John Murray Spear and the New Motive Power

History

I was looking into the entry for John Murray Spear. He spent years attempting to construct an electrically powered Messiah called the New Motive Power, claiming that he received the blueprints from a ghostly association that included Benjamin Franklin. It is easy to dismiss this as a total fantasy. However, what if we consider the mindset of a 19th century spiritualist? If the line between electricity and spiritual energy was perceived as thin, then attempting to engineer a divine being might have seemed like a legitimate technical challenge. Could this have been viewed as a way to bridge the gap between science and faith using the cutting edge technology of the day? The page is a great starting point for anyone interested in the overlap of early electrical theory and mysticism. I would be curious to see links to other articles on spiritualist inventions from that period.

Source

The 19th-century minister who tried to build a robot Jesus