INSTRUMENTAL TRANSCOMMUNICATION

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

“Voices of unknown origin appearing on radio frequencies were first noticed in Scandinavia by the military in the 30s and were put down at the time to secret Nazi transmissions. But the voices spoke in unknown and mixed tones, and after the war, no records of secret Nazi transmissions ever came to light. The voices didn’t stop after the war, but their rapidity, and their transient nature, precluded study. That is, until the tape recorder came into common usage in the 50s. A group of radio hams in Chicago studied the strange transmissions. Male and female voices, speaking in polyglot and lyrical tones…… they were confronted at once with living voices, which answered back. Speech being a mark of intelligence, and a highly structured artifact… Voices which were human-like, but exhibiting odd characteristics like constructing a sentence from the elements of one or more languages. Impinging on one or more broadcasts and by a strange process of metamorphosis twisting the words of the speaker to suit their purposes and messages.”

The voice you have just heard is that of Raymond Cass, an important figure in the early study of electronic voice phenomenon and parapsychology. Cass is just one of many who have devoted their lives to the pursuit of understanding what is now called electronic voice phenomenon. Electronic voice phenomenon occurs when anomalous voices that weren’t heard at the time appear on audio recordings, voices that some claim to be from the dead. 

According to a paper in the 2006 Proceedings from the 2nd International Conference on Physical Death, electronic voice phenomenon has the “possibility of carrying out dialogues free of any intermediation by the mind of a medium and directly observable by everybody present.” Leading it to become wildly popular in modern times. 

 Starting as early as the 1900s people have attempted to build devices to speak to the spirit world. Could technology serve as an answer to this strange phenomenon?

Channelling the spirit realm using technology is called Instrumental Transcommunication, or ITC. Coined in the 1970s by Ernst Senkowski, a German physicist, ITC is “electronically supported contacts with other ranges of human consciousness.” 

Dr. Anabela Cardoso, who previously worked in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Portugal,knew Senkowski well, and has a wealth of direct experiences:

“And so it was Professors Senkowski who devised the term Instrumental Transcommunication, and he wanted to cover all types of phenomena. Spontaneous computer text, direct radio voices, telephone messages. Everything that comes to electronic devices. He wanted to find a term to cover them all. That's how we found Instrumental Transcommunication. And it became known as such.”

ITC is a modern spin on something much older, and speaks to some of the core beliefs that make our species unique. For thousands of years, people have tried to lift the veil to speak with the spirit world through mediumship and shamanism. As Senkowski said in his seminal work titled simply, Instrumental Transcommunication, 

“ITC virtually is a complex of psychophysical interplay in which ancient humanistic contents appear in new forms.”

The language and core beliefs of ITC have clear roots in the Spiritualist movement which gripped the western world in the late 19th century. It was the belief that mediums could communicate with the afterlife through sounds like rappings and writings dictated to them in trance states. 

The first account of otherworldly voices being captured on tape is commonly referenced in paranormal literature as coming from American ethnologist Waldemar Borogas who was studying shamnic rituals in Siberia in the early 1900s. Waldemar Borogos brought a phonograph with him to record the rituals, and popular accounts say that Borogas ended up recording ghostly voices not heard at the time…

But according to Borogas’s journal his recordings were not spiritual in nature. The following passage comes directly from him:

“The Chukchee ventriloquists display great skill, and could with credit to themselves carry on a contest with the best artists of the kind… The “separate voices” of their calling come from all sides of the room, changing their place to the complete illusion of their listeners… I tried to make a phonographic record of the “separate voices”... All these tricks strangely resemble the doings of modern spiritualists, and without doubt they cannot be carried out without the help of human assistants.”

While the story of Borogas’s phonographic recordings may have gotten distorted over time, like a decades old game of telephone, there are many respected and influential figures throughout history who did actually attempt to speak with the dead using technology. 

In 1918 Nikola Tesla was experimenting with radio technology using electromagnetic waves. He wrote of an unnerving experience, which, while he did not attribute directly to spirits, it would inspire his lifelong rival and competitor, Thomas Edison, to attempt to build a “spirit phone.” Tesla wrote in his diary:

"The sounds I am listening to every night at first appear to be human voices conversing back and forth in a language I cannot understand… I find it difficult to imagine that I am actually hearing real voices from people not of this planet. There must be a more simple explanation that has so far eluded me.” 

And, there was a simpler explanation.. The type of radio Tesla was working with was able to detect very low radio frequencies, such as those from electrical storms, household devices, and atmospheric disturbances. This is what produced the unusual noises Tesla heard. Nonetheless, the gauntlet had been thrown (in Edison’s mind) and he had to get in on this discovery before Tesla. 

In an interview with American Magazine in 1920 Eddison said the following: 

“I have been at work for some time building an apparatus to see if it is possible for personalities which have left this earth to communicate with us… I am engaged in the construction of one such apparatus now, and I hope to be able to finish it before very many months pass… I don’t claim anything, because I don’t know anything… for the matter, no human being knows… but i do claim that it is possible to construct an apparatus which will be so delicate that if there are personalities in another existence who wish to get in touch with us… this apparatus will at least give them a better opportunity.”

While Edison’s spirit phone never materialized, a man by the name of George Meek did create a machine he said could contact the dead. Meek was an engineer who specialized in thermodynamics, and was well respected in his field. 

His invention was called the Spiricom, short for spirit communication, and he invested half a million dollars into completing it.. George Meek was so confident in his invention, that he called a press conference in 1982 at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. to announce his discovery:

“Thanks so much for coming out…The findings that I am announcing today are truly fantastic and far out. But I can assure you that they are pure science, not science fiction…For the first time, we have electronic proof that the mind, memory banks, and personality survive death of the physical body…An elementary start has been made towards a communication system that will allow persons on earth to talk with others on higher levels of consciousness. The system will use electromagnetic and etheric energies to have telephone conversations. And one day may facilitate video images.”

Recordings of George Meek's Spiricom exist. The following is an actual recording of the device being operated.

Communications could only be achieved when one specific man used the machine.. His name was William O’Neil. A self described healer and medium. O’Neil would only operate the machine alone, after which he would send video tapes of the recordings to Meek for review. Videos of these communications are available on YouTube, so you can view and judge for yourself.. But these facts, coupled with that O’Neil always kept his back to the camera, the “spirits” and O’Neil never spoke at the same time, and that the spirit voices sounded amazingly similar to someone operating an electrolarynx, a medical device used to producer clearer speech for those who have lost their voice box, should produce a great deal of skepticism. And O’Neil was a trained ventriloquist.

It seems Meek, perhaps in good intention, may have been misled by O’Neil, especially considering in a naive move, he offered to pay O’Neil for each successful communication.

The Spiricom experiment is still pointed to as definitive proof of spirit communication to this day. There’s even an app you can download to your phone that makes the grand claim to reproduce the effects of this dubious machine. 

But it was in 1964, when Friedrich Jurgenson, a Swedish singer, artist, and documentary filmmaker published a book titled Voices from the Universe which brought electronic voices closer to the mainstream. In it, he details his extensive experiences with anomalous voices on tape recorders. Initially capturing bird noises for a documentary, he noticed strange voices appearing on tape... Voices that were not there while recording. 

Jurgenson became so singularly focused on understanding their origin and meaning that he pushed many family members and friends away in his 28 year study. What you are about to hear are some samples for Jurgenson’s recordings, showcasing the electronic voice phenomenon.

The voice is apparently speaking in German, and admittedly, it's eerie. Jurgenson made hundreds of recordings like the one you just heard throughout his life. He employed the use of white noise from radio’s while recording, which he believed aided in the transmission of spirit communication. He had one specific radio frequency which he relied on the most, between 1445 and 1500 kHz. In the ITC community, this has been dubbed “the Jurgenson Frequency”. 

Friedrich Jurgenson is commonly referenced as the first person to capture modern day EVP recordings, which actually isn’t true.

Earlier EVP recordings had already been captured by two experimenters Atilla von Szalay and Ramond Bayless in 1956. Their findings would later be published in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research in 1959, where he had recorded modest phrases such as “Hot Dog”, “This is, G”, and “Merry Christmas and Happy New year to you all!.” Their work is much less known, and unfortunately, recordings from these early experiments are hard to track down, if not lost to time.

But it wasn’t until 1971 that the idea of capturing the voices of the dead really took hold in the mainstream when respected Latvian psychologist and pupil of Carl Jung, Konstantin Raudive, published his book Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead. 

Konstantin had been inspired by Jurgenson’s book and decided to see if there was any truth to the filmmakers' claims. In the book he captured six years of methodical research in the field, referencing physicists, psychologists, and theologians as he explored the growing phenomenon and possible sources for the mysterious voices. 

In Jurgensons’s view, “There can be no doubt whatsoever that the phenomenon manifesting in Dr. Raudive’s experiments is the same that manifests in my own… The voices describe themselves as ‘the dead’ but always stress most emphatically that they are very much alive; ‘the dead live’ they say… I can state with the utmost conviction and certainty: these messages stem without doubt from our so-called dead.”

The publication of his book was accompanied with a vinyl record which played various examples of some of the voice phenomenon Raudive had captured. Following are some sample of Raudive’s recordings.

Anabela Cardoso added this about the impact of Raudive’s work:

“And everybody started experimenting. Many started to see a receiving voice. You sit down in my room, studio, wherever you wish, and without interference… and you start speaking to communicate. There's no address of whoever you want to address. And then you give it a lot. Something like 10, 15 minutes. So you make a question or a comment? Wait one minute or two. Then another one. And then you finish your experiment. When you play back what you've recorded. Voices might be there. Not always, of course, but many, many times. Well, at least that's how it happened with me.”

Of course, the assertion that audio recording technology can pick up the voices of the dead has been met with fierce skepticism. Mary Roach, American author and skeptic, wrote in her 2005 Book Spooked that “There is no reason to postulate anything but natural causes-indistinct fragments of radio transmissions, mechanical noises and unnoticed remakrs-aided by imaginative guesswork and wishful thinking, to explain the ‘voice phenomenon”

We spoke with Dianna Deutsch, a leading expert on the psychology of music who has studied and written extensively about musical and linguistic illusions. During her research, she discovered something that she calls “the phantom word” phenomenon. She believes that evps, like the ones captured by Jurgenson and Raudive, are the result of a natural process occurring in the human mind. 

“I coined the term Phantom Word to describe an illusion that I experienced on hearing words and phrases that weren't being spoken. And I discovered this illusion by chance. This involves playing, repeating sequences of tones to the right and left earlier. Since this earlier illusion involved repeating high and low tones, I recorded the words high and low and played them repeatedly like this. High, low, high, low, high, low and so on… And I was as I was listening to this pattern. I was surprised to find that I was hearing different words and phrases, for example. No time for Diet Coke and so on… And I should mention that the words and phrases that I heard, these phantom words and phrases correspond to what's on the person's mind in a way that's very much like inkblot in a Rorschach test.”

Recordings to trigger the phantom word illusion are on Dianna’s website.. We’ll play a short sample, but to really experience the full effect it is best to listen for longer. The longer you listen, the more words and phrases seem to leap forth from the otherwise meaningless noise.

By the end of that recording, various words may have began to take shape, illustrating the phantom word phenomenon. A trick our brain plays not only through experiments like this, but in our everyday life.

“You're given a word or a phrase out there in the real world and what you hear is something entirely different. And it makes you realize, oh, my God, you know.

You know, you start asking questions about the relationship between illusion and reality. You know how much of what we see and hear? Can we really believe? And I think it is a big question. And I think that this trend towards phenomenon certainly points very strongly to the fact that we don't really necessarily hear or see things that are really out there. But it doesn't mean that they are produced by ghosts or spirits. It just means that our brains are constructively trying to create thing sounds that are meaningful to us… But I would say I certainly don't believe that their voices from the spirit world. And here's one thing that one should consider. If they think that perhaps I stumbled on a way of invoking voices from the spirit world, then they would need to explain why it is that if you get a large group of people and you play them one French word, they all had different things from each other. So it's not like despair. If it was the spirit, the spirit would be saying the same thing to all the different people, not just work.”

In response to critics, David Fontana, a British psychologist, parapsychologist, and author wrote in his book Is there an Afterlife:  “... the absence of supporting evidence can lead us to reject evidence that may prove worthy of serious study, and can deter some independent investigators from informing us of their results. Much scientific progress in the past has come from those prepared to entertain anomalous views, and to go by the evidence in front of them rather than by conventional wisdom.”

And while misinterpretation seems like a plausible explanation for many of the recordings where voices were only noticed after the recording has been made, there is another form of ITC voice recording that is lesser known, and stranger still... It is called direct radio voices, or DRV. DRV is when voices are heard and recorded at the time of recording. These voices come through radios, and will directly answer questions or address those present in the room. 

Anabela Cardoso describes these voices in her book Electronic Contact with the Dead: What do the Voices tell us? As “much rarer and come directly into the air from the loudspeaker of a radio, usually also in response to questions or comments by the human operator. They may sound robotic and are often distorted. But when they are clear, they may allow for a dialogue and the reception of amazing information from the other world, from where the voices proper state they have come.”

n the world of parapsychology research, the name Marcello Bacci carries weight. Like many others, Marcello became fascinated with electronic voice phenomena after learning about Jurgenson’s experiences in Sweden. He was already a long time paranormal enthusiast, having frequented mediums all throughout his early life. Along with a close group of friends, Marcello began a journey into electronic spirit communication that would end up defining the rest of his life. 

In Marcello Bacci’s book, he says: "We were not driven into the research as a result of dramatic occurrences or painful events, neither by religious convictions or philosophical theories and even less by scientific principles for which we had to find evidential support. The spring that triggered it all was purely and simply interest in the research." 

It turns out, Marcello had a talent for capturing spirit voices. He was not only able to capture voices on tape recorders, he was able to talk in real time to the “spirit world” through the use of radios. Audible voices spoke to Marcello through old vacuum tube radios with many attendees filling the room to listen in. Traditional EVPs are generally hard to decipher, and don’t form coherent sentences, but Marcello’s recordings were minutes long, with clear audible voices speaking fully formed sentences through his radio. 

He’d tune the radio to a shortwave band ranging from seven to nine Mhz. After waiting a period of time, the static vanished and attendees described hearing what sounded like wind coming out of the radio. At this point Marcello would establish contact with the voices, holding intricate and detailed conversations that would last anywhere from three to four minutes. 

Unlike the traditional EVP recording which is a one way conversation, Marcello and audience members were able to ask questions and get responses in realtime. After contact was finished, attendees reported hearing what sounded to some like a choir or singing before the usual radio static returned and the voices were no more… Here is an actual recording from one of Marcello’s sessions demonstrating the choir noise attendees reported.

One of the incredible things about Marcello’s experiments was that he would conduct them in front of large groups, sometimes up to 70 people at once. Many of the attendees were those who had lost loved ones, hoping to have one final contact with the dearly departed and to know that they were safe and well on the other side. 

He never charged a fee for anyone who wished to listen, and he encouraged beleaguered parents who had lost children to join in hopes they may establish contact.

The following audio comes from a session with Marcello Bacci and a group called  the “Scole Group”. The Scole Group experimented with life after death communications in the UK from 1993-1998.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qSEi_sfaSU

In one experiment, Dr. of Engineering Carlos Trajina set up a second radio besides Bacci’s. He had it tuned to the same shortwave frequencies. Even so, Bacci’s radio was the only one that received the anomalous transmissions.

One experimenter put the radio inside a radio signal proof casing to ensure Bacci was not transmitting the signals from another location. Again, the voices continued to speak through Bacci’s radio.

Mario Salvatore Festa, Professor of Physical and Medical Radioprotection, and Radio Technician Franco Santi, came to witness Marcello’s amazing ability for themselves. They visited Bacci in his laboratory in Grosetto, Italy.  They were attempting to understand the origin of the transmission as well as root out whether Marcello could be a hoax. After examining his radios, they found nothing out of the ordinary. 

During a session while Bacci was receiving anomalous voices, Fanco Santi removed two valves from the radio responsible for receiving normal AM and FM  broadcasts. Even without the valves, the voices continued to pour from the speakers... 

Without Marcello present, the radios never picked up anything but normal transmissions. To the skeptic, they would say that this is evidence that Marcello is a huckster, using sleight of hand to deceive those who wish to believe… to the believer however, it proves that Marcello has mediumistic abilities and serves as a conduit through which the spirits are able to bridge the two worlds. Regardless, it should be noted that no concrete evidence of Bacci faking his communications has ever been discovered.

Like Bacci, Anabela Cardoso is also a practitioner of direct radio voice experimentation. She began experimenting with the phenomenon to help a friend in crisis, but through this process, uncovered something she never thought possible.

Anabela was a career diplomat before she became one of the leading forces in the modern ITC community. Her journey started when  a friend, who had recently lost his son, introduced Anabela to his grieving wife.

“And I learned about ITC to a series of currencies. Of a friend who had lost her only son in a sailing accident. She had tried to commit suicide three or four times…It was her only son also. And I was. Living a period of bereavement, too. So we started trying to find out what we could do to attempt any contact. If that is, that will be possible…And that's when we contacted, um, a Jesuit, Jesuit priest, very interested in the paranormal.

Although neither of us is a Roman Catholic at all. But anyway, he was quite a remarkable person here in Sieger here in Spain, where I was posted as consul general of Portugal.

And so we tried to contact him. He was very pleasant and very kind. Then we went to Madrid to meet this priest who was quite famous.

We had a very pleasant lunch in a good restaurant in Madrid. And at the end of it. I asked him.. what, what do you think we could do? And they said to to to reach this goal and he said, well, the way I see, I think it would be to ITC. 

 At this time, we already knew about the voice phenomenon and um... And that's when we started with the, with the evp, let's call it that way, experiments, because they were EVP experiments at the very beginning.”

Their experimentation began in October of 1997. With the assistance of Anabela’s friend, Carlos Fernandez, who studied electronics at the National Technological University of Buenos Aires. He helped bring technical expertise, even though he was initially skeptical about what results the experiments would produce. 

“Although Carlos is not interested in the transcendental point of view, let's call it that way. But his only interest is in the technical side of the phenomena.” 

They used a radio tuned to the “Jurgenson Frequency” to generate noise, and for two and a half weeks they meticulously combed through tape recordings looking for some evidence.. 

That evidence came on January 17th when they noticed the first EVP voice imprinted on their tape. From then on, the voices became much more frequent. But it wasn’t until the 11 March 1998, that something truly unexpected happened.

“I was here in my house. This house, a little room. It's a big house. And I put aside a little room for my as our studio at he time. and I was doing the EVP experimentation on my own and the voice started replying to me directly from the loud speaker of the of the radio. And from then on, the voices never stopped.”

Here is a recording of Anabela’s first Direct Radio Voice. You will hear Anabela first ask a question, and then...

Anabela says the voice is speaking spanish, and has translated it as saying:

“We are listening to everything. We want to know about the world. We want to hear your things. Now we are going to count on you, to offer what is just. I was not the one who spoke, but I suppose you made a question. This is very very difficult. Another world.

Anabela’s contacts became so frequent and detailed, that she even was able to identify repeat communicators… such as a spirit named Carlos de Almeida, who Anabela says contacted her from a location called “Rio de Tempo”, or “The River of Time.” This Rio de Tempo is where those on the other side are attempting to establish contact with us, just as she is attempting to establish contact with them. 

Their message revolves around the expansion of consciousness, detaching identity from one's physical body, and realizing that every living being on earth has consciousness and value that extends beyond the physicality.

Anabela stresses that her experiments are not conducted with the sole purpose of producing tangible evidence of the existence of life after death. In fact, she recommends anyone else interested in attempting to record direct radio voices not continue if that is their singular goal. She writes “Contacts with the next world should preferably be attempted not only with the aim of obtaining evidence for survival (although this is a very laudable reason), but with the purpose of expanding one's consciousness as a result.”

Since Anabela has started experimenting with direct radio voice communication, she has recorded hundreds of encounters over the past decades. 

She has an entire room dedicated to capturing these communications in her home. Old valve radios sit on display, similar to what Marcello Bacci once used in his own work..But these old radios have long ago stopped working. Now, Anabela relies on more modern shortwave radios. Her contacts have become less frequent these days, but she still turns her radios on everyday incase a message should come through. 

What is it Anabela, Marcello Bacci, and others like them have experienced? Is it purely the human mind playing tricks on itself, hearing phantom words and phrases that never existed? Could they be stray radio signals? Or, is it possible, that there really is another world attempting to contact our own, whose communications spill into ours.