I have remained quiet while watching the furor erupt over Richard Hull's recent comments regarding Tesla, claims of suppressed and esoteric science, and the role of the Internets in breathing life into the unsubstantiated. Since I was the one who asked Richard to post his observations, I suppose I should say something about the hornets nest his comments have stirred up."All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." -- Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788 - 1860)
I am going to gather my thoughts about these exchanges here, in the "Second Draft " section, with links as necessary back to the original posts, because I think that the the broad concepts that Richard has addressed, and the members' response to his sentiments, shines a very bright light down here in the rabbit hole. It may not be lighting up the rabbit yet, but it nevertheless illuminates numerous facets of the subjects that will need to be addressed if we are ever going to find our way out of here.
I had originally asked Richard for his observations and comments regarding certain assertions by FM No Static At All:
A couple of days later htmagic echoed those sentiments:viewtopic.php?p=15715#p15715
Henry Moray called it a "Sea of Energy" and Tesla called it "Cosmic Energy" and others have called it Zero Point Energy. But it all disappeared into oblivion with the publication of Einstein's General and Special Relativity Theories. From that time onward we have become fixated on some myth called the Big Bang Theory, which has spawned the String Theory, and which they have several of those as well.
To utilize aetheric energy, one will have to learn its frequency. Yes, Mr. Kevin B. is hitting on something with vibrations and feeling the energies resonating. Nikola Tesla got it and used it quite well thank you. J. P. Morgan squashed every attempt Tesla made to get his system up and running, because he (J. P. Morgan) knew that energy would be "free" to all that bought the "antenna" to capture it.
In these posts we see the quintessential expression of the sort of conspiratorial rhetoric that abounds on the Internet -- particularly when Tesla's name comes up. It's not enough for some people that Tesla provided one of the fundamental pillars of our modern industrial society; he has to be deified as somebody whose true gifts were over looked, or, even worse, deliberately suppressed by a ruthless capitalist plutocrat.htmagic wrote: viewtopic.php?p=15780#p15780
Nikola Tesla tried to deliver cheap energy and J.P. Morgan stopped Tesla's plan and tried to suppress his ideas. J.P. Morgan prevented any future dealings with potential investors with Tesla. But Tesla has 2 patents for radiant energy collection. I believe they hold the key to cheaper energy. Patents 685957 & 685958 explain the process and the circuits. I believe this is the basis for Tesla's electric car.
I asked Richard share his thoughts on these subjects because I know that he has conducted as much careful and deliberate research into the mythology that surrounds Nikola Tesla as probably anybody alive today. He has spent long dark hours pouring through the notebooks that survive from Tesla's Colorado Springs experiments and has authored a (now hard to find) book that separates fact from the fantasies that swirl around those now mythic days.
Above all, I know that Richard is cast in the mold of a "hard boiled engineer." He is a card-carrying "I'm from Missouri, you have to show me" investigator. For Richard, the kind of zen koan that Morgan once offered me, that "absence of proof is no proof of proof's absence" is an absolutely meaningless exercise in circular illogic.
Mostly, I wanted Richard to help us separate fact from fiction where Tesla is concerned, since so much of that mythology feeds the underground suspicions of establishment misconduct. Needless to say, I got more than I bargained for. But I am grateful to Richard for stating so emphatically in his first post:
So Richard is clearly and succinctly calling the bluff on much of the mythology that surrounds the legacy of Nikola Tesla. And he does so with hard-earned authority on the subject.rhull wrote: viewtopic.php?p=15827#p15827
None of Tesla's patents ever gained substaintial value save for his polyphase patents and his radio related patents which were only given precedence after his death...
All of his other patents have never produced anything nor are suggestive of application. It is often these that the new agers pick for the holy grail. Tesla never made or worked with an electric car or any car. (no images exist or even lab notes) He did theorize and constantly, on the occasions of his birthday, tell assembled reporters of fantastic things he had in the works. (bluster and boast) The world was leaving him behind. by 1920.
When you put these two posts together as I just have, it's easier to see the apparent contradiction between what htmagic posted (specific Tesla patents) and what Richard has stated (no "substantial value").
So, Magic Bill, is Richard wrong? Can you dredge up any concrete evidence that those patents you cited are viable? What do we really have to go on? Or are we proceeding on the basis of... well, what you might have read elsewhere? Like... on the Internets?
Richard makes a good case for what I consider "the origins of pseudoscience" when he writes,
All of which he might have gotten away with, except that so many readers here took such deep umbrage at his final assertion:rhull wrote: Many of the names mentioned other than Teslas are false inventors and kooks that remain legends, themselves, in the new energy community, all without devices or application, but are said to have had the devices but they got lost, the inventors died without giving up the magic formula to recontruct the devices, etc. You get the drift. When I hear those names used in an energy context, the red flags go up higher and higher in proportion to the number of called out names.
Elizabeth was comparatively mild in her response:Tesla is often at the top of the list followed by Brown.
