Incredibly, the tortured spirit of the master inventor pleaded with the owner to destroy the device and to promise never to reveal its secret. Warned the disturbed soul of the departed genius: “If my machine should fall into the wrong hands it could alter the destiny of mankind. I am much wiser now, and I realize that only the most highly evolved souls should communicate between the worlds,” he said.
During the last years of his life, Edison was known to have been working on the device - a shocking development because he was a confirmed agnostic who had refused to publicly acknowledge the possibility of a personal god and an afterlife - until he reached 73.
Some historians believed his interest in communication with the dead may have been sparked by his close friendship with other great scientists and researchers of the time - especially Sir William Crookes and Sir Oliver Lodge, who were leading spiritualists.
Crookes was a great physicist whose work creating vacuums helped pave the way for Edison's invention of the incandescent electric light. The filament of the light could work only in a bulb which was almost airless.
Other historians have suggested that as one of the greatest scientists who ever lived, Edison may have also considered it his duty to investigate every theory in an effort to settle the controversy about an afterlife.
Whatever the reason, by 1920 Edison has turned his attention and superhuman talents firmly toward the invention of the incredible spirit machine. He became obsessed with contacting the dead, and told a friend: “If our personality survives, then it is strictly logical and scientific to assume that it retains memory, intellect and other knowledge that we acquire on this earth.”
Unlike Lodge and Crookes, who consulted mediums and spiritualists, Edison's logical brain convinced him that if it was possible to communicate with the dead - it would have to be by mechanical means. He had no time for mediums, table tipping and floating trumpets. “Certain methods now in use are so crude, so childish, and unscientific, it's amazing how so many rational people can take any stock of them,” he complained.
Edison jealously guarded information about his new project, and when he died in 1931 it was generally believed that the invention was unfinished. A small circle of inventors and parapsychologists learned that it was wrong - when a prototype of the spirit machine was found by a private collector of inventions and curiosities.
A wealthy eccentric from one of the Great Lakes states, the collector purchased the device with several other odds and ends after they had passed through several hands. This collector assumed that the spirit machine was an early model of the gramophone - one of Edison's early inventions - and set it aside.
“There were other items he was more interested in, and the machine was gradually forgotten. It was pushed back into a corner and set there for years until a few months ago he ran into it again while he was cleaning up a storage room,” he revealed.
One of those old time cylindrical records was mounted on the device and he was trying to get it to play - when he made the discovery.” He said his friend at first assumed the record was a blank. Then the raspy, barely audible message from Edison himself came through. “It was an absolutely chilling experience,” the source said.
“He's been an admirer of Edison all his life and knew everything about him. My friend knew immediately that it was the spirit machine - and that he was in contact with Edison himself.” Unfortunately, Edison's voice was quickly replaced by an eerie babble of voices from other spirits, anxious to contact loved ones or to engage in small talk.
The onset of disturbing world events in the late '30s contributed mainly in the disappearance of the incredible machine. Its whereabouts unknown, though some people who had known of its capability are still on the forefront of tracking down its present owner, perhaps to have a better glimpse of the afterlife.
