ITC: Personal Results and Guidance on Methodology

Dr. Anabela Cardoso Sumario La autora comenzó su disertación explicando que jamás tuvo relación con el mundo de lo llamado paranormal antes de empezar su propia experimentación en Transcomunicación Instrumental a finales del año 1997. Diplomática de carrera con casi treinta años de experiencia profesional, la Dra. Cardoso ejerció funciones y vivió en cuatro continentes, pero cuando era Cónsul General de Portugal en Galicia, España, fue cuando inició la experimentación en TCI con un grupo de cuatro amigos. Dos meses y medio después de haber comenzado sus investigaciones recibieron la primera psicofonía y a partir de entonces muchas otras voces paranormales fueron recibidas durante las sesiones semanales que se realizaban en casa de Anabela. Dos meses más tarde Anabela recibió una respuesta directa a través del altavoz de la radio a la pregunta que acababa de hacer a sus invisibles interlocutores durante una sesión de experimentación en psicofonía que ahora efectuaba asiduamente. La radio estaba sintonizada como habitualmente en el ruido blanco de ondas cortas y el invisible comunicador afirmó hablar desde el ‘otro mundo’. A partir de entonces los contactos se volvieron más largos y más frecuentes y a partir del día 1 de Junio de 1998 y por un largo periodo de tiempo, confirmando la información previamente recibida de los comunicadores, los mensajes por VDR empezaron a ser recibidos cada dos días en casa de la Dra. Cardoso. Los comunicantes se identificaron como el Grupo Portugués de la Estación Río del Tiempo en el mundo siguiente y algunos de ellos dieron además su identificación personal. La personalidad que más frecuentemente comunicó se identificó como Carlos de Almeida y otras voces afirmaron ser las de su padre, su abuela, su hermano y de otras personas desconocidas o de que ella no puede acordarse, pero todos ya fallecidos.

La autora rindió tributo a los pioneros de la psicofonía: El pintor, músico y director de cine sueco Friedrich Jürgenson y el filósofo y parapsicólogo letón Dr. Konstantin Raudive. Destaca el hecho de que Jürgenson fue una distinguida personalidad artística de su tiempo que abandonó su carrera para dedicarse de cuerpo y alma a la investigación y el Dr. Raudive fue quién sistematizó el estudio de las psicofonías de un modo científico. Subraya las muchas coincidencias entre el contenido de sus propias comunicaciones y los mensajes recibidos por los dos grandes pioneros. Una de esas notables coincidencias se refiere a la existencia de estaciones en el mundo siguiente de donde se transmitirían los contactos avanzados, tales como Voces Directas de Radio (VDR), transimágenes, textos de ordenador, etc., para la Tierra y otros mundos físicos. Otros investigadores modernos de TCI como el matrimonio Harsch-Fischbach de Luxemburgo, Adolf Homes y Fritz Malkhoff de Alemania, entre otros, también reportan la misma información por parte de sus propios comunicadores según la cual los contactos por ellos recibidos serían originados en esas estaciones.

La Dra. Cardoso enumeró algunas de las predicciones muy precisas y detalladas sobre el surgimiento de la TCI transmitidas a través de médiums de diversas nacionalidades en la primera mitad del siglo XX. Allan Kardec, el padre del Espiritismo, ya predijo en 1857 que el contacto sería un día establecido ‘…por otros medios más directos y más accesibles a vuestros sentidos’.

La ponente facilitó una muestra de las informaciones más reveladoras recibidas de sus interlocutores sobre la naturaleza del próximo mundo y sobre temas existenciales y subrayó la universalidad de la supervivencia a la muerte física que los comunicadores anuncian como la Ley Natural común a todos los seres vivos.

Ilustró su discurso con numerosos ejemplos de psicofonías y de VDR que comprobaron afirmaciones recibidas de la Estación Río del Tiempo. Entre las grabaciones escuchadas se destaca un protocolo de verificación concebido por el Dr. David Fontana, catedrático de Psicología en el Reino Unido, antiguo Presidente de la Society for Psychical Research británica y su actual Vicepresidente. El test fue realizado por dos veces en los estudios de la Dra. Cardoso en Vigo y en Lyon, sin que el Dr. Fontana comunicara con antelación sus intenciones a la Dra. Cardoso. La prueba consistió en el pedido que hizo el Dr. Fontana a los comunicantes para que repitieran algunas palabras en inglés que él les dictó. En las dos ocasiones los comunicadores repitieron las palabras alto y claramente sin ningún titubeo.

