The Book 4th Edition
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4. Voices on Tape (EVP)
“I didn't say that it was possible,
I just said that it happened!”
Sir William Crookes
To my surprise, very few people are aware of the dramatic
leap which has occurred in communicating with the afterlife
using high-technology. Whilst there are highly credible
books by unimpeachable sources on Electronic Voice Phenomena,
or EVP as it is known, the mass media rarely report it.
Yet these most important findings reveal objective communication
between those who live physically here on this earth with
those who died and are now living in a different dimension.
Voices which answer questions
For more than 50 years experimenters all over the world
have been tape-recording 'paranormal voices'—voices
which cannot be heard when a tape-recorder is playing but
which can be heard when the tape is played back. Many of
the very short messages claim to be from loved ones who
have passed on. These are not just random noises or words?they
use the experimenter's name and answer questions.
There are thousands of researchers around the world who
have been researching this most fascinating psychic phenomenon.
At the time of writing, the Internet search engine Google
had almost 9,180,000 listings for EVP (up from 50,000 in
2002). It is particularly relevant to my argument since
it follows strict scientific procedures and experiments
have been duplicated under laboratory conditions by all
kinds of researchers in many different countries.
Persistent investigators get a powerful shock when they
decide to investigate Electronic Voice Phenomena because
by using the proper method of tape recording they are likely
to hear voices of loved ones or friends who have died.
Colin Smythe and Peter Bander
That's exactly what happened to Dr Peter Bander, a senior
lecturer in Religious and Moral Education at one of the
colleges of the Cambridge Institute of Education. Bander,
a trained psychologist and a Christian theologian with an
intrinsic hostility towards psychic phenomena, expressly
stated before his investigation into the voice phenomena
that it was impossible for those who are 'dead' to communicate
with us. He said that it was 'not only far-fetched but outrageous'
to even think about it (Bander 1973: 3).
When publisher Colin Smythe asked Peter Bander to get involved
with the voice phenomena in 1972, Peter's answer was unequivocally
‘No’. So Colin Smythe himself experimented on
a tape recorder following the procedures outlined in Constantine
Raudive's book, Breakthrough (1971). He asked Bander to
put the tape recorder onto Record for a few minutes. Then
he rewound it and let it play. After ten minutes he was
about to give up when suddenly, Bander says:
I noticed the peculiar rhythm mentioned by Raudive and
his colleagues... I heard a voice... I believed this to
have been the voice of my mother who had died three years
earlier (Bander 1973: 4).
Controlled experiments rule out
stray radio signals
Later Colin Smythe published Voices from the Tapes in which
there are four pages of photos showing different participants
in Bander's later experiments. These were carried out under
the strictest control conditions. On one occasion EVP experiments
were conducted in soundproof studios to filter out stray
broadcasts. In the space of 27 minutes some 200 voices were
Comments from observers quoted in Bander's book include
Ken Attwood, Chief Engineer of Pye, who stated:
I have done everything in my power to break the mystery
of the voices without success; the same applies to other
experts. I suppose we must learn to accept them (Bander
Dr Brendan McGann, Director of the Institute of Psychology
I have apparently succeeded in reproducing the phenomena.
Voices have appeared on a tape which did not come from
any known source (Bander 1973:132).
A.P. Hale, Physicist and Electronics Engineer, stated:
In view of the tests carried out in a screened laboratory
at my firm, I can not explain what happened in normal
physical terms (Bander 1973:132).
Sir Robert Mayer LL.D., D.Sc., Mus.D. concluded:
If the experts are baffled, I consider this is a good
enough reason for presenting the Voice Phenomena to the
general public (Bander 1973:132).
Ted Bonner of Decca and RTE said:
This is no trick. This is no gimmickry; this is something
we have never dreamed of before (Bander 1973:106).
The Pye Laboratory tests conducted by Colin Smythe and
Peter Bander prior to the publication of Breakthrough were
set up and paid for by the Editor-in-Chief of England's
The Sunday Mirror.
Ronald Maxwell, a reporter for The Sunday Mirror, had supervised
the tests and had prepared a three page feature article
with photographs which was very supportive of them. He was
delighted that the electronics experts chosen by the newspaper
had verified that the voices were genuine and that no trickery
or fraud was employed.
