The Haunted Grid: Nature, Electricity, and Indian Spirits in the American Metaphysical Tradition.

The frequent pairing of electrical machines and Native American spirits in nineteenth-century Spiritualism was a topic first addressed by Werner Sollors in a 1983 article for American Quarterly. Building on Sollors’ observations, this article suggests that the juxtaposition of machines and Indian spirits reflects an alchemical worldview, one that framed Spiritualist conceptions of materiality and spiritual progression. As an industrializing America transformed nature into a modern infrastructure, Andrew Jackson Davis and John Murray Spear spiritualized technology, likening electricity and electrical machines to the rarefied matter of the spirit world. By the same alchemical logic, the rarefication of an Indian-inscribed nature was thought to yield Native American spirits, who circulated in and through the nation's new machines. This narrative has continued to shape the metaphysical imaginary, even as the popularity of Spiritualism has declined, reflecting a sustained meditation on the ultimate meaning of industrialization in America. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]