A very rare story told by Tesla in a letter to a friend. He talks about his brother’s death, his mother and her death, and his thoughts on spiritualism.
“Years ago, after evolving my system of wireless transmission of energy, I came to the conclusion that to put it on a sound engineering foundation I had to unravel the electrical mysteries of the earth. The task almost superhuman, but I had the boldness of ignorance to undertake it and passed several months in most intense concentration eventually gaining a clear insight when I was at a point of collapse. On my slow return to the normal state of mind I experienced an exquisitely painful longing for something undefinable. During the day I worked as usual and this feeling, though it persisted, was much less pronounced, but when I retired the night, with its monstrous amplifications, made the suffering very acute until it dawned upon me that my torture was due to a consuming desire to see my Mother.
Thoughts of her led me to the review of my past life beginning with the earliest impressions of my childhood and I was dismayed to find that I could not recall clearly even her features except in one scene. It was a dismal night with rain falling in torrents. My Mother, took me in her arms and whispered, almost inaudibly: “Come and kiss Daniel.” I pressed my mouth against the ice cold lips of my brother knowing only that something dreadful had happened. My mother put me [on the] bed and lingering a little said with tears streaming: “God gave me one at midnight and at midnight he took away the other one.” This remembrance was like an oasis in the wilderness kept alive by some strange prank of the brain in the midst of oblivion. My recollections came slowly gaining is clearness and after weeks of thinking the images appeared sharply defined and in a fullness of light which astonished me. Uncovering more and more of my past life I came to review my American experiences. In the meantime my craving had become almost unbearable and every night my pillows were wet from tears. Unable to stand it longer I resolved to quit work and go home. This I did and after a multitude of experiences I found myself in Paris wither I had fled from London to escape the fuss raised about me in England. I had to get off some final proofs for one of my lectures before leaving and while doing this a messenger handed me a telegram from my uncle which read: “Your Mother is dying hurry if you want to find her alive.” I rushed for the train and after three day’s journey over the mountains at breakneck speed I reached, bruised and exhausted, my Mother’s bedside. She was in the agonies of death but the jou of seeing me worked the miracle of a temporary recovery. I never left her until my own condition became such that I was taken to another building in the neighborhood for a short rest. When I was alone in my bed I meditated on what might happen if my Mother died. Would there be a disturbance in the ether? If so could I detect it? My senses were acute to an incredible degree. I could hear the ticking of a watch at a distance of fifty feet. A fly alighting on a table in the center of the room produced in my ear a thud like that of a pile driver and I could hear plainly the clatter of his feet. I was trained scientific observer well qualified to make an undistorted record of what I perceived. If such a transmission of effect was possible the best conditions existed for establishing the fact. Mindful of the enormous scientific importance of such a discovery I struggle desperately against sleep, and with my senses sharpened by the darkness and stillness of the night, I watched intently. Five or six hours, seeming like an eternity, passed without a sign and then I gave out falling into sleep or swoon. When I came to an indescribably sweet music filled my ears and I saw a floating white cloud in the center of which my Mother was reclining looking at me with loving eyes the face illuminated those of seraphims. The apparition passes slowly across the room and out of my vision. In that instant a feeling of absolute certitude swept over me that my Mother was dead and, sure enough, a maid came running who brought the mournful message. This knowledge gave me a terrific shock and suddenly I became aware that I was – in New York! My Mother had died years before but I had forgotten it: How could this happen I asked myself horrified and bitterness, pain and shame overwhelmed me. My sufferings had been real though the events were but imaginary reflections of previous occurrences. What I experienced was not the awakening from a dream but the restoration of a particular department of my consciousness.
"At the time the events related actually took place I was in a hysterical state and inclined to believe that there was really a psychic manifestation, a post mortem message from my Mother, but I soon dismissed this idea as sheer nonsense. I am proving constantly, by every thought and act of mine, that I am nothing more than an automaton responding to external stimuli and passing through as infinitude of different existence, from the cradle to the grave.
"The explanation of these mental phenomena is, after all, very simple. Through long concentration on a special subject certain fibers in my brain, for want of blood supply and exercise, were benumbed and could no longer respond properly to outside influences. With the diversion of my thoughts they were gradually vivified and finally brought back to their normal condition. The desire to see my Mother was due to my examination of some artistic fabrics woven by herself which had awakened in me tender memories shortly before I began to concentrate. I heard the music because my Mother died on Easterday just when a choir was singing in a church not far from me. But to locate the external impression which caused the apparition I had much trouble until I remembered that, on my return from Europe, I passed through Munich and saw there, among others, a painting of Arnold Bocklin interpreting one of the seasons and showing a group of allegorical figures on a cloud. So wonderfully skillful was the artist in this creation that the cloud seemed positively to float in the air as if supported by some invisible means.
This made a deep impression on me. The practical lesson of all this is to beware of concentration and be content with mediocre achievement.”
(Letter to George S. Viereck. Hotel New Yorker, New York, 20 December 1934.)
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