Edison’s “Necrophone”
London, “Dark secrets” exhibition, November 2025.
The so-called Necrophone was more a speculative idea attributed to the famous inventor than an actual patented invention. It originated from an interview Thomas Edison gave in The American Magazine in 1920, in which he discussed the possibility of building a device to communicate with the dead.
Edison explained his belief that life after death might take the form of energy or a vital force persisting beyond physical death. Just as sound and voice could be recorded and reproduced with the phonograph, he suggested it might be possible to create an instrument sensitive enough to detect the “life units” that, in his view, composed the soul.
Edison’s “Necrophone”
London, “Dark secrets” exhibition, November 2025.
The so-called Necrophone was more a speculative idea attributed to the famous inventor than an actual patented invention. It originated from an interview Thomas Edison gave in The American Magazine in 1920, in which he discussed the possibility of building a device to communicate with the dead.
Edison explained his belief that life after death might take the form of energy or a vital force persisting beyond physical death. Just as sound and voice could be recorded and reproduced with the phonograph, he suggested it might be possible to create an instrument sensitive enough to detect the “life units” that, in his view, composed the soul.