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Quarterly NewsletterNo. 16 October 2000

BELIEF FROM KNOWLEDGE

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The following article by Paul Sieveking, editor of Fortean Times appeared in the ‘Sunday Telegraph’ on September 3rd 2000.It's food for thought and manna from heaven for the sceptics, although the last sentence rather qualifies that which precedes it:

THAT'S NOT A GHOST, IT'S A HUM YOU CAN'T HEAR

Two ingenious hypotheses about why we experience ghosts have appeared recently. While these may explain some aspect of some ghostly experience, they do not present an all-embracing explanation for the whole range of apparitional phenomena.

The first theory is from Peter Brugger, a Swiss euro-scientist from Zurich, who asserts that ghosts, doppelgangers and out-of-body experiences can be explained as phantom sensations like a phantom limb, spread to the whole body. Phantom limbs - the feeling that an amputated limb still exists - are experienced when the part of the brain that normally senses the limb loses those signals.

Seeing one's double (often apparently as a mirror image) may be the result of damage to visual areas of the brain that affect the way the body is sensed.Damage to the parital lobes, which distinguish between body and surrounding space, may result in the feeling that one's double is present, though invisible. Mr.Brugger suggests that out-of-body experiences may be explained by excitability of the temporal lobes”.Furthermore “Ghosts are probably nothing more but also nothing less than phantoms of the body.”

The second theory comes from Vic Tandy, computer expert, who about three years ago, was working late one night in a laboratory with a reputation for being haunted.He developed a cold sweat and a feeling of depression and of being watched. Then an indistinct grey figure appeared on the periphery of his vision. When he turned to look, it vanished.

The following morning, Mr. Tandy, a fencing enthusiast, was modifying one of his foils and left the blade clamped in a vice while he went in search of oil.Returning he noticed the blade vibrating wildly and suspected that inaudible low frequency sounds were the cause. Tests revealed a standing wave trapped in the laboratory, reaching a peak next to his desk.It was caused by a new extractor fan, which was making the air vibrate at 18.9Hz (cycles per second).

Infrasound around this frequency has been linked to hyper- ventilation, triggering nausea, fear and anxiety; the human eyeball has a resonant frequency of 18Hz, at which it starts to vibrate in sympathy to infrasound, causing a blurring of vision.Under these conditions an object or small movement in the periphery of one's vision can lead to a ghost-like experience.

Recently, Mr. Tandy tested out his hypothesis in a 14th century cellar beneath the Tourist Information Centre in Coventry where several visitors had had strange experiences. In 1997, for instance a tour guide, Colin Cook, noticed that a Canadian journalist appeared to be taken ill as he crossed the room. The man was frozen to the spot, the hairs on his arms stood up and goose pimples formed.He reported the face of a woman seemed to be looking over his right shoulder.

An American couple visited and while the husband and Mr. Cook felt nothing, the wife stopped at the threshold and said that something was barring her way.She became pale and refused to enter the cellar.This episode suggests that sensitivity to ultrasound varies considerably.

Mr. Tandy and his colleagues tested for infrasound in the cellar by having someone stamp the ground and then analysing the resonances.Prior to the stamping, a background reading was taken; the experimenters withdrew from the cellar and left the instruments to sample and average any ambient sounds present for 20 seconds.To their surprise, there was a most pronounced peak at 19Hz.

The corridor leading to the cellar is 10.95 metres long, which would resonate at about 16.3Hz; but it is not straight and the researchers suggested that the door opening would reduce this effective length in the same way that a finger hole in a wind instrument would behave.This would give an effective length of about 9.5 metres which would resonate at 19Hz.The source of energy to create the standing wave remains a mystery.

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My Note: To plagiarise the above. The following illustrates one of my recent encounters:-

THAT'S NOT A GHOST, IT'S A HUM I CAN HEAR 

Although they are not the exact words used by one of the more senior members of the Society for Psychical Research, when presented with one of my clearest digitally produced, spectographically imaged, unambiguous spirit voice conversations transferred onto magnetic tape, in the hope that the Society would be prepared to do some psychical research, with all it implies, into this most neglected of paranormal phenomena - the EVP.What he said was:"I found it very difficult to clarify the speech due to my advancing years and background interference".

He followed by saying that he would be most interested to hear from me again if I "find it possible to improve the clarity of the reception“. It took a while to recover from the vacuity of this remark.

My response, as any normally intelligent person's must be, is: if I was either an electronics wizard working for a multi-national company in the field of auditory micro technology (or whatever the terminology is) and/or God's right-hand woman, I would have "clarified" the reception already and wouldn't need to consult anyone at the SPR.I would by now have the glorious satisfaction of having sold my patented 'Spirispeak' device world-wide thus convincing the mass of the population that there is indeed an after-life (and some of us had better pull our socks up if we don't want to finish up in the hot place), and having made myself a multi-billionaire.

No need for the SPR in this scenario.I make no apology for saying that the Society for Psychical Research should be re-named the Society for Psychical Rubbishing forthwith and, although complimentary copies of my Newsletter are sent to them, as I am sure no-one ever reads them, I am in no danger of my remarks coming back to haunt me.

GAIT PROJECT – USA

This stands for Global Association Instrumental Trans-communication and was conceived by Sarah Estep founder of the AAEVP in the United States, (now run by Lisa and Tom Butler, from whom I received the following information):

Dale Palmer, one of the founders of GAIT writes: "I think most of you know that by early next year we hope to have a Computer Centre built and operating where anyone in the world, who has a computer and is on the Internet, can log on and do his or her own communications with persons in other dimensions of reality.One will hopefully also be able to store one's own secret code so that after transition one can communicate and use that code which can then be authenticated at the Computer Centre.

The Noetics Institute (not to be confused with the Institute of Noetic Sciences) has now purchased a new high-speed computer.It should be able to handle several people over the Internet from any place in the world all doing communications at the same time.Only last week we finally, after four months of waiting, have installed a new state-of-the-art fibre-optic cable to feed the computer.This new fibre-optic line can reportedly handle a half million images per day.

Our team of electrical engineers is now in the 14th month of their 18-month assignments.All research and development is right on schedule.You might keep your fingers crossed that when they all give their final reports in late December and we put them all together, they do work.It is our hope and our plan that we have software, etc. like no other in the world.We have electrical engineers working in several different areas of assigned research.One is working to create software that will enhance the level of the voices so that everyone, even the hearing impaired like me, can hear them.Another is working on software to decompress the voices, i.e. make them time variant, i.e. space them apart so that anyone can detect the correct enunciation without playing them over and over.

We believe we do have the knowledge to make it work.We believe we also have the expertise to design and build the technology to do it.However, we do not yet have the knowledge of why it works.The answer to why is beyond the boundaries of the current scientific paradigm.This "why" is what we are now trying to understand.And, we shall, be it God's will.But in order for us to understand this "why" we will have to experience a quantum jump in our thinking and understanding.We must come to realize that this entire physical dimension is only a very tiny part of all reality.Also, that our own short visits into this physical dimension are only a very tiny part of our own personal reality". 

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My Note: If only we had a similar organisation in Britain!It's so lonely here.

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STUDYING PARAPSYCHOLOGY

My note: Still on the subject of the learning curve:I read in ‘The Christian Parapsychologist’, published by the Churches' Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies, that you can study parapsychology for 'A' level at more than one British University. I knew of the Koestler Chair at Edinburgh held by Professor Bob Morris (not interested in EVP, I've tried him), but there's also the Perrot-Warrick unit at Hertfordshire (who funded Cambridge student David Ellis to write a book rubbishing the EVP - he's now a member of the SPR and apparently composes the Christian Parapsychologist!) and then there five other higher educational institutions which offer parapsychology course as part of a BA, BSc or MA degree programme (usually as part of a degree in psychology).They are Coventry, Liverpool Hope, Liverpool John Moore and Northampton. 

