For us, there is a still deeper affinity between Tesla's lifelong work and Aetherometry - one that we did not realize existed until we studied the principles behind the resonant operation of his distributed resonant transformer, and still later, when we discovered the principles of operation behind the Aether Motor. We often wonder why it took us so long to come to this realization, and the best reason we can come up with is the fact that most of Tesla's work has been so sorely misunderstood, even by very well-intentioned people - and our own understanding had remained prisoner of these same bounds. Since Tesla's work can so easily be plundered and plucked, it became subject to every pundit's whim - mechanistic science reduced it to neo-Maxwellian electromagnetism, ZPE theorists 'rediscovered' it in the supposed use of the magnifying transformer as an electromagnetic cannon, engineers reduced the resonant Tesla coil to an RF emitter or (to borrow the Corums' phraseology), in the best of cases, to "lossless tuned lumped coupled coils", addicts of special effects fantasized about the megavoltage of gigantic sparks, and plenty of apocryphal stories abound concerning his Aether-propelled automobile that is said to have traveled back and forth to Niagara Falls. The mythology undoubtedly hurt Tesla's standing - and his inarticulate opposition to Relativity did not help, anymore than his incorrect computation of superluminal propagation for Tesla waves, or his belief in P. Lowell's Martian canals or his claims to have received radio communications from outer space. Tesla was in dire need of a novel physico-mathematical approach to the energetic analysis of the Tesla radiation he had discovered.

Yet, Tesla was only too keenly aware that his resonant transformer could operate in either of two very distinct modes, which he thought were fundamentally frequency-dependent (low frequency reducing the energy dissipation by what he called "electromagnetic waves"): the production of 'electromagnetic waves' - as seen in most antennas due to their large capacity and small self-inductance - versus production of what he called "ground conduction currents" or "conduction energy" employing resonant principles of transformation, transmission and 'active reception'. Essentially, what he was trying to get at were the principles of propagation of ambipolar radiation under resonant conditions that minimize local generation of photons ('no electromagnetic radiation'), even if he anticipated this could only be done through the ground or the ionosphere. This matter became clear solely with the development of Aetherometry - with our discovery of the physical principles behind the indirect production of blackbody photons from ambipolar radiation, and the operation of Tesla coils to magnify massfree radiation in excess of the massbound electric power they consume. The basic demonstration of these stunning facts was carried out in our published AS2-13 to AS2-17 monographs (available at aetherometry.com), where novel (aetherometric) experimental and theoretical tools were employed to differentiate, on the basis of fundamental physical effects, the ambipolar massfree radiation of Tesla waves from the radiative effects of photons - whether ionizing, HFOT (high-frequency optothermal) or LFOT (low frequency optothermal) photons - as well as from the monopolar electric field effects of ion fluxes or electrostatic charges. These reports established, from basic scientific facts, the existence of a longitudinal, massfree, electric ambipolar form of energy radiation which is emitted from these coils, and is distinct from electromagnetic energy. They also provided a novel way to ascertain the electric wavespeed of the ambipolar radiation known as Tesla waves, and formally demonstrated how it is not bound by c and typically exceeds it.

By the time we were attempting to replicate and decode Reich's experiments detailed in the Oranur Report, and in particular to rediscover the principles of his OR Motor, we came to the further realization that, in fact, Tesla had been the originator of the idea but that his implementations had suffered from many set-backs - the result being that he never actually succeeded in creating a functional Aether Motor. If, in his later life, he managed to do so, he certainly left behind no written record of the matter - unless substance will one day be found for any of the apocryphal stories of the first Aether- powered Autonomous Electric Vehicle (AEV), as we call it. On the contrary, Reich's genius lay precisely in overcoming many of the limitations that had precluded Tesla from realizing his dream of directly tapping Aether power from the fabric of Space and Time. Eventually, we came to realize how much Reich's discovery owed to Tesla.

Lastly, there is the connection that Dr. Mallove has emphasized in his editorial - the link between ambipolar energy and a new biophysics of biological systems and the chemical functions of biological molecules, a subject too long to elaborate here, but one that will be shown in the years to come to owe much to both Tesla and Reich, their insights and studies. One might say that its point of origin was utilitarian: to counter Edison's assertion that alternate currents could only be employed for deadly purposes, Tesla demonstrated that thousands of volts could be passed with no harm through his own body at high frequency. But this foreshadowed the novel biophysics of ambipolar radiation which Aetherometry has brought forth and made possible: the complex dynamics of massfree energy, electric and nonelectric, in living systems.

We could comment on Tesla's politics - his desire to abolish war and eliminate misery, contribute to a global and enlightened society, develop a better humanity, and retain what one could call a puritanical morality. This would also take us far afield - we do not doubt that civilization is the work of the Christian State and technocratic capitalism its ultimate embodiment. But, like Reich, we cannot disregard the prevalent libidinal and emotional dysfunctionality of human beings, the perversity that accompanies puritanical moralism, the lies of an international State, the erasure of individual liberties in the name of a nonexistent 'Humanity' and, at the end of the day, the sheer necessity for combat that Life is confronted with if it is to create and reinvent itself beyond present day mores and conventions. Science and technology can never dictate either a better or worse course of action - when all is said and done, even education and knowledge by themselves would not suffice. For all the critical choices are, at bottom, choices of desire, political and libidinal choices, that, for sure, need to be better formed and informed, but are made between regimes of the large number (molar groupings) and regimes of individuality (molecular groupings). In his analytical investigations, Guattari spoke, in this respect, of the logic of subjected groups versus the logic of subject-groups, and their inevitable and constant combat. But this perspective, too, has been dissolved by the current acid of the politically correct, with the vague notion of 'empowerment' that leads simply to a more oppressive weight of ideals, but to no real tools of change.

Of greater importance to us - and of greater urgency for those who desire to know better - is that a new unitarian approach to physical and biological systems is demanded if science is to understand the nexus of the fundamental inventions and discoveries of Tesla. In fact, classical tools, like those which Steinmetz developed, are not sufficient to understand high-frequency alternating currents; and no amount of Quantum Electrodynamics is going to correct the mistakes that have gone under the bridge. One would have to follow in the footsteps of Reich's late approach, and well beyond it, to discover that there are two distinct manifestations of electricity, massbound and massfree, or monopolar versus ambipolar. And this gives us a measure of how out-of-Time Tesla was with his empirical discoveries, and how slow is indeed the measure of progress in scientific understanding and the benevolent usage of technology.

First published in Infinite Energy #48:40, 2003.