Thomas Edison’s Device to Communicate to the Dead

“I have been at work for some time building an apparatus to see if it is possible for personalities which have left this earth to communicate with us,  It would account, … for differences in moral character, … [and] behind…

“I have been at work for some time building an apparatus to see if it is possible for personalities which have left this earth to communicate with us,  It would account, … for differences in moral character, … [and] behind changes in a person’s personality in the course of his or her lifetime.

Introduction

Psionic Circles is all about the development of the self through all vehicles of psyche and technology where no subject is barred.  Therefore it is only fitting that we look at some of the technological advances surrounding communications of all types including the dead.  We first ask ourselves what does it mean to be dead?  Does it mean that we find ourselves in Heaven, Mecca, or perhaps Valhalla, if we are good, loyal, or valiant?   Or does it mean that our physical bodies are buried, or cremated and then laid to rest, never to be seen again?  Here you have your personal belief, or perhaps more appropriately identified as your soul’s religion.  And does any of these belief systems leave room for the living’s ability to communicate with the dead?  Lets take a small step back for a minute and identify why we have assumptions (beliefs) about death and the Afterlife Kingdom.

Throughout history, our greatest fear has always been death.  People live, they grow old and then they pass or and die.  It has been assumed that after death we can’t see them, associate with them, or speak with them.  Unless you believe in Spiritualism along with its movement and visit a Séance to find out how your late husband (Ivan) is doing, is he happy? Or your might communicate with your Great Grand-mother, Gilda,  about the location of some lost bars of gold that she meticulously hid from a would-be thief, only to have forgotten where she hid it at dementia’s age.   Perhaps, there is another way to communicate with your beloved…

Thomas Edison one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, Master of “Electronic Communication”, and one of our favorite Geniuses, sought to bring light into this inner dimension of existence, so that we can clearly see it face to face without fear.  And if we turned back the hands of time to the 1920s we have Edison busily working on perhaps a final project, how to communicate with the dead.  We say final because we don’t know for certain that this was his last project.   Why?

Because Edison was a private man for the most part.  He was an experimenter-inventor who relished contemplating engineering projects and developing them behind the closed walls of his laboratory.  It would be no secret then at the later part of his life he would turn his attention to the development of a system to communicate with those passed over.   Let’s take a look at some of his philosophies and beliefs and then have a look at his technique of building the device.  We will also look at some of the work of others who agreed with his theories and the technologies they used.

The Idea Behind The Ghost Phone

Alexander Graham Bell

After Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, a class of mediums called phone voyants claimed they could hear the voices of the dead crackling through telephone wires.  This prompted Bell to make a pact with his younger brother, Edward, that the first to die would attempt to contact the other. Edward died in 1867 at the age of 19.  And that set Bell on a trajectory to create an electronic means to communicate with the dead.

Sir Oliver Lodge

Later in the century, in 1894, Sir Lodge invented the coherer.  It was a device that was capable of intercepting wireless signals and he suggested that Mediums and spiritualist may be able to communicate with the spirits.

Guglielmo Marconi

Guglielmo Marconi used some of Sir Oliver’s work conducted the first successful wireless telegraphy experiments and then towards the end of his life, he, pursued the possibility of contact with the dead using his technology.  He also believed that he could create a device that could capture every word that was ever spoken throughout human history.  And believed the sound that they produced was not lost but existed eternally throughout the universe as sound waves.  By the way this is very much akin to the Akashic Records  the Great Hall where every thought act and deed is faithfully recorded for Judgement.

Tesla

In 1918, Nikola Tesla wrote about unusual sounds he heard on the radio.  He thought they might be otherworldly, but reserved his opinion otherworldly sources. “The sounds I am listening to every night at first appear to be human voices conversing back and forth in a language I cannot understand,” he wrote. “I find it difficult to imagine that I am actually hearing real voices from people not of this planet he said.  Whilst the scientist in him couldn’t call it spiritual all evidence would lead to an unnatural source.

It was then that he started looking for a scientific means to talk to ghosts. One that is empirical and can be duplicatable by anyone.  Tesla had a theory that the Personality after death will be able to affect matter and he believed that he would be able to prove it.  It was thought that his very admission of there being a Spiritual Realm that one could tap into meant that one could communication  with them and it spurred the belief by Spiritualists.

Thomas Edison

In 1920, Edison mused on Tesla’s findings, and some people say that he was actually competing with the younger scientist.  Edison created a hypothesis of how he could create a device that would facilitate spirit communications.  He theorized that “our personality hereafter will be able to affect matter”.  And when a person dies, the “swarms” would take form elsewhere, going on to function in some other environment or vessel. Further he asserted that “some swarms, he did most of the thinking and directing, much like bosses or leaders do among humans he thought. They are thought to be Kings Queens Barons and other titles.  “This theory would account for the fact that certain men and women have greater intellectuality, greater abilities, greater powers than others.” “It would account, too, for differences in moral character and lack thereof.”

Filling a need in society
Thomas Edison believed in psychic investigation, but he wasn’t blind in his believe.  His mind was bound by the rigors of the scientific process and believed that all communications to the spirit world should be performed with scientific apparatus using the same models that one uses in all other scientific fields.  Mediumship should be scientifically applied like pursuing chemistry, electronics or law.  How could his device prove that not only did ghosts exist but but also that they wanted to communicate, some of them?

Producing the Model for the Device

When Edison determined that he would develop a model he began with the known versus the unknown.  He pulled from the work of Albert Einstein’s theories of quantum entanglement and special relativity.  Edison believed that the conversion of mass into energy meant that spirits of people are coherent units of energy.    They do not stop existing as units of energy because their physical shell has died.  What type of devise will be able to detect and transmit and receive communications from these units of energy.

The Device

Edison produced a valve that amplified all forces of energy.  It worked much like a microphone amplifies several times the volume and range of the human voice.  The transducer within the microphone is the amplifier of the system.  It should be able to pick up any spirit communication relayed.

Conclusion

In truth we do not have an exact image of Edison’s “Spirit Phone“.  These is no mistake in believing that it was created and then destroyed.  Speaking with the spiritual world is an easy enough feat to accomplish, however, do we have the “right” to disturb them from their “heaven or hells”, probably not.   What is the Divine Law regarding forcing these beings to interact with us.  Do we create additional challenges for us, or we create additional challenges for them.  There is a veil between the worlds for a specific reason.  It is probably both a moral reason as well as practical reason.

Let the dead live their lives least they take us with them to their paradise or hell.

Thank you for reading. 

Last Updated:  July 31, 2021

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