The Protagonist Speaks

Dear readers, tonight with me is a special person, one who has turned into a cultural icon of our generation. The Protagonist is honoured to welcome Nikola Tesla to the interview couch!

Tonight he will tell us about his amazing discoveries, and his almost unnatural connection to electrical currents.

Can you describe to us your affinity to electricity? How does it feel / look?

As a child I could feel the lightning building up to strike, and I ran to touch it. Miraculously, instead of being killed, I felt as if my body and soul had come alive. The sensation was like you might feel the wind in your face, or a spray of water. I did not realize that others didn’t feel this and that I was something of a freak.

Because of my extreme sensitivity to currents and light, I developed what others might call Phobias. I did not like to look at women’s jewellery because of how it bent the light. I started trying to control this sensitivity through calculations. Numbers, especially the number 3, were like an invisible structure that I wove around the world. I always had to do everything by 3’s. After I nearly died of cholera, I became terrified of germs and reluctant to shake hands. I obsessively washed my eating utensils. People thought I was quite an eccentric! Some even thought I was mad…a ‘mad scientist’ if you will.

How did this affinity affect your scientific work?

My brain was like a finely tuned receiver. I could visualize the inside of devices…and when I built them, they worked perfectly! I could travel to imaginary places and speak with the people I met. My sensitivity became so painfully intense that I thought I would surely die…and that was when I received a communication from a race of energy beings who spoke to me in currents. This was not a hallucination: the Aon were from the dimension of ‘subtle matter’. They spent their lives studying the universe, and now they wished to study and exchange knowledge with me.

This meeting stimulated my brain to make new connections, and I was struck by a most  transcendent vision of the rotating magnetic field, which would become the 3-phase alternating current motor. This was the breakthrough which led to the gift of electrical power for all of the world.

What is your opinion of Thomas A. Edison?

I was raised to behave as a polite gentleman, so I will refrain from using vulgar terms to describe this man. After I invented the alternating current system, he became my bitter rival and launched the ‘war of the currents’ to try to discredit the alternating current system. Yet it was this competition  that led me to stage a series of spectacular electrical shows where I took thousands of volts through my body. The papers called me the New Promethues and the Electric Zeus. I became the toast of New York Society, but more important, I discovered my most incredible ability: like a human capacitor, I  could absorb millions of volts into my body without harm. And in fact it was this ability to channel the current which saved my life, and ultimately the world as well.

What can you tell us about Clara? Any romantic involvement?

Not to be a braggart, but when I became an electrical celebrity, I had many women admirers. Yet I avoided romantic involvement. It interfered with my work. And I feared touching others…it was just too dangerous. Suppose some of that electric current escaped me, during a moment of passion?

Miss Clara was many things. A refugee from Russia…a talented musician…a girl with her own scientific gifts. She idolized me from a young age and dreamed of working with me.  In my arrogance I brushed her aside, but she persisted in following me and she would leap to my defense with clever electrical weapons disguised as jewelry. Since I could not escape her, we finally started working together. I must confess that once we started soldering connections and splicing wires, I immediately felt closer to her than to anyone on earth. Of course, I could not let myself use a word like ‘love’. I was too barriered and vulnerable. Nevertheless, Clara and I were bound together in our struggle against the aliens, and would each have given our lives to save the other.

How did the signal from space first feel? What were your first thoughts when you ‘heard’ it?

I was in the mountains of Colorado, researching high energy current. I created tremendous lightning bolts like Thor himself…but that night all was quiet when the series of rhythmic beeps occurred. I was absolutely sure it came from space. I dreamed that my glorious light-beings, the Aon, had come to visit Earth! Alas, the visitors proved to be something quite different.

What can you tell us about the aliens?

I dreamed of meeting advanced beings and exchanging scientifc knowledge.  But the Sky Voyagers had their own agenda for Earth. When they realized it was I who had built the transmitters, they decided I could be of use to them. And thus began my nightmare when I nearly became their slave and helped them conquer Earth. When I escaped, and learned what they planned to do, I realized that Clara and I were the only ones who could stop them.

Are there any other beings out there?

I have learned that there are many intelligent races in all forms and in all dimensions:  dense-matter beings like ourselves, and others of subtle matter. Our own universe is by no means the only one, but it is part of a myriad of dimensions, parallel realms, levels of frequency. I believe that all matter is sentient at some level, and that the universe itself might be a sentient being.

The time being the turn of the 20th century, where do you see humanity going?

At the furn of the century I believed that electricity could change the human race and bring an age of abundance and peace. I soon became disillusioned. I developed the concept of the “Death Ray”, a weapon so powerful it would make war impossible. But I underestimated the warlike nature of human beings. A change in their very frequency, their soul if you will, would be necessary. I knew that there was no magic gizmo that would bring world peace, and that in fact others would try to steal my inventions for purposes of war. This story is told in another novel, Tesla’s Frequency, which takes place on the eve of WWII. Ultimately it was clear that my only option was to influence humans from the sidelines, from what you might call a different dimension.

is this real, or just imaginary?

I, Nikola Tesla, am a real person who has been forgotten by most history books for over 100 years. My biographies document my electrical inventions, my war with Edison, my failures and eccentricities. There is no historical record of an alien invasion, my more fantastic abilities or my communication with other dimensions. Then again, some people think that “They” are not telling you everything, and you have probably heard that ‘Nikola Tesla was a very mysterious man’. So it is up to you to decide!

Laura Woodswalker is a Writer (Science fiction), Musician (electronica) Artist (visual and paper), Mom, Nature lover. Some of her former occupations include: Nurse, Graphic Designer, Desktop Publisher and Medical coder. Now: cat-shelter volunteer and full-time, all-around creative time-waster. You can find Tesla on the pages of Tesla’s Signal.

Next week we will be hosting a young woman who didn’t heed her mother’s advice and strayed into the woods. Please follow the site by email (bottom-right), via Twitter or like our Facebook page to be notified when the next interview is posted.