Humanity has always lived with invisible forces—from gravity to the wind—but the harnessing of electromagnetism, the telegraph, and later radio waves in the late 19th and early 20th centuries represented a seismic shift. For the first time, humans could manipulate an invisible, poorly understood force to send energy and information instantly across oceans.
This technological leap coincided with one of the biggest supernatural movements in history: Spiritualism. Far from replacing the paranormal with cold logic, the new science of telecommunications provided a fresh vocabulary and a veneer of scientific plausibility for those trying to communicate with the dead. If an invisible telegraph wire could transmit a message from London to New York, why couldn't an invisible “spiritual wire” transmit a message from the afterlife?
The Spiritual Telegraph
The modern Spiritualist movement is widely considered to have begun in 1848 in Hydesville, New York, with the Fox sisters. Four years after Samuel Morse publicly demonstrated the electric telegraph, these sisters claimed to communicate with a spirit haunting their home through a series of coded knocks.
The language used to describe this phenomenon was not accidental. Newspapers and supporters referred to the sisters' connection as a “telegraphic line” to the beyond. Spiritualists actively leaned into the technological metaphors of the day to make their claims sound credible. Seances soon began incorporating "spiritual batteries," which were essentially magnetized cords with ends immersed in buckets of copper and zinc water, mimicking early electrical equipment.
The Phonograph and the Preservation of the Dead
As the century progressed, new devices like the phonograph allowed humanity to capture and replay the human voice. This technology felt inherently magical at the time. It allowed the living to hear the voices of those who had already passed away, preserving their presence in a physical medium. If a machine could conquer the silence of death, people naturally wondered what other limits it could bypass.
There are historical accounts showing that Thomas Edison—who gave the world the phonograph and practical incandescent light—announced his intention in 1920 to create a spirit communication device. While Edison may never have actually built a working "spirit telephone," the idea was taken seriously enough that others, like F.R. Melton in 1921, attempted to build one using wireless technology, amplifying valves, and sensitive headsets.
The "Medium" and the Ether
Interestingly, the intersection of physics and the paranormal extended to the highest levels of academia. As scientists like James Clerk Maxwell developed the classical theory of electromagnetism, they struggled to understand how these forces traveled through empty space. They theorized the existence of a "luminiferous ether"—an invisible, all-encompassing substance that acted as a carrier for electromagnetic waves.
By an odd coincidence of vocabulary, both early physicists and Spiritualists relied on a "medium" to explain their invisible phenomena. In physics, it was the ether; in Spiritualism, it was a person uniquely sensitive to the spirit realm. Prominent scientists like physicist Sir Oliver Lodge were entirely open to spiritualist phenomena, publishing books about contacting his deceased son and serving as the president of the Society for Psychical Research.
Scientific Pushback
Not every scientist was convinced by the "spiritual telegraph," and many actively tried to falsify the claims using simple logic. In 1852, Michael Faraday, the pioneer of electromagnetism, investigated the popular séance practice of "table tipping". He created a simple experiment involving layers of cardboard bound together. If a spirit was moving the table from underneath, the bottom layers would move first; if the human participants were unconsciously pushing it, the top layers would slide first. Faraday demonstrated that the movement came entirely from the living participants, an effect of involuntary muscle movement.
When it comes to the ultimate question of whether electricity or telecommunications can actually connect with the supernatural, we simply have to say "I don't know." There remains no scientific evidence that they can. However, the historical record is clear: rather than destroying belief in the paranormal, the rise of invisible electronic forces fueled the imagination of the public and built the foundation for how society thinks about the afterlife today.
Sources:
- Telecommunications and the occult | National Science and Media Museum
- Spiritualism and Electromagnetism | MathPages
- Ghost Hunting in the 19th Century | Science History Institute
- The psychology of spiritualism: science and seances | The Guardian
- The Haunted Telegraph. Telecommunications and the Supernatural | OTE Museum
- The Birth of Spiritualism | History Today