by Sesh Heri
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journeys. His imaginary worlds were filled with things and people every bit as real to him as the people and things of our “real” world. Then, at seven- teen, he found he could imagine into existence images of three-dimensional fully colored machines. This led to Tesla’s unique method of invention, which has nothing in common with Edison’s trial-and-error method. Tesla was able to visualize his inventions in fully colored three dimensions. He could see every part of the machine, every detail, the kind of metal out of which the machine was made and the minute scratches on its surface, if it had any. Tesla’s visions of his imaginary machines were so exact that he could tell exactly what part of a machine would break down and how long it would take for it to break; for he would do imaginary test runs on his machines. These test runs could go on for hours, weeks, or months at a time. Tesla could look in on these test runs at intervals, to see how they were progress- ing. When actual, physical models of the machines were constructed and tested, Tesla’s engineers would find that the real machine behaved exactly as Tesla’s imaginary test-runs had predicted! Such a power as Tesla’s could not be had without a cost. Tesla became beset with a number of unexplainable fears. I can state what I know of Tesla’s fears from direct observation. He is terrified of germs and takes extreme mea- sures to avoid them. As a general rule, he does not shake hands with people. He never wears a shirt collar more than once. When he eats (which is usually alone) he always uses exactly 18 napkins, which he tosses to the floor in se- quence through the course of his meal. He cannot stand the sight of pearls; they literally turn his stomach. He cannot bear to touch the hair of other people. When Tesla pours a drink, or lifts a spoon of food, he has to calculate its cubic volume before consuming it. He counts his steps when he walks and memorizes the number of steps between places he frequents. Then he always has to take exactly that same number of steps every time he goes from one of those places to the other.
These and other fears and obsessions separate Tesla from the rest of his fellow human beings. He is a living paradox: a highly sociable, unsociable man. Understand that Tesla has always been a generous and affectionate per- son—up to a point. Beyond that point, a line is drawn and no one dare cross it. In 1875 Tesla enrolled at the Austrian Polytechnic School in Graz, his tuition being paid by the Military Frontier Authority. At the Polytechnic School, Tesla encountered a Gramme Machine, a di- rect-current electrical device which could be used as either a motor or dy- namo. Tesla noticed that the machine sparked a great deal as it operated. He suggested to his professor that if the wire-wound armature and commutator were removed, and the machine switched to alternating current, the sparking could be eliminated. The professor dismissed Tesla’s suggestion as an impos- sible idea.
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Tesla’s fellowship evaporated and he was faced with the possibility that he might have to drop out of school. He tried to borrow money, but failed. Then he tried to gamble to raise money. He became an expert billiard player—too expert. The city police of Graz shut Tesla down and the Polytechnic School expelled him. Now Tesla turned to gambling full-tilt. His luck in cards went bad—and from bad to worse. Finally his mother came to him one day, held out a roll of bills, and said, “Go to the card tables and enjoy yourself. The quicker you lose everything we have, the better it will be for all of us.” That was the end of Tesla’s gambling.
In 1879 Tesla’s father died. After that, Tesla went to Prague and sat in the university library reading books. Sometimes, when he could, he would sneak into a classroom and listen to one of the professors lecture. He could not afford tuition. This went on for nearly two years, when Tesla decided he had learned all he could from the university. He left without a degree; he was essentially self-taught. In 1881, Tesla got a job as a draftsman at the Central Telegraph Office in Budapest. At night he worked on his ideas about dynamos using alternating current electricity. He worked day and night without sleep, and almost without food. The pressure built in his mind and body. But Tesla went on, working day and night. And then—of course something had to give. Tesla collapsed. He was carried home in a delirium.
Tesla lay in his bed in complete agony. He could not stand to be touched. He was awakened from a confused sleep by the sound of a giant gong being struck rapidly by some madman. He pleaded for the noise to stop. Those who were attending him finally discovered that the gong Tesla was hearing was the ticking of a watch three rooms away. It was discovered that Tesla had become super-sensitive to all vibrations: mechanical, sound, and light. He could hear a fly land on a nearby table with a thud. A carriage passing by outside on the street shook his body down to his bones. The voices of people in the room sounded like thunder. When he heard the sound of a train whistle twenty miles away, the shrill noise seemed to be splitting his head in two. His doctors prescribed large doses of potassium, and, with the unassailable pseudo-logic of know-nothing experts, pronounced Tesla’s mysterious ailment incurable. Tesla’s pulse was highly erratic, dropping below normal some of the time, while at other times speeding up to as many as 260 beats per minute. It was when this was brought to Tesla’s attention that he began to affect his own recovery. He began concentrating on his pulse, and found that he could con- trol it at will. He kept up the concentration until his pulse leveled out.
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Tesla’s friend, Anital Szigety, a master mechanic, came for a visit. Tesla told Szigety about his progress with his pulse. Szigety was an amateur athlete and convinced Tesla that exercise was the key to his recovery. Szigety began an exercise program with Tesla lying in bed, then sitting in a chair, and finally outside in the garden. Szigety took Tesla out in a carriage on a sunny day. As they passed under a bridge and into its shade, Tesla felt a blow on the back of his head. Tesla found any abrupt interruption of strong sunlight would cause a crushing pres- sure on his skull. In the dark, Tesla could sense the position of an object at a distance of twelve feet by a tingling sensation on his forehead. Tesla told me, “It was a creepy sensation. I felt like I had the powers of a bat.” With exercise, all of these strange sensations began to leave Tesla.
I asked Tesla what he thought was the cause and nature of his illness. This is what he said: “I have never talked about this before with anyone, Mark. But I will tell you. It was not really an illness, but a transformation, a preparation for the work of my life. What induced it? I do not know. Some outside force was at work, some intelligence, or, perhaps, some aspect of nature, the unfolding of the flower of humanity signified by the transit of Venus across the face of the sun. The time had come for a new development in the human race. And it came this way. A revelation. A revelation as the ancient prophets had their revela- tions. Mine was a revelation of the nature of the physical energies of the uni- verse. The Great Flow of the Great Circuit—and I was the valve.” Tesla began to gradually mend; not physically, there was nothing physi- cally wrong with him. But the thing that had snapped in his mind and had let in a f lood of perceptions began to mend. In February of 1882, Tesla was well enough to walk in a park in Budapest. One evening, while walking in the park with Szigety, Tesla’s glimpse of the setting sun triggered one of his visions. Suddenly, before him f loated an alternating current motor operating at full speed. He walked over to it and studied it in detail. It looked like the one he had been working on in his mental workshop before his illness struck. But this motor was different in a few details. Those few differing details solved the problems which had brought Tesla to a deadlock. “Look at it,” Tesla said, transfixed. “It’s beautiful.” “Look at what?” Szigety asked. Tesla circled around the motor to study its other side. “What are you doing?” Szigety asked.
“Watching it work,” Tesla said. He came back in front of his visionary motor, reached out and thrust his hand into the machine’s rotating magnetic field. “Watch me,” Tesla said, “watch me reverse it.”
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“Reverse what?” Szigety asked with growing concern. “My motor here!” Tesla said.
Tesla saw the directio
n of the rotating magnetic field reverse. The red ball of the sun began setting against Tesla’s vision. The motor became translucent, suf- fused with the sun’s red glow. Tesla could see into the internal parts of the motor as if it were made of glass. An alternating current of electricity would charge a coil which would attract a magnet. The charge would fade and be replaced by an overlapping current nearby. This would pull the magnet around. A succession of charges and fades of current in the coil pulled the magnet in a circle. Tesla saw that the magnet was always facing the electrical charge and moving along with it, just as the daylight of the Earth always faced the sun and moved along with the sun’s apparent motion in the sky. Tesla was seeing on a grand, cosmic scale a model of his principle of energy in the action of the sun setting over the horizon— while the sun filled the glowing spaces of his visionary motor. “As above, so below,” Tesla whispered.
Tesla felt light, powerful, and free. Like the visionary magnet in his vision- ary machine, he wanted to take f light and follow the sun in its retreat, follow it, like the magnet followed the electric charge, follow it across mountains, lakes, valleys, oceans, continents—follow it around the very circumference of the world. Then Tesla remembered a passage from Goethe’s Faust and finally understood its meaning, a meaning deeper than he could have ever imagined be- fore. He began to recite the passage as Szigety looked on, fearing for the sanity of his friend. “The glow retreats, done is the day of toil; It yonder hastes, new fields of life exploring; Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil, Upon its track to follow, follow soaring!”
Szigety made Tesla sit down on a park bench. But Tesla could not be silent. He picked up a tree limb, broke it in half, and used the sharp end to scratch a line in the dust at their feet. There in the dust Tesla drew a diagram of the first alternating current motor in the known history of the world. Szigety began to understand. Tesla stood up, teetering on his feet as he bent over to complete his sketch. The infant electrical age had just taken its first upright step. In Tesla’s mind he was already fabulously rich, even though his meager pay indicated otherwise. He described his position at that time in this way: “The last 29 days of every month were my only periods of financial deprivation.”
Then through family friends he was recommended for a job with Continen- tal Edison in Paris. His position was that of troubleshooter, someone who could work the kinks out of the electrical systems of Europe. In Alsace, he built his first crude alternating current motor. When a promised bonus failed to materialize, and none of his supervisors could be induced to pay him, Tesla resigned from the Edison Company. But
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Charles Batchelor, the manager of the Edison electrical plant in Paris, recog- nized Tesla’s abilities and urged him to go to America, and went so far as to write Tesla a letter of introduction to Edison. Well, this was Tesla’s meat. Here was his chance to finally go to America, the land of his dreams! Tesla sold all his possessions and junked his alternating current motor. He put everything he had in one valise, including his letter of introduction to Edison, and headed for the railroad station. When he got to the station, he discovered his money and ship ticket were gone. He proceeded on his train journey, talked his way on board the ship, and arrived in America with only a few pennies in his pocket. At least that is the story he has told to the magazines and Newspapers.
What he told me one night about how he came to America had a little more detail. It went like this: The day after Batchelor told Tesla he would recommend him to Edison, Tesla began selling all his books and furniture. Tesla was out on the Boulevard St. Marcel in front of his hotel helping a man load a bookcase into a wagon, when he noticed two men watching him from across the street. He called to them, asking them what they wanted. Instead of answering, they turned and walked away, not saying a word. That night Tesla was walking back to his hotel after selling a rare book. He walked along the Seine. It was a moonlit night, and as he walked, the moon slipped behind a cloud. It got dark very quickly. Tesla heard a sound like pebbles falling upon the pavement. It seemed to be coming from behind him. He stopped and looked back, but saw nothing but darkness and a few winking, ref lecting lights bouncing off the surface of the Seine. He turned back around.
A man stood directly in front of him. The man held a knife. Tesla stepped back, but the man lunged forward, slashing at Tesla, the knife blade making a brilliant, white arc in the velvety darkness. Tesla grabbed the arm that held the knife and tried to hold the f lashing blade away. The blade came close to Tesla’s face. He could tell it was razor sharp. The blade hovered near Tesla’s throat. Tesla could feel the man’s breath on his face. Then there was a crack in the air—a gun shot!
The man with the knife dropped into the darkness. Tesla heard a splash, looked down, and saw the man f loating face-first down the Seine. Then Tesla heard quick steps approaching. Out of the darkness appeared a well-dressed man in a long coat and a tall silk hat. He spoke to Tesla in English. “Go away from here. Now!” the man in the silk hat said. “But—”
“No buts, Mr. Tesla. Go. Meet me tomorrow at noon on the steps of Notre Dame Cathedral.” “You shot him—”
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“Get out of here!” the man in the silk hat said, and he shoved Tesla with great force. Tesla began walking away quickly, counting his steps as he went. Then he stopped. He knew he should call for the police. He turned around and re- traced his steps to the place of the bizarre incident. No one was there; no man with a silk hat, no body floating in the river. Tesla turned, took a few steps, and then began running. Tesla reached his hotel, ran up the stairs to his room, went inside, and locked his door. The next day, at noon, Tesla stood on the steps of Notre Dame.
The man in the silk hat came up to Tesla. Although Tesla had been looking for him, he did not see the man in the silk hat approach; he seemed to appear from behind Tesla suddenly. The man in the silk hat said, “You must be more careful, Mr. Tesla. We cannot have you being killed. It just would not do.” “Who are you?” Tesla asked.
“You might think of me as your protector.” “Protector? Why do I need protecting?” “You ask that after what happened last night?” “Who was that man? Why did he try to kill me? Why did you kill him?”
“What makes you think I killed him? What makes you think he is dead?” “He is not?”
“We only kill when it is necessary. We prefer other methods of conf lict. Killing, whether wholesale in war or retail in the dispatch of an individual, is only the last movement in the great ritual of conf lict. Magnificent building, isn’t it, Mr. Tesla?” The man in the silk hat was looking up at the cathedral.
“Conf lict,” the man in the silk hat said, “conflict. Without conf lict nothing can exist, nothing can manifest, nothing can stand. This building is nothing but conf lict. It is a great idea of conf lict made real. For every stress in it, there is a counter-stress, for every weight, a levity. It is said that from conf licting ideas, light bursts forth. Would you agree with that, Mr. Tesla?” “Who are you? And who do you represent?” “Come. Let us sit over there on the bench. Here.” The man in the silk hat held a bag out to Tesla. Tesla took it and opened it up. Inside the bag was bird seed.
“For the pigeons,” the man said, “I knew you’d want to feed the pigeons.” The man in the silk hat held his gloved hand out gesturing for Tesla to go with him to the bench. Tesla studied the man for a moment; then walked with him to the bench, and there they sat down. Tesla began throwing out the seed to the pigeons. “How do you know I like to feed the pigeons?” Tesla asked.
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“We know. We know many things. For example: your grandfather. He had very long teeth in front, I mean, his two front upper teeth. They were very long, weren’t they?” “Yes. And I suppose you will not tell me how you know that either.” “You see, that’s what your name ‘Tesla’ means in your native tongue: tesla, ‘spade’ or ‘adz.’ It is in reference to the upper teeth. Those long upper teeth cut like an adz, something like the teeth of a beaver, the word beaver itself e
volving from the ancient Egyptian bava ‘to cut with an axe.’ Your ancestors had good teeth for biting ropes, for cutting through seals. That’s what your forefathers did. Long ago. They were breakers of seals, solvers of secrets. We are very interested in your lineage, Mr. Tesla. And you, Mr. Tesla, you are the culmina- tion of that lineage. Would you believe me if I told you we have your complete genealogy tracing back to the year 13,500 B.C.?” “No. No, I would not. I would believe you are a mad man.” “You believe I am mad?” Tesla nodded. “You are an unconvincing liar, Mr. Tesla. If you believed I was mad, you would not say so.”