Nikola Tesla Books
IN SEARCH OF NIKOLA TESLA I soon realized that this was much more than a passing adolescent whim. Tesla had determined his future as surely as if he had dedicated himself to the intoxication of his senses through opium. He believed that reason and emotion stood in opposition and he pictured emotion as subtracting from logic and diluting the life of reason. His solution, therefore, was to dominate and control his feelings through the power of his intellect. For Tesla the superman must castrate his emotions to leave a mind at peace with logic. There is terrible danger inherent in such a plan. For a number of years I had been interested in the writings of the Swiss analytic-psychologist Carl Jung. Jung, too, had considered various aspects of personality as being in opposition, but his conclusions were very different from Tesla's. Jung believed that each of these opposing components must balance. The wellrounded person would have emotion complemented by reason and intellect in harmony with feelings. Mental health involves a continued equilibrium between these aspects, which give power and health to the personality. Jung had warned of the dangers to a personality which is out of balance through the dominance of one of these components. If an aspect of personality is buried, then disaster will follow, since no part of a human can be buried without psychic sacrifice. If reason is forced to dominate, then its frustrated hidden brother, emotion, works underground. Feelings which have long been denied grow in power and seek new ways to restore their balance. Eruptions of emotion from the shadow world of the mind are sensed as a threat by reason, which struggles even harder to maintain control. In the end an unexpected chink in the armour of reason is uncovered and through this fissure uncontrolled feelings in all their naked power gush out. Since Tesla attempted to suppress a part of his essential self, he stood in danger of being overwhelmed and controlled by that very power he sought to deny. I began to wonder how this had affected Tesla's life. I knew of no major breakdown in his life. Had repressed emotion perhaps used more subtle means? Was it stretching the imagination too much to wonder if it had worked in an ironic way by subverting reason to its own ends? If I followed the whole thing to its logical conclusion, then I would see 73
