The Ball. Volume#1. “Kuluangwa”. Michael Ouzikov

      Nikola Tesla, one of the world’s greatest and most controversial scientists, died on January 7 in New York at the age of 86. What do we know about Dr. Tesla? We know plenty. And we know nothing at all.

      Tesla believed that the universe is a living system, and that all human beings in it are machines that behave according to the laws of space. He believed that the human brain does not have imaginative memory as commonly thought, but that memory is only the reaction of nerves to a repetitive external stimulus that is generated by periodic physical effects. More importantly, Tesla did not consider his over one-thousand inventions as a work of merit. He saw himself as no more than a conductor of science between the world of ideas and the world of human practice.

      Many of Tesla’s experiments were backed by long-deceased financier J. Pierpont Morgan, but Tesla did not bring them all to completion. Tesla teased us with cryptic phrases that he dropped on occasion and that were readily adopted by newspapers (including ours) as unequivocal proof of his connection with another world. Tesla lived during a mania for invention. Sometimes it seemed as if he barely needed to strain his mind to conceive a brilliant idea that would bestow benefit to all of humanity. Likewise, many potential investors imagine the activity of scientists in the same way. They are willing to pay to implement completed inventions, but do not tend to finance long-term experiments. During a purported meeting at the Grand Hotel in 1890, Tesla convinced billionaire Morgan to sponsor the construction of his laboratory on Long Island.

      Tesla convinced Morgan that he knew how to transmit immense amounts of energy for a considerable distance without wires. Did Tesla really know or only think he knew? No one had managed to achieve this feat to date. Morgan decided that Tesla’s objective was worthy of his investment and that the greatest invention of the century would be in his hands. With Morgan’s funding, Tesla built the Wardenclyffe Tower, which generated strong, green electric discharges. The lightning that emitted from the tower scared local townsfolk to death. After Tesla failed to achieve his stated objective, Morgan stopped further financing and publicly denounced Tesla as a «magician.»

      However, our newspaper has information that the scientist and the financier continued to meet in secret. Both parties can be blamed for their public fallout and end of cooperation. Morgan did not understand that science does not always produce immediate profit. Tesla placed too much trust in his own brilliant intuition. Their public split may have been only an appearance, a cover for a much deeper relationship.

      Tesla did not lack ideas and theories, but he was inclined to attribute all results of his experiments to his mind, regardless of success. For instance, he believed that his experiments with electricity caused storms in the Indian Ocean, for which there could not be any evidence. The scientist’s boundless faith in his own ideas misled him more than once. He claimed to have invented a «death beam» that could destroy a warship at a distance of 250 miles. However, the radiator he built could not even cause serious harm to laboratory animals. We became aware that Tesla, despite his advanced age, actively cooperated with the U.S. military-industrial complex. Still, he maintained the image of a misunderstood genius, being able to attract the general public’s attention no less than a bearded woman in a circus.

      Doctors concluded that Tesla died of acute heart failure. His death itself is seen as an expression of his personal triumph – more a conscious reincarnation to a different plane of existence rather than a death of an ordinary man, embarrassed and frightened in the face of self-liberation. Two days before his death, Tesla stopped working and locked himself in a room of the New Yorker Hotel, asking not to be disturbed. The day before his death, the hotel room’s fireplace stopped working. The chimney was repaired by a crew of two immigrant workers. They were apparently the last people to see Tesla alive. Our newspaper tried to find these people, but to no avail. According to our information, the New York Police Department is not looking for these people and there is no evidence of an unnatural cause of death.

      Tesla did not order his usual continental breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which caused confusion among hotel staff. When the director of the hotel and a chambermaid finally entered Tesla’s room, they found his body lifeless on the couch, lying on his back with arms folded and elegantly dressed in a suit and tie, as if ready for a farewell. Tesla’s hands held a dense, black cube no bigger than an inch. Was the scientist showing that he was exiting this world a pure man, with a Holy Communion?

      Tesla’s electromagnetic theory was a prime example of an attempt to unite the material and the spiritual world orders. Tesla was so busy that he did not leave us with a coherent theory. Perhaps he could have left us a new religion, but he did not want to because he knew that the God of Science requires conscious followers. Tesla also destroyed almost all of his records that he kept in a secret safe in his hotel room. That was evidenced by the nearly empty metal box and the stack of flat ash from burnt manuscripts in the fireplace.

      Christian and Buddhist funeral services were supposed to be held for Tesla, but on January 12 his body was removed from the morgue in Brooklyn by military intelligence services for a post-mortem in Newark. On the next day it was announced that Tesla’s body was burned according to Buddhist tradition. The funeral took place in the presence of only the closest associates of the deceased.

      The New York Times expresses its deepest condolences to the family and friends of the departed Mr. Tesla.