Tesla

[Revel]

So, the other day I was listening to the song

(fantastic music, if you're more prog oriented) and began thinking some more about the lyrics. Spree brought up a certain point in the song, and asked me to look further into it.

The lyric being,

" Oh, how I loved her. Nothing else mattered, She was my purpose in life! Clear was her message, the light from her eyes, the colorful beams of light! "

 

I looked further into it, and as it turns out, Nikola Tesla (who the song is about) was clinically insane, if genius. Ignoring that though, a part of his journal involved a particular pigeon, white with gray wing tips... that he fell in love with.

 

Time for some quotes to back this up.

 

"I have been feeding pigeons, thousands of them, for years; thousands of them, for who can tell --

 

"But there was one pigeon, a beautiful bird, pure white with light gray tips on its wings; that one was different. It was a female. I would know that pigeon anywhere.

 

"No matter where I was that pigeon would find me; when I wanted her I had only to wish and call her and she would come flying to me. She understood me and I understood her.

 

"I loved that pigeon."

 

"Yes," he replied to an unasked question. "Yes, I loved that pigeon, I loved her as a man loves a woman, and she loved me. When she was ill I knew, and understood; she came to my room and I stayed beside her for days. I nursed her back to health. That pigeon was the joy of my life. If she needed me, nothing else mattered. As long as I had her, there was a purpose in my life.

 

"Then one night as I was lying in my bed in the dark, solving problems, as usual, she flew in through the open window and stood on my desk. I knew she wanted me; she wanted to tell me something important so I got up and went to her.

 

"As I looked at her I knew she wanted to tell me -- she was dying. And then, as I got her message, there came a light from her eyes -- powerful beams of light.

 

"Yes," he continued, again answering an unasked question, "it was a real light, a powerful, dazzling, blinding light, a light more intense than I had ever produced by the most powerful lamps in my laboratory.

 

"When that pigeon died, something went out of my life. Up to that time I knew with a certainty that I would complete my work, no matter how ambitious my program, but when that something went out of my life I knew my life's work was finished."

 

So, though he was prone to hallucinations, my theory is that he had a fully sentient, nonverbal tulpa.

 

A somewhat startling reverie, but intriguing at that. Tesla was a great man, some might say, the father of electricity. Certainly the father of AC. I won't turn this into a rant thread about how awesome the guy was, but he was pretty damn awesome.

 

What do you think, tulpa or no?

There isn't much on this topic, so I'm going off of my own inferences and what scarce text there is involving this.

[waffles]

There's no reason to think that he had a tulpa. Insane? Yes. Hallucinating pigeons? Possibly. But nothing here evidences a tulpa.

[Revel]

I think he did though.

The man was entirely alone throughout his life, refusing human contact in favor of his work. You don't simply go through life that alone, it's part of human nature to interact and share with other humans, simply the fact he said that he 'loved' her is enough to make one think. Normally, (maybe not normally...) if you hallucinate an animal of some variety like that I don't think you'd feel any variety of bond to it.

Maybe I am drawing conclusions out of thin air, but it's nevertheless an interesting thought.

I mean, the man stopped his career for the sake of this pigeon.

Insanity aside, his career was his entire life, ceasing with that for something like that points to SOMETHING.

[waffles]

The man stopped his career because he was insane; he fell in love with a pigeon for the same reason.

You are drawing conclusions from nothing. Just because he was alone, does not mean that he made a tulpa. Hallucinating a pigeon (or even recounting things erroneously) does not point to a tulpa.

[Revel]

Alright.

I'm done.

thanks, I guess.

[glitchthe3rd]

I'd like to think that those mathematicians who "went insane from their work" tried something like tulpaforcing and failed, since they realized the benefit that a second perspective could have for solving math problems.

[Lolimancer]

"To free myself of these tormenting appearances, I tried to concentrate my mind on something else I had seen, and in this way I would of ten obtain temporary relief; but in order to get it I had to conjure continuously new images. It was not long before I found that I had exhausted all of those at my command; my "reel" had run out, as it were, because I had seen little of the world—only objects in my home and the immediate surroundings. As I performed these mental operations for the second or third time, in order to chase the appearances from my vision, the remedy gradually lost all its force. Then I instinctively commenced to make excursions beyond the limits of the small world of which I had knowledge, and I saw new scenes. These were at first very blurred and indistinct, and would flit away when I tried to concentrate my attention upon them, but by and by I succeeded in fixing them; they gained in strength and distinctness and finally assumed the concreteness of real things. I soon discovered that my best comfort was attained if I simply went on in my vision farther and farther, getting new impressions all the time, and so I began to travel—of course, in my mind. Every night (and sometimes during the day), when alone, I would start on my journeys—see new places, cities and countries—live there, meet people and make friendships and acquaintances and, however unbelievable, it is a fact that they were just as dear to me as those in actual life and not a bit less intense in their manifestations."

 

(Source: http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1919-00-00.htm)

[Revel]

Looks like I have some reading to do then... Thank you Lolimancer! A wonderful link!

[hakase]

(Source: http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1919-00-00.htm)

 

Nice find. I'll play devil's advocate and suggest that it could all just be normal daydreaming, but:

 

These were at first very blurred and indistinct, would flit away when I tried to concentrate my attention upon them, but by and by I succeeded in fixing them; they gained in strength and distinctness and finally assumed the concreteness of real things.

 

sounds exactly like what we've been calling wonderland visualization.

[moondragon]

This ia interesting..I remember seeing Telsa videos in the 90's..Both on Beavis and Butthead, and late at night, when MTV used to play a lot of cool Metal and Alternative rock videos.

 

Anyway, it might be possible that the pigeon was a tulpa he created. I think so, because of the detail about how she appeared whenever he wished for her. I think it is possible that lots of musicians or other kinds of writers have created tulpas, either accidently or maybe they know the same things people on this site know.