EVP Vs RVP - Genre Differentiation?

EVP Vs RVP

Electronic Voice Phenomena, all modern paranormal investigators and paranormal enthusiasts know the term and the basics of the theories behind it.

I am not going to go into the long history of the phenomenon here, that has been covered extensively in my other writings on Paranormal Investigators: Past & Present, nor am I going to delve into the Psychology behind it all, Auditory Pareidolia or Apophenia as I am not trying to prove or disprove EVP here.

For those that read this that do not know the basics of EVP, here is a brief summary.

EVP are recordings done on audio or visual equipment (via the microphone) that are sounds which resemble human speech, or other recognisable sounds to the human ear.

EVP's are often found in the static or white noise of the recording, or the pauses in-between conversations of investigators. It is thought these voices or sounds may be from the afterlife, spirits or ghosts, or whatever you wish to call them.

There has been a class system attached to EVPs which is as follows:

• Class A: The voices are clearly understood by all who listen and the words are somewhat loud and clear. Usually, 5 independent people who listen at separate times (so not to be influenced by other investigators opinions) have to agree 100% on what the spoken words are.
• Class B: Voices cannot be clearly understood. Tones are also very low and hard to understand.
• Class C: Voices are exceptionally faint and virtually completely incomprehensible which are most common and usually unacceptable.

At this current point in time, Franks box and “the Spirit Box” (popularised by TV show Ghost Adventures) have become very common tools in the kits of many paranormal investigators. No matter how hard people try and claim that these devices are picking up the voices of the dead, sceptics will always bring forth the fact they are broken radios, that sweep through radio signals and pick up broadcasts.

Not only do they pick up the radio, but also TV and CB radio signals and interference from other devices like EMF pumps.

What they are not doing is recording EVP's.

Why are they not recording EVPS You ask? - quite simply because of the reasons above.

I am going to take a massive leap here and coin a new phrase “RVP” Radio Voice Phenomenon, voices heard, or recorded from radio frequency scanning devices.

My guess is that this may create some controversy, but so be it, but I for one am sceptical about any device that can allow a radio signal to be its source of “intelligent conversation”, this is purely because it is easy to manipulate, can be readily interfered with by outside sources (like someone on a CB radio), our brains are attuned to listen for words which in itself is a source of Auditory Pareidolia or Apophenia and, in my opinion, the way we question the spirit box is much akin to the psychic who throws out the question “Is there anyone in here who has a relative who's named starts with M!?”

We are throwing out questions expecting a preconceived answer, and more often than not we will hear that answer within in the noise of the radio sweep when there is actually nothing there.

So, the point of this exercise was not to discredit the Ghost Box, because there is always the chance that this device is genuinely picking up the voices of the dead as theorised, the point of this exercise was to create terminology to distinguish between two very different types of phenomenon that are all too often put under the one title of “EVP”.

EVP and RVP are two very different types of data collection used by paranormal investigators globally and should be categorised as such. Both have different traits, different advantages and very distinctly different disadvantages.

I for one will now refer to any recording that is captured from a radio device, Franks Box, Spirit Box as an "RVP"

I expect there will be feedback on this, please refrain from outright attacks because they will be deleted, but please do offer constructive feedback on the terminology (not the device itself, or the reason it does/does not work) – I'm not looking to change the world, just to clarify genres of paranormal data recording into more intelligent categories and sub-categories...

Thanks

Allen Tiller

©2014

www.allentiller.com.au

www.eidolonparanormal.com.au

Paranormal Investigators: Past & Present: Konstantīns Raudive

Konstantīns Raudive

The man who made EVP research famous, Konstantin Raudive, was already somewhat famous himself at the time of his paranormal research studies, studying philosophy and psychology under Carl Jung and writing numerous philosophical books that were always well received by his peers.


Raudive was born in Latvia but found himself in exile after the Soviets took back Latvia during World War 2. He moved to Sweden and taught at The University of Uppsala.




In 1964 he read Friedrich Jurgenson's book “Voices from Space” and arranged to meet the paranormal investigator.
 Raudive had always had an interest in the paranormal and studied parapsychology and supernatural literature whenever he could.
The meeting with Jurgenson led Raudive into a subject which would become his passion, and for which he would become famous worldwide for, Electronic Voice Phenomena.

For three months he experimented tirelessly with what he had learned and got nothing, then one day, he finally recorded a voice from an unknown source. His elation at finally making contact re-invigorated him and led him to experiment with different ways to record and conduct EVP sessions, thus becoming an EVP pioneer in the process.
As Raudive experimented, he developed new ways of recording spirit voices and tried many different things, including crystal radio sets, which he used in his early work extensively.

Soon he developed his own custom devices to help with clearer recordings, one of which, now known as the “Raudive Diode” uses Germanium in a circuit which acts as a microphone receiver.

Raudive conducted most of his experiments in controlled scientific conditions, using strict protocols. He was monitored by other scientists whilst doing his experiments, which were generally 18 minute EVP sessions.
His equipment had devices on them that would block radio and television signals, essentially a Faraday cage. Like most sessions, no voices were heard during the recording, but on playback, to the amazement of all involved, voices could be heard clearly, including Raudives own deceased sister, who said her name “Tekle” and Raudives nickname, “Kosti”

In the last ten years of his life Raudive collected around 100,00 audiotapes of “spirit” voices, it is claimed over 400 people became involved with his research and each and every one of them heard the voices recorded.
In 1968 Raudive published a book titled “ Unhörbares wird hörbar"- or “What Is Inaudible becomes Audible”, which has also been published in English as “Breakthrough”, He went on to write two more books before his death in 1974.
Raudive was a pioneer of early EVP work and set some of the standards for how the work should be conducted today.