"Swallows heralding a parapsychological summer?" Matthew Smith muses in his article in ‘Christian Parapyschologist’. Or maybe, I venture, vultures pecking at a new-born carcase? It depends on whether you think the glass is half full or half empty! I'm in the half-empty frame of mind at the moment. 

’However, ‘The Christian Parapsychologist’ for those who may be interested and don't know about it, is well worth reading. It has been published for twenty-five years and, as The Reverend Angus Haddow writes in the September 2000 issue: "It is the only magazine of high quality in Britain which enables Christians to explore this (parapsychology) field and, at the same time, listen to non-Christian psychical research.

"The Fellowship", to quote from the magazine,"takes a positive view of psychic sensitivity which many people experience quite naturally in their lives, perhaps through an unsought telepathic communication.Some seem to have a greater awareness of this dimension than others, and in some it is more refined. There is a gentle call on members to relate this to a fuller Christian life in which the psychic may find consecration".

There are two classes of membership: full and associate. Those eligible for full membership must be practising members of churches which are members of or affiliated to the World Council of Churches, or must themselves acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour of the World.Associate members, who cannot vote or hold office, need no such qualifications and may be elected if the Council of the Fellowship so determines.

There is a library, and study material. Cassette and video- tapes, books and booklets are available.A fuller prospectus together with lists of the above are available from: “’The General Secretary, The Churches Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies, South Road, North Somercotes, Nr. Louth, Lincolnshire LN11 7PT. Tel: 01507 358845.

Subscription for magazine:£6 post free to addresses in UK, elsewhere £7 (US $14) by surface, £8 (US $16) by air mail.

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HUNTER SELKIRK 

The following fascinating information on Hunter Selkirk, who was a Physical medium in the North East of England in the 1940's, was provided by Alma Richardson, one of our members, who lives in Tyne and Wear:

I had read and heard about the physical mediumship of Hunter Selkirk, a County Durham coalminer who became the breadwinner of the family after his father was killed in a major pit explosion in 1909. He was the man who helped to get the Spiritualist Church at Craghead a pit village in Co. Durham built, and carried out many materialisation seances there as well as giving healing.

In 1993 my husband Allan and I went to Craghead Church to talk with three elderly ladies who had sat in physical circle with Hunter Selkirk and had too been given healing.They spoke about the miraculous effect of his healing on them, and about his mediumship and all three ladies mentioned his helpers "Topsy" a small black girl, "Zuru" an African Negro and the French Doctor (who had been instrumental in their miracle cures). They also reminded me of the book about Hunter, by Harry Emerson, written in the 1940's entitled "Listen My Son".It was reprinted by Friends of Craghead Church in 1984.

In a chapter entitled 'The Spirit Tutor' there is a discussion between sitters at one of Hunter Selkirk's circles:"We had an interesting experience at one meeting.We were sitting in the dark when little Ivy Rutherford (a spirit entity) spoke and her voice was unusually loud“.’She repeated, 'Hello, there!' several times before she could hear us answer her.She got going however and this is what she said:'We are having a field day. It is a lovely day, the sun is shining, the birds are singing and everything is beautiful.There are a lot of children here and mothers and fathers too. We are having a lot of fun, playing games, racing, skipping and dancing.We have a funny looking instrument standing in the field and that is what I am speaking into.It's a funny business and I don't know whether I am going to like it or not.I can see all of you and the room, reflected on to a plate beside the instrument, but you seem such a long way off and I cannot hear you very well.

I think I would rather be in the room and feel your presence, but I have been told this is an experiment, and it may come that you will have a similar instrument in the seance room and all will be able to hear, including Mr. Selkirk'.

We had a dozen or more of the children speak to us in this way, but all seemed to prefer the more intimate way.The voices were all clear and distinct and much louder than when speaking in the direct voice.This happened on only one occasion and no one attempted to explain this more fully, but it does make one think of the possibilities of the future.If at some time, this, or a similar method of communication does become possible, you can always have an answer ready for anyone who says that we disturb the dead.You can quote what I have told you and say, "The dead started it first”.

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My Note: Could the "similar instrument in the seance room" referred to by the spirit child Ivy Rutherford, be the tape recorder or, in my case, the digital recorder?Certainly, the loudest spirit voices I have recorded have been in the seance room and "all" were able to hear - admittedly with some difficulty, as the quality of sound leaves a lot to be desired --hence my abortive attempts to get a scientific interest taken in order to investigate the mechanics of it all. I have asked my spirit communicants 'how' they do it; how do they know when I switch on my recorder and have had an answer which indicated there was some sort of switchboard with lights. And, certainly, people have to be found to 'take the call', as many times I've heard spirits (other than those I've asked to speak to) saying things like "He's not here; go and find him; bring him here. I've heard my son's name called out as though he was in some sort of line-up, and then I've heard my son say, excitedly, "Is she near?". 

The Hunter Selkirk story emphasizes once again how much time has passed since this voice phenomenon was first noted and demonstrated yet still proper research into the EVP is not instituted. This make me at one and the same time more depressed that all our efforts to make people in Britain who can scientifically investigate this technological miracle of spirit communication have, so far failed and more determined that they are going to listen soon whether they like it or not.

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SIR ALEC COMMUNICATES?

The actor Sir Alec Guinness died two months ago, on the 5th August. At about six in the evening on the 7th August I was half watching, with a friend, a German programme on satellite television. It was showing a huge waterspout travelling across the sea somewhere around the coast of Japan.The commentary was Japanese overlaid with German.My friend and I were both drinking 'Guinness' (which I very rarely do) and at the same time, I was reading the newspaper report of Alec Guinness's death and looking at a photograph of him in his most famous film "Bridge over the River Kwai" in which he played a British officer in charge of soldiers who had been captured by the Japanese in the last war and forced to build a bridge over the River Kwai in Japan. Many of the men were tortured and died.The theme music from the film was a distinctive military march which was played and whistled by the men throughout.

Suddenly, while the waterspout on screen was still travelling across the sea, we both heard this military march coming from the tv, being whistled exactly as in Alec Guinness's film. It obviously had nothing to do with what was being shown on screen and there were only a few bars, then the programme reverted to normal.

I know Sir Alec Guinness was a psychic. I remember reading something about the occasion when he was with the late American actor James Dean who had just bought the car he eventually died in.Sir Alec apparently went very pale and begged Dean not to use the car, telling him he would have a fatal crash - which is exactly what happened.So, was Sir Alec getting a little message through to us via the tv on the 7th August?I like to think so. 

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BOOK REVIEW

by Michael Dawson

THE CONSCIOUS UNIVERSE:

THE SCIENTIFIC TRUTH OF PSYCHIC PHENOMENA

by Dean Radin, Ph.D

Published by Harper Collins 1997; Dean Radin is the director of the Consciousness Research Laboratory at University of Nevada,Las Vegas, USA.The title is very suggestive and the book has been reported by one French parapsychologist as very important.On its sleeve we read "From history's dawn, people of all cultures have found forceful but entirely anecdotal evidence of links between our minds and the material world - from the Evil Eye to ESP, from clairvoyance to poltergeists. Dean Radin and a few other pioneering scientists have at last amassed irrefutable data that support the anecdotes and places us on the edge of what may well be the next scientific revolution.

This myth-shattering book explains the evidence for the veracity of psychic phenomenon, uniting the teaching of mystics, the theories of quantum physics, and the latest in high-tech experiments.With painstaking research and deft, engaging prose, Radin dispels the misinformation and superstition that have clouded the understanding of scientists and lay people alike concerning a host of fascinating oddities.Psychokinesis, remote viewing, prayer, jinxes and more - all are real; all have been scientifically proven, and the proof is in these pages.

Radin draws from his own work at Princeton, Stanford Research Institute, and Fortune 500 companies, as well as his research for the US Government, to demonstrate the surprising extent to which the truth of psi has already been tacitly acknowledged and exploited.As ‘The Conscious Universe’ details, such no-nonsense entities as Sony, Contel and the US Army have delved into and benefited from psychic forces.He then examines why the scientific establishments still pooh-poohs psi for reason that have nothing to do with the weight of new evidence and everything to do with the institutionalized prejudices of scientists themselves.

‘The Conscious Universe’ also sifts the data for tantalizing hints on how mind and matter are linked.Though the link defies the law of classical physics, it may heel closely to the basic precept of quantum mechanics.Finally Radin takes a bold look ahead, to the inevitable social, economic, academic and spiritual consequences of the mass realization that mind and matter can influence each other without having any physical contact.

Professor Brian Josephson, a Physics Nobel Laureate, has read the book and writes on the back cover: "Cutting perceptively through the spurious arguments frequently made by sceptics (Radin) shows the evidence in favour of (paranormal) existence is overwhelming".

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

17.4.2000

Dear Judith

On "I was a boy's pet rabbit", (Newsletter No. 15 July 2000).First of all, assuming it was a paranormal voice, could it not have been ---a boy's pet rabbit?If animals don't exist in the spirit world I wouldn't want to go there, and it may be that there they can communicate in words, telepathically.I certainly hope so.

My literary sensibilities were very taken with your neologism 'papparagon' (Newsletter No. 15 July 2000) and I had a fun half hour trying to work it out."You've got them...shoot" (same Newsletter) made me think the -"gon" (of papparagon) might be "gun", and the closest word I could find to "pappara-" was "papparazzi", so might it be a kind of camera (with buttons?)I get the feeling that this raises more questions than it solves though.

Papparagon sounds like a word from James Joyce's ‘Finnegan's Wake’.His inspiration for this was his schizophrenic daughter Lucia who talked in this way, and schizophrenics' tendency towards neologism is well known in psychiatric literature (like faratoto for "father", for example).Now schizophrenics also hear voices.I'm not, rest assured, about to label you and all the other researchers into the EVP schizophrenic: but I wonder whether schizophrenic patients are hearing voices which are objectively there, but which most of us can't detect.

On a more technical note, it struck me today how much more affinity the EVP has to analogue (cassette tape, video tape) than to CD’s and DVD’s onto which we can't record.Even my 14 inch Sony tele-video automatically finds the best reception, which means you can't record on the inter-frequency.It looks as though hi-tech and business considerations might shut out the voices.It's worrying.

All the best,

Richard George,

St. Albans, Herts.

My Note: Yes, I absolutely agree. Electronic instrumentation becoming more sensitive yet more specific, and new developments in virtual reality are already creating a blurring of the borderlines and a climate in which it is ever easier to ascribe a "voice" to something "real" of this world and not another. I don't know how we're going to cope with this. I just hope people on both sides of the veil who want to prove communication find a definitive way to do so – soon - preferably with a little bit of help from the scientists!

As for Richard's appraisal of "papparagon" which was part of a spirit message on my telephone answering machine: "There's another button come off this damned papparagon".I find what he says intriguing, although this particular message was preceded by the words "fire engines" and I don't know what that's got to do with other-worldly cameras. On the other hand, the more I hear from the spirit world, the less I know - or rather the ideas I had before are being seriously challenged. So, anything's possible!

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24th July 2000

Dear Judith

This happened over fifteen years ago when I was teaching young adults with learning difficulties.I was sitting on the kitchen floor surrounded by cards I was matching for the class, together with two speakers and my record player. The record, the title of which I don't recall was one of Stewart Burrows' sacred songs "I know that my Redeemer liveth".

I was deeply engrossed in my task, the music was non-intrusive background music.Both speakers were on and I was soon aware that the music from one speaker had faded altogether, while the sound of Stewart Burrows' voice from the other had become very faint indeed.Another voice took over which seemed to be similar to his voice.I don't remember the actual words but he spoke at length on how to search for God - not around, but inwards and upwards.

After delivering the message, the voice of Stewart singing the sacred songs returned and the music also came back through the other speaker and everything carried on normally to the end of the record.

A few days later I was casually glancing through a book by Sai Baba and on the last page there were the actual words I had heard - about half a page or so.I was delighted and gave the book to my nephew who I thought would be interested, and then bought a second copy for myself.Not surprisingly, when one knows Swami, it simply didn't exist in this copy!I still remember the message though!

May Broadhurst,

Stockport, Cheshire.

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28th August 2000

Dear Judith

I think you may be interested to know what happened to my grand-daughter.She lives in Los Angeles, USA and about a month ago, just before she came to England, she lost her purse with credit cards in it. She informed the Bank the next morning (as she discovered the loss after the Bank had closed) and they told her that someone had already called to cancel them.The Bank people told my granddaughter that they'd asked for her mother's maiden name (private information) and the caller had given them the name “Hall”.

My grand-daughter was amazed by this as no-one even knew she'd lost her purse, nor her mother's maiden name.Who could it possibly be who'd called the Bank?She said that she thought that if anyone honest had found her purse, they would have handed it in and if anyone dishonest had found it they would have attempted to use the credit cards so they wouldn't cancel them. And no-one, but no-one, who could have found her purse would have known her mother's maiden name.

So, who was it that called the Bank?

M. Hall

London, N1 

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4th October 2000

Dear Judith

I am in complete agreement with you that we need to identify the factors that facilitate evp (or tdc as it is more usually called now).The phenomenon itself is now so well established that it cannot be written off as random radio signals.Material has been repeatedly produced in direct response to questions put by sitters.Monty Keen (a member of the Society for Psychical Research) and I have even been present when results, clear and unequivocal, were produced on a tape recorder from which the microphone had been removed, and without input of white noise.He and I, in the course of our investigations, have also seen material appear on a television screen.The only alternative explanation for these phenomena is fraud, but not only have we no reason for doubting the honesty of the people concerned, we were also able to operate a measure of effective control.Currently, I am investigating a case in Portugal where material comes through the radio itself.

The late Scott Rogo a leading American investigator, collected many cases where message had come through on the telephone.George Meek actually built a device that allowed clear communication (the Spiricom) but after a time it unaccountably ceased to produce results.The Luxembourg group are currently producing material on television screens, and one of our colleagues, Dr. Hans Schaer, is working with them.And of course there are the results produced by early pioneers such as Jurgenson, Raudive, Bonner, Alsop and others.

Thus there is no doubt that a phenomenon exists that must be taken very seriously.The question is how to develop it in a form that will be clear and repeatable and stand up to the scrutiny of sceptics - who hate the idea that such things are possible, but who must be convinced if work of this kind is to receive the support and publicity it deserves.This is the question we have to answer, and your own dedicated and thoughtful work is another important step in the right direction and to be very much welcomed.My hope is that those who appear to be responsible for the many communications reported by researchers can help in improving the methods used, and Monty and I, after our personal experiences of clear communication, hope that this may prove possible before much longer.

Both he and I are very anxious to encourage you in your work, and to give any help that we can.Monty is in London much more frequently than I am as he lives nearer, and it may be that he is able to call on you before I can.However, I would very much like us to meet and certainly want to keep in touch.

With very best wishes

Professor David Fontana (Chair of the SPR)

Cardiff, Wales. 

My Note: As I've already mentioned, the people at the SPR don't read the quarterly Newsletters I send them otherwise the first paragraph of Professor Fontana's letter would have been seen to be gratuitous and the third and fourth paragraphs like the road to Hell, which is also paved with good intentions.What else can I say? 

Judith Chisholm

EVP & Transcommunication Society

Of Great Britain & Ireland

Contact me at: evp@lineone.net

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