Thomas Edison openly claimed in the 1920s that he was working on a spirit phone to communicate with the dead, hoping to apply his industrial inventiveness to the afterlife.

A closer look

Thomas Edison openly claimed in the 1920s that he was working on a spirit phone to communicate with the dead, hoping to apply his industrial inventiveness to the afterlife. The famous inventor reasoned that life was indestructible and composed of swarms of physical entities that retained memory after death, meaning they could theoretically trigger a highly sensitive scientific valve. Despite his ruthless reputation as a businessman who electrocuted animals to prove a point, Edison apparently felt the supernatural realm was an untapped market ripe for technological disruption. Unsurprisingly, the machine never manifested, and he left no blueprints, leading many to suspect he was just trolling journalists who kept asking him what he was going to invent next. It perfectly encapsulates the American capitalist dream: realizing you cannot take your money with you, but trying to patent a way to wire it back