How do we know who is speaking?
How
do I know that the messages I record in EVP are
not from my own mind?
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Please note:
We know that the following argument
needs a lot of work to make it good
logic. Consider it a first effort to
explain why it is reasonable to
think EVP can be initiated by
survived personalities.
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It is
not realistic to look for messages telling you
something that you do not already know because
you know more than you remember. Experiments
with hypnotism has shown this. What does seem to
be a good test is if someone else records
something for you that they could not have
known. Then, you need to look for the odds that
the person could have made a lucky guess. The
4Cell EVP Demonstrations have shown rather
decisively that the Receiver can record answers
to the Questioner's questions. The results are
far beyond chance. (http://aaevp.com/articles/articles_about_4cell_experiment.htm)
Rather than etheric
communicators, an alternative explanation for
the 4Cell successes is that the Receiver is
reading the mind of the Questioner. I do not
think that we have devised an experiment to
satisfactorily answer this possibility. For
instance, all I need is a unique identifier of a
person, such as name, age and address, and I can
tell you what their health condition is. It does
not matter where they are in the world. The
Silva Method used to teach that to just about
every student (http://www.silvamethod.com/). This
ability seems latent in all of us, and in fact,
is a version of remote viewing. However, it is
an ability that must be practiced to be useful.
Nevertheless, the fact of this ability has been
demonstrated to me and by me enough to make me
aware that simply having the question in my mind
might provide a unique enough identifier for the
Receiver to be able to mentally find the
information. If this is true, then there is
probably no way for us to satisfy a scientific
inquiry as to whether or not the experimenter is
the source of the message.
The solution, it seems, is to
examine the entire body of evidence, what I
refer to as "etheric studies," to see if there
is supporting data for the idea that our
communicators are the survived personality of
our loved ones. The same question applies to
mediumship, so we cannot use it as a support for
EVP, other than to say that the processes are
essentially identical--which is good since that
supports other cosmological points.
The main metaphysical concept
that seems to support survival is that the
Survival Hypothesis requires that survived
personality energetically exists "outside" of
the physical. Here, "energetically," is more
correct than terms like "vibration" or even
"outside," because while they are descriptive,
they imply qualities that are not supported by
the evidence. All we can say is that there is
some qualitative difference in the energy of
which our aspect of reality is formed and that
which forms other aspects, such as wherever
survived personality exists.
Back to the point, there are a
number of principles generally described as
"Natural Law." Although it seems no two
metaphysicians agree on more than a few of what
must be nearly an infinite number of principles,
a survey of the field will show that what I call
the "Principle of Agreement" is generally
accepted, albeit in a variety of guises. It
holds that the object of reality, in this case a
message from a loved one, must be energetically
in agreement with the aspect of reality it will
inhabit. Your daughter is in the etheric, which
is a general term I use to mean somewhere in
reality that is not in the physical. In order
for her etheric message to come to you in the
physical, it must be made to energetically agree
with the physical. You are an etheric Self
inhabiting the physical aspect of reality
because of your entanglement with your physical
body. We know that without it, your etheric
Self could not remain here. According to the
metaphysical lore, you (or an interested
party--maybe a group like the Big Circle) must
provide the channel through which the message
can be "embodied" as a physical thing. Following
this reasoning, physical people would
necessarily be the source of all the energy
required for all etheric to physical influences,
including EVP. That is how mental mediumship
works, that is how EVP apparently works.
So that is the hypothesis
designed to describe how etheric to physical
influences are enabled. If your daughter is the
source of those messages and not your
subconscious in some way, then one of the things
we would expect to see occur is that you would
have to provide the vocabulary of mental images
that are available for embodiment of her words,
which are actually just mind-to-mind transfers
of conceptual information. One of the
characteristics of EVP is that the message is
always in a language the experimenter or an
interested party understands. The only
exceptions to this we have seen documented have
clearly been demonstrations. This is one of the
"proofs" that we are the channel for etheric to
physical influences.
Another "proof" is that haunted
places are virtually always places that have had
long-time human occupancy and/or the expression
of extreme emotions. Again, according to the
metaphysical lore, humans emanate energy that is
generally described as auric energy or vitality.
Auric energy is something between physical and
etheric, and is apparently the raw stuff
required to enable etheric to physical
influences. A physical medium is able to manage
this energy to enable phenomena, but we all
provide it and manage it to some extent. That is
probably one of the factors determining how well
one does with EVP. The point is that we see
phenomena in places where this energy has
accumulated. It is the same energy we seek to
accumulate as a contact field or the energy of
rapport. That is why we think the Big Circle is
so important.
One more reference is that it is
fairly well established that there is such a
thing as subtle energy. Remote viewing
(clairvoyance), psychokinesis and what is being
described as morphic fields are all well
documented aspects of life that require the
existence of subtle energy. Subtle energy does
not require the existence of the survival of the
personality, but survival would not be a
supportable hypothesis without it.
So the "proof" that EVP can be
initiating by survived personality include:
Given:
-
Subtle energy exists, is not
explained with currently understood physical
principles and some forms of it imply a subtle
energy aspect to who we are.
-
EVP exist and cannot currently
be explained with known physical principles.
-
It is possible to record EVP
containing specific information asked for by a
third party.
-
The voices and statements in
some EVP are recognizably initiated by specific
people known to be physical "dead."
-
The existence of EVP requires an
intelligent manipulation of subtle energy that
manifests as the manipulation of physical
energy.
-
The Principle of Agreement and
the concept of embodiment predict that etheric
to physical influences will be facilitated by
the availability of subtle energy, which is in
fact, what has been experienced.
-
Out of body and near death
experiences as well as some reports of
reincarnation, (not discussed above) argue the
existence of a subtle energy aspect of who we
are that survives independent of the body.
Therefore: The above elements provide a
foundation of reasons why an etheric aspect of
reality is required, and why it is reasonable to
say that this etheric aspect of reality is
inhabited by the etheric aspect of Self.
And:
The etheric aspect of Self
remains sentient, retains the personality of the
person when incarnate and is able to cooperate
with people remaining in the physical to cause
etheric to physical influences, such as EVP
messages and direct voice.
What
do you mean by being "Clairvoyant"?
"Clairvoyance" is a term meaning "clear seeing."
There are other terms for hearing and such, but
"clairvoyance" is generally used to mean
"clairsentience" or clear sensing.
Clairvoyant ability is the etheric Self's vision
and the physical body is able to host that
ability just as it is able to host the ability
of Self to think, visualize, remember and dream.
All of these abilities are naturally expressed
to some extent, and our society helps us develop
the obviously physical ones. The apparently
etheric ability to dream, for instance, is not
taught in schools, but may be in the future as
our scientists learn to apply the ability in
"practical" ways they understand.
So we are
all clairvoyant to some extent, but as an
information gathering tool, we are taught by our
current culture that that source of information
is nonsense, causing most people to ignore the
ability. Telling yourself that, "I'm not
clairvoyant," is an excellent way to suppress
your clairvoyant ability. Oh, and it is an
ability, not a gift any more than thinking is a
gift. It cannot be taken away from you if you
"misuse" it, whatever that term may mean to you.
There are some who are naturally very clear
sensing, there are a few who are essentially
clairvoyantly "blind" and most of us have
a little ability. Like any ability, it can be
developed to the extent that your body is able
to support it in the physical. In fact, much
more of what we think we know comes from our
inner sensing than we realize or our scientists
like to admit.
The concept is important in
trans-etheric communication because it appears
that we sense information as our etheric Self
admits etheric objects of reality into the
physical via the Self-physical body
entanglement. That may be why some EVP
experimenters will maintain that a particular
recording has an EVP in it saying a particular
thing, while witnesses only hear gibberish. The
experimenter has sensed the information as it
was channeled through his or her body.
This is also why it is a good idea not to be
too quick to discount what is claimed of an EVP.
We must still have EVP that others can hear and
understand for EVP to be a proper tool, but for
personal use, it is good to use all of the tools
we have available to us for physical to etheric
communication with our etheric friends.
Is there
any danger in EVP?
Answer:
There have been no documented instances of lasting
problems experienced by EVP and ITC experimenters of
which we are aware. The only danger we can see is in
the possibility that a person who has mental health
issues might mistake the meaning and intention of
the messages. We advise that people who have a
history of emotional instability or who are
experiencing mental health issues should not work in
this field. It is always important that the
experimenter is able to use discernment by
recognizing that the communicating entities are
people and that they have the same ability to
mislead as do people still in the flesh.
In the Autumn 1989 AA-EVP Newsletter, Sarah Estep
wrote:
“Obviously, no one starts taping, automatic
writing, or playing with the Ouija board, thinking
he will become possessed or obsessed. But it can
happen. As I wrote on page 196 of Voices of
Eternity, The difficulty is in ascertaining who
is susceptible…I am not trying to frighten people
who are thinking about beginning to tape….Working in
the field can bring some of the most rewarding,
enriching experiences of your life. It would be
amiss of me, however, not to caution you about the
darker side of psi. Experienced tapers will tell you
not to believe everything that comes through. You
have your liars on the other side, as you have here.
The more they realize they are getting you upset,
the more they will continue. Human nature being what
it is, we may imagine certain messages are there,
when in fact, there is nothing. The important thing
though is, if a person believes a message is on
tape, he will respond to it for better or worse.
“If anyone at any time thinks he is in contact with
low-level entities, leave your tape recorder. Remain
in control at all times. Anyone can sit down to
tape. It takes much more inner strength to pull the
plug and walk away.”
The evidence found through EVP has shown that the
description of “evil” or “demonic” entities is
probably inaccurate. It is true that some
communicating entities reveal themselves to be of
relatively low spiritual maturity, but it is a reach
to argue that they are evil or demonic in any sense.
These entities are typically referred to as “low
levels” because of the nature of the messages they
give us. For instance, it is possible for an entity
to masquerade as someone you are seeking to make
contact with—even a loved one. It is also possible
that a “low-level” entity might tell you something
that is not true, but that is something that they
believe you want to hear. This is probably why many
of the prophetic EVP have not come to pass.
A prolonged period of carefully listening to EVP
samples has been shown to increase the
experimenter’s sensitivity to sounds and flickers
out of the corner of their eyes. In this way,
experimenters report an apparent increase in their
clairvoyant ability. Since we feel that everyone is
inherently clairvoyant, and that the ability can be
improved through practice and training, it seems
reasonable that working with EVP might increase
clairaudience or clairvoyance.
The attitude that we maintain toward a bothersome
entity is that it is a person and that it is not
natural for the entity to remain close to the
physical locale. We are in charge of our personal
space and we will ask a bothersome entity to move
on. In fact, an important aspect of EVP is the
“rescue” work some experimenters conduct in trying
to tell an apparently “stuck” entity that it should
“go to the light.”
In the final analysis, there is no obvious danger
that an experimenter will ‘bring home” an entity
that will bother the family. If an entity does
become bothersome, there simply are too few reports
of any danger due to such a situation to warrant
considering it a threat to the experimenter’s
welfare. The best safeguard against any possible
problem is your Self-education of the involved
concepts. You will find that the Spiritualists
provide such information. (See
http://nsac.org/)
More about the safety of EVP
The issue is the exchange of
influences between the etheric and the
physical. That requires energy which we
think of as physical/etheric or fringe
etheric energy. Vitality, auric energy
Kundalini energy, Ectoplasm ... whatever it
is, it comes from the person in the physical,
and is required for etheric to physical
influence to occur. That is the theory.
Since you are the source of the energy for
communication as the medium or channel, if
you have a fearful attitude, then you are
more apt to enable fearful things. All sorts
of things are out there but you tend to
select what you experience based on your
expectations.
The second part of the answer is that people
remain people and transitioning to the other
side does not automatically make people nice
or wise. Just as in life here, we encounter
people over there who have remained "close"
to the physical and who are apt to cause
trouble. They only way they can cause
trouble is if you give them the energy, and
it is for that reason that we say ignoring
them is the best way to make them go away.
"Clearing a house" or conducting an
exorcising in some way only gives them
energy.
A more common horror show theme in the movie
and television industries is a "bad" entity
getting a "living" person to do something
like cut a pretty girl's head off, so that
the entity can experience the act
vicariously. That was part of the movie, White Noise and we have all heard of
people who do what little voices in their
head tell them to do. We try to advise
people to stay away from any form of
trans-etheric communication if they might
not have the discretion to know not to do
what an entity tells them to do.
For the vast majority of people, there is no
danger at all and we have no reliable
evidence that a person has been harmed by
the etheric communicators when working with
EVP.
What are "Formants"
and what is a "Sinusoid?"
Also, what
are the main differences between paranormal
voices and ours?
Answer:
A
Sinusoid or Sinusoidal signal, is in reference
to a sign wave shaped cycle that is the
foundation for cycles per second in analog
sound. You can have sound formed of other than
Sinusoidal waves, such as square waves, but
biological system do not often form other than a
Sinusoidal-like wave, even if it is as a pulse.
As the sound from a voice box passes through the
mouth, that fundamental frequency produces
harmonics that combine, along with mechanical
shaping in the mouth to form the voice. The
fundamental frequency is often referred to as
Formant 0 (F0), and the subsequent harmonics as
Formant 1, 2 and so on. They are "formed" from
the base frequency and tend to show in
frequency, time, amplitude graphs as bands of
energy.
In a normal voice that is not a whisper, you
should see F0 in a spectral analysis of the
voice, and then clusters of energy associated
with the formants as bands in the display. The
Italian researchers have found that F0 is often
missing in EVP, indicating that they were formed
without the presence of F0. This would be an
indication that the voice was formed without the
presence of the vocal cords.
Further research has shown that the voices are
formed by, as the Italians say, "a thickening of
the background noise." A good illustration of
this can be seen by recording for EVP while
using a fan and a small water fountain as sound
sources. In such a situation, it is possible to
record a voice formed in the tinkle of the
fountain and a different voice formed in the
deeper sound of the fan.
This also illustrates the nature of the
background sound we are looking for. We do not
want white noise, which is all of the
frequencies equally represented. We want only
the frequencies associated with the human voice.
In
Spiricom, they used thirteen tones as a
group to simulate a human voice box.
Sonia Rinaldi of Brazil uses crowd babble.
Whatever you us will tend to determine what your
communicator has available to transfigure into
voice.
As
for your question about knowing if a voice is
phenomenal, the best comparison audio program I
have seen is Audacity, which is free at
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/windows.php.
Use the pull down menu beside the file name (at
the left end of the wave form display) and use
the "Pitch" view. In truth, though, I doubt that
any of the programs you are going to buy for
under $1000 are going to give you a view that
can be used for proper analysis. For instance,
Audacity does not offer a frequency scale in the
pitch view.
The research has been done to study the voices
as described in that article. They have compared
"living" to "dead" voices and conclusively found
them the same. Rinaldi gave them one such
excellent example to study. The research has
also been done to show that the voices are not
the product of imagination, stray radio signals
or artifacts of the equipment. Further research
has been done to show that the voices are not
caused by echoes of the past, super psi (the
mind of the experimenter) or some imagined
quantum holographic field. With these things
established, then you should feel comfortable
accepting a recording as the voice of a
discarnate entity if it is a direct response to
something you say or do. EVP should be
considered communication. If it does not make
sense, then discard it and seek further
communication. If it tells you it loves you and
sounds like the voice of a loved one you know to
be "dead," then you have good reason to believe
it is that loved one. Let the future take care
of proving the phenomena to the rest of the
world.
You can test almost all of these things for
yourself. And since it sounds like you are
looking for authentication from science,
remember that almost the entirety of the
scientific community is based on the assumption
of a biological origin of consciousness. They
cannot allow the existence of a discarnate
person or "living memory" without first changing
their fundamental assumptions. As such, they are
"scientifically" not allowed to validate EVP as
phenomenal.
