The Strange Birth of the Jesus Machine

When Benjamin Franklin's Ghost Designed a Machine and the strange story of The Underwater Orchestra.

What happens when people become convinced they can build a messiah out of magnets, copper, and electricity? In this episode of *The Box of Oddities, Kat and JG dive into one of the strangest forgotten chapters in American history: the bizarre true story of John Murray Spear's "New Motive Power," an electrical machine that followers believed would be born* rather than switched on. Guided by séances, messages from the spirits of Benjamin Franklin and other historical figures, and a ceremony that mimicked childbirth, Spear attempted to create a living mechanical redeemer decades before robots, computers, or artificial intelligence existed. It's an astonishing tale of Spiritualism, Victorian science, religious belief, and humanity's enduring obsession with creating life.

Then the conversation heads beneath the waves to one of the world's most unusual festivals. Every year, divers descend on *Looe Key Reef in the Florida Keys for the Lower Keys Underwater Music Festival*, where ocean-themed music is broadcast underwater while mermaids, pirates, and "fish musicians" celebrate one of North America's most important coral reefs. Beneath the quirky spectacle lies an inspiring story about coral conservation, marine biology, and the creative ways people are fighting to protect one of Earth's most fragile ecosystems.

From electrical messiahs and nineteenth-century spiritualists to underwater concerts and living coral cities, this episode explores two extraordinary stories that prove reality is often stranger than fiction.

If you love weird history, forgotten mysteries, unusual science, bizarre true stories, eccentric inventors, and curious facts from around the world, subscribe to *The Box of Oddities* and keep flying your freak flag. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices