A dictionary of Marshall McLuhan’s quotations

…when you go on the telephone, you are transformed, you become instantly available to your friend in Chicago, or he becomes here instantly to talk to us in Toronto, you can talk to Tokyo and to Chicago and to New York simultaneous and this gives you a sort of dimension of an angel, an almost preternatural being, a disembodied spirit. In the electric age man, becomes a kind of disembodied spirit, I don't think our institutions have any way of coping with this new dimension of man, the angelic discarnate man of the electric age, who is always in the presence of all the other men in the world.
“Father Peyton’s Family Theatre (1972)”, Televised interview by Father Patrick Peyton, Transcript, p 3
Year: 1972
Chapter: Discarnate
Compiled by William Kuhns
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan