Tesla looks out the door of his laboratory in Colorado Springs. 1899

All perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, or tenuity beyond conception, filling all space, the Akasha or luminiferous ether, which is acted upon by the life-giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles all things and phenomena. The primary substance, thrown into infinitesimal whirls of prodigious velocity, becomes gross matter; the force subsiding, the motion ceases and matter disappears, reverting to the primary substance. - Nikola Tesla

It is not easy to get rid of daily obligations. I almost canceled this letter, but it is also part of my obligations. And I like it very much.

Every music lover should know about the element ether.

The Traditions of the planet know 5 elements, sometimes presented under different aspects. The Hindu conceptions are in fact the same as the ancient Greeks (though some missed it as later the European scholastics) but they are relatively accessible.

The elements each have corresponding qualities, senses, organs, and faculties. They are manifested in the following order (as for any living being, and it is interesting to know that at the moment of death, these elements and senses are resorbed in the reverse order, thus making hearing the last sense to disappear):

Akasha, ether, with sound quality, sense of hearing and the faculty of speech

Vayu, air, with touch quality, sense of touch and the faculty to generate

Tejas, fire, with visual quality, the sense of sight and the faculty of excretion

Ap, water, with sapid quality, the sense of taste and the faculty of prehension

Prithvi, earth, with olfactory quality, sense of smell and the faculty of locomotion

My discovery is that the true organ of hearing is not the pavilion of the ear, but the portion of the ether which is contained in the inner ear, and which vibrates under the influence of a sound ripple; it is not the first wave nor the intermediate waves that make the sound heard, but the last wave that comes into contact with the organ of hearing.

Likewise, the true organ of sight is not the globe of the eye, nor the pupil, nor even the retina, but a luminous principle which resides in the eye, and which comes into communication with the light emanating from the eyes, external objects or reflected by them; the luminosity of the eye is not ordinarily visible, but it can become so in certain circumstances, especially in animals that see in the darkness of the night.

One could find the same kind of explanation for the other organs, but this is not the place here.

In the Hindu tradition, individuality is considered as constituted by the union of two sets of elements, designated by the terms nama and rupa, literally meaning "name" and "form", nama corresponding to the "essential" side of this individuality, and rupa to its "substantial" side;

The "name" of a being is also a sound (and a "number" in the Pythagorean sense), which therefore belongs to the auditory order, while the "form" belongs to the visual order.

The "eye" (or sight) is taken as a symbol of the sensory experience, while the "ear" (or hearing) is taken as a symbol of the "angelic" or intuitive intellect.

"Revelation", or the direct intuition of intelligible truths, is represented as "hearing".

The order of development of the elements shows that the auditory quality, relating to the ether, the first of the elements, is more "primordial" than the visual quality, which relates to fire. The meaning of the name (nama) thus relates directly to traditional ideas that have a truly fundamental character in Hindu doctrine, namely the "primordiality of sound" and that of the "perpetuity of the Veda".

And before the sound, there is silence, i.e. the "self", atma.