For more on this remarkable man please follow the links below

http://atransc.org/circle/konstantin_raudive.htm

http://hallucinations.enacademic.com/571/electronic_voice_phenomenon

© 2013 Allen Tiller

www.eidolonparanormal.com.au

Paranormal Investigators: Past & Present: Friedrich Jurgenson

The Godfather of EVP

Friedrich Jurgenson

Born in 1903 in Odesa, a city in Ukraine, Friedrich Jurgenson was the son of a Swedish mother and Danish father, who had moved to the country from Estonia.

The family pushed young Friedrich into the arts. He trained as a painter and concerto pianist. During World One the family fled from Estonia.

In 1925 the family moved back to Estonia, Jurgenson went as well, and soon left for Berlin to continue studying, only to find his tutor was a Jew, who decided to flee the Nazi's to Palestine, Friedrich went as well and stayed there for 6 years, where he also started a successful Opera career.

Jurgenson ventured home to visit his parents in Estonia, the bitterly cold weather damaged his vocal cords and ended his singing career. He decided to then focus entirely on his painting, of which he had become very accomplished.

During World War 2, he moved to Sweden and learnt his tenth language. He also married and became a citizen. He spent his time painting portraits of wealthy Swedes.

Whilst visiting Italy, Jurgenson was asked by the Vatican to catalogue their archaeological works, buried beneath the Holy City. Jurgenson did as he was asked, and impressed Pope Pius XII so much with his work that the Pope asked him to paint a portrait of him, of which he did, then completed three more, for a total of four portraits of the Pope.

In 1957, Jurgenson purchased a tape recorder to record himself singing. He noticed in places, during playback, that the sound faded in and out. He also began to take notice of his sixth sense abilities, abstract visions, and telepathic messages.

He had this to say about what he was hearing.

"I sat by the table, clearly awake and relaxed. I sensed that soon something was going to happen. Following an inner pleasurable calmness, long sentences in English appeared in my consciousness. I did not perceive these sentences acoustically but they formed themselves as long phonetic sentences and after a closer study I couldn't conceive the words as correct English but in a disfigured almost alphabetical way - completely deformed. I did not hear a voice, a sound nor a whisper. It was all soundless." 

In 1959, FJurgenson made a discovery that would change the paranormal community. Whilst visiting his country house with his wife Monica, Jurgenson decided to take his tape recorder and get some of the local bird sounds caught on tape, whilst listening back he discovered that he could hear a man's voice.

Jurgenson said this of his recording:

" I heard a noise, vibrating like a storm, where you could only remotely hear the chirping of the birds. My first thought was that maybe some of the tubes had been damaged. In spite of this, I switched on the machine again and let the tape roll. Again I heard this peculiar noise and the distant chirping. Then I heard a trumpet solo, a kind of a signal for attention. Stunned, I continued to listen when suddenly a man's voice began to speak in Norwegian. Even though the voice was quite low I could clearly hear and understand the words. The man spoke about 'nightly bird voices' and I perceived a row of piping, splashing and rattling sounds. Suddenly the choir of birds and the vibrating noise stopped. In the next moment, the chirping of a chaffinch was heard and you could hear the tits singing at a distance - the machine worked perfectly!" 

Friedrich Jurgenson went on to research and document thousands of voices he recorded, all, he claimed, “spirits from the other side”, or “voices of the dead”
One single event cemented his belief that he was indeed recording the voices of people that had passed over, and that was the sound of his dead Mothers voice.


"I was outside with a tape recorder, recording bird songs. When I listen through the tape, a voice was heard to say "Friedel, can you hear me. It's mammy ...." It was my dead mother's voice. 'Friedel' was her special nickname for me." 

Jurgenson abandoned his painting and other interest, and began to concentrate solely on his EVP work, even publishing a book in 1964 titled "The Voices From Space”

Jurgenson now found himself in an interesting place, paranormal societies from across the world, The University of Freiburg and the Para-psychological Association of the USA all wanted to talk to him, also, Claude Thorlin and Konstantin Raudive came to visit and learn what they could of Jurgenson’s techniques and findings.

In 1960, one of the spirit voices told him to use radio as a medium to listen and interact with spirits, this he did, and continued to do until his death. He plugged the radio directly into his recording device and set the frequency to around 1145-1500 kHz (1485.0 kHz is now called the Jürgenson Frequency), Friedrich found he could communicate in real-time with the spirits and hold

conversations.

Jurgenson went to on author more books, and also to paint another Pope, and also make a documentary about him, which earned him the Order of Commendatore Gregorio Magno from the hand of Pope Paul VI.

By the 1980's Jurgenson had become very well known in Parapsychology and paranormal investigation circles for his Electronic Voice Phenomena recordings, studies, lectures and books. By 1985 he was predicting that television would soon be able to carry “spirit” pictures with voices also, he called his new vision “Audioscopic Work”, unfortunately, he died before he achieved this dream.

Friedrich Jurgenson died in 1987,  the Godfather of electronic voice phenomena did not merely pass away quietly though. Since his death he has returned through EVP sessions, constantly telling how “life” is in the afterlife, his image has even appeared on television sets in different parts of the world at the same time, in similar conditions as to what he had predicted.

For more information one of the Founding Fathers of Electronic Voice Phenomena please visit the links below

http://www.worlditc.org/c_06_juerg_intro.htm

http://www.sonoloco.com/rev/singular/friedrich/fj.html 

© 2013 Allen Tiller

www.eidolonparanormal.com.au