A more recently-discovered
technique for seeking to communicate with discarnate spirits has been called
The Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP). Using this technique investigators have
been able to record ‘paranormal’ voices on tape recorders or similar equipment
- voices which cannot be heard when the instrument is recording but which can
be heard when the tape is played back. Major advantages of this technique are
that it uses standard tape recorders and tapes, rather than a human medium, and
also that it can be controlled and duplicated under laboratory conditions.
The American inventor Thomas Edison
was the first person to attempt to make contact with ‘the other side’ using
sensitive instrumentation during the 1920s. However he died before he achieved any
success and it wasn’t until 1959 that the first such results were obtained by
the Swede Friedrich Jurgenson. After several years of work Jurgenson published
his results in:
Jurgenson, Friedrich (1964). Voices from the Universe.
This research was taken up by
scientists such as Prof. Hans Bender in Germany and Dr. Konstatin Raudive from
Latvia. Dr. Raudive and two colleagues produced more than 100,000 tapes under
strict laboratory conditions. This material was written up as:
Raudive, Konstatin (1971). Breakthrough; An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead. Colin Smyth, London. SBN 900675-543. (Translated from the original German edition published in 1971). Also published in 1971 as Breakthrough: Electronic communication with the dead may be possible. Zebra Books, New York.
Other books dealing with EVP are:
Bander, Peter (1973). Voices from the Tapes. Drake, New York. ISBN 0-887494-47-9.
Villencia, Jeff (1988). Echoes from Eternity. Inner Light Publications, New Brunswick, NJ.
Connelly, Gerry (1995). The Afterlife for the Atheist.
Domra Publications, Corby.
A recently-published book which
provides a readable summary of this phenomenon is:
Chisholm, Judith (2000). Voices from Paradise: How the dead talk to us. Jon Carpenter Publishing, Charlbury, Oxon.
ISBN 1-897766-59-9.
In this book the author describes
how she came to be convinced of the survival of her son, who died unexpectedly,
through the medium of EVP; and also describes the history of the development of
the phenomenon together with an outline of how the procedure works.