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John Murray Spear, the Famous 19th Century Inventor Who Tried to Build a Robot God
A pious innovator believed he could combine science and religion to create an artificial being that transcended humans
Inventors see a need and they jump in to fill the void. The resulting applications can range from the practical to the outright bizarre. Somewhere within that spectrum is John Murray Spear, a 19th century Spiritualist inventor who worked for years to build an electric robot god that he called the New Motive Power.
Spear was a Universalist minister, abolitionist, and social reformer, who later in life became an influential figure in the Spiritualist movement. Born in Boston in 1804, he was named after John Murray, the founder of American Universalism. Accordingly, he was raised in the Universalist faith and studied theology under well-known Universalist minister, Hosea Ballou.
In 1830, Spear was ordained as a minister and took over a church in Barnstable, Massachusetts. Over the next 15 years, he served multiple Universalist congregations, and became heavily involved in social reform movements.
He emerged as a prominent voice in the abolitionist movement, alongside the likes of William Lloyd Garrison and Theodore Parker. Their work…
