DATELINE: Pro-Edison, Anti-Tesla
The co-author of this work is William Birnes whom you may remember as the older member of the UFO Hunters TV series a few years back.
Now he has put his name on a work that describes itself in subtitle as the “Battle” over their last invention. Whatever this book presents, the real Edison was not a nice person. You will not know that from this book.
How about a little truth in advertising? Or at least in titles? There is no battle, and it isn’t really Tesla’s last invention. So, what have we got here?
The book is a hagiography to Edison, and sells Tesla a bit short, noting he feared having people aware of his paranormal and clairvoyant abilities. Edison privately believed that Tesla had found a radio frequency that transmitted ethereal voices.
Tesla undercut this by claiming he was receiving signals from Mars—or some inter-dimensional location.
Edison did not believe in spiritualism, rapping poltergeists or any of that stuff: he did believe that electrons lived forever.
If Tesla could do it, Edison wanted to create a receiver for electrons and conscious energy. He wanted to measure unusual messages. He did believe that memory survived death—and that traumatic memory might be quite strong. The inventor wanted a device to increase the volume of sound waves.
Their vocabulary has been updated: Tesla likely knew of EVP (electronic voice phenomenon) and Edison was into quantum entanglements.
The book could have been a pamphlet, but does contain nuggets that are fascinating. Edison awoke on his death bed from a deep coma to tell people he saw an afterlife, and promptly died.
