The maverick genius
Nikola Tesla was a Cosmist, a pre-transhumanist thinker, and an early proponent
of a synthesis of Eastern mysticism and Western can-do engineering spirit.
Tesla boldly dared to imagine “Akashic engineering” and Man’s “most complete triumph
over the physical world, his crowning achievement which would place him beside
his Creator and fulfill his ultimate destiny.”
In 1900 Tesla wrote an
article titled “The Onward Movement of Man,” which clearly establishes him as a
Cosmist, pre-transhumanist thinker. “Inherent in the structure matter, as seen
in the growth of crystals, is a life-forming principle,” Marc Seifer writes in
“Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla” about Tesla’s article. “This
organized matrix of energy, as Tesla comprehended it, when it reaches a certain
stage of complexity, becomes biological life. Now, the next step in the
evolution of the planet was to construct machines so that they could think for
themselves… Life-forms need not be made out of flesh and blood.”
In “The Akashic
Experience: Science and the Cosmic Memory Field” Ervin Laszlo noted that
“[Nikola Tesla] spoke of an “original medium” that fills space and compared it
to Akasha, the light-carrying ether. In his unpublished 1907 paper “Man’s
greatest achievement,” Tesla wrote that this original medium, a kind of force
field, becomes matter when Prana, or cosmic energy, acts on it, and when the
action ceases, matter vanishes and returns to Akasha.”
I found this
interesting and searched for the sources. The Tesla Memorial Society has a
story on Tesla’s article, written on May 13th, 1907, and probably inspired by
Tesla’s association with Swami Vivekananda.
“Man’s greatest
achievement” was published on July 13, 1930, inThe Milwaukee Sentinel. The full
text is reproduced below.
Man’s Greatest
Achievement
by Nikola Tesla
The Milwaukee Sentinel,
July 13, 1930
When a child is born
its sense-organs are brought in contact with the outer world.
The waves of sound,
heat, and light beat upon its feeble body, its sensitive nerve-fibres quiver,
the muscles contract and relax in obedience: a gasp, a breath, and in this act
a marvelous little engine, of inconceivable delicacy and complexity of
construction, unlike any on earth, is hitched to the wheel-work of the Universe.
The little engine
labors and grows, performs more and more involved operations, becomes sensitive
to ever subtler influences and now there manifests itself in the fully
developed being – Man – a desire mysterious, inscrutable and irresistible: to
imitate nature, to create, to work himself the wonders he perceives.
Inspired in this task
he searches, discovers and invents, designs and constructs, and enriches with
monuments of beauty, grandeur and awe, the star of his birth.
He descends into the
bowels of the globe to bring forth its hidden treasures and to unlock its
immense imprisoned energies for its use.
He invades the dark
depths of the ocean and the azure regions of the sky.
He peers into the
innermost nooks and recesses of molecular structure and lays bare to his gaze
worlds infinitely remote. He subdues and puts to his service the fierce,
devastating spark of Prometheus, the titanic forces of the waterfall, the wind
and the tide.
He tames the thundering
bolt of Jove and annihilates time and space. He makes the great Sun itself his
obedient toiling slave.
Such is the power and
might that the heavens reverberate and the whole earth trembles by the mere
sound of his voice.
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 luminiferous 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.
Can Man control this
grandest, most awe-inspiring of all processes in nature? Can he harness her
inexhaustible energies to perform all their functions at his bidding, more
still – can he so refine his means of control as to put them in operation
simply by the force of his will?
If he could do this he
would have powers almost unlimited and supernatural. At his command, with but a
slight effort on his part, old worlds would disappear and new ones of his
planning would spring into being.
He could fix, solidify
and preserve the ethereal shapes of his imagining, the fleeting visions of his
dreams. He could express all the creations of his mind, on any scale, in forms
concrete and imperishable.
He could alter the size
of this planet, control its seasons, guide it along any path he might choose
through the depths of the Universe.
He could make planets
collide and produce his suns and stars, his heat and light. He could originate
and develop life in all its infinite forms.
To create and
annihilate material substance, cause it to aggregate in forms according to his
desire, would be the supreme manifestation of the power of Man’s mind, his most
complete triumph over the physical world, his crowning achievement which would
place him beside his Creator and fulfill his ultimate destiny.
By Giulio Prisco Turing
Church
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