Monday, January 26, 2009

Paranormal & Fortean : EVPs & The Spirit World Part Four

By the time Spiricom had ceased to function the interest in EVP was worldwide. Groups interested in the subject had started up in many nations. In Britain George Gilbert Bonner, a psychologist and artist and Raymond Cass, a former hearing-aid consultant used reel to reel recorders and battery radio tuned to 'white noise' or static, to act as a medium for the voices. In 1972 Bonner asked into his microphone: "Can anyone hear me?" He was not expecting an answer, but he got one. A reply of "Yes" could be heard coming through the background static. During the next twenty-two years Bonner recorded more than 50,000 voices. It had taken him five years of practice to be able to perfect a listening technique that allowed him to hear voices, as they sometimes registered only the tiniest prescence. Even with the massive amount of voices Gilbert Bonner had archived over the years, along with research and theories as to their origin, and even their technical characteristics, Bonner died in 1997 without being able to interest fellow scientists in continuing his resarch. Ray Cass, who died in 2002, had said, "There was great enthusiasm at that time, and many experimenters, but as it became clear that weeks or months of effort was necessary before a single voice came through, most people dropped out. Only a few survived--George Bonner and myself, amongst five or six others. We eventually assembled a body of objective voices, which clinched the case. However, the Establishment ignored the evidence. The Society for Psychical Research was frosty; the Spiritualists relied on mediumship, so the EVP people were pretty isolated."

Some researchers tried to find different ways of finding voices. The traditional way of recording and playing back tapes could be very time consuming. Many times, EVP voices were faint or hard to pick out from the background static. In 1982, Hans Otto Koenig, performed a supervised experiment on live television, which used his 'field generators' that used ultrasound signals in the kilohertz range to 'boost' the 'live' voices which came through an intricate electronic system. Koenig's experiment was presented by a major European network, RTL and its commentator Rainer Holbe. Holbe had also done other things to make EVP known to European audiences. Hans Koenig's ultrasound instrument was erected under the supervision of the station's engineers. It was then turned on. After a matter of just seconds, a clear voice said: "Otto Koenig makes wireless with the dead." The engineers and supervisors of the experiment stated there was no evidence of fraud.

I think EVP and the study of it is fascinating. The interest in the phenomena is worldwide and continues to grow. Instrumental Transcommunication (ITC) is a term that is used to describe not only EVP, but other paranormal phenomena involved with electronic devices; from video recordings, phone calls 'from the dead' and even what some feel are messages from the afterlife left on personal computers. In the next post I would like to sum up my own thoughts on EVP and again ask people who read this blog their feelings about the subject and also have an example of an EVP recording. Thanks again for all of the thoughtful and intelligent comments! Peace and be well to anyone stopping by!

8 comments:

Alex Robinson said...

Hi Devin
My wild theory is that our senses have been tampered with in some way, so that we do not see or here what we should be able to.
I'm positive that we are meant to be able to see the emotional effects that we & others have in & on this world & perhaps also we are meant to be able to hear the voices of those who died, in particular those with whom we had a connection.

I feel all we have left to use are our feelings & even these are undermined by such things as the requirement of 'scientific proof.' Not that proof is a bad thing but this world is way to messy 7 strange to allow itself to be neatly catalogued into proven compartments.

Devin said...

as always so great to see you here wise! I agree to a very large extent with what you are saying-I think the human brain is more of a 'filter' that gets the data coming in from the universe around us to a trickle-i hope you are having a wonderful day and thanks so much for stopping by-all the best!

Alex Robinson said...

Ahh Devin you put that very well indeed :)

Devin said...

Hiya wise-are you sure about that?:-) Been up so long feeling incoherent:-) Hope you are having a splendid day! ATB

X. Dell said...

While I've heard scores of EVP recordings, I'd be kinda curious to see some examples of ITC's. Got any suggestions?

Devin said...

That I wish I did Xdell-I am like you I have heard many many EVPs -i will do some searching and see if there is a site that has anything about it-there was a book called The Vertical Plane written by Ken Webster that supposedly has examples of it in the book- I havent read the book itself-but am going to check for it at library all the best to you and thanks so much for stopping by!

Nina said...

you know, i wonder if that filter you mention devin is there to protect us in some way. what would that do to our sense if we were able to take in the sounds, sensations, etc. of the other dimension(s)? i have a difficult time with bright lights and that "beep" sound at the grocery store checkout line. would we be inundated if we were able to experience all there is to experience?

paradoxically, i also agree with wise woman how we are meant to be able to experience the voices of those who have passed. i would add meant to be able to take in all there is.

i wonder if we were once able to do this and have been "taught" to forget the how's. we have the desire, thus i believe there is a way. a way to hear w/o the need for equipment even. in my readings i recall information about frequencies and how since we vibrate at a lower/slower frequency in our dimension, it is difficult to "tune into" other dimensions that vibrate at much higher/faster frequencies.

evp is fascinating stuff! i've enjoyed reading these posts devin. i particularly like (and laughed outloud at) that spirit/energy who made reference to oto being able to record the voices of the dead. talk about validation! i hope you are able to post an actual EVP voice! we watch paranormal state and ghosthunters sometimes and love it when they get an EVP reading.

Devin said...

Holy Synchromoely Nina! Your comment in your first sentence about protection about blew me out of my chair-just a matter of 15 minutes ago -I began work for what I hope will be new posts here sometime about this and other thoughts-amazing:-)thanks so very much for stopping by and I am going to gave an example of EVP here if it kills me-waiting on permission right now to use one from youtube-almost done with EVP series-but as with so many things at MFM I would like very much to return to it at a future date-best to you as always and I love your blog!