However at the last minute the extremely important article
was stopped without explanation by the Editor-in-Chief who
refused to have the story in the paper. As Peter Bander
The experiment which had been arranged and paid for by
The Sunday Mirror had yielded results which did not please
the man at the top (Bander 1973:68).
Maxwell and Cyril Kersh, the features editor, tried again
a week later. This time they had collected information and
statements from leading scientists including Mr Peter Hale.
Again the Editor-in-Chief refused to publish it (Bander
Pioneers of EVP
Peter Bander's experiments were inspired by the research
of Dr Konstantin Raudive. Dr Raudive (pictured left) worked
in Germany to duplicate the research done by Friedrich Jurgenson
who by chance in 1959 rediscovered the Voice Phenomena.
Raudive's classic research under the English title Breakthrough
(1971) was based on 72,000 voices he recorded. Work on the
Voice Phenomena had actually started in the 1920s with Thomas
Edison who believed that there could be a radio frequency
between the long and short waves which would make possible
some form of telepathic contact with the other world (Stemman
It is worth noting here that the pioneers of radio and
television, Marconi, Edison, Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William
Crookes, John Logie Baird, were all convinced of the reality
of spirit communication and were using their professional
skills to demonstrate it. Marconi, one of the developers
of wireless radio was reportedly working on a system to
communicate electronically with the afterlife at the time
of his death.
The first voices were captured on phonograph records in
1938 and on tape recorders in the early 1950s. Since the
Bander book was published in 1973 the work has been taken
up by thousands of researchers in many countries.
The American Association for EVP run by Tom and Lisa Butler
is an excellent starting point for people interested in
experimenting with EVP. Tom and Lisa have written an excellent
book on their experiences called
There is No Death and There are No Dead (See http://www.aaevp.com/resources/evp_books.htm)
and their website has lots of examples of voice phenomena
that you can listen to at http://www.aaevp.com/examples/examples_voice.htm
The also have excellent instructions for people who wish
to try their own recordings.
A number of experimenters have written detailed moving
accounts of their evidential voice communications with loved
ones who have died via EVP. Highly recommended is Martha
Copeland’s I’m Still Here the story
of how she continues to work with her daughter, Cathy, from
the other side. Martha has formed a group within the AA-EVP
called the “Recording Circle Bridge to the Afterlife.”
Cathy has come through with children who are on the other
side to connect with their loved ones who are participates
in the recording circle.
The Vatican supports EVP
Unknown to many Christians?Catholics, Protestants and Fundamentalists—the
Catholic Church has been actively positive and encouraging
towards investigation of the Electronic Voice Phenomena.
• Two of the earliest investigators were Italian
Catholic priests, Father Ernetti and Father Gemelli, who
came upon the phenomena by chance while they were recording
Gregorian chants in 1952.
• Father Gemelli heard his own father's voice on
the tape calling him by a childhood nick-name saying 'Zucchini,
it is clear, don't you know it is I '.
• Deeply troubled by Catholic teaching in regard
to contact with the dead the two priests visited Pope Pius
XII in Rome.
• The Pope reassured them:
Dear Father Gemelli, you really need not worry about this.
The existence of this voice is strictly a scientific fact
and has nothing to do with spiritism. The recorder is totally
objective. It receives and records only sound waves from
wherever they come. This experiment may perhaps become the
cornerstone for a building for scientific studies which
will strengthen people's faith in a hereafter .
(Italian Journal Astra, June 1990 quoted Kubis and Macy,
• Pope Pius' cousin, the Rev. Professor Dr Gebhard
Frei, co-founder of the Jung Institute, was an internationally
known parapsychologist who worked closely with Raudive,
a pioneer in the research. He was also the President of
the International Society for Catholic Parapsychologists.
He himself is on record as stating:
All that I have read and heard forces me to believe that
the voices come from transcendental, individual entities.
Whether it suits me or not, I have no right to doubt the
reality of the voices (Kubris and Macy, 1995:104).
• Dr Frie died on October 27, 1967. In November 1967
at numerous taping sessions a voice giving its name as Gebhard
Frei came through. The voice was identified by Professor
Peter Hohenwarter of the University of Vienna as positively
belonging to Dr Frei (Ostrander and Schroeder, 1977: 271).
• Pope Paul VI was well aware of the work being done
from 1959 onwards on the Elecronic Voices by his good friend,
Swedish film producer Friedrich Jurgenson, who had made
a documentary film about him. The Pope made Jurgenson a
Knight Commander of the Order of St Gregory in 1969 for
his work (see picture left). Jurgenson wrote to Bander,
a British voice researcher:
I have found a sympathetic ear for the Voice Phenomenon
in the Vatican. I have won many wonderful friends among
the leading figures in the Holy City. Today 'the bridge'
stands firmly on its foundations (Ostrander and Schroeder,
• The Vatican also gave permission for its own priests
to conduct research into the voices—Father Leo Schmid,
a Swiss theologist, collected more than ten thousand of
them in his book When the Dead Speak which was published
in 1976, shortly after his death.
• Another Vatican-approved researcher was Father
Andreas Resch who as well as conducting his own experiments
began courses in Parapsychology at the Vatican's school
for priests in Rome (Kubris and Macy, 1995:104).
• In 1970 the International Society for Catholic
Parapsychologists held a conference in Austria and a major
part of that conference was concerned with papers on the
Electronic Voice Phenomena.
• In England in 1972 four senior members of the Catholic
hierarchy were involved in the famous Pye recording studio
tests conducted by Peter Bander.
• Father Pistone, Superior of the Society of St Paul
in England, said in an interview after the tests:
I do not see anything against the teaching of the Catholic
Church in the Voices, they are something extra-ordinary
but there is no reason to fear them, nor can I see any
danger (Bander 1973: 132).
The Church realizes that she cannot control the evolution
of science. Here we are dealing with a scientific phenomenon;
this is progress and the Church is progressive. I am happy
to see that representatives of most Churches have adopted
the same attitude as we have: we recognize that the subject
of the Voice Phenomena stirs the imagination even of those
who have always maintained that there could never be any
proof or basis for discussion on the question of life after
death. This book and the subsequent experiments raise serious
doubts, even in the minds of atheists. This alone is a good
reason for the Church supporting the experiments. A second
reason may be found in the greater flexibility of the Church
since Vatican II, we are willing to keep an open mind on
all matters which do not contradict Christ's teaching (Bander
• His excellence, Archbishop H.E. Cardinale, Apostolic
Nuncio to Belgium, commented:
Naturally it is all very mysterious, but we know the voices
are there for all to hear them (Bander 1973: 132).
• The Right Reverend Monsignor Professor C. Pfleger
Facts have made us realize that between death and resurrection
there is another realm of post-mortal existence. Christian
theology has little to say about this realm (Bander 1973
• Bander's book (1973: 133) contains a photograph
of the Right Reverend Mgr. Stephen O'Connor, Vicar General
and Principal Roman Catholic Chaplain to the Royal Navy,
listening to the playback of a recording on which a voice
had manifested claiming to be that of a young Russian naval
officer known to himself who had committed suicide two years
earlier. Dr Raudive had recorded the message independently
at an earlier session.
• Since the 1970s the Vatican has continued to sponsor
extensive research into all areas of parapsychology including
Electronic Voice Phenomena.
• Recently Father Gino Concetti, one of the most
competent theologians in the Vatican, said in an interview:
According to the modern catechism, God allows our dear
departed persons who live in an ultra-terrestrial dimension,
to send messages to guide us in certain difficult moments
of our lives. The Church has decided not to forbid any more
the dialogue with the deceased with the condition that these
contacts are carried out with a serious religious and scientific
purpose (printed in the Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano—cited
in Sarah Estep's American Association Electronic VoicePhenomena,
Inc Newsletter, vol 16 No, 2 1997 )
Clearly, the Catholic Church realizes that science is making
enormous, inevitable, irreversible and cumulative progress
which nobody is in a position to stop.
On the Internet
For details on how to how to conduct your own experiments
in technical spirit communication see World ITC
Alternatively you may like to contact one of these National
American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena
Email is firstname.lastname@example.org Mail to 3415 Socrates Dr., Reno Nevada
German Association for Transcommunication Research http://www.vtf.de/
An English version of the site is available.
National Association of Transcommunication – Brazil
An English version of the site is available.
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