Text: The idea came like a lightning flash. In an instant I saw it all, and drew with a stick on the sand the diagrams which were illustrated in my fundamental patents of May, 1888. -Nikola Tesla, describing his invention of the alternating-current induction motor. Perhaps it is better in this present world of ours that a revolutionary idea or invention instead of being helped and patted, be hampered and ill-treated in its adolescence ... by selfish interest, pedantry, stupidity and ignorance; that it be attacked and stifled; that it pass through bitter trials and tribulations, through the heartless strife of commercial exist?ence. So do we get our light. So all that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed-only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle." -Tesla, "The Transmission of Electrical Energy Without Wires as a Means of Furthering Peace," a treatise published in Electrical World and Engineer, January 7, 1905.1 I congratulate you on the magnificent success of your life's work. -Albert Einstein, celebrating Tesla's 75th birthday in June 1931. It has cost me years of thought to arrive at certain results. -Tesla, Electrical Engineer, September 24, 1890. Nikola Tesla The eminent "intellectual / of electricity" (Primary Mercury / Secondary Uranus), Nikola Tesla was born in Smiljan, Croatia and later immigrated to the United States, settling on the East Coast precisely under the setting position of his Primary Mercury. After working for Thomas Edison in Menlo Park, New Jersey, Tesla set up his own laboratory in lower Manhattan: locations that were each in close proximity to Primary Mercury.          Tesla's intense "intellectual preoccupations" (Primary Mercury; he attempted to quickly read through Voltaire's collected works-of nearly one hundred volumes-and almost suffered a breakdown) and "visionary electrical inventions" (Secondary Uranus) were symbolized by the Primary Mercury / Secondary Uranus Transcendentals, which found expression in Tesla in a manner that was unprecedented in human history.          Tesla was known for his uncanny ability to solve problems in a way that can only be described as a sort of "Divine intuition" (Uranus); solutions for scientific problems that had long remained unsolvable appeared to him in the form of a complete "men tal blueprint" (a rare ability known as eidetic imagery). A prime example is his "invention" (Uranus) of the alternating-current induction motor: a device that was previ ously considered to be impossible to design. Until Tesla had decided to confront this sup?posedly unsolvable problem, direct current, which was promulgated by Thomas Edison, was considered to be the only feasible manner of distributing electricity. Tesla's invention "revolutionized" (Uranus) the modern use and distribution of electricity and enabled entire cities to receive a safe, reliable form of electrical current-a feat achieved on a large scale for the first time with his lighting of the 1893 Chicago World Columbian Exposition.          Tesla's "inventions / were so numerous" (Secondary Uranus / Primary Mercury) that, by the time of his death (1943), he had registered more patents with the U.S. Patent Office than any person. Inventors continue to stumble upon his patents that "anticipate their claims / to intellectual priority" (Secondary Uranus / Primary Mer cury) and that exemplify his "eclectic / genius" (Mercury / Uranus). His inven tions include the Tesla coil; systems of arc lighting; neon and florescent lighting; generators; dynamos; transformers; and electric lights with unprecedented life spans and containing a "unique use of unusual material" (Uranus). A court case on Tesla's behalf credited him with intellectual precedence over Marconi in the "invention / of the radio" (Uranus / Mercury). His other pioneering work includes research into radar and the microwave transmission of electricity.          On May 17, 1899, Tesla arrived in Colorado Springs, Colorado (38N50; 104W49) to establish an experimental laboratory: a location in the midst of his Secondary Uranus / Tertiary Neptune Transcendental Midpoint-Field. There, he conducted some of his most "imaginative / experiments with electricity" (Tertiary Neptune / Secondary Uranus), such as proving that the earth itself can be used as a conductor. His funding was eventually cut off, however, supposedly due to what financiers characterized as the increasingly "eccentric, cranky nature of the inventor's / ideas" (Uranus / Mercury).          In fact, Tesla's ultimate plan to transmit cheap wireless energy threatened not only existing power companies but also various related industries and institutions, such as copper and banking, to name just two. According to Marc J. Seifer, author of Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla, the power broker and financier J. P. Morgan, whom Tesla relied upon for patronage, "was concerned about Tesla's suggestion that he could transmit 'unlimited power' by means of wireless?. [Morgan] may have backed down from the Tesla deal for fear of taking a chance that the controversial inventor ... might succeed in a way detrimental to existing corporate structures."2 Seifer is not the first researcher to reach this conclusion, but his work (one of the most comprehensive of the major Tesla biographies) contains new and revealing information on how and why Morgan may have succeeded in blocking other patrons from supporting Tesla's "groundbreaking" (Uranus) research:  The following quotation is from physician and inventor Andrija (Henry) Puharich, a man of Yugoslavian heritage who was tangen tially involved in helping ship Tesla's papers to the Tesla museum in Belgrade in the early 1950s, and who personally knew John O'Neill, Tesla's first major biographer: "Now, I [Puharich] always got this second hand; you won't find it anywhere in print, but Jack O'Neill gave me this information as the official biographer of Nikola Tesla. He said that Bernard Baruch told J. P. Morgan, 'Look, this guy is going crazy. What he is doing is, he wants to give free electrical power to everybody and we can't put meters on that. We are just going to go broke supporting this guy.' And suddenly, over night, Tesla's support was cut off, the work was never finished."          From a technical and economic point of view, Morgan could not understand how free information and/or power could yield returns. And whether it was Baruch or not who warned Morgan, Tesla himself had voiced the opinion boldly, a decade earlier in the Sunday World, that by providing a reservoir of electrical energy throughout the earth through his apparatus, "all monopolies" that depend on conventional means of energy distribution-that is, through wires, "will come to a sudden end."          As the ultimate capitalist, Morgan's existence was greatly defined by controlling the price and distribution of energy and maintaining a working class to support the giant corporate monopo lies (called "public" utilities). Thus, he simply could not support a system where wireless information and power could be tapped by anyone with a receiving instrument and machines would replace the work force. Reorganizing existing power, lighting and telephone industries to please the vision of a somewhat eccentric inventor was certainly an unlikely undertaking for the cautious Wall Street finan cier. "All those businesses who would [no longer] need loans [would] then [no longer] deposit the[ir] profits in his bank."3 Tesla, as the quintessential iconoclast, had struck a bargain with the wrong king.4         If we view this in the context of Tesla's most aspected or Leading Planets (often indicative of how one may overreach or suffer from hubris) we see that his tendency toward excessive self-promotion and self-publicity" (Leading Sun), a character trait that crops up throughout his biography, as well as his notion of providing a kind of economic "security" (Secondary Leader Moon) in the form of a cheap or "free provision of energy"-a form of worldwide "sustenance and nurturing" (Secondary Leader, Moon), as it would have provided a basic commodity at a fraction of its usual cost-may have led to his undoing. According to Seifer, Tesla's claim about a wireless apparatus transmitting "unlimited power" was merely a groundless "boasting" (Leading Sun), yet such statements clearly frightened the powers-that-be and eventually led to Tesla's own economic privations and-ironic as the term may be-to his unempowerment.          Tesla's entire life was focused on the power of his enormous "intellect" (Primary Mercury). As illustrated in his horoscope, Primary Mercury occupies the Third House of "intellect, cognition, and communication," making this his Transcendental House: the place where the spiritual raison d'être is most clearly and creatively expressed. In addition, his ability to earn a daily living was drastically curtailed due to Morgan's draconian intervention. Therefore, it is not surprising that his Leading Planet, the Sun, occupied the Sixth House of "earning one's daily bread," making the Sixth House the Leading House: the place where we may suffer a fall due to excessive or one-sided expressions of psychic energy. Indeed, though his goals were well intentioned, he may have been "excessively heroic, vain, or even megalomaniac" (Leading Sun) in believing he could, single-handedly, change the corporate power structures of the time.          In keeping with a great American tradition, the "genius" (Secondary Transcendental, Uranus) Nikola Tesla died in poverty, in a hotel in New York. Upon his death, his research papers were seized by American intelligence agents, and many of these remain in classified files. Several volumes of his "writings" (Primary Mercury) have been published, such as his autobiography, My Inventions, and Nikola Tesla, 1856-1943: Lectures, Patents, Articles (Leland I Anderson, ed.). A number of important Tesla biographies have appeared, such as Margaret Cheney's Tesla; Man Out of Time, John J. O'Neill's  Prod igal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla, and Marc J. Seifer's Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla. 1. Nikola Tesla, "The Transmission of Electrical Energy Without Wires as a Means of Fur thering Peace," Electrical World and Engineer, January 7, 1905, pp. 21-24; cited by Marc J. Seifer in Wizard, p. 318.  2. Marc J. Seifer, Wizard, p. 300.  3. Robert McCabe, in conversation with Wizard author Marc J. Seifer, as cited in Wizard, p. 300.  4. Seifer, Wizard, p. 300.

See Also:

Source: