The credit for the discovery of the E.V.P. is given to one Friedrich
Jurgenson, a Russian born singer, artist and documentary film producer, then
living in Molnbo, Sweden. It was the year 1959 and Jurgenson had taken his
portable tape recorder into a wood near his home, in order to record the
bird songs of the finch, that he required for a documentary sound track.
Later when he played the tape he was dismayed to hear, as well as the
chirpings of birds, a male voice that spoke in Norwegian and discussed the
nocturnal habits of birds. No one else had been present in the wood when
Jurgenson had made the recordings, so he could only assume that in some
manner his tape recorder had acted like a radio receiver picking up,
somewhere within its circuits, a normal radio transmission. This can happen
with all types of electrical equipment not intended for this purpose.
Jurgenson continued to make microphone recordings often in the garden of his
home and
later further strange voices were recorded. Some of these addressed him by
his name and others gave the names of deceased relatives and friends.
Probably the most decisive evidence on tape came when he discovered a female
voice that spoke to him in German. It said, "Friedel, my little Friedel, can
you hear me?". This he recognized as the voice of his mother, she had died
some four years previously. Convinced by now that he had established a
special link with the beyond, Jurgenson continued to make recordings and in
1964 he published a book entitled Voices from the Universe, in which
he described his views on this phenomenon.
It should be mentioned that as early as 1956 two American researchers
Aittila von Szalay, a direct voice medium, and his friend the psychic
researcher, Raymond Bayless, had succeeded in tape recording paranormal
voice effects and other sounds and this was reported by them to the American
Society of Psychical Research, but these reports created no interest or
feedback. Jurgenson's work on the other hand had created considerable
interest and was studied by Professor Dr Hans Bender, the well known
parapsychologist, of the Institute of Psychology at the University of
Freiburg, Germany. Meanwhile living in Germany, was the Latvian Philosopher
and Psychologist Dr Konstantin Raudive. He had read with great interest Jurgenson's book but felt the phenomenon
could possibly be explained through the researchers own unconscious mind. In
order to discover for himself the facts, Raudive arranged to go and study at
first hand, Jurgenson's mthods. He soon came to believe like Jurgenson, that
these were the voices of the dead and that a valuable new technique of
communication had been established between this and another dimension.
Wishing to isolate the voice phenomenon away from any mediumistic
qualities of Jurgenson, Raudive returned to Germany to set up his own
research project. In 1968, after recording some 70,000 voice effects,
Raudive published his own book in German called The Inaudible becomes
Audible. Three years after in 1971 this book was translated into English
and published under a new title Breakthrough by Colin Smythe. In it
Raudive described the unique characteristics of the voices and explained
recording techniques as well as giving the detailed analysis of hundreds of
voice examples. He devoted his life to this work until his sudden death in
1974.
It was not long before critics came forward intent on shattering
Raudive's work and theories. Some suggested that his interpretation of what
the voices said were mistaken and that all he really heard were voices of
normal radio transmissions. However, this in no way explains the thousands
of voices whose content clearly demonstrated they could not have come from
ordinary radio. For example many voices would address the researcher by his
name and indicate they could see him and knew what he was doing. Some voices
also gave messages that indicated powers of precognition. The actual voice
characteristics recorded indicated certain strange features. Many of the
sentences were composed of words taken from different languages, this is
known as polyglot. Sentence construction could also disregard all the laws
of grammar. Made-up words or neolisms might be used and some voices also
spoke in a sing-song rythmn and all these strange features convinced
researchers that these characteristics proved the voices could not come from
any normal radio broadcasts.
Today most researchers, and there are over two thousand in Germany and
large groups in America, Italy and other countries, now find that most of
the voices are recorded in their own language. The speed of the voices has
also in the last few years, abated. Sentence construction may now be
grammatically correct, it is as if some of the former obstacles have been
removed. Here in the UK unfortunately, parapsychologists as a group have
shown an amazing reluctance to have anything to do at all with the E.V.P. No
doubt they are aware that it poses awkward questions for them . . .
questions for which they have no answers, certainly within the framework of
their own field of study.
Although most people now accept the existence of E.S.P. and also
telepathy, many doubt the possibility of life after death. This is a complex
question that depends upon the exact nature of the relationship between the
mind and brain -- on this opinions differ. The evidence of OOBs (out of body
experiences) and NDEs (near death experiences) taken together with those of
other PSI research, suggests it is a possibility that has to be considered
seriously, even though it conflicts with established scientific thinking.
The evidence of the paranormal takes us beyond science to concepts of
reality in which may lay hidden the secrets of life itself.
The belief in the idea of life after death is as old as mankind
itself and certainly is an essential ingredient of most religious faiths. So
also is the idea held by some that we are able to communicate with the
spirits of the dead through a medium. Such beliefs are basic to the
teachings of spiritualists. Of course science has always rejected such ideas
as contrary to our knowledge of the mechanisms of mind and body and its
teachings are firmly set in a materialist concept of life. The
demonstrations of mediums have always been regarded as either fraudulent or
else as manifestations of the unconscious mind. The idea of actual spirit
influence is rejected. Therefore the discovery some years ago that apparent
spirit voices could manifest on electronic equipment did little to persuade
the convinced skeptic that something new and different had indeed taken
place. Yet in fact this is what had happened. Whereas previously we could
dismiss the inner voices heard only to the clairaudient mediums as
"imagination" or at best a production staged by the unconscious mind, now we
had evidence of voices actually recorded on tape, voices that could be heard
by anyone with good hearing and some of these voices claimed to be those of
the dead, apparently still living on some other plane of existence.
Transcendental Voices
Electronic Voice Phenomena
