Thomas Edison is typically portrayed as the archetypal "modern man of science," a figure as immersed in the revolutionary beliefs of the scientific age as he was immersed in the vision of his genius. As the holder of one thousand and ninety-three patents, one might be tempted to believe that Edison was a hard-nosed man of science, utterly dedicated to the cold, hard truths of technology. And yet the "Wizard of Menlo Park" not only had a passion for science and electricity, he also expressed a marked fascination with the realm of the paranormal.
Significantly influenced by the Spiritualist movement, which had started in the 1800s but enjoyed a revival right after World War I, Edison believed in something he designated "life units." These life units were the indestructible constituent parts of the soul. When a man's body died and decayed, these particles simply rearranged themselves, and the intelligence of the man lived on. In Edison's schema, the so-called "spirit world" was nothing more than the staging ground where all these indestructible units waited. It was all around us, but it existed outside of the reach of our gross physical perceptions — but he felt that a machine could be produced that was finely tuned enough to pick up communications from the life units floating around us.
In October 1920, American Magazine ran an article declaring that Edison was working just such an invention — a machine that would enable him to communicate with ghosts. Yes, boys and girls, the father of the phonograph and the lightbulb was also, essentially, the father of the very concept of EVP.
In the same month, Austin Lescarbouras of the Scientific American, interviewed Edison on the topic of life after death. Edison is quoted as saying, "I don't claim that our personalities pass onto another existence ... But I do claim that it is possible to construct an apparatus which will be so delicate that if there are personalities in another existence who wish to get in touch with us... this apparatus will at least give them a better opportunity."
Edison labored in secret on the machine in the last years of his life. No one ever saw it, although the magician Joseph Dunniger claimed to have been shown a prototype. Perhaps the Great Inventor of the 20th Century instinctively knew that he was racing against time in the construction of his apparatus. Perhaps he held out hope that his final invention would allow others to reach out to him across the void, enabling him to continue to enrich our lives with his genius. Whatever the case, Edison died before completing his spirit-communication machine. Although Edison's journals and papers talk of his work on the machine, the actual plans for the apparatus, highly sought-after, were never found.
On an even eerier note, at the moment of Edison's death, it is reported that each and every clock in his house stopped at precisely the same time. Perhaps the spirits of the machines themselves were making an effort to mourn the passing of the man who had brought so many of their technological brethren to life.