History is replete with examples of renowned individuals who had to endure all manner of abuse and hardship before society at large would engender any "respect" for their "intellect and ideas." Galileo comes most readily to mind. Gotta love that Ministry of Silly Hats, the Catholic church, for sticking to its dogma.Elizabeth Helen Drake wrote: viewtopic.php?p=15838#p15838
"what does a person have to do to get some sort of respect for his intellect and ideas?"
But Elizabeth asks the operative question. What DOES an intellectual or scientific pioneer have to do to earn "respect" for their original ideas? Or, in the path outlined by Schopenauer, how does any purveyor of "truth" make it from "ridicule" (Stage 1), to "evident all along" (Stage 3) without going insane during "Stage 2" (violent opposition) ?
These are the questions we are going to have to contend with if the biographical expression of Townsend Brown's life going is to have any meaning beyond this very small, isolated, and self-selected cadre of devotees. If, once the book is published, the circle of interest is going to become as large and powerful as it will NEED to be, then we are going to have to be able to offer concrete answers to the Richard Hulls of the world.
So it is interesting to see how the conversation proceeds, once Richard shared his thoughts with us. For example:
FM No Static At All wrote: viewtopic.php?p=15839#p15839
While I do agree with your assessment that many have attempted to build devices based on Tesla's patent's and have failed, there are others who have succeeded and have filed patents of their own....
Is that right? It may be true Fred, but simply hanging a statement like that out there without substantiation is not going to get us from Stage 1 to Stage 3. When I read simply that "others have succeeded and filed patents of their own," I need to see more. If patents have been filed, then the information is public, nobody's hiding any secrets. Can you cite the specific examples you are referring to here, please?
Fred then asked rhull:
Fred is restating the occasional assertion that "there is something missing" from Maxwell's equations. I'm familiar with that concept, having picked up on it from Tom Bearden's stuff. Hell, I cited Bearden in my talk in Las Vegas, and predicated much of my monologue on the same assumption -- that there is something missing from classical electrical theory, that Townsend Brown knew what it is, and that its dismissal by the mainstream scientific establishment constitutes precisely the kind of "ridicule" that Schopenauer speaks of.Have you read any works by Harold Aspden or the original James Clerk Maxwell Treatise on Electromagnetism BEFORE it was edited by Heaviside and Lorentz? I will admit that the mathematics Maxwell used is beyond my capabilities, but their omission is not necessarily because they were not pertinent. As for aether theory, are you a subscriber to the belief that Michelson-Morley proved it does not exist or do you feel that it was not properly understood by early physicists?
But still, Fred, where do you come by this assertion that "Maxwell....was edited by Heaviside and Lorentz"? I ask because such assertions are central to the case we are trying to make here: that modern electrical theory is incomplete, and that attempts to round it out have been deliberately suppressed. So, Fred, next time you make a statement like that, please, provide us with chapter and verse -- or at least hyperlinks -- so we can all know precisely whereof you speak.
Another interesting (if slightly tangential) assertion in another post from FM further illustrates the kind of challenge that awaits us:
FM No Static At All wrote:
viewtopic.php?p=15863#p15863
And there is also a paper by Tom Bearden who claims that the Soviets used scalar weapons against the US during the Cold War, specifically he mentioned an incident in the North Atlantic involving a nuclear submarine.
The paper that Fred is referring to here is no longer available on the Internet, as it was a few years ago. If you want to read it, you have to buy Bearden's book "Fer De Lance" which purports to be a briefing on "Soviet Scalar Electromagnetic Weapons" and makes the case that the Soviet Union used secret, "scalar EM" technologies to sink the USS Thresher in 1963 -- in response to the the US "victory" in the Cuban Missile. Fortunately I grabbed that text from the web and saved it:
To save face and prevent his immediate ouster, Khrushchev apparently conducted a startling two-strike demonstration of his new weapons as soon as they became operationally ready. On April 10, 1963 he detected and destroyed the U.S.S. Thresher nuclear submarine using a scalar EM howitzer in the underwater "continuous" mode. The next day he demonstrated the "pulsed" underwater destruction mode for nuclear subs by producing a giant underwater EM explosion underneath the ocean 100 miles north of Puerto Rico.
Here again, we see an example of a bold claim -- in this case, that the Soviet Union in the 1960s employed secret weaponry that was based in part on the esoteric theories of Nikola Tesla. But... is there any real (pardon the expression) proof of this?
Are we getting too accustomed to accepting bold claims without any material evidence... because the claims themselves somehow resonate with the irresistible tractor beams of what we want to believe?
There are lots of examples of this kind of (uncritical?) thinking pervasive in these forums. Claims of esoteric achievements that are offered without substantiation.
That's why I think Richard Hull has actually done us a great service in forcing us to take a critical look at some things we might wish we could take for granted.
If indeed the truth goes through the three stages that Schopenauer postulates, then Richard Hull has reminded us that the ideas that have drawn us all to this forum are still very much in the first stage of their evolution. However strong or objectionable his wording may be, he offers us plenty of rationale for why that is the case. He has reminded us how easy it is to dismiss -- as Schopenauer said, to "ridicule" -- ideas that flourish on the periphery of accepted knowledge.
Richard has shown us how challenging it will be to slip the thread that is Townsend Brown's life through the eye of the needle of ridicule and opposition it will necessarily have to go through before it will ever stand a chance of becoming "self evident."
Given the mercurial nature of our subject matter, Richard points out -- and I think rightly -- that there is very little of substance that can pull us through Stage 2, and certainly nothing that would deliver us to Stage 3. Some of our number may be working on gizmos, some may be working on the math, or steeping themselves in the literature. But still... where's the hard evidence?
Indulging Richard Hull's rigorous standard reminds us that we must redouble our efforts to be concise and specific. Statements that "others have succeeded" will no longer suffice without specific citations that we can follow to judge for ourselves the veracity of the claims.
As the discussion proceeded, I think natecull pitched the whole ball of wax into the wheel house when he posted:
And Fred drove it out of the park with his response:natecull wrote: viewtopic.php?p=15968#p15968
*If* we want to produce workable devices and achieve open validation for extraordinary claims - and perhaps after all is said we do not, perhaps that is too dangerous for the world and we'd rather hide it forever - then we will eventually need to take the scientific route of open, honest, freely replicated disclosure.
At last, we have arrived at the heart of the matter, the principle dilemma that underscores this entire undertaking.FM No Static At All wrote: viewtopic.php?p=15969#p15969
It would seem apparent that many of Dr. Brown's research and discoveries are hidden for that very reason. Perhaps he and the group that he was associated with had the foresight to see how benevolent use would be a great thing, yet in the "wrong" hands it could mean devastation on a global scale. And also it remains hidden because we have yet to learn how to get along and play nice as a global community.
We are essentially on a quest to find the the invisible seam that separates genuinely Great Secrets that are, as Fred says "hidden for that very reason" from the sort of self-delusion that is so easily propagated across an unrestricted forum like the Internet. There is a lot to what Richard says when he says "the Internet gave all the nutballs a forum." Our job, people, is to make absolutely damn f'ing sure that we, and Townsend Brown, are NEVER lumped in with the "nutballs." And if you think that's gonna be easy, then you took the wrong pill before you went down the rabbit hole.
And that's not even allowing for the other possibility, as natecull so brilliantly stated,
natecull wrote: viewtopic.php?p=15968#p15968
I try to keep an open mind, and that requires admitting that for all our stories, this may all be a rabbit hole with no rabbit.
That said, then, if there IS a rabbit in this hole, then this is what it looks like:
1) There are indeed infinite and freely accessible sources of energy in the universe. Gravity is one of them;
2) Those technologies and the knowledge they embody are "forbidden" because the species in question -- homo sapiens -- has not evolved yet to the point where it would not be tempted to gleefully explore the most destructive applications of that knowledge (and our continued devotion to "ancient tribal superstitions" does little to expedite matters - see "Ministry of Silly Hats," above);
3) there exists here on earth a "secret society" that, in concert with an unseen, "shifted dimensional intelligence" (SDI), keeps that information at arm's length -- holding, in other words, the "keys to the cosmic Ferrari." That, by the way, probably includes nuclear fusion;
4) Townsend Brown, as a young man having discovered the keys to this forbidden knowledge, was drawn into that secret society, conducted covert operations on behalf of its protective mission, and spent his life obfuscating and obscuring his true nature while leaving a trail of bread crumbs for that might lead a future generation to the knowledge he discovered and helped to conceal.
That is the idea. There, in four easy steps, is what this book -- these forums, this entire undertaking -- has been about.
But, when you read it stated just like that.... doesn't that sound.... ridiculous??
If it doesn't sound ridiculous, if you think we here are possessed of the vision necessary to see that what seems ridiculous in the present will be self evident in the future, then you must also see that it is incumbent up on to devise the means -- critical thinking, mostly -- that will drive these concepts from "ridicule" through the gauntlet of "violent opposition" to a place where they can be readily accepted as self evident" all along."
Now, my task in the course of re-writing and editing, is to make sure the result lands on the four notes I just outlined above. In its current rendering, I'm not certain that it does, but I think I can improve the likelihood of achieving that result with some judicious editing and rewriting.
But when it's done, the end result -- as Richard Hull has dutifully reminded us -- is going to be very easy to dismiss and, in Schopenauer's scenario, ridicule.
So when somebody like Richard Hull steps in and strips away the veil of mythos and legend that grows out of the kinds of mysteries that we're contemplating here, don't take offense. The challenge is legitimate. Don't shoot the messenger, for he is telling us how difficult it will be to separate those fringe ideas which are rightfully ridiculed -- the "nutball" stuff, as Richard so indelicately puts it -- from the Golden Thread that will somehow make it through the eye of the needle into the promised land of having been "self evident" all along.
Otherwise, we will be forced to face the conclusion, as natecull suggests, that there is in fact no rabbit in this hole.
--PS