The Box at the End of the World: Homespun Efforts to Contact the Spirit World

The desire and models for direct, two-way contact with the otherworld is likely as old as we human beings. Anciently, there are ancestor cults, mushroom cults, shamanistic societies and the like. More historically recently, there are various forms and manners of occultism, Spiritualism, and very recently, the pop-culture phenomenon of ghost hunting.

In another article, Gender, Heroes, andthe Social Dynamics of Ghost Hunting, I pointed out the quite masculine, almost steroidal aura within this developing paradigm of neo-spiritualism that is ghost hunting. The terminologies, accoutrements, and overall effect are very militia-derived, and in general, I argue that the ghost hunt can be viewed as a postmodern, interactive version of the classic androcentric Hero Journey myth.

Within this ghost hunting, paranormal world, there is a quickly developing trend. Many individuals and groups are developing 'boxes'-that is, technological communication devices for spirit contact. This general idea of building devices for two-way spirit contact is certainly far from new. Many such techno devices have been constructed, using whatever array of machinery has been available, beginning in the middle of the 19^th century with photography, then later with phonographs, electricity, radio, vacuum tubes, television, computers, etc.

Using combinations, manipulations, modulations, and variations of all these devices, sometimes even with the intervention of spirit helpers, there have been some famous spirit machines developed. Notably, there is Thomas Edison's never completed spirit device of the early 20^th century, and later, Metascience Foundation's controversial Spiricom high strangeness in the 1980s.

And now, with what is perhaps the father of the modern spirit communication machine, there is "Frank's Box." The machine was developed by an apparently eccentric Frank Sumption, and used extensively by paranormalist Christopher Moon.