La autora terminó su ponencia afirmando que el nuevo método de contacto por TCI, estudiado y desarrollado en el mundo siguiente, está abierto a todos sin necesidad de requisitos especiales y transmitió a los oyentes su confianza en que muchos de los participantes en el ‘Primer Congreso Internacional sobre Investigación de la Supervivencia a la Muerte Física con Especial Mención a la Transcomunicación Instrumental’ obtendrían resultados positivos si intentaran el contacto de forma sistemática con persistencia, paciencia y espíritu abierto.

Summary The author starts by explaining that she was not involved in any way with the world of the paranormal or with psychical research before starting her own experimentation in Instrumental Transcommunication at the end of 1997. A senior career diplomat, Dr. Cardoso served and lived in four continents during her diplomatic life, and it was when she was Consul-General of Portugal in Galicia, Spain, that she started to experiment with ITC together with a small group of four friends. Two and a half months after the first experimental sessions they received their first weak EVP voice, and since then many other EVP messages were frequently received during their weekly sessions in her studio.

Two months after this first EVP message, while conducting an EVP session on her own, Dr. Cardoso received much to her surprise a reply directly from the loudspeaker of one of the radios which as usual was tuned to the white noise in the short wave band in order to provide background noise. Thus began her experience of Direct Radio Voice (DRV), and from then on she received lengthy communications almost daily by this means.

The author pays tribute to the pioneers of EVP, the Swedish painter, musician and film director Friedrich Jürgenson and the Latvian philosopher and parapsychologist Dr. Konstantin Raudive. She points out the many coincidences between the contents of her own messages and the communications received by Jürgenson and Raudive. One of these striking coincidences concerns the existence of so-called ‘stations’ in the next world where the most advanced contacts such as DRV, transimages, computer texts, etc. are said to originate. Other modern successful ITC researchers also report information received from their communicators that affirm the existence of these ‘stations’ specifically established in the next world to initiate contacts with Earth and with other physical worlds.

Dr. Cardoso enumerates some of several very detailed and precise predictions conveyed through mediums of different nationalities at the beginning of the 20th Century that announced the advent of this novel development in the countless attempts to establish better and more reliable communication between the worlds. Nevertheless as early as 1857 Allan Kardec predicted that contact would be established through ‘...other means that will be more direct, and more accessible to your senses’.

Dr. Cardoso also gives a summary of some of the most meaningful information received by her on the nature of the next world and on existential issues, and stresses the universality of survival, which her communicators insist is a Natural Law common to all living beings.

To illustrate her lecture and the information received from her communicators, who state they are part of a group called Rio do Tempo (‘Timestream’), Dr. Cardoso played many examples of EVP and DRV messages. Among these is a protocol of verification devised by Professor David Fontana, former President of the British S.P.R., and carried out by him in her studios both in Vigo and in Lyon. Without prior warning to Dr. Cardoso, Professor Fontana asked the communicators to repeat certain words after him in English, and they did so promptly, loudly and clearly, demonstrating beyond doubt that she herself was not responsible in any way for the communications, either consciously or unconsciously.

The author finishes her presentation by affirming that the new method of ITC contacts is open to everybody for direct experimentation, and conveys her conviction that many of those present at the First International Conference on Survival of Physical Death with Special Reference to ITC will obtain positive results if they are persistent, open-minded and patient in their systematic attempts to make contact.

Introduction

Dr. Lewis Thomas: “The only solid piece of scientific proof about which I feel totally confident is that we are profoundly ignorant about Nature”.

We are fortunate to have with us today some of the most knowledgeable international experts in the field of survival research and particularly in the field of Instrumental Transcommunication (ITC). Thus, I shall not speak about ITC in general or about the history of the subject because they will do it better than I can. Rather I will share with you some of my most meaningful personal experiences in this important and latest development in the area of survival research. I will start by introducing myself in the context of my personal as well as professional life in the hope that this will contribute to your understanding of the situation and of the particular conditions involved in my experimentation. I am a senior career diplomat who until the time when together with a small group I started experimenting with EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) or psychophonic voices (as they are called in the Latin languages) had had no real contact with the world of the so-called paranormal. I had certainly experienced some precognitive or telepathic occurrences, but I believe such experiences are common to us all.

Let me pause there, and before proceeding further state an objection I have to the terminology that for the sake of comprehension I feel forced to use, in particular to the word ‘paranormal’ which I find quite inappropriate, as is also the case with many other terms used in this field. Nothing exists that is really paranormal. All the array of phenomena that we classify as paranormal is simply normal phenomena that we cannot at present explain. As Dr. Lewis Thomas said in the quotation above, Nature is the source of all ‘miracles’, but unfortunately we are profoundly ignorant about Nature.

However, let me return to my main theme. Having led a very busy life as a diplomat, moving from continent to continent, from country to country, from language to language, and from culture to culture, I never really had the opportunity of studying the field of the so-called paranormal, although throughout my life I felt the need to explore reality, and to deepen my understanding of the meaning of existence. Here in Galicia, where in 1994 I was posted as Portuguese Consul General and where I lived for the following five years, I experienced the most intense and fascinating event even of a lifetime that has been full of so many interesting and unique occurrences (a diplomat’s life is normally full of such things!). This event was the apparent, direct contact with the next world, a contact that changed my whole life and that happened to me to my own surprise and puzzlement. That extraordinary experience will be the main topic of my presentation.

A tribute to the pioneers Before describing it, and because this is the First International Conference organized under the auspices of the ITC Journal which I was pleased and proud to found in 2000, I would like to pay homage to the admirable pioneers of this new field of ITC - I could call it a new tool as well as a new field - of investigation into survival of physical death, indeed the first field that can be subjected to proper scientific analysis because the evidence that it yields is fully objective and, to a great extent, repeatable. Instrumental Transcommunication is a method of attempting contact with an unseen level of existence where life appears to continue after physical death, and where our deceased loved ones say they now live. Our communicators also tell us that this new form of contact was developed in their world, and that it is available to everybody.

Men of genius like Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Guglielmo Marconi among others, already had the desire and perhaps the intuition that ‘the dead, if they existed’ as Edison put it in an interview with the Belgian newspaper ‘Le Soir’, could be contacted through highly sensitive devices. There were also several attempts to construct just such devices in Brazil, that beautiful and highly creative country (Andrade, 1997). However, in Italy in 1952, two Catholic priests, Father Agostino Gemelli, the founder of the Catholic University of Milan and President of the Pontifical Academy, and Father Pellegrino Ernetti, a scientist and a Benedictine monk at the famous Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, were the first to record identifiable paranormal voices – to their complete surprise as at the time they were simply experimenting to find ways of improving the recording of Gregorian Chants. They felt so distressed by this unexpected occurrence that they took the matter to Pope Pius XII who, again to their surprise, encouraged them and dismissed their preoccupation by saying that the happening “...had nothing to do with Spiritism since tape recorders cannot be influenced, and it would perhaps mark the beginning of a new era - the scientific study of the existence of life after death”. (Brune, 1988).

Nevertheless, the pioneers of Instrumental Transcommunication in the full sense of the word are Friedrich Jürgenson, a Swedish painter, musician, film director and a remarkable artistic personality of his time, and Dr. Konstantin Raudive, a Latvian philosopher and literary scholar educated at the Universities of Sorbonne and Salamanca, with important published philosophical work to his credit. As happened with Fathers Gemelli and Ernetti, both Jürgenson and Raudive came upon the phenomenon quite by chance - i.e. they found anomalous voices recorded on tape while they were both in the process of carrying out perfectly normal recordings. From there on they investigated the matter thoroughly and tirelessly. Of the two, Jürgenson was the first to begin this investigation, and the first of them to receive contacts not just by Electronic Voice Phenomena or EVP (anomalous voices appearing on tape) but by Direct Radio Voice (or DRV). In the case of Jürgenson the latter consisted of anomalous voices intruding into the middle of normal radio receptions. Friedrich Jürgenson published two major works on the subject, Voices from Space and Radio Contacts with the Deceased, and wrote many articles and participated in countless radio programs, public debates and press interviews through which he publicized the phenomenon. As a result of his open, public position on the voice phenomena he became the target of great criticism and calumny, all of which he faced with great dignity and courage until the end of his life. His dedication to this work was so great that he abandoned painting, his much loved activity of a lifetime, to dedicate himself fully to researching the voices. His results were thoroughly investigated by Professor Hans Bender of the University of Freiburg, one of the most remarkable parapsychologists of the 20th Century, who spared no means, effort or time to research into the phenomenon and in particular into the voices received by Friedrich Jürgenson. Bender’s conclusion was that the voices “could not be explained by normal means”. (Bender, 1981).

Speaking of his work with the voices, Friedrich Jürgenson once gave George Meek, another remarkable pioneer of ITC research, advice that is still valid today and which all of we experimenters at the beginning of the 21st century could echo from our own experience. During their first visit together, Jürgenson told Meek:

You have to have great dedication for this work‘... and there are four basic requirements. First, you must have time - plenty of it. Second, you must have patience – an incredible amount of it. Third, you must have money, money to assemble equipment, discard what doesn’t work, and buy more to replace it. But the most important thing of all is the willingness to take ridicule and slander. (Fuller, 1985).

George Meek fully agreed with Jürgenson’s statement since he himself had to face similar challenges during his incessant pursuit of the truth. Meek was a highly creative engineer with several patents to his credit and a very successful businessman who retired at 60 years of age to dedicate the rest of his life to investigating the possibility of establishing “a means of communication with a higher reality free of the intervention of the human psyche” (Fuller, ibid 1985). Meek was the father of the famous ‘Spiricom’, a device constructed according to the plans purportedly dictated by deceased scientists that enabled over 30 hours in total of meaningful communications with the other side.

It was Dr. Konstantin Raudive however who systematized the study of the voices on tape. Raudive assembled more than 70,000 samples of anomalous voices, meticulously classified them, developed the theory of ‘the opposite world’, and in 1968 published a book on the results of his research Unhörbares wird hörbar, which became famous and started a tide of recordings all over Europe. A few years later it was translated into English under the title Breakthrough (Raudive, 1971). Konstantin Raudive was indefatigable in his efforts to establish the voice phenomenon on a scientific basis. Like Jürgenson he dedicated the rest of his life, his intellectual reputation and his resources to the research. As a modest tribute to these two great men of high sensitivity and vision, I’ll play a few examples of the voices they received. The voices that you will hear are copies of the original voices published by the authors.

The predictions of mediums It seems appropriate to mention that predictions about a new way of communicating with the next world free from the influence of the medium’s mind – channelling through mediums was for centuries the traditional way of attempting to contact the next world - were predicted all over the world by famous mediums starting with Allan Kardec, a scientist and the great inspirer of Spiritualism (or Spiritism as it is called in Europe), who in his major work The Spirits’ Book published in 1857 dealt with many of the problems facing those who wished to contact the next world. Kardec used a question and answer method, and I’ll quote question 468 together with the answer (I have underlined the words most relevant to the prediction) :

Question: Is not the loss of those who are dear to us a legitimate source of sorrow, seeing that this loss is both irreparable and independent of our action? Answer: ‘This cause of sorrow, which acts alike upon rich and poor, is the common law of humanity, for it is either a trial or an expiation; but you have the consolation of holding communication with your friends through the means already possessed by you, that develop further every day, while awaiting other means that will be more direct, and more accessible to your senses. (Kardec, 1857).

In 1936 the editor Paul Leymarie published Suzanne Max Getting’s Messages by a Liberated Spir’ (Grandsire, 1998). The 26th of these messages, dated 2nd February 1930, states that the:

…Spiritualist movement is beginning to spread. The role of mediums in the future…We will speak to you through the medium of the phonograph and you will see us on film… the medium will play in the future a passive role … In many cases the devices will replace the work of the mediums … We will thus do without the mediums through the phonograph. The medium will only be present as a source of energy, producing a benign atmosphere through his vibrations… We will be able to impress the rolls of the phonograph through the vibrations of our waves. In this form our thoughts will be captured as are the sound waves of human voices that you nowadays record. Once recorded, our vibrations will be totally identical to those produced by the human voice… It is a work of adaptation … The waves emanating from the entities do not possess the same tones as those produced by a human voice box. A very refined product that will be impressed with extreme ease will therefore be necessary. It will allow us to dictate to a phonograph as we dictate to a medium … This invention is not yet ready, naturally, but it is already under study in some supra-terrestrial worlds.

