Episode Details

Think Tesla was a persecuted genius who just wanted to give the world free energy? Matt Ehret would like a word. In Part 1 of this deep dive, he traces Tesla's closest friendship to George Sylvester Virek, Hitler's official Washington spokesman, Aleister Crowley disciple, and organizer of the 1939 Madison Square Garden Nazi rally. Along the way Ehret documents Tesla's enthusiastic support for mandatory eugenics, his belief that humans are soulless automatons with no free will, his claim to have received radio signals from Martians, and his tele-automaton demos that turned out to be a guy behind a curtain with a remote control. The Wardenclyffe Tower? Blown up by US Naval Intelligence for transmitting secrets to Germany. The beloved persecuted visionary story starts looking considerably less heroic from here.