From My Viewpoint

 “There is a principle which is proof against all information, which is proof against all arguments, which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance; that principle is contempt, prior to investigation.” Herbert Spencer

Investigation! How often have we denounced skeptics of psychic phenomena for failing to investigate with an open mind various areas of PSI/ESP? How often have they charged us with being deluded and deceived? Both sides are justified in their accusations.

Boggle thresholds vary from person to person. We each have our own level at which the mind boggles at an idea that cannot be accepted into our usual pattern of thought. Scientists usually have a lower boggle point than those who are interested in and accept, to a certain extent, different aspects of the paranormal. Unfortunately, those with a high boggle threshold may find themselves victims of fraud.

Fraud of any kind is intolerable but perhaps the greatest harm is perpetrated in the paranormal field. The corrupt person can take the last hope of someone and by his machinations leave him in utter despair. This is especially true for those interested in evidence for postmortem survival for they are often the most vulnerable. Their deep need to believe too often makes them, without justification, believers, and this is something that the unscrupulous are well aware of and will use to their own advantage.

The history of psychic phenomena, especially in the area of mediumship, has been degraded with countless instances of fraud. Many mediums were caught cheating and the result placed the entire field of mediumship in disrepute. Although the public was partly to blame with its insistence that a medium always “produce”, that did not excuse the deceit.

Magicians tell us that they can duplicate from their bag of magic tricks, everything that is regarded as paranormal. This may be true, but that does not make less true that which is genuine.

When I founded the AA-EVP in 1982, a man wrote to me from Indiana wanting to know how he (I) could be positive fraud was not being committed in relation to the Voices. I answered from my own experience, and the experiences of other tapers who I knew personally and fully trusted, that I didn’t think this was possible and gave reasons for my belief. My boggle point was higher then than it is now. In the last four years rumors of fraud have arisen and although I have wondered at times about the truth of those rumors, I have tried to avoid taking part in the charges and counter-charges. My mind always goes back to the magician and his bag of tricks, but evidence is not proof and perhaps, to a fault, I tend to give most people the benefit of the doubt.

Where there is an accusation of fraud in connection with EVP, we need to consider all evidence presented. We must investigate, as much as possible, those charges and in the end try to decide whether the evidence is strong enough to accept or reject, the premise presented. Either decision can take courage and there is no easy answer. It is understandable that asking people to believe we can communicate with other realities through a tape recorder, is stretching many boggle points to the limit. Whatever happens, we must show by our own approach to inter-dimension communication and by our own personal integrity, that faith in voice phenomena is justified.

We are Listed!

Come November, the AA-EVP will be as close as your local library. At the suggestion of Mercedes Shepanek, VA State Coordinator, I wrote to the Gale Research Company, publishers of the Encyclopedia of Associations to see if we were eligible to be listed in their encyclopedia. Long information forms soon arrived with a request for any publications we had, to be returned with the forms. Our AA-EVP newsletters for the last year were sent along with the requested information.

Several months passed, and then a phone call came from the editor. She had some additional questions as well as personal questions about taping. At the conclusion, she said she found our organization, and the newsletter, one of the most fascinating that has ever crossed her desk. We will be listed in the November supplement and in the main book when it is published the early part of 1987. Look us up!

EVP and the Japanese

Lynn Schroeder and Sheila Ostrander, AA-EVP members, have returned from a month’s stay in Japan. They were invited to talk on Superlearning, a new approach to learning which they have developed and which has received excellent results world-wide. Since it was the tenth anniversary of the Japanese psi society, they were also invited to speak to groups all over the country about psi.

Lynn wrote, “EVP was one of our main topics. Seemed like a good idea to get the Japanese with their electronic expertise and traditional patience interested. Translation of our talks in Tokyo was quite good ... in other cities translation got very wobbly. It was eye widening to see the questions that came back, third generation translation by then… People did seem very interested in EVP. After the lecture (in Sapporo) fifteen 18 to 23 year olds showed up at the hotel with a young English teacher… The kids mainly wanted to know about New York and EVP ... We passed around a Walkman with your Egyptian tape. The translator tried to explain what was on the tape… All listened intently and said, “Yes, yes.” Essentially, I think they thought you were the EVP.

“Two young men (artists) said something strange had happened to them. They heard a voice that spoke aloud to them, no one was there, they were not recording anything, but later when playing a tape, the voice was on it.”

Near the end of her letter, Lynn commented that apart from the technology and patience, it seemed to them that the Japanese might succeed at EVP because of their Shinto religion. Shintoism is very open to linking with the dead.

I had the pleasure of introducing Lynn and Sheila at our national conference last summer. This was a special pleasure because it was from reading their book: Handbook of Psi Discoveries, over ten years ago, that I first read about electronic voice phenomena.

Sound Modulation Experiments

Carol Barron, NA State Coordinator, and David Lothamer, CA State Coordinator, are continuing their experiments with sound. These experiments differ from the radio airband/shortwave sound source that many of us use while taping.

Some of the taped examples David sent were Class A, and Carol also reports good results. They use something of the same approach, creating noise near the tape recorder, which the unseen use to help them speak. Carol made the interesting observation, “Some things come in very clear, but this method rarely yields a tonal voice but rather, articulation out of the noise itself.”

I have also done sound experiments in the past with interesting results. Once, while using just the open flame of a propane gas tank, I asked if they could speak. An unusually clear Class A voice answered, “You will know we talk. Important.” My own experiments indicate that the unseen voice tends to take on the characteristics of whatever sound source is used. The propane gas voice had the whooshing sound of the flame in it. Caution must be used with this approach for it is all too easy to think you have a voice when, in fact, it is just noise.

EVP on Broadway?

No, but the Pioneer Square Theater of Seattle, WA, which brings live theater to the public, used in a recent production some of the communications I have taped from the unseen.

In August, Paula Magar, Literary Manager and Assistant Director for the group of four theaters, called and said they were putting on an original play, “Mass for Dead Voices,” and the playwright wanted to hear examples of the electronic voice.

Tapes 1 and 2 were promptly sent with the suggestion that perhaps they could use some of the voices during the play with a brief program note explaining that they were the actual voices of the deceased. A short time later, Paula wrote that they thought this was an excellent idea and they would also include in the program a note about our Association.

VTF Review - Germany

Many thanks are owed to Hans Heckmann, PA, AA-EVP member, who translated a recent German VTF Journal for me. Such translations always give new ideas and at times, new techniques for taping.

Several references were again made about using reverberation devices with recordings and how, in each case, they enhanced the quality of the voices. (I have recently started to use Radio Shack-42-2108 Stereo Reverb System and found this to be true. S.E.)

There was a long article in the Journal by Siegfried Scheunert, titled: “Gravity and Paranormal Voices.” Scheunert said that he started looking for a connection between gravity and para voices five years ago and presented his theoretical views. He wrote, “Each point of matter is a point of entry for the energy effects of gravity in three dimensional space. Paranormal voices fit into this play of energies. This means the speaker in higher dimensional space has to generate a sufficiently accurate voice signal wave which will enter the elementary particles of matter in the same manner as gravity does… The assumed beam of gravity acts upon the real mass of matter; i.e., the atomic nuclei. These vibrate at audio frequencies and create the peculiar tonal color of para voices… We now shift the area of vibration into an electronic component through which flow a current. It is important that this component has a crystalline structure which can mechanically vibrate and thereby change its electronic value… The transistor has the proper structure and makes paranormal voices possible. Since audio frequencies are involved, the area of vibration has to be within transistors of audio frequency stages. The vibration here changes a flowing signal and we therefore speak of conversion. Only a flowing current can be regulated and thus we have to provide a background noise. However, the quiescent direct current flowing in an amplifier circuit can be used instead and should result in better voices.”

Scheunert believes that the entities are unaware of this but sometimes the right portion of the transistor is affected and a clear voice results. All other attempts produce the bulk of bad voices. He feels we could increase “hits” by making transistor amplification stages, particularly the final stages, more easily accessible and illuminated.

AISP Report - Italy

Thanks are also due to Rosalba Harris, PA, AA-EVP member, for her translation of articles from the July issue of EVP Information, published by the Italian Association for the Study of Psychophony.

The EVP conference held in Milan, Italy, in June was discussed. Mrs. Virginia Ursi, AA-EVP member, is the founder of the Milanese Metaphony Center. Otto Konig conducted a successful EVP experiment with the aid of the generator he invented. Konig continues to refuse to give many details about his generator for he feels it isn’t sufficiently perfected. It is known however, that the recording technique is based on ultrasound and infrared and ultraviolet rays. Dr. Ernst Senkowski (West German AA-EVP member) lectured on, “The Voice Phenomena From the Scientific Point of View.” The newsletter also carried a report from various items in one of our AA-EVP NEWS.

Rosalba commented that although the Italian words “metafonia” and “psicofonia” both refer to EVP, they have different meanings. Those who use “metafonia” attribute all EVP to voices from the dead. With “psicofonia,” other sources are also considered.

The AISP is holding a conference the end of October. Ernst Senkowski will lecture. Rosalba plans to attend the conference.

Radio Communications

In a recent letter from Ernst Senkowski, he wrote that he had taken part in two recording sessions with Marcello Bacci of Grosseto, Italy. Bacci, who has been taping for fifteen years, tunes his receiver between 7 and 9 MHz (short wave band), looking for a special signal which sounds like the chirping of large grass-hoppers. Within several minutes, the signal starts to fluctuate until it goes down to nearly zero. At this point, a message comes through. At the end of the message, the background sound comes up again and this can continue for half an hour or longer, with the sound fading in and Out. Most messages are received when the chirping stops. Ernst wrote, “In between, questions are asked by the sitters, and some of them immediately answered and completely understandable from the loudspeaker—others only by replaying the tape which is running for documentation. Observation shows that the “blockade” of the normal behavior of the receiver holds for some time after the contact is finished—normal stations are to be heard only with low volume. For technicians it might be still more interesting that Bacci and his colleagues tried the following experiment: They took two practically identical receivers, put them about one meter apart in the lab and got a contact. In spite of tuning both of them to as far as possible the same frequency, only one of them brought the paranormal voices in, the other just received the normal unchanged signals. During the voice reception they changed the tuning, but the voice remained. That means the paranormal modulation is not primarily in the high frequency part but more on the audio side—but it seems that “THEY” use the high frequency fields/signals together with the etheric of Bacci and the group to supermodulate the system and produce the voices.”

Ernst also wrote that Klaus Schreiber of West Germany is continuing to receive pictures of the deceased on his television screen. By using several light sources of different wavelengths or colors, including ultraviolet, he gets paranormal pictures on a projection screen. Most of the procedures are given to him through his tape recorder by his deceased daughter, Karin, and come through on the wrong side of his recording tape. Ernst plans to visit Schreiber in Aachen in the near future.

News from and about Members

Many of you must have taken to heart my comment in the Summer Odds and Eends about a special “blessing” to those who sent their “news” early. You did! Interesting letters came from members who had never written before. A number of our members have indicated they especially enjoy this feature, so all of us are “blessed” with your response.

Bernadette Arras, West Germany, wrote to me about a book published in Germany. She gave a translation of the section concerning Thomas Edison: “An editor of the journal called Scientific American wrote about Edison’s dream of a technical medium. He wrote: ‘Mr. Edison can no longer believe in the old traditional theories about death and life. He stated that he could construct a highly sensitive instrument to communicate with another sphere… At age seventy-three he declared: ‘I believe that life is as undestroyable as matter.’”

Carol Barron, MA gave a lecture and tape demonstration to a college class. During the demonstration, which produced voices, she used the airband on her small radio as a sound source. An electronics teacher in the class said he’d be more impressed if she used something besides a radio for this purpose. The entire class moved down the hall to a room with a sink and Carol made another recording using running water for her background sound. Two messages, one Class A, were taped and everyone, especially the doubting Thomas, was impressed.

Vincent DeVincenzo, NJ, is trying to get in touch with the Vatican Archives through the Vatican Embassy in Washington, in the hope of locating the EVP tapes made by the late Father Leo Schmid of Switzerland. If he succeeds, he will send a copy to us.

Joyce Gaines, LA, frequently hears voices clairaudiently. In August, she was awakened by a voice that told her to, “Sell, sell.” She mulled it over for several days and then sold her investment in a High Yield money market fund, thereby avoiding the stock market’s recent sharp decline.

Valerie Huggett, FL, has just finished reading a book about Arthur Ford which she feels “all EVPers could read for enlightenment.” The book, titled: Extension of Life, is by Pat Hayes who, along with her mother, were good friends of Arthur. Valerie wrote that she had taken classes from Arthur and feels the book is a genuine case of channeling for it has his “mind-set.” For a copy, send $12 plus $2 postage to: The Extension of Life Foundation, Delphi Center, P.O. Box 70, 940 Old Silvermine Road, McCaysville, GA 30555, www.delphi-center.com/institutes/extoflif.htm.

Virgil Hunter, GA, sent me the article, “Here Comes DAT” from the August 1986 issue of Popular Science. Digital audio tape recorders will probably be available for the consumer in 1987. They promise to eliminate the hiss and noise heard from conventional tape recorders which should improve the quality of EVP voices. Many companies are about ready to release the recorders but Onkyo may be first. The cost is expected to be around $1,000, but this should quickly drop as the machines become popular.

Edelgard John, West Germany, gave a lecture, “Reincarnation of Animals?” at the VTF conference in Fulda. In two letters, Edelgard expressed her belief to me in animal reincarnation. Rolf, a previous dog of Edelgard’s, died at the age of seven from a broken leg after the misdiagnosis by three veterinarians. At first, Edelgard thought she would never get another dog because her grief was so great. Finally, after two visits to a shepherd, she adopted two dogs, one named Wanda. Since then, Edelgard and her friend, Christine Koberle, have both received taped messages indicating Wanda was once Rolf. Wanda also has many of the unique behavior patterns and knows many things that only Rolf knew. Edelgard closed her first letter with, “For me there is difference between man and animal, in intelligence, not in soul.”

Benn Kobb, VA, Editor of Personal Communications Technology magazine, has had another article published, this time a technical one titled: “The New World of Communications” (Radio Electronics, Sept. 1986). Benn sent me a transcript of the EVP discussion by the entity “James,” channeled through Tam Mossman. Mossman was editor of the Seth books while at Prentice-Hall and worked closely with the late Jane Roberts. Quoting from the transcript James said, “Your audio voice recordings of discarnate voices are indeed genuine phenomena. However, their sources vary and the means which you have been using up to now are primitive at best. ...It is possible, though laborious, for an entity to change the molecular surface (of the tape) so you get words... Magnetic tape can be primed, so it may more easily attract and hold discarnate voices. The way to do it is to ‘magnetize’ that tape with your own vibrations. Hold the cassette. Stroke it lovingly. Keep it with you on your body for at least twenty-four hours. Imagine your bodily energies flowing into it. …Tapes thus primed will show a greater fidelity, and more concepts, more evidential messages may in this way be recorded. ...What you are trying to do—your mistake, is that you are trying to get ghosts on your machine without having a ghost in your machine. You are making things doubly difficult for yourself by trying to remove the personal aspect from what is an intensely personal and loving exchange. When you (are taping) precise-ify your desires. You will listen to the tape lovingly from backwards to forwards, in your search for answers.”

Benn has been invited to lecture about the electronic voice at the annual Info Fortfest meeting in Virginia the early part of October.

Clara Laughlin, VA, in summing up four years of taping, wrote, “The quality of the voice has not gotten any better or worse, but the rewards are beyond description. I have immediate contact with Tom (her deceased husband) who knows I like evidential messages such as, “Yesterday I saw you painting on the Oldsmobile.” I’ve made a dear new spirit friend (Callie). Also, other friends have asked for help and it has been given.”

Tina Laurent, Wales, recently sent me an article from the International Journal of Paraphysics published by Benson Herbert, internationally known British parapsychologist. In the article, Herbert discusses EVP and offers some theories and suggestions. Tina also wrote that she and her husband, Carl, are compiling a book tentatively called, Welsh Ghostbuster’s Casebook. She has again appeared in the local Tenby paper and had a three minute spot on Radio Wales.

Shirley Matthews, UT, sent information about our organization to Heritage Foundation Psychic Research Group. As a result, the newsletter carried our logo, the diagram of Mighty Mike and the two TPP (television picture phenomena) [TRR I s now known as Video ITC] pictures received by Klaus Schreiber (AA-EVP NEWS, Spring 1986). Many people wrote to me for more information and in most cases, the person commented he had never heard of EVP before reading about it in the Heritage newsletter.

Don’t Give Up

Since Shirley Matthews wrote to the Psychic Research Group about the AA-EVP, I have been in touch with Wayne Davis, editor of their newsletter, published ten times a year. The group also publishes a bi-monthly magazine, A Look At the Unusual. Subscription rates are $13.95 for one year which also makes a person eligible for the newsletter.

One of the features that might especially appeal to our members is the listing in the publications, of hard to find books and unusual metaphysical products.

In the June issue of the newsletter, Davis commented about the necessity of using proper procedure and a willingness to continue to experiment in spite of not succeeding with early efforts. His views should be taken to heart by all tapers or those who are thinking about starting to tape. He wrote, “And the single most important realization that must be in the experimenter’s mind at all times is simply that no mechanical psychic device has ever been invented that will cause a startling and noticeable reaction in the user as soon as he begins to use it. ...those who attempt various experiments with psychic devices should realize that the fruits of that experiment may not be readily discernable without lengthy comparisons. ...the researcher (should) remain calm and aloof from premature conclusions. … all information garnered will be written down carefully and fully and (at least) several experiments must be conducted before he can even begin to evaluate the device or procedure in use.”

If interested in the group and its publications, write to: Wayne Davis (Address removed).

Cross-country List

Our cross-country list is growing but its growth is causing a problem or two. I don’t want to discontinue it since so many members enjoy this unique feature. Unfortunately, many people renewing memberships don’t indicate if they want to remain on the list. From now on, once you indicate you want to be listed, you will continue to be listed as long as you are a member of AA-EVP. Only if you write to me requesting that your name be taken off, will it be removed.

Odds and Ends

Our Winter NEWS means time for the Best of ‘86 feature. Tapers, please send me a list of two or three messages you taped during 1986, which you feel were most significant as well as being of good quality. Everyone, tapers and non-tapers alike, enjoys reading about this. Mark your calendar. Deadline for all Winter NEWS is December 12. Let’s have as good a response next time as we did this time. We want to hear from you!

In closing, I want to leave you with a saying from the Talmud that I like very much: “In death, two worlds meet with a kiss; the world going out and the future coming in.

Always my best wishes, Sarah Estep.

Established to Investigate Evidence as a Result of the Electronic Voice That We Survive Death