In his book After We Die, What Then? George Meek transcribes many other messages received through human mediums that describe the future channels of electronic communication in minute precision and with great detail (Meek, 1987).

Personal experience At the end of 1997, my friend Carlos Fernández (Fernández, 2002), who is the technical editor of the ITC Journal and I, together with a couple who had lost their 18 year-old and only son in a sailing accident here in the bay of Vigo and another friend who had some experience in the investigation of paranormal phenomena but for personal reasons only stayed with us for a few weeks, formed a small experimental group to attempt to obtain contacts through ITC. None of us had ever experienced any of the ITC phenomena referred to in the literature, and some of us - myself included - were fearful of that unknown reality described in this literature and very uncertain of its existence. However, we endeavoured to remain open to all possibilities. We started by experimenting with transimages using a video recorder and following the feedback method developed by Klaus Schreiber (Holbe, 1987). At our very first attempts we were quite successful and obtained images that very much resembled a deceased black and white Great Dane dog named Dona Dae that I had found abandoned and had cared for until her death. The images were good and the dog could readily be identified as her black and white spots and the shape of her big head were clearly visible. In subsequent sessions we received a recurrent image of a man seemingly in 16th Century attire, the profile of a beautiful lady surrounded by what looked like animals’ heads, and other pictures. However, we were not satisfied, and having committed ourselves to the strictest rigour and precision we decided not to publish anything until we could get images of photographic quality that could be compared to the photographs of the same people while living (as could easily have been done with Dona Dae’s pictures). Nevertheless I regret now that we too readily mislaid or discarded these images.

In my house in Vigo a couple of weeks later, we started our experimentation with audio ITC through the EVP (or microphone recording) method. Our first sessions was held at the end of October 1997, and on January 17th 1998 we received our first paranormal voice, the feeble Spanish word “Sí” pronounced by a feminine voice during a radio transmission in German by a male announcer that we were using that day as a source of background noise. From that day on, we received many EVP messages that became steadily clearer and louder. Our recording sessions took place once a week, but almost daily I also tried for contacts on my own.

The Direct Radio Voices (DRV) On March 11th 1998 at 7.30 p.m., while alone at home with my dogs, I started one of my solo EVP sessions, and to my astonishment (if the word is sufficiently strong), I received a direct answer to the question I had just asked. That is, the answer came through the loudspeaker of one of the old valve radios that I used to provide background white noise. At the time - as is still the case - my radios were always tuned to the short wave band for this white noise (initially I used to use three radios simultaneously for my white noise, but following the subsequent advice of my communicators I have added to the number of units). In this first experience of Direct Radio Voice (DRV) the answer came in Portuguese, and the communicator then dialogued with me for some minutes, though I noticed that the accent changed in the course of this dialogue into what seemed to me more like Brazilian or African Portuguese.

At this point I will play an example of one of my DRV recordings to you but, as apart from a few Spanish words this is in Portuguese and most of you will not be familiar with the language, I will first speak the words myself so that you can compare them for accuracy with what is said by the communicators. Afterwards, I will provide you with a literal English translation.

Estamos a ouvir tudo, queremos saber do mundo, queremos ouvir vuestras cosas (Spanish), agora vamos contar convosco, oferecer o que é justo! Eu não fui este quem falasse mas supongo (Spanish) que você tenha feito alguma pregunta! Isto é muito e muito difícil! Outro mundo!

(Literal translation: ‘We are listening to everything, we want to know about the world, we want to hear your things, now we are going to count on you, to offer what is just! I was not the one who spoke, but I suppose you have made a question! This is very and very difficult! Another world!’)

From those first days onwards, extraordinary things started to happen with the radios and also with the electrical installation of the house. I’ll name just a few. Suddenly the radios would make very odd, very loud sounds, sharp, long whistles, which sounded as if a helicopter or a very strong wind had entered the radio and was swirling around inside the apparatus; there would also be what sounded like Morse signals and all kinds of strange noises so loud that we thought the radio might explode. There were three radios functioning at the time but it was the radio where the first DRV voice had originated that emitted the strange sounds, sounds that I had never heard before and which lasted until the contact by DRV became stabilized. A few weeks later there was a new development - communications would be preceded by a particular sound, always the same, a sharp loud long whistle. It seemed to be a form of call sign, because wherever I would be in the house or garden I would hear it and hasten to the room I was using as a studio. Frequently the words Radar and Robot could be heard, and the word Nave (spaceship) could be understood in the course of their communications. I believe these words assume great importance especially because Friedrich Jürgenson repeatedly mentions them in his books as his communicators also used them often in the same context as in my own communications (Jürgenson, 1964). Frequently during my DRV contacts the voices also identified themselves, loudly and clearly, as the Portuguese Group at ‘Estação (Station) Rio do Tempo (Timestream)’. All these communications have been recorded and the tapes are in my possession.

The Concept of a Station in the Next World The idea of a Station in the next world seems quite disturbing for some people, although I do not quite understand the reasons why this should be. Don’t we in this less developed world have many stations and all kinds of agencies, some of them highly sophisticated like NASA? It is only natural and befitting that there will also be stations in the next world, which is ‘a world very similar to ours’, as Rio do Tempo once described it to me – although it is much more developed as it is the next step in the ladder of existence. The communicators tell us that they send contacts to our and other physical worlds from these stations or agencies. They also say that this is a very difficult process. We might speculate on the nature of those stations - high technology combined perhaps with mental and psychic energy, with generous motivation, with love and with the desire to help us (we are also told by communicators that Higher Beings supervise their work), and who knows with what else. We are told by the communicators that with sufficient training almost everybody in their world can make EVP contacts (microphone recordings) with us while DRV, transimages, computer texts, etc. have to be channelled through a station.

I think that the main prejudice against the existence of stations in the next world arises from our prevalent mental patterns and concepts. Even people who are disposed to accept the idea of life after death, whether in a religious context or not, seem reluctant to accept the idea of a station. We humans create mental patterns and concepts for almost everything including the idea of a life after death (assuming we take the idea seriously). Some will say that the next world is a spiritual world – in English it is even spoken of as the ‘spirit world’. But in all truth what does the expression ‘spiritual’ or ‘spirit’ world mean? I believe it is used in opposition to the concept of a physical world very much in the Cartesian, dualistic way which many years ago science showed us to be incorrect. Matter is energy, and ‘energy’ is merely the scientific name for ‘spirit’. From a transcendental point of view we can very rightly say that everything physical is also spiritual because it is animated by energy, by the life principle or spirit which cannot be seen, touched or accurately described but which indisputably exists. We ourselves are simultaneously its manifestations and its witnesses. However, for those who think in terms of the old, obsolete dichotomy body/spirit, how can there be ‘stations’ in the next world? For them in the next world - even for those who do not conceive of it as angels floating on clouds – what we might call the ‘mental angels’, i.e. the mental patterns or concepts, are always present. Indeed, that is how mental patterns work. They permeate and dominate our thinking, even though we may be unaware of them.

The very dubious expression ‘spiritual’, which I particularly dislike, is also extremely dangerous because it creates the false dichotomy between ‘physical’ and ‘energy’ (or spirit) referred to above. It is often used to describe certain people, situations or anything at all without much thought or criteria. So we will hear often that somebody is ‘spiritual’ while another person is ‘materialistic’. A sacred mountain is spiritual but a mound of land where one grows food is merely something of no importance. The sacred tree of Japan, the gingko tree, in India the peepal tree and particularly the Bo tree under which the Buddha obtained his enlightenment are all sacred, while the tomato plant or the apple tree or any other vegetable that sustains life will be something of no significance, a ‘material’ vegetable to eat or discard. For those who like to define things as ‘spiritual’ or as ‘not spiritual’ or ‘materialistic’, as has become fashionable in this so-called New Age (a movement incidentally that has done much to degrade real spirituality), the horse, the lion, the deer, the bee, indeed all animals all plants and most humans, will not be regarded as spiritual perhaps because they do not take meditation retreats, do not listen to Bach, do not know Buddhism exists, etc. Criteria such as these are used to define spirituality by New Age Western people who do not realize that animals and certainly plants are perfectly in tune with life itself. It is this being in tune with life that represents true spirituality. Masanobu Fukuoka, an illuminated sage with whom I had the privilege to share some time when I lived in Japan, says that ‘he searches for God who does not know Him. Animals and children do not search for God.’ (Fukuoka, 1987). Rio do Tempo have told me in one of their communications that ‘animals and plants are more aware of the existence of our [their] world than humans’. If and when the expression ‘spiritual’ is used with religious connotations it becomes even more dubious and incorrect because most restrictive. In whatever way it is used it is always judgemental, therefore reduced and limited by human mental patterns. Thus to use the word ‘spiritual’ to describe the next world carries no real meaning because we are also spiritual here in this world, as is the fly, the tree, the lion and the dog. It is life that is spiritual. Wherever there is life there is spirit. They are one and the same thing.

