Scientist and/or Artist

Nikola Tesla - Fountainhead of Inspiration

Tesla is the energy of inspiration which, beside science, influence equally on music and movies, operas, theaters and literary and painting master pieces


By MILAN BOJIĆ
from Belgrade, SERBIA


Man who is able to commit influence with his work and life and to shape lifes and works of the future generations, can be truly considered as a mighty grommet in human sort. The great men, those who change mankind, come to the world occasionally, rarely, like drops of the water comes to the desert. Nikola Tesla is such a drop. After that drop felt on Earth, humanity began to blossom, or it's better to say, to shine. With his way of life, interests, patents and extraordinary personality, he influenced people even more than he thought. Today, he is the topic of more than 70,000 websites on the Internet and scientists are still trying to understand his inventions and thoughts. But Nikola Tesla is not just that. He left unraisable trace in art, though his call was completely different.

Though he studied electronics at Polytechnic School in Graz, he had known to say for himself that before his twenty-four he read many books and a lot of them he knew by heart. He liked especially Gete's "Faustus", Volter and Serbian epic poetry. After many failures to get scholarships and continue studies, he got work as an engineer, first in Budapest, then in Paris, and after his father died, very soon after that his mother, too, he decided to leave Europe and went to United States of America. In U.S.A. Tesla became popular in very short time, equally in scientific and artistic circles. All that time he remained faithful to spiritual side of his personality and enjoyed in company of writers and artists. Mark Twain was very often his guest in the laboratory, and used Tesla's personality as a model for some characters in his novels. He was also a friend with Head Director of "Century Magazine", Robert Johnson, who published several poems of Jovan Jovanovic Zmaj translated by Nikola Tesla. In that time he had also been reading Veda philosophy. We could say that he created, in some way, "the system for unstoppable and unlimited thinking." His being was equally consisted of exact and metaphysical, ratio and spirit, and therefore his biggest achievement weren't his patents, but himself - first man who was turned into machine for thinking or maybe for direct link with "cosmic information field which is filled by force of gravitation". He used to say: "There is some core in Space from where we get all the strength, all the inspiration, what attracts us eternally, I feel its power and value which is emitted to the whole Space and keeps it in harmony. I didn't discover the secret, but I know that exists." With his wide interests and talent for connecting science and art, he spread his personality in all pores of human creation. Tesla is the energy of inspiration which, beside science, influence equally on music and movies, operas, theaters and literary and painting master peaces. When we know that, then all his phobias, obsessions, eccentrics and bizarre moments, become logic and acceptable. Fear from touch of human hair, fascination with number three and adoring of pigeons, or counting his own steps and believing that his body was automate, were just some manifests of his speciality, which became useful in purpose of creating wide access to his personality. Wideness which allowed such big specter in interpretation of Nikola Tesla.

Film and Theatre

Film was using Tesla maybe more than the other sorts of art, and he personally liked it very much. One of his favorite movies was horror spectacle "Frankenstein's Bride", maybe because laboratories of crazy scientists in Hollywood at that time, were replicas of his laboratory from Colorado Springs. It's interesting that the name of vampire in movie "Return of Vampire", who was played by Bela Lugosi, was also Tesla. Tesla's character is also shown in the movie directed by Ildikoe Eniedia "My Twentieth Century", and in the recent movie of Craig Baldwin "Specters of the Spectrum". Steven Spielberg had purchased rights for ecranisation of famous Tesla's biography in 1991. It was written by Margaret Chaney, and the name of book was "Tesla, Man out of Time". And for movies which story was supposed to be about Tesla, were interested David Lynch, Robert Zemekis, and Jack Nicholson.

Movie "The Prestige", directed by Christopher Nolan, had its premiere at 27th of October 2006. David Bowie played character of famous Serbian scientist. Beside film, theaters, both Serbian and foreign, were finding inspiration in Nikola Tesla. Play "Tesla or adjusting the angels", by text of Stevan Pesic, is played even today in Belgrade. Milos Crnjanski also wrote drama called "Tesla", and his character was played by Dragan Micanovic. Canadian theater " The Electric Company" , played show under the title "Brilliant! The Blinding Enlightenment of Nikola Tesla". In that show they were trying to discover impulses of human creativity, and isolation and loneliness of inventive mind who dreams on scale too big for its time. Through the songs and stepping they showed terrifying battle between Tesla and Thomas Edison, and with silent movie played live at the stage, they showed Tesla's retiring in madness in his desert laboratory. Play was full of special effects and Tesla's ideas were symbolized by sphere, 5 meters wide, which was shown occasionally. Famous war of electricity's and conflict between Edison and Tesla, was dramatized by another one Canadian writer, David G. Frazer in 1995. who wrote drama "Tesla's electric society". In mentioned war for dominance between direct and alternating current, Edison had designed electric chair to prove harmless of alternating current, and that chair is still in use in USA.

Literature and Comics

In the literature Nikola Tesla appeared for the first time in 1911, in Hugo's Gernsbeck novel "Ralph 124c41+". He also published Tesla's biography in installments, and was also his good friend. Mr.Gernsbeck is considered to be establisher of science fiction as a genre, and prestige award for SF novels today is called "Hugo's Award". Since then, many books have been written about scientific work of Nikola Tesla, and about his life also. Some of them were written by himself personally. Such were his autobiography "My inventions" and "Notes from Colorado Springs". He also wrote several books about parapsychology, which are kept in memorial library "Virginia Beach", held by famous investigator of paranormal Edgar Casey. But at the same time, Tesla served as an inspiration for characters in novels written by many other writers. He was a hero in novel "Wildwood" from 1987 of famous American SF writer John Farris. In novel "Moon's Palace", written by one of the most important modern American writers, Pole Oster, Nikola Tesla was fascination for one of the heroes in novel. Oster is describing genial and mighty Tesla, but also shows old, forgotten and ruined inventor. Margaret Storm in her novel "Return of a dove" from 1956, wrote that Tesla didn't come to America from Lika, but from planet Venus, riding on a big white dove. He came to learn Earth people how to use clean energy and to control their physical and mental powers. In crime thriller "Tesla's legacy", from 1985 writer Luis Perdiu describes Tesla's last days, destiny of manuscripts after his death (it was said that he was poisoned by the FBI) and secret about mighty "Tesla's secret weapon", around which were struggling many secret services. Similar topic was object of investigation for Serbian journalist Aleksandar Milinkovic in his book "Tesla - FBI file". In that book he showed documents which were proving that FBI had tailed Nikola Tesla until his death in 1943, but also, many years after, every paper from his legacy had to end up on the table of director of FBI, Edgar John Hoover.

Comics scene didn't stay indifferent about life and work of Nikola Tesla. He appeared for the first time in one episode of popular comic "Supermen" from forties, in which main character was opposing to crazy scientist who wanted to destroy planet with his death rays, and who's name was, of course, Tesla. In popular American SF comic "Transmetropoliten", which describes the adventures of extravagant journalist in chaotic town in the future, they were mentioning "Official Serbian Church of Tesla", whose followers believed in existence of "poly phase inner electric field" better known as a "soul". Some Japanese manga comics were showing Tesla as a superhero, and soon in America, new comic "Five fists of science" starts publishing. In that comic, Nikola Tesla and Mark Twain are the main characters who decided to establish peace in the world by using Tesla's inventions and Twain's contacts, and their main opponents are, which is very interesting, Edison and J.P. Morgan.

In our, Serbian, comic book - "Generation Tesla", which was published by Luxor Comics, scientist succeeded to avoid death by transferring his own existence into another dimension. Then he gathered the team for battling against the evil forces and equipped them with superhuman abilities. The writer, TV and film director, Milan Konjevic, describes how he got the idea for that comic: "Actually I had a weird dream. There were Nikola Tesla and Mark Twain in the white train with blue strip, passing by the Yugoslavian Assembly in Kosovska Street. And because my "Film Theory" professor was Velja Abramovic, one of the best experts for Tesla, I told him about my dream. He literary said to me :Anyone dreams about Tesla today, it means something, use that, write a script." And after two years, when I came into position to write script for comic book, I remember that story. It was brilliant to present Tesla as a super hero."

"At the first sight I was fascinated with his mysterious, loneliness, with his asceticism. He was simply like some character from comic book. He didn't have a wife, was reserved, he was genius who didn't want to take money for his work. So, he was completely unrealistic person. When you look through the history, it seems like he wasn't a human at all. Like he was something more than that. He wanted to give free energy to the world. So, actually, he functions more like drama character, like character who appears in some movie, SF novel, or comic, than the ordinary man."

Tesla through the Music

Though he didn't play any instrument, neither was musically educated, Tesla found his place in music, too. Myth about him was used by David Bowie in song "The man who fell to Earth", and Lory Anderson had dedicated two songs to him "Dance of electricity" and "Three walking songs", on her album "United State Live 1". Rock band from Sacramento got its name by Tesla, and names of their albums: "The great radio controversy", "Mechanical resonance" and "Psychotic supper ", like song "Edison's medicine", clearly shows fascination of band members with Nikola Tesla. British pop group "Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark" on their album "Junk Culture" from 1984. had a song under name "Tesla Girls". Refrain was: "Tesla girls, Tesla girls/ testing out theories/ electric chairs and dynamos/ dressed to kill they're killing me". Art performer of synt pop, who calls himself Joy Electric, recorded a song under name "Nikola Tesla", on his album "Hello Mannequin", from 2004. Song is using Tesla as an example how some important figures are being forgotten trough history.

It is interesting to know that Australian compositor Constantine Koukias wrote an opera in two acts "Tesla - Lighting in his hand", in which he presents life and time of Nikola Tesla. Its premiere was at the festival "Ten Days on the Island Festival" in town Hobart, Tasmania, in 2003.

With modern development of technology, users and fans of new products seems like being aware that without Nikola Tesla, they couldn't enjoy in benefits of modern age. Computer games are certainly one sort of fun which couldn't exist without Tesla. Maybe just because of that, in his honor, all kind of weapons, shields, new secret technologies and other things in computer games is wearing his name. And proof that energy of inspiration emitted by Nikola Tesla is exceeding all limits is a fact that he inspired believing of sect called "Unarius" (Universal Articulate Interdimensional Understanding of Science). Unarians are believing that Nikola Tesla is actually archangel Michael who ended his earth life and now calls them from his house, placed on a planet Parhelion in the middle of cosmic federation Unarius, and tells them different interesting things which they gathered in 13 volumes.

He visually transferred the picture of his house, which looks like pyramid seven levels high and made of material similar to glass, with a base of 1,5 kilometers. On the top of the pyramid is a big projector which looks like telescope, powerful enough to send information and pictures to 33 frequent areas, or in other words, in that much space- time dimensions. Maybe such things wouldn't have happened if Tesla left theory which would explain cosmos and principles of our existence. By words of Dr Velimir Abramovic, author of project "Tesla-incomprehensed genius", he didn't do that because he wanted only those people whose way of thinking is similar to him, understand what he wanted to say to humanity.

"I work for the future", he said, "and those who comes after me won't understand me, but one day, natural laws of science I discovered, will win and everything will change, in a second, everything will change. New era of human wisdom will come, and its main characteristics will be understanding of time, discovering source of infinite energy and shaping matery by will of scientists. Human conscience will remove borders between life and death and it will be possible to talk with souls of dead. Those knowledge will change our understanding of life and death."

As Tesla says, by discovering of English physicists Crooks and Oliver Lodge, soul is emanation of electricity, and in the moment of death energy equal to mass from eleven to twenty five grams is lost on a scale, instantly. Soul is an electric phenomenon which can be controlled and which reactions could be predicted. Because man is just an automate of cosmic forces. Maybe, because of that, it will really be needed very long time so some things Tesla was talking about become true. Maybe his place in history will be different then. Until that time comes, he lives through the most beautiful human creations. His place is not connected only for the world of science. He is equally important member of a world of art, the most beautiful part of human reality. And if he is going to be celebrated in the future as a great scientist, or maybe great artist, originator of time of cosmic renaissance, time will show. Like he personally said: "Whole life of a man is just electric flow, and his soul, that's light".