A few years ago I came by an interview with Nikola Tesla that moved me beyond words and that I kept reading over time throughout my journey of healing and evolution.
For this article, I wanted to share this reading experience which, to my mind, is a gift to humanity, coming from a brilliant man, beyond his time and this world.
This is a way for me to honour his memory and perhaps to be able, I hope, to extend it a little longer through time, as well as through light.
Enjoy!
Quentin
Here is the interview that the scientist Nikola Tesla gave to the magazine “Immortality” in his laboratory in Colorado Springs in the year 1899:
JOHN SMITH: Mr Tesla, you have gained the glory of the man who got involved in the cosmic processes. Who are you, Mr Tesla?
TESLA: It’s an interesting question, Mr Smith, and I’ll try to give you the right answer.
JOHN SMITH: They say that you are from the country of Croatia, the area called Lika, where together with the people grow trees, rocks and starry skies. They say that your hometown is named after the flowers of the mountain and that the house where you were born is next to the forest and the church.
TESLA: Really everything they said is true. I am proud of my Serbian origin and my Croatian homeland.
JOHN SMITH: Futurists say that the twentieth century and the twenty-first century were born from the mind of Nikola Tesla. They hold the magnetic field in reverse and sing hymns to the induction motor. His creator was called “the hunter who caught the light in his nets from the depths of the earth,” and “the warrior who caught fire from heaven.” He is said to be the father of the alternating current, which will make Physics and Chemistry dominate half the world. The industry will proclaim him as his supreme saint, a banker for the greatest benefactors. In the laboratory of Nikola Tesla for the first time, an atom has been broken. A weapon has been created that produces seismic vibrations. There, black cosmic rays were discovered. Five races will pray to him in the temple of the future because he has taught them a great secret: that the elements of Empedocles can be watered with the life forces of the ethers.
TESLA: Yes, these are some of my most important discoveries. Yet I am a defeated man. I have not achieved the greatest of my goals.
JOHN SMITH: What would that wish be, Mr Tesla?
TESLA: I wanted to light up the whole earth. There is enough electricity to create a second sun. Light would appear around the equator, like a ring around Saturn. Humanity is not prepared for greatness.
In Colorado Springs I have impregnated the earth with electricity. We can also water the other energies, such as positive mental energy, found in the music of Bach or Mozart, or in the verses of the great poets.
Inside the Earth, there are energies of joy, peace, and love that are expressed for example through a flower that grows from the earth, food that comes out of it and everything that makes it the home of man. I’ve spent years looking for ways that this energy could influence people. The beauty and aroma of roses can be used as medicine and the sun’s rays as food.
Life has an infinite number of forms and the duty of scientists is to find them in all forms of matter. Three things are essential in this regard. All I do is look for them. I know I will not find them, but I will not give them up.
JOHN SMITH: What are these things?
TESLA: One problem is food. What energy, stellar or terrestrial, can feed the hungry on Earth? With what wine can thirst be satisfied, so that people can cheer their hearts and understand that they are gods?
Another thing is to destroy the power of evil and the suffering in which man’s life passes. Sometimes they occur as an epidemic in the depths of space. In this century the disease had spread from Earth to the Universe.
The third thing is: is there an excess of light in the Universe?
I discovered a star that, according to astronomical and mathematical laws could disappear, and still nothing would change. That star is in this galaxy. Its light can be emitted with such density that it fits into a sphere smaller than an apple and at the same time heavier than our Solar System. Religions and philosophies teach that man can become Christ, Buddha, and Zarathustra.
What I am trying to prove is revolutionary and almost inaccessible. It is what must be done in the Universe so that each being is born as Christ, Buddha or Zarathustra. I know that gravity is adverse to everything you need to fly and my intention is not to make flight devices (aircraft or missiles), but to teach the individual to regain consciousness on their own wings … I am also trying to awaken contained energy in the air.
There are major energy sources. Is it that, what is considered an empty space, is only a manifestation of matter that is not awake? There is no empty space on this planet, nor in the Universe … Black holes, of which astronomers speak, are the most powerful sources of energy and life.
JOHN SMITH: In the window of your room at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel on the thirty-third floor, the birds come every morning.
TESLA: A man must be sensitive to birds. This is because of their wings. The human being once had them real and visible.
JOHN SMITH: You have never stopped flying since those days in Smiljan long ago.
TESLA: I wanted to fly from the roof and I fell: the calculations of a child can be mistaken. Remember that the wings of youth want to have everything in life!
JOHN SMITH: Have you ever been married? It is not known whether you have affection for love or for some woman. The photos of your youth show that you were an attractive man.
TESLA: No, I did not. There are two points of view: either one has much affection or nothing at all. The middle point serves to rejuvenate the human race. Women for certain men nourish and strengthen their vitality and spirit. Being alone does the same to other people. I chose that second path.
JOHN SMITH: Your fans complain that you are attacking relativity. The strange thing is that you claim that matter has no energy. Everything is imbued with energy, where is it?
TESLA: First there is energy and then matter.
JOHN SMITH: Mr Tesla, is it like when you said that you were born to your father and not of yourself?
TESLA: Exactly! What about the birth of the Universe? The matter is created from the original and eternal energy that we know as light. She shone and the stars, the planets, the Man and everything on Earth and in the Universe appeared. The matter is an expression of infinite forms of light because the energy is older than it.
There are four laws of Creation.
The first is that the mind can not conceive or mathematically measure the source of the whole bewildering and dark plot, in that plot fits the whole Universe.
The second law resides in expansive darkness, which is the true nature of light, of the inexplicable, and is transformed into light.
The third law is the need for light to become a matter of light.
The fourth law is that there is no beginning or end; The three previous laws always take place and Creation is eternal.
JOHN SMITH: In the hostility of the Theory of relativity you go so far that you hold conferences against your creator at your birthday parties …
TESLA: Remember: space is not curved, but it is the human mind that cannot comprehend infinity and eternity! If relativity had been clearly understood by its creator he would gain immortality even physically, if it pleased him. I am part of a light and it is music. Light fills my six senses: I see, hear, feel, smell, touch and think it. Thinking about it is my sixth sense. Light particles are written notes.
Lightning can be an entire sonata. Thousand lightning balls are a concert. For this concert, I created a ball of lightning that can be heard on the frozen peaks of the Himalayas.
About Pythagoras and mathematics, a scientist cannot and should not infringe on these two. Numbers and equations are signs that mark the music of the spheres. If Einstein had heard those sounds, he would not have created the Theory of Relativity. These sounds are messages directed to the mind about which life has a meaning: that the Universe exists in perfect harmony, and its beauty is the cause and effect of Creation.
This music is the eternal cycle of stellar skies.
The smallest star has completed its composition and is also part of the celestial symphony. The heartbeats of humans are part of the symphony of the Earth. Newton learned that the secret is in geometric arrangement and the movement of the celestial bodies. He acknowledged that the supreme law of harmony exists in the Universe. Curved space is chaos, chaos is not music. Einstein is the messenger of the age of noise and fury.
JOHN SMITH: Mr Tesla, do you hear that music?
TESLA: I hear it all the time. My spiritual ear is as large as the sky we see above us. I raised my natural ear with the radar. According to the Theory of Relativity, two parallel lines will meet in infinity. That is why the curvature of Einstein’s space will straighten out. Once created, the sound lasts forever, a man can disappear, but he still exists in the Silence, which is the greatest power of mankind.
No, I have nothing against Mr Einstein. He is a very kind person and has done many good things, some of which will become part of the music. I am going to write to you and try to explain that the ether exists and that its particles are what keep the universe in harmony, and life in eternity.
JOHN SMITH: Tell me, please, what conditions does an angel has to adopt on Earth?
TESLA: I have ten of them. I keep a good watchful record.
JOHN SMITH: I’ll document all your words, dear Mr Tesla.
TESLA: The first requirement is a high awareness of its mission and the work to be done. It must if only dimly, exist in the early days. Let us not be falsely modest: The oak knows that it is an oak tree, a shrub beside it which is a shrub. When I was twelve, I was certain I would reach Niagara Falls. I knew from my childhood that I would achieve most of my discoveries, although I was not entirely clear.
The second condition to adapt is determination. All that I could, I finished
JOHN SMITH: What is the third condition of the adjustment, Mr Tesla?
TESLA: A guide for all the vital and spiritual energies in labour. Therefore, the purification of the many effects and needs that mankind has. Therefore, I have not lost anything, I just won. So I enjoy every day and night. Write this: Nikola Tesla was a happy man.
The fourth requirement is to adjust the physical set with the work.
JOHN SMITH: What do you mean, Mr Tesla?
TESLA: First, the maintenance of the whole. The body of man is a perfect machine. I know my circuit and what is good for it. Food that almost all people eat, to me is harmful and dangerous. Sometimes I visualize the cooks of the world being all conspiring against me… Touch my hand.
JOHN SMITH: It’s cold.
TESLA: Yes. The bloodstream can be controlled, and many processes in and around us. Why are you scared, young man?
JOHN SMITH: It's what Mark Twain wrote "The Mysterious Stranger", a wonderful book about Satan, inspired by you.
TESLA: The word “Lucifer” is more charming. Mr Twain likes to joke. As a child, I was healed once when I read his books. When we met here and I told him, he was so moved that he cried. We became friends and he often came to my laboratory. He once asked me to show him a machine whose vibration causes a feeling of happiness. It was one of those inventions for entertainment, which I sometimes like to do.
I warned Mr Twain not to remain under those vibrations. He ignored it and stayed longer. He ended up being like a rocket clutching its pants and entering a certain room. It was devilishly funny, although I stayed serious.
But to adjust the physical circuit, in addition to food, sleep is very important. From a long and exhausting work, which requires a superhuman effort, after an hour of sleep would be completely recovered. I have acquired the ability to manage sleep, fall asleep and wake up at the designated time. If I do something I do not understand, I force myself to think of my dream to find a solution.
The fifth adjustment condition is memory. Perhaps in most people, the brain is the guardian of knowledge about the world and knowledge gained through life. My brain is engaged in things more important than remembering, it is gathering what is required at a given moment, that is, everything around us. You just have to internalise it.
Everything we have once seen, heard, read and learned accompanies us in the form of particles of light. To me, these particles are obedient and faithful. As a student, I learned from memory Goethe’s Faust, my favourite book, in German, and now I can recite it wholeheartedly. I held my inventions for years “in my head”, before carrying them out.
JOHN SMITH: You often mention the power of visualization.
TESLA: I might have to thank visualization for everything I have invented. The events of my life and my inventions are real in front of my eyes, like any occurrence or article. In my youth, I was afraid of not knowing what it was, but later I learned to use this power as an exceptional talent and a gift. I nourished it and protected it jealously. I also did many corrections through visualization on most of my inventions and ended them that way. By visualizing mentally I solve complex mathematical equations.
For that gift I have, I will receive the distinction of the High Lama in Tibet. My sight and hearing are perfect, and I dare say that they are stronger than others. I hear the thunder 150 kilometres away and I see colours in the sky that others cannot see. I have had this expansion of vision and hearing since I was a child. Later I developed it consciously.
JOHN SMITH: In your youth, you were several times seriously ill. Is a disease a requirement for adjustment?
TESLA: Yes. It is often the result of over-exhaustion or a lack of life force but it is often the purification of the mind and body from the toxins that have been accumulated. It is necessary for a man to suffer from time to time. The source of most diseases is in the spirit. Therefore, the spirit can cure almost all diseases. As a student, I got sick of cholera which raged in the region of Lika. I was cured because my father finally allowed me to study technology, which was my life.
Illusion for me was not a disease, but the mind’s ability to penetrate beyond the three dimensions of the earth.
I have had illusions all my life, and I have received them like all the other phenomena that surround us. Once, in childhood, I was walking along the river with my uncle and said: “from the water will appear the trout, I’ll throw a stone and it is cut".
That’s what happened. Frightened and surprised, my uncle exclaimed: “Vade Retro Satan!” He was an educated man and spoke Latin.
I was in Paris when I saw my mother’s death. In the sky, full of light and music, clouds were floating like wonderful creatures. One of them had the character of a mother who looked at me with infinite love. As the vision disappeared, I knew my mother had died.
JOHN SMITH: What is the seventh adjustment, Mr Tesla?
TESLA: Knowledge of how to transform mental and vital energy into what we want, and achieve control of all feelings. Hindus call it Kundalini-Yoga. This knowledge can be learned, through many years of practice, or can also be acquired by birth. Most of them I have acquired by birth. They have the closest relationship with sexual energy, which is one of the most widespread in the universe. The woman is the greatest thief of that energy, and therefore of spiritual power. I have always known this and for this reason, I have always been alert. From myself, I have created what I wanted: a reflective and spiritual machine.
JOHN SMITH: A ninth adjustment, Mr Tesla?
TESLA: Do your best, any day, anytime and not to forget who we are and why we are on Earth. There are extraordinary people who are struggling with illness, deprivation or society that hurts them with their stupidity, incomprehension, persecution and other problems the country is full of. There are many fallen angels on Earth.
JOHN SMITH: What is the tenth adaptation?
TESLA: It is the most important one. Write in the magazine that Mr Tesla has played. And he spent all his life playing and he enjoyed it.
JOHN SMITH: Mr Tesla! Whether it relates to your findings and your work? Is this a game?
TESLA: Yes, dear boy. How much I wanted to play with electricity! I always shudder when I hear the story of the greek who stole the fire. A terrible story about tracks and eagles pecking at his liver. Could it be that Zeus did not have enough lightning and thunder and was damaged by fervour? There is some misunderstanding …
Lightning is the most beautiful toy that can be found. Do not forget to highlight in your writing that Nikola Tesla was the first man who discovered lightning.
JOHN SMITH: Mr Tesla, you’re only talking about angels and their adaptation to Earth.
TESLA: Am I? This is the same. You could write this: he dared to take upon himself the prerogatives of Indri, Zeus and Peron. Imagine one of these gods in a black evening suit, with the bowler hat and wearing white cotton gloves preparing lightning, fires and earthquakes for the New York City elite!
JOHN SMITH: Readers love the humour of our newspaper. But you're confusing me by saying that your findings, which have enormous benefits for the people, at the same time represent a game. Many will frown.
TESLA: Dear Mr Smith, the problem is that people are too serious. If they were not, they would be happier and live much longer. A Chinese proverb says that seriousness reduces life expectancy. But for the readers of the newspaper who do not frown, let’s go back to the things they consider important.
JOHN SMITH: They would love to hear what your philosophy is.
TESLA: Life is a rhythm that must be understood. I feel the rhythm, I let it lead me and I consent to it. It was very nice and it gave me the knowledge I have. All that lives is in a deep and wonderful relationship: the man and the stars, the amoebas and the sun, the heart and the circulation of an infinite number of worlds.
These ties are unbreakable but can be tame, propitiate and begin to create new and different relationships in the world, and not violate the old. Knowledge comes from space. Our vision is the perfect set. We have two eyes: the earthly and the spiritual. It is recommended that they become one eye.
The Universe is alive in all its manifestations, like a thinking animal. The stone is a thinking and sensitive being, such as plants, beasts, and humankind. A star that shines asks to be looked at and if we were not so self-absorbed we would understand its language and its message. The breath, the eyes and the ears of a man have to be in sync with the breath, the eyes and the ears of the Universe.
JOHN SMITH: As you say this, it seems to me like I hear Buddhist texts, words or Taoist Parazulzusa.
TESLA: That’s right! This means that there is a general knowledge and that there is the Truth that humankind has always possessed. In my feeling and experience, the Universe has a single substance and a supreme energy with an infinite number of manifestations of life.
The best thing is that the discovery of one secret of nature reveals another.
They can not be hidden, they are all around us, but we are blind and deaf to them. If we emotionally bond with them, they come to us. There are a lot of apples, but only a Newton. He needed only one apple that fell in front of him.
JOHN SMITH: A question that could have been established at the beginning of this conversation: what was the electricity for you, dear Mr Tesla?
TESLA: Everything is electricity. First was the light, an endless source from which comes the material and is distributed to all forms that represent the Universe and the Earth with all aspects of life. Black is the true face of the Light, only we do not see it.
It is of notable grace to man and other creatures. Each of its particles has Light, thermal, nuclear force, radiation, chemical, mechanical and energies not yet identified. It has the power to create the Earth with its orbit. It is the authentic lever of Archimedes.
JOHN SMITH: Mr Tesla, you’re too biased toward electricity.
TESLA: Electricity I am. Or if you prefer, I am the light in the human form. You are electricity too, Mr Smith, but you do not realize it.
JOHN SMITH: Is that why you have the ability to withstand one million volt discharges through your body?
TESLA: Imagine a gardener being attacked by herbs. Indeed, this would be crazy. The body of a man and the brain are made of a lot of energy. In me, there is most of the electricity. The energy, which is different in each person, is what makes the human “I” or “soul”. For other creatures in their essence, the soul of the plant is the soul of minerals and animals.
Brain function and death are manifested in the light. My eyes in my youth were black, now they are blue, and with the passage of time, as the tension of the brain becomes stronger, they will be closer to white. White is the colour of the sky.
Through my window one morning, came a white dove, which I fed. She wanted to tell me that she was dying. Out of its eyes came streams of light. Never in the eyes of any creature had I seen so much light as in those of that dove.
JOHN SMITH: The staff in your laboratory speaks of flashes of light, fire, and lightning that occur if you are angry or at some kind of risk.
TESLA: It’s the psychic discharge or a warning to be alert. The light has always been on my side.
Do you know how I discovered the rotating magnetic field and the induction motor, which made me famous when I was 26? One summer afternoon in Budapest, I watched the sunset with my friend. Thousands of fires circled, thousands of flaming colours. I remembered Faust and recited his verses and then, as in a fog, I saw the magnetic field and the induction motor spin. I saw them in the sun!
JOHN SMITH: The hotel service is saying that at the time of lightning you isolate into your room and talk to yourselves.
TESLA: I speak with lightning and thunder.
JOHN SMITH: With them? In what language, Mr Tesla?
TESLA: Mostly my mother tongue. It has many words and sounds, especially in poetry, so it is adequate.
TESLA: Sound does not only exist in thunder and lightning, it also exists in the transformation in brightness and colour. A colour can be heard. The language is of the words, which means that it is from the sounds and colours. All thunder and lightning are different and have their names. I call some of them by the names of those who were close in my life, or by those whom I admire.
In the brightness of the sky and thunder live my mother, my sister, my brother Daniel, a poet: Jovan Jovanovic Zmaj and other people of Serbian history. Names like Asisaiah, Ezekiel, Leonardo, Beethoven, Goya, Faraday, Pushkin and all the banks of burning fires and tangles of lightning and thunder that do not stop all night bringing the precious rain to the Earth, burning trees or villages. There are lightning and thunder, and they are the brightest and more powerful that will not vanish. They return and I recognize them among thousands.
JOHN SMITH: Is science and poetry the same to you?
TESLA: These are the two eyes of a person. William Blake was taught that the Universe was born of the imagination, which is maintained and will exist as long as there is one last man on Earth. With it resides the wheel with which astronomers were able to collect stars from all galaxies. It is the creative energy identical to the energy of light.
JOHN SMITH: Imagination is more real to you than life itself?
TESLA: It gives light to life. I have fed my thought, and I have learned to control emotions, dreams, and visions. I have always appreciated how I have nurtured my enthusiasm. All my life I have spent a lot of time in ecstasy. That was the source of my happiness. It helped me during all these years to find work, which was enough for five lives. It is best to work at night, by the stellar light and the close bond that exists.
JOHN SMITH: You have said that I am, like all beings, the Light. This flatters me, but I confess I do not quite understand.
TESLA: Why is it necessary to understand, Mr Smith? Just believe. Everything is light. In one of its rays is the fate of nations. Each nation has its own ray in that great source of light that we see as the Sun. And remember that there is no man that has existed and has not died! They became light and as such still exist. The secret lies in the fact that the particles of light restore to their original state.
JOHN SMITH: This is the resurrection!
TESLA: I prefer to call it: return to a previous energy. I am looking for a way to conserve human energy. They are the forms of light, sometimes directly like celestial light. I have not sought it for my own benefit, but for the good of all. I think my discoveries make the lives of people easier and more bearable, and channel people towards spirituality and morality.
JOHN SMITH: Do you think time can be abolished?
TESLA: Not at all, because the first characteristic of energy is that it transforms. It is in perpetual transformation, as the clouds of the Taoists. However, it is possible to take advantage of the fact that man retains consciousness after his earthly life. In every corner of the universe, there are the energies of life. One of them is immortality, whose origin is outside of man and awaits him.
The Universe is spiritual, like half of the man is. The Universe is more moral than we are because we do not know its nature and how to harmonize our life with it. I am a scientist, science is perhaps the most convenient way to find the answer to the question that always persecutes me and makes my days and nights become a fire.
JOHN SMITH: What is that question?
TESLA: How its eyes shine…! What I wanted to know is what happens to a shooting star when the sun goes out… Stars fall like dust or seeds on this or other worlds, and the sun is scattered in our minds, in the lives of many beings and will be reborn as a new light, or cosmic wind, scattered in infinity. I understand that this needs to be included in the structure of the Universe. The thing is, however, that one of these stars and one of these suns, even the smallest, is preserved.
JOHN SMITH: But Mr Tesla, do you realize that this is necessary and included in the constitution of the world?
TESLA: When a man becomes conscious, his highest goal should be to run towards a shooting star and try to capture it. He must understand that his life was given by all of this and he will be saved. Eventually, it will be possible to catch stars!
JOHN SMITH: And what will happen then?
TESLA: The creator is going to laugh, saying: “They fall only for you to persecute them and take them.”
JOHN SMITH: Is not all this the opposite of cosmic pain, which you so often mention in your writings? And what is cosmic pain?
TESLA: No, because we are on Earth… Cosmic pain is a disease whose existence the vast majority of people are not aware of and that originates many other diseases, sufferings, miseries, evils, wars and everything else which makes human life an absurd and horrible condition. This disease can not be completely cured, but consciousness makes it less complicated and dangerous.
Every time some of my close and beloved people were injured, I felt physical pain. This is because our bodies are made from a similar material, and our souls are bonded by unbreakable filaments. The incomprehensible sadness that overwhelms us sometimes means that somewhere, on the other side of the planet, a child or a generous man died.
The whole universe is in certain periods sick of itself and of us. The disappearance of a star and the appearance of comets affect us more than we can imagine. The relationships between Earth’s creatures are even stronger, because of our feelings and thoughts, the flower will smell even more beautifully or fall into silence.
We must learn these truths to be healed.
The remedy is in our hearts and evenly, in the heart of the animals that we call the Universe.