The first attempts to create machines for communicating with otherworldly entities, called spirits for simplicity, appeared only in the middle of the 18th century.
The reason for this was the spiritualistic experiments of Allan Kardek, who collected a lot of information, which he subsequently displayed in several of his books. However, Kardek did not use any devices. His only "tool" were mediums, that is, people with special extrasensory abilities, with the help of which Kardek and came out "in contact."
The first experiments were falsifications
The earliest ghost-calling machines were for entertainment. In fact, they did not evoke spirits, but only created such an illusion, therefore they were used on the stage. However, this was not reported to anyone. And people went to the show, sincerely believing that they would be shown the true representatives
the afterlife. In a similar way, the current illusionist David Copperfield "powder" the brains of the townsfolk, demonstrating various miracles, while not giving any comments …
The most successful in "spell" rides was the Belgian optician Etienne Gaspard Robertson, who in the 1890s, using mirrors, lenses and other devices, created an imitation of perfumes appearing on the scene. The spectacle was so believable that some of the spectators fainted or shook with fear …
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In the middle of the 19th century, the "display of ghosts" reached even greater perfection and sophistication, although here, as in the previous case, it is exclusively about focus and mystification. John Henry Pepper, a professor of chemistry from London, succeeded. In this case, the role of the "ghost" was played by a man hidden under the stage, whose moving image was projected onto the stage with the help of a system of mirrors and light, creating a completely plausible image of the appearance or disappearance of a "spirit". The system was patented by the creator and later, not without success, was used in theatrical performances and in various attractions around the world.
Deus ex machina
Which means "God from the car" in Latin. In ancient theater, this was the name of a confused situation that was resolved through the invasion of a god appearing on the stage with the help of a mechanical device. Subsequently, this characterized the goal of true spiritualists: to create a device not for profanation, but for the true evocation of spirits. This kind of optimistic idea emerged against the background of the appearance of the first steam engines, electricity and internal combustion engines. It was believed that machines can replace humans in literally everything, including the spiritual realm …
As you know, even the great Leonardo da Vinci, who created many apparatus and mechanical devices, did not even make the slightest attempt to enter the afterlife. This was not done by subsequent mechanics up to the era of development of capitalism, with its inquisitive and often cynical introduction into all sections of human life, including the spiritual field …
It was so until, in 1853, the scientist and inventor from the USA Robert Haar created a machine for receiving information from the world of spirits, which he gave the name "spiritoscope". The design of the device turned out to be quite simple. It was based on a thin plate, freely rotating around a horizontal axis, from which an arrow was pointing to the letters of the Latin alphabet. However, the device did not work by itself. This required, as in Kardek's experiments, a medium. Around the same time, another device for fortune-telling appeared - the Oya board …
Oya board
A “talking board”, “witchcraft board” or “Ouija board” is an Ouija board with letters of the alphabet, numbers from 1 to 10, and the words “yes” and “no” inscribed on it. It was proposed in the 19th century by the American I. Reiche. It is believed that its inventor, who possesses the abilities of a medium, this word was instilled in a spiritualistic seance by spirits and meant “luck” in translation from ancient Egyptian. Another assumption is that Ouija is a combination of words, French oui and German ja, meaning yes.
Like many other methods, this version of the spell of spirits is quite dangerous and it can be carried out extremely carefully for a person of great psychic power, for the reason that not only good spirits that are positively disposed towards people are invoked, but also evil and misanthropic spirits. There are other safety rules when coming into contact with spirits, which are mentioned when familiarizing with the method of using the board.
In its most general presentation, the board is a large sheet of thick paper, plywood or cardboard, on which the alphabet, the answers "yes" and "no", as well as symbolic images of the Moon and the Sun are depicted in the language of the participants. In addition, there should be a so-called questionnaire, which is a stylized image of a heart with hinged wheels like the wheels of an office chair.
Participants in the experiment lightly touch the edges of the questionnaire with their fingers and, after asking the question, do not remove their hands and do not resist the movement of the questionnaire. As a rule, several people participate in the session, and instead of the questionnaire described above, an ordinary saucer is sometimes used, which is turned upside down, and an arrow is drawn on one side, which, like the tip of a standard questionnaire, points to the letters that form the words of the spirit's answer.
The arrogant attempts of famous inventors
In 1920, Thomas Alva Edison announced his intention to create a machine for communicating with the dead, and in 1941, the spirit of this famous inventor was summoned at a séance and told where the drawings of his unfinished work were. The drawing was indeed found, and two American researchers of psi-phenomena meticulously reproduced this apparatus. However, the result was negative.
A similar fiasco befell Guglielmo Marconi, who in 1937 tried to create an apparatus for radio communication with spirits. Failures in conjuring spirits with the help of mechanical devices were caused, as further experience shows, not by design flaws or technical mediocrity of the inventors, but only by the latter's lack of mediumistic or, in modern terms, extrasensory abilities.
And, conversely, the presence of at least a minimal psychic gift led to the fact that the most primitive constructions in the presence of a medium turned out to be highly effective. This is evidenced not only by the experience of Robert Haar, by the way, which does not give positive results for all participants, but also by the use of such a simple device as the Oya board.
Instrumental transcommunication
From (lat. Trans - through, through, for + communication - making it common, connecting, communicating) - contacts with the dead who are in the subtle world, using modern electronic and digital technology. Today tape recorders, televisions, computers, radios, telephones and other technical innovations are used for this, with the help of which they receive information "from there" in the form of voices, moving images or letter texts.
Transcommunication can be carried out accidentally and even unexpectedly for a person with the inclinations of a medium, but it can also be carried out by purposefully trained specialists. Both spontaneous and directed transcommunication are rare. Not all researchers can boast that they really had a conscious contact with the world of the dead, and this depends not so much on their desire and perseverance as on the mediumistic ability, which is innate and only then is honed with special exercises …
It is believed that one of the first contacts with otherworldly entities was accidentally received by the Catholic priest Gemelli in the fall of 1952, recording Gregororean chants on a primitive tape recorder. The wire in the tape recorder, used before the magnetic tape used later, was constantly breaking, which infuriated Gemelli. Another would simply swear in such a situation, but the pious priest looked up, read a prayer and mentally asked his deceased father to come to his aid.
To his surprise, the wire no longer broke, and a voice with familiar intonations was recorded on the tape recorder: “Of course, I will help you. I am always near". The monk repeated the experiment, and this time the same voice said: “Zukchini, this is true. Don't you understand that it is me? " Gemelli was shocked - after all, no one else knew the nickname that his loving father called him in childhood. However, this experience of Gemelli was kept secret by him, and was made public, according to the will of the monk, only in 1990, after his death …
Apparently because of this, the Swedish film director Friedrich Jurgenson is considered the discoverer of the phenomenon of electronic voices, who devoted it to the study and propaganda for the rest of his life, who also accidentally recorded the voice of his late mother on a tape recorder in 1959.
Its successor is the Latvian psychologist Konstantin Raudiv, who in the mid-60s of the last century, using a new and very sensitive equipment for that time, recorded 70,000 (!) Voices from the other world. Among them were such eminent dead as Churchill, Tolstoy, Hitler, Stalin and John F. Kennedy …
In the following years, many followers and epigones of instrumental transcommunication appeared. Some did it out of idle curiosity, while in other cases they did it out of self-interest, for example, in order to find out the winning lottery number or indicate which horse is better to bet on in races. But let's say right away that this kind of interest, reduced to ordinary fortune-telling, almost never gave the correct result.
The reason is that vicious spirits came into contact, who also wanted to have fun, or the participants took the fruits of their own imagination for the correct result. But there was also a group of true researchers of this phenomenon who united in communities, set up experiments and shared the results with colleagues.
What we learned about the subtle world through transcommunication
The subtle world - the world of spirits or the world of the dead - in the form in which it appears to people exploring it, is only a projection onto the human mentality. We see the afterlife the way the human mind wants and can see it, based on the templates that are given to us through education and training. That is why the world of the dead differs both in details and in the most general concepts among different researchers. At the same time, the main thing that can be said about the other world is that it exists, but it is devoid of the specifics we are used to in definitions.
Its extraordinary mobility and plasticity, in which it is impossible to express it in the forms, colors and sounds familiar to us once and for all, is its main property. The fact that spirits sometimes appear to us is only the result of a combination of some inaccessible to our understanding of their internal component and special properties of the human psyche.
The spirits themselves appearing during the contact, not without reason, declare that the world of shadows is not theirs, but our world, which is an inert continuation of the subtle world, which is a true reality.
At the same time, devices for summoning spirits are nothing more than symbols that make it easier for the mind of the medium to tune in to contact with the world of the dead, and the complexity of the device itself has almost no significance for the quality of the evocation itself.