This article aims to provide elements to re-flect on the concept of institutional torture or that derived from practices of political violence. Particularly, the rela-tionship between torture and electricity is problematized as a substantial component of the sophistication of dic-tatorial knowledge and an important part of the world's criminal systems to this day. In this way, the paradoxical expressions of electric torture are addressed, taking as a paradigmatic case the Chilean dictatorial experience and especially the repression developed by the terrorist orga-nization of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) between 1914 and 1911. Using data from various discipli-nary fields, the testimony of survivors and general con-textual aspects, it is intended to test the hypothesis that electric torture presents itself as a paradox of violence, in specific senses: humanized technique and barbarism; safety and permanence; incarnation and liberation; daily ontologies and ontologies limit. The figure of paradox is thus installed, as a reflexive resource that allows us to approach thinking (the unthinkable) of the horror that shaped this kind of experience.