Tesla Doctrine Story
What is Tesla Doctrine?
Tesla left behind the blueprint of a program he never fully completed.
Tesla Doctrine refers to the collection of thoughts and ideas expressed by Nikola Tesla in his numerous letters, interviews, articles, and lectures—mostly from the later years of his life. In these, he shared original and profound reflections on humanity’s fate in the modern world, addressing its challenges and proposing solutions that remain relevant today. Although there is evidence that Tesla intended to synthesize his vast legacy of approximately 160,000 documents, he passed away at 87 without completing this task. It was left to researchers after his death to compile and interpret his work based on their knowledge and judgment. The core premise of Tesla’s Doctrine is that his ideas about the world’s destiny and the interplay between human society and technology were not random musings but stemmed from a systematic worldview, which he only hinted at during his lifetime without fully articulating.
Mechanical Laws and Social Phenomena Tesla didn’t predict the future—he analyzed possibilities.
While many believe Tesla arrived at insights about the future of human society through intuitive visions, he was, in fact, a pioneer of what could be called social physics, studying trends to understand societal development. To analyze the trajectory of humanity, Tesla applied a mechanical theory, viewing every social phenomenon, like physical motion, as governed by universal laws. These laws suggest that all movement involves a mass in motion, forces driving it, and forces resisting it. Similarly, social or spiritual movements can be understood in terms of masses, forces, energies, and inertia.
Tesla on His Method of Studying Social Phenomena.
In his 1914 article, “Science and Discovery Are the Great Forces That Will End War,” Tesla wrote:
’’Prophesying is an ungrateful occupation, but scientific forecasting is a useful form of ‘endeavor and would be much more such if human nature were not so prone to leave advice and lesson unheeded. Having made a careful study of the situation, an expert can predict certain happenings with perfect confidence.’’
Tesla on His Method of Studying Social Phenomena.
In his 1914 article, “Science and Discovery Are the Great Forces That Will End War,” Tesla wrote:
’’Prophesying is an ungrateful occupation, but scientific forecasting is a useful form of ‘endeavor and would be much more such if human nature were not so prone to leave advice and lesson unheeded. Having made a careful study of the situation, an expert can predict certain happenings with perfect confidence.’’
Three Levels of Tesla’s Doctrine Reflections on the value system of modern society.
Tesla’s careful study involved analyzing societal trends using his extraordinary talents: a photographic memory, fluency in major Western languages, refined intuition, and the ability to rapidly process data gathered from the well-equipped New York Public Library. This explains the astonishing accuracy with which he described aspects of a distant future—our present world—in interviews and articles. He foresaw a globally connected humanity, pocket-sized communication devices, the transmission of images and sounds across the planet, high-speed air travel, wars fought with automated drones and unmanned vehicles, and many other technological marvels we witness today.
Tesla’s Doctrine can be divided into three levels:
The First Level: His vivid descriptions of the visible culture of future society, both as he predicted it would be and as he ideally envisioned it.
The Second Level: His reflections on the value system underlying human actions and events, through which he assessed the direction of human society. This forms the core of Tesla’s ’’weltanschauung’’ (worldview).
The Third Level: The deepest and most implicit, encompassing his mechanical understanding of the universe and humanity, alongside his mystical and religious sentiments.
The second level is particularly compelling, as it reveals Tesla’s thoughts on the values driving human behavior and shaping events. In a 1928 letter to his nephew Nikola Trbojević, Tesla criticized selfish individuals who “only think of their own skin,” stating: “It is very difficult to find a person who possesses all three qualities: knowledge, righteousness, selflessness.” Wealth and fame, central to the Protestant ethos of America, were not foreign to Tesla but were not acceptable at any cost. In 1935, he wrote to a friend: “I do not like the idea of advancing my discoveries with money obtained through fascist methods against the will of the people.” Further insight into Tesla’s emphasis on knowledge in the context of justice and selflessness comes from a 1919 conversation with Vladislav Savić, where he explained his concept of human greatness.
Tesla’s Pessimism What will the future world look like?
“Looking into the distant future I see a community very much like that of bees with all racial and national distinctions extinguished with one language, with one sex, the male, virtually eliminated and every individual working furiously to the limit of its power…It is a horrible world to contemplate, heartless and cold without ideals, one from which the hardest human being of the present day would shrink”.
Elements of Tesla’s Doctrine Key thoughts on social, spiritual, and moral challenges.
The main elements of Tesla’s Doctrine include the following principles:
- The wealthy portion of humanity has achieved sufficient comfort, and further energy should not be spent on enhancing the luxury of a rich minority but on changing the habits of the majority to enable balanced development of the human race.
- Humanity must preserve ideals as a counterbalance to materialistic pursuits.
- The core challenges facing humanity can be summed up in three words: food, peace, and work.
- The qualities modern individuals should strive for are knowledge, justice, and selflessness.
A particularly noteworthy undated document, found in the archives of the Nikola Tesla Museum, typed on paper used by Tesla’s secretaries in the 1920s, contains his responses to various journalists’ questions, ranging from the role of technology in societal development to the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations.
Core Thesis of Tesla’s Doctrine Addressing humanity’s social, moral, and spiritual challenges in parallel.
Tesla stated:
“We are living in an age of unprecedented technical achievement leading to a more and more complete mastery of the forces of nature and annihilation of time and space. But this development, while contributing to our comfort, convenience and safety of existence, is not in the direction of true culture and enlightenment. On the contrary, it is destructive of ideals…The real cause for the fall of nations is the inability of mankind to solve the social, moral and spiritual problems. So long as the struggle for existence is such that only the fittest can survive, there is a healthy development under the sway of individualism. When reaction sets in the individual is eliminated, original effort and initiative suppressed and the creative faculties impaired, the race gradually lapses into savagery and perishes. A similar end threatens our present civilization.”
Tesla believed change toward a truly sustainable civilization was possible. He saw the transformation of habits as the path to a stable society. In a 1941 letter to the New York Vegetarian Society, he wrote:
“Science has already perfected the material benefits of this civilization to a point where more and more of its efforts should be concentrated upon elevating the personal lives and natural habits of the people to a higher level, so that they may enjoy fully the benefits of our mechanical progress.”
In this stable future society, moderation and the cultivation of ideals would be key values defining humanity:
’’Moderate exercise, insuring the right balance between mind and body, and the highest efficiency of performance, is, of course, a prime requirement…But I do not think that rigorous measures of suppression of habits followed through many generations are commendable. It is wiser to preach moderation than abstinence.
… We all must have an ideal to govern our conduct and insure contentment, but it is immaterial whether it be oneof creed, art, science or anything else, so long as it fulfills the function of a dematerializing force.’’
Tesla’s Value System in Nine key words.
Spirituality, morality, and materiality form a unified whole that must be nurtured together for humanity’s true progress. Knowledge, justice, and selflessness make individuals integral parts of such a society, while light, beauty, and compassion are the ideals that provide emotional fulfillment and balance our rational pursuits.
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