer, op. cit., p. 421 (“Tesla at 75,” Time, July 20, 1931).
129. ^ Ibid., p. 423 (“Dr. Tesla Writes on Various Phases of His Discovery,” New York Times, February 6, 1932).
130. ^ Carlson, op. cit., p. 239.
131. ^ O’Neill, op. cit., p. 301 (New York Herald article, 1896).
132. ^ Seifer, op. cit., p. 414 (New York World article, November 21, 1926, “At Night and in Secret N. Tesla Lavishes Money and Love on Pigeons”).
133. ^ O’Neill, op. cit., pp. 316, 317.
134. ^ Seifer, op. cit., p. 171 (Charles Barnard, “Nikola Tesla, the Electrician,” The Charitauguan 25, 1897).
135. ^ Tesla, “Tesla Said,” op. cit., pp. 175, 176 (Edison Award Ceremony, 917).
136. ^ Seifer, op. cit., p. 445 (New York Sun editorial, “Nikola Tesla Dead,” September 25, 1943).
137. ^ Gopi Krishna, Higher Consciousness, p. 192.
138. ^ Ibid., p. 193.
139. ^ Tesla, “Problem of Increasing Human Energy,” op. cit., p. 32.
140. ^Gopi Krishna, op. cit., p. 16.
141. ^ Ibid., pp.27, 28.
142. ^ Ibid., p. 36.
143. ^ Ibid., pp. 117, 118.
144. ^ Ibid., p. 133.
145. ^ Ibid., p. 179.
146. ^ Ibid., p. 185.
147. ^ Ibid., p. 189.
148. ^ Ibid., p. 194.
149. ^ Gopi Krishna, Real Nature of Mystical Experience, p. 56.