Wonder of the Worlds

by Sesh Heri

  “And why not? You are mad, but you have given me bird seed, and for that I will listen to your ramblings.”

  “A little better. You try to help your lie with a truth. I know you appreciate the bird seed, and you are quite welcome. But as for my madness, let us both concede that I am quite sane. You just do not know who I am or how I know the things I do. I cannot answer all your questions. But I have something which will answer those questions for which you now need answers.” The man in the silk hat held out a book. It had an old green faded cloth cover. “Go on,” the man in the silk hat said, “take it.”

  Tesla took the book and opened it to the title page, which read, “Order of the Flaming Sword.” Tesla f lipped the pages and read, “Chapter One: The Secret History of the World.”

  Tesla looked up at the man in the silk hat. “What is this?” Tesla asked. “Some kind of Masonic tract?”

  “Hardly. Read the book and you will see what it is. You will understand. The Order of the Flaming Sword is a secret society which has existed in all countries and in all times.” “Then it is Masonic.”

  “In some cases it has existed within Masonry. It has also existed within the Church. But it is not Masonry and it is not the Church. And as I have said, it has existed in every country, but it does not represent any one country.” “I am not a joiner,” Tesla said. “I belong to no secret societies, and never will.”

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  “Oh, Mr. Tesla! Mr. Tesla! You already are a member of a secret society! You have been born to the Order of the Flaming Sword only you do not know it yet!” “You are mad.”

  “Read the book, Mr. Tesla, and you shall see if I am mad. And after you have settled that, I want you to ask yourself these questions: Why were the cherubim ordered by Yahweh to stand guard over the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life? What did the Elohim fear? And, finally, Mr. Tesla, what will you do when you grasp the Flaming Sword yourself and set the world ablaze with its power?” The man in the silk hat stood up and looked at Notre Dame Cathedral, and said, “The spirit comes forth from the day, and the letter passes away.”

  The man in the silk hat looked at Tesla and said, “When you understand that, Mr. Tesla, you will understand everything you need to know.” The man in the silk hat turned and began walking away. Tesla asked, “How do I contact you again?” The man turned back and said, “If we need to meet again, I will contact you.” With that, the man in the silk hat turned and walked away. A closed carriage pulled up. The man in the silk hat opened its door, got in, and closed the door. Tesla noticed that the door of the carriage bore a brass plate with the number “44” engraved upon it. The carriage drove away, disappearing into the streets and crowds of Paris. Tesla went home and began reading the book. It was a strange book, even for Tesla who had, in his time, read several strange books. The green book bore no author’s name, but a preface stated that some of the maps and draw- ings in the book were close reproductions of the originals held in the Atlantean archives of the Vatican. These originals had, in turn, been acquired from the library at Alexandria. These Alexandrian originals were themselves copies of even more ancient manuscripts from Poseid. There was a chapter on the his- tory of the world going back 500,000 years. It told about god-like beings that came here from other worlds and dimensions and created “Adamic mankind” by a breeding program with themselves and primates already existing on Earth. It told about the rise of Atlantis, described its society, its religion, and its sci- ence. It told about the planet Mars and a civilization there, and about beings who lived underground on the Moon. Another chapter was on language, sym- bols, numerology, and the science of karmic frequency. This science holds that one’s time of birth and death is predetermined and interrelated to the times of the births and deaths of all other beings in the universe. Another chapter was on geology, chemistry, alchemy and archemy. That chapter described how continents moved over the surface of the globe during long geological epochs, how volcanoes formed, and how gold “grows” in volcanoes. There were chap- ters on electricity, magnetism, atoms, sub-atoms, ether, and gravity. There was

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  a chapter on dreams, how to see the past and future, and how to will your mind to leave your body and go to distant places. There was a chapter on the Great Pyramid at Giza explaining why and how it had been built and how it was used before it was damaged. There were other chapters to this book that Tesla told me about, but this is all that I can remember. As Tesla described it, it was a fantastic book. The more Tesla read of it, the more sense it made to him. When Tesla told me about reading this book, I stopped him in his tale to tell a tale of my own.

  I said, “What you said about Mars. It rang a bell. Reminded me… 1861, summertime. The war had just begun. I had left the river. I didn’t want to get shot at while trying to keep my boat off a sand bar. I went up to St. Louis, trying to figure out what to do next. During that time, I was initiated into Freemasonry. One night, I was in the lodge. They had a room in the back where all of us could just sit and talk, or read. While I was sitting there by myself reading a book, a man who I had never seen before came in and sat down across from me. We struck up a conversation. The fellow told me his name was Percival Penrod. We talked about the war and what we thought might happen next, how long it would last, that sort of thing. Somewhere along the way Penrod said that people could not understand present events because they were entirely ignorant of the past. People believed, he said, that man had only been on Earth six thousand years, when, in fact, some kind of human has been here for millions of years. He claimed that many of the inventions made since the Renaissance were the result of individuals being helped by secret scrolls preserved from the time of Atlantis. He also said that a long time ago people had flying machines and could fly to the Moon and to other planets. And he said that Mars once had a civilization but it was destroyed in a war against Earth. The last survivors on Mars sealed themselves inside a giant volcano and were never heard from again. But to this day, he claimed, the ruins of cities still exist up there on Mars.” “Did you believe him?” Tesla asked me.

  “No,” I said. “I thought he was a damned ignorant fool and lunatic. Of course, I didn’t tell him so. I just smiled like an idiot myself and nodded to him. But then, a few years later, when I was out west, a fellow I knew from the St. Louis lodge told me that Percival Penrod was working for Lincoln as a special agent, that he was, in fact, the person who made the secret arrangements for Grant and Lee to meet at Appomattox. Years later, Grant confirmed to me that he knew Penrod as a secret messenger working for Lincoln, although he said that Percival Penrod was not the man’s real name, but only an alias he sometimes used. Then, just a couple of years ago, another man who knew Penrod told me that it was really Penrod who died in that barn where they claimed to have killed John Wilkes Booth. Thing is, Penrod looked a lot like Booth.”

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  After Tesla finished reading the faded green book, he packed it in his valise, then went to say goodbye to some friends. When he returned to his hotel room, he looked in his valise. His train ticket, his steamship ticket, and his pocketbook with most of his money were all gone. Gone also was the faded green book. His letter of introduction to Edison had been left in his valise. Tesla knew there was but one thing to do. He picked up his lightened valise and went straight to the train station. He had just enough money to buy an- other train ticket for the coast of France. He got on the train, rode it to port, and boarded the steamship for America. He explained to the purser he had lost his ticket and the purser allowed him to wait until the last moment before departure. No one claimed Tesla’s stateroom. So the purser allowed Tesla to take it and go to America. On board ship, Tesla would lay awake nights, bringing the image of the green book back to his mind. The book would form as a glowing three- dimensional image f loating in front of him in the darkness. He could will the cover of the book to open, and will each of its pages to turn in succession. Each night of the ocean voyage to America, Tesla would study the green book. By the time he
had reached America, he had memorized the green book, not only unconsciously in the deep recesses of his mind where he formed those memory-images, but consciously on that bright mental surface where we all reason and measure. Tesla now believed the Order of the Flaming Sword to be a real organiza- tion. According to the green book, the function of the Order was to monitor and control the development of civilization on Earth—here seeding certain kinds of knowledge into the course of human events, there withholding certain other kinds of knowledge and suppressing its discovery by anyone else. The Order held that human history was an alchemical process and that it should correspond to the cyclical movements of the universe, the astrological ages. The green book said that the present human race was approaching the “black- ening” stage of the alchemical process, a stage marked by total war, civil strife, deterioration of the individual’s mind, body, and spirit, and a complete reli- ance on machines. The Order held that this was a necessary stage in the development of the human race, one through which we must pass before we could fulfill our destiny. Tesla saw the future of man in different terms. To him, the machine would liberate man from the tyranny of his fellow men. It was the machine’s only function and reason for existence. The thought that the machine could be used as a tool of tyranny was repugnant to Tesla. He was determined to oppose any attempt to make it so, and if this meant opposing the Order of the Flaming Sword, then so be it, he told himself. Tesla thought about the man in the silk hat and the man that was shot and fell into the Seine. It now occurred to Tesla that the man might not have been

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  shot at all; that the whole incident might have been a theatrical play staged for Tesla as sole audience. But for what purpose? The possibility that the incident was a ritual initiation, with the man in the silk hat and the man with the knife taking the parts of Castor and Pollux, did not occur to Tesla at this time.

  Tesla wondered why his supervisors at Edison Continental repeatedly re- fused his request for payment of his bonus, yet Batchelor was willing to recom- mend him to Edison in America. Was it only a coincidence, Tesla asked him- self, that the man with the knife attacked him the day after Batchelor wrote the letter of introduction to Edison? It seemed to Tesla as if someone wanted him out of Europe and over in America, and that almost everyone he knew was either prodding him with a stick to stay in Europe or enticing him with a carrot to go to America. And what was the result of all this? The theft of his ship ticket and money had only fired his enthusiasm to go to America! Could this have been its intended effect? Tesla had a vague sense of a web being stretched out over him, and those helping to weave the web being as ignorant of the web’s purpose as Tesla was himself.

  Tesla had always wanted to go to America, but to go on his own terms. He felt now that he was being manipulated by unidentified forces. He decided he would buy a gun, keep it on his person, and become expert in its use. When he arrived in America, he did do this, and later also required his assistant Kolman Czito to become an expert marksman. On June 6, 1884, Tesla arrived in lower Manhattan. After checking through Castle Garden, he strolled through Battery Park, and on up along Broadway. As he continued on up Broadway, he passed a shop where a man was cursing a machine. Tesla stopped and volunteered to help the man repair it. The man accepted Tesla’s offer, and, when Tesla got the machine running again, the man gave Tesla twenty dollars. Bolstered with this quick, small fortune, and his letter of introduction, Tesla met with Edison the next day. “What can I do for you, mister,” Edison snapped when he saw Tesla’s tall figure looming above him.

  “My name is Nikola Tesla. I have come from Paris to see you.” “What for?” “I have a letter of introduction from Mr. Batchelor, sir.” “Batchelor, eh?” Edison took the letter.

  “I worked for Continental Edison in Paris.” “Um hum. Sit down.” Tesla sat down. Edison read the letter. Part way through, Edison started chuckling to himself. He looked up at Tesla, grinning.

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  Edison quoted Batchelor’s letter, ”’I know of two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man!’ Ha! That’s some recommendation. Some big talk. But talk doesn’t get the job done, does it? What can you do?” “I was a problem solver for Continental Edison. I worked all over Europe. I can fix any kind of machine, electrical or mechanical, that you might have. Also, I have made some discoveries which will interest you. I have designed an induction motor for alternating current which utilizes a rotating magnetic field and which—” “Hold up there! Did you say alternating current?” “I did.” “That’s pure nonsense.”

  “But—”

  “Alternating current is dangerous. A damned boob-trap!” “The machine I have designed is quite safe—”

  “I’m telling you it’s a boob-trap! That junk’ll fry ya dead! You’re in America now, my Parisian friend! In America we’re only interested in what works—and what works is direct current. It’s what we’re set up for, people like it, and it’s all I’ll ever fool with. Have you got that?” “Yes, sir.”

  “All right, then. That’s more like it. You’re young and a foreigner. You’ve got a lot to learn. But if Batchelor vouches for you, maybe you have possibili- ties. But if you’re going to work for me, you’re going to do things my way. Is that understood?” “Yes, sir.”

  “All right, then. I might have a job for you. Think you can fix a ship’s lighting plant?” Of course, by now you know that Tesla could fix a ship’s lighting plant all to hell and back, so I shall not linger here except to say that Tesla toiled all night on board the S.S. Oregon and by dawn the job was finished. Edison was mightily impressed with Tesla and put him to work full time. Although Edison refused to discuss alternating current, when Tesla criticized Edison’s direct current dynamos, Edison said, “Think you can make a better one? There’s fifty thousand dollars in it—if you can do it.”

  Tesla took Edison at his word and set to work. After months of toil, Tesla successfully demonstrated his improvement. Edison brought several of his other employees into the room along with Tesla to look at the re- designed dynamo. Edison said to his employees, “Now, do you see that? All you fellows need to take a lesson from Tesla. He doesn’t tell me what he’s going to do; he shows me what he has already done. Results! That’s what it’s all about, fellas!” Tesla said, “Thank you, Mr. Edison, you are very kind.” “Not at all,” Edison said, “Just stating facts.”

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  “But I do thank you. And I was wondering when I should expect my check.” “Check? What check?”

  “My check for fifty thousand dollars. The one you promised me if I im- proved the dynamo.” “The one I promised?”

  “That is correct. Several months ago.” “Did anybody hear me promise?” None of the other men moved. “Nevertheless,” Tesla said, “you promised.” “Did I?”

  Edison laughed, and then stopped like the laughter was turned off with one of his electrical switches. “Well, ma ybe I did. Maybe I did sa y some t hing like t hat.” “You did. I recall it clearly.” “Yes. Well. I was joking.” Tesla stared at Edison.

  “I was joking, Tesla! Don’t you get it? It was a joke. And what a joke! Right, fellas?” Edison’s men gave a hearty laugh.

  “You said—”

  “Did you really think I’d pay you fifty thousand dollars to do a little tinker- ing?” “It was not a little tinkering. It was a fundamental design change.”

  “Now look here. You’re a foreigner. And a young fella. So I’m going to give you a little lee-way. You’re a foreigner and you don’t understand some of our ways here in America. Why, here in America we’re always pulling jokes. Isn’t that right, boys?” Edison’s men nodded, and piped in, “That’s right, boss.”

  Edison turned back to Tesla, grinning, but he let his smile fade until his face was grim, then he said, “Tesla, you just don’t understand our American humor.” “Then you’re not going to pay me.” “No. I’m not going to pay you. Do you understand now?” “If I do not receive the bonus, I will resign.” “Tell you
what. I’ll give you a raise. Eight dollars a week. How’s that?” Tesla did not answer, but picked up his hat and walked out. Edison said quietly to his men, “Get back to work.” Tesla next formed the Tesla Electric Light Company. His financial backers were only interested in his arc light inventions. After a short time, Tesla was eased out of the company, receiving only an engraved stock certificate of little value. It was 1886 and Tesla was reduced to digging ditches.

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  At noon, Tesla would sit and watch with rising nausea as his fellow workers ate sandwiches held in their muddy, filth-grimed hands. On one such day, Tesla’s foreman on the work crew arrived after being gone all morning and approached him. “What are you doing here?” the foreman asked. “Trying to eat. But I cannot.”

  “I mean, what are you doing here digging ditches?” “Trying to earn enough money to live.” “You shouldn’t be here.” “I have no choice.” “I happen to know A.K. Brown, manager of Western Union. I spoke to him about you this morning. He’s heard of you and knows about the work you did with Edison. He wants to talk to you.” Tesla looked up at the foreman, and said, “Really?” “He’s very interested in alternating current.” “I would like to talk to him.” “Go home. Wash up. Then meet me back here. We’ll go see him.” “Right now?”