Will I get the same results with a
letter to my
etheric friends in an envelop as by putting it on
the table?
Answer:
The Butlers have studied in many
different modalities of working with subtle energy.
Based on their study, and on experimental evidence
from EVP, they are pretty sure that it is we
who must provide the energy necessary for etheric to
physical influences. In effect, we or an interested
person, are the mediums through which the message
must pass. [Here, I will refer to it as the energy
of the aura of life or "auric" energy and define it
as the energy that bridges the etheric (nonphysical)
to the physical.]
Since we supply the energy necessary
for communication, the nature of that energy has a
lot to do with the nature of what we will
experience. If you expect a loving response, that is
more apt to be your experience than if you are
fearful. We think it is both a matter of who you
attract to communicate with you and what you will
allow to come in. For instance, you will find that
Spiritualists do not put up with a lot of
nonsense from their etheric communicators.
Spiritualist mediums are taught that they must be in
control, not the entity.
Your attitude is everything. Lisa
Butler recently recorded the EVP,
"Prepare to die!" in response her
question, "Do you not want people here?" The example
is at
http://aaevp.com/examples/examples_voice11.htm.
the point is that a person with a fearful attitude
about spirit communication may take the EVP as very
dangerous. The Butlers found the utterance very
funny--how can you not with that dramatic tone.
Your desire to communicate produces
far more potent and directed auric energy to reach
your daughter than would be produced by someone
recording for you. Even more important, the very act
of writing the note to your daughter helps to focus
your attention and tells reality what you intend.
The act of writing the note is probably more
important than the fact of its existence.
They can apparently read the letter
if it were laying on the table, but the letter in an
envelope or in a drawer should be as effective
because it remains a focus of your attention and
intent.
How should I
teach my
very young children about EVP?
Answer:
The Butler just purchased two
kittens from a family that accepts foster children
form the state. They are usually hardcore trouble
maker boys, but the Butlers found them to be very
well behaved boys who were pleasant to be around.
The secret was that the family taught the boys to
meditate (mindful contemplation, really), and the
whole family meditated on a regular daily schedule.
They also taught the boys about the concept of a
greater reality and teach the kids to direct their
meditative attention to one lesson or another
intended to build character and tolerance of others.
We do not have a precedence for
teaching very young children about EVP. The
technology may be a little too much for them;
however, after they master the computer and the
remote control for the TV, they are probably ready
for the technology of EVP. In the meantime, you
might consider teaching the fundamentals of spirit
communications. There is precedence for that in
Spiritualism. Check out
www.nsac.org/lyceums/index.htm. The NSAC
Lyceum is mostly intended for children and can be
used without the need for the children or the rest
of your family to become Spiritualists. Let that
come in time if it is right for you.
Beethoven did not speak
English, so why would his ghost be able to? He
was also deaf, not for his entire life but most
certainly by the time of his death, so wouldn't
his ghost be deaf?
Answer:
Answer: The ability to hear sound is a function
of the biological ear and the mind's
interpretation of a nerve signal. We think that
hearing in the etheric is mind-to-mind, meaning
that the etheric aspect of who you are, what we
think of as the "real you," communicates with
the all-etheric entity. We encourage EVP
experimenters to voice their questions, but that
is mainly to help them focus their intention. So
the answer to the second part of your question
is that the biological ear is not involved in
EVP.
As for language, an important characteristic of
EVP is that the utterance is virtually always in
a language the experimenter or an interested
witness understands--no matter what language the
etheric communicator spoke when in the physical.
We think the reason for this is that
mind-to-mind communication again. The formation
of an EVP is thought to follow the circuit of,
mind-to-mind etheric communication, transfer of
the information into the physical via the
experimenter's etheric Self to physical body
couple, and then impression of the information
into audio frequency sound energy in the
recorder via the action of stochastic resonance
on the week telekinetic signal. In this model,
the etheric communicator uses the vocabulary and
library of images held in the mind of the
experimenter. Thus, a long dead German speaking
man can speak English so long as the
experimenter understands English.