The amazingly ‘transforming power of death’, as Friedrich Jürgenson called it, and the extraordinary capacities that belong to the next world and become available to all beings who live in it, are evident in most of the communications we receive. Humans who speak from the next world seem to be profoundly transformed, although not in the sense that the concept of ‘beautiful angels floating on clouds’ would imply. They are transformed in a mature, deeply understanding and truly developed way. Death seems to cause a tremendous expansion of consciousness, and this expansion is just one of the many similarities that seem to exist between reports of NDEs (Near Death Experiences) and ITC communications.

I have often heard it said that the next world is a world constructed by thought, a mental world, and that if so how could there be real ‘stations’ in such a world. For people who say these things, everything in a world of thought is simply a mental construction, a thought form, of what we have in this world, and therefore illusory. This view is even more anthropomorphic than the commonly held view that humans are the centre of our physical world, and the rest of creation inferior and subservient to us. At the request of a friend, I once asked Rio do Tempo what was the main difference between their world and ours, and to this they replied that their world is ‘truer than yours [ours]’.

At this point I suppose it is not necessary to say that none of the mental patters we have created about the next world fit into what the communicators describe as their reality. They say their world is all encompassing, “este é Rio de todo , este é Rio de todos, este é Rio do Tempo” (i.e. “this is the River of all, this the River of everything and everybody, this is Rio do Tempo”). The communicators also say that their world is a continuation of life, very simply a continuation of life.

The existence of ‘stations’ in the next world where the contacts originate is in fact one of Jürgenson’ s main conclusions as a result of the communications he received, and he frequently refers to such ‘stations’ or ‘agencies’ in his books (Jürgenson, 1964 and 1967). He says the contacts with our world are supervised by a Central Agency and in his book Voices from Space he maintains that no radio recordings can be made without the co-operation of a mediator in the next world. In his case the mediator was Lena, a deceased friend of his childhood.

In his book Breakthrough, Dr. Konstantin Raudive says that when he started the radio recording method, which he discovered by chance as did Jürgenson, the Latvian Group in the next world responsible for the communications told him that they would help him with his work. He tells us also that “Information received indicates that there are various groups of voice-entities who operate their own stations”. Among other references to the Portuguese Group in my own recordings, there is a voice that once commented “Hoje não vêm os Portugueses à Estação Rio do Tempo” “Today the Portuguese will not come to Timestream Station”). The obvious parallel needs no further explanation. I’ll add that one of my main communicators, Carlos de Almeida, and the Portuguese Group at Timestream Station who identified themselves in Portuguese as ‘Rio do Tempo’, communicated initially with Maggy and Jules Harsch-Fischbach in Luxembourg some years before I started my own experimentation. To the present day I have never had any personal contact with Maggy and Jules, except for the exchange of short pieces of correspondence, therefore there is no question of my having simply imagined I was receiving communications from the same people who communicated with them.

Besides Maggy and Jules, other experimenters have reported receiving communications from transmitting stations in the next world, for example the late Adolf Homes (whose work was extensively studied by Professor Ernst Senkowski) and Fritz Malkhoff, both of them from Germany.

The Concept of the Bridge The concept of a bridge to unite the next world with this world is intimately linked to the idea of a station in the former dimension. Friedrich Jürgenson refers to this bridge as does Konstantin Raudive. It has also been reported by the Harsch-Fischbachs and their group in Luxembourg that their communicators informed them that contact was made with them through a complex system of ‘bridges’ (Locher and Harsch, