Episode Details

Tesla once wrote that he hoped to live long enough to see "Bulwer's dream realized." Turns out that is a real reference, and Matt Ehret spends Part 2 unpacking exactly what it means. The dream belongs to Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, a 19th century novelist whose fictional tale of a hidden super race wielding a mysterious energy called Vril went on to directly shape Madame Blavatsky's Theosophy, Aleister Crowley's magical orders, the Nazi Thule Society, and H.G. Wells' Martian invasion thesis. Ehret traces Tesla's tele-automaton back to this same lineage of machine worship, then follows Bulwer-Lytton's own bloodline straight to his son Robert, the British Viceroy of India whose policies are tied to one of history's deadliest famines. Along the way: Blavatsky's surprisingly candid praise of Lucifer, the real story behind the founding of the India Congress Party, and why Isaac Newton might not have discovered quite as much as advertised.