Tesla's 'Supernatural' inventions
Nikola Tesla is a figure that a lot of people in the paranormal field look up to. While he was not a paranormal researcher in the traditional sense, he was an engineer and inventor who revolutionized the way the world understands and uses electricity and radio transmissions. His theories are mind-blowing and labelling him a genius is certainly no understatement. It would surprise some to know, however, that a man dedicated to science, also had a curiosity for the supernatural. Some internet theories out there even suggest that he was not of this world or that he perhaps had direct communication with beings not of this world, because his inventions seemed so futuristic and couldn't possibly of been thought of by a human. It is quite fitting in a way then, that paranormal investigators use some of his technology to help conduct paranormal investigations.
"The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence."
Nikola Tesla
The Tesla Coil
In the late 19th century, Tesla patented a device called ‘The Tesla Coil’. It basically laid the foundations for wireless technologies and is a concept that is still used in radio technology to this day. The Tesla coil is an inductor that is used in many early radio transmission antennas. It works with a capacitor to resonate current and voltage from a power source across the circuit. In fact, he used this coil to study x-rays, radio, wireless power, and electromagnetism. The aim of the Tesla Coil was to provide power to the world without having to have cords everywhere. A wireless future. While this is something we take for granted today, in the 19th century, this was ground-breaking futuristic kind of stuff.
In the paranormal field, a lot of investigators use Tesla coils to ‘charge the environment’. While the Tesla Coil was not invented for this purpose as such, one of the cool things that the Tesla Coils do is essentially shoot out lightning bolts of electricity into the atmosphere. It could power a fluorescent light bulb across the room without any wire (which is its purpose), but also according to some, possibly attract a spirit. There are different theories in the paranormal field about what a spirit is and what they need to communicate. Most will agree that they need some sort of ‘energy’ to be able to communicate with us. It is thought that in order to do this, they can manipulate the electromagnetic field around us. It is thought that electricity for example is almost like battery power for them. Some investigators use Tesla coils to charge the environment in the hopes that it may attract paranormal activity. Much in the same way as an EM Pump works. By pumping this high-voltage electricity into the air, are we increasing our chances of communication?
The Tesla Coil in today’s modern world doesn’t have much of a purpose anymore, but it did however revolutionize the way that electricity was used.
Tesla Spirit Radio
On February 9th, 1901, Collier’s Weekly published an article titled: 'Talking with the planets’ written by Nikola Tesla. The article talked about communicating with other planets through radio transmission and electrical signals with the desire to learn about the beings who could possibly be on those planets. Communication would be simple at first because of course, how do we know what language they would speak, would they even speak at all? What is the universal language of the world? Math …. Numbers. Simple communication would begin with numbers and the communication would rapidly progress. Such communication would be difficult but not impossible. How did Tesla know this? He already found a way to do it.
"I can never forget the first sensations I experienced when it dawned upon me that I had observed something possibly of incalculable consequences to mankind. I felt as though I were present at the birth of a new knowledge or the revelation of a great truth. Even now, at times, I can vividly recall the incident, and see my apparatus as though it were actually before me. My first observations positively terrified me, as there was present in them something mysterious, not to say supernatural, and I was alone in my laboratory at night; but at that time the idea of these disturbances being intelligently controlled signals did not yet present itself to me." Nikola Tesla
One of the devices paranormal investigators use is what is called a Tesla Spirit radio. It is essentially a crystal radio and works in a similar way to Raudive’s Crystal Diode Receiver, except it has specialized Tesla Coil antennas and a variable capacitor. You simply connect the audio output to an amplifier, voice recorder, or even a computer program, however, the best results seem to work with an amplifier. Tesla obviously used different parts, however, this is the version that paranormal investigators use today. Tesla himself was quite surprised with the special device that allowed him to talk to another world.
"What a tremendous stir this would make in the world! How soon will it come? For that it will some time be accomplished must be clear to every thoughtful being. Something, at least, science has gained. But I hope that it will also be demonstrated soon that in my experiments in the West I was not merely beholding a vision, but had caught sight of a great and profound truth." Nikola Tesla
When you think of the technology we use today, ghost boxes, spirit boxes, echovox, portals, Tesla was years if not a century ahead of the game.
An influential person that everyone can look up to, not just those interested in the paranormal. I encourage you to look past the paranormal for a second a look at the things he did and the way he viewed the world. A great start is his 1901 article 'Talking with the Planets'. Maybe on your next investigation, instead of using the Tesla Coil or Tesla Spirit Radio, look at how he viewed and thought about things. How can you adapt this to your investigating? The answer is out there somewhere, we just have to work out how to get it.
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Comments
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Joseph Kapusta 5 years ago
Perhaps Tesla left a lesson that we may not realize, being so caught up in his experiments that people stopped thinking about the basic rules of physics that needed to be applied. After all, the experiments he did were within science, yet even he did not pursue the definition beyond science of what he was focused on about contact with other worlds. If we continue to allow the hypothesis that spirits need 'energy' to manifest we are also asuming they manifest in our physical world governed by our physical rules. That would be any electromagnetic radiation emitted by the entity would be proportional to the energy that it absorbed, thus making it measurable, and would NOT be cold spots! The only logical path to proceed down is that there are aspects of the physical world we do not yet have an understanding of, one that is unknown in terms of physics, and until then, the paranormal, if indeed real, will remain quite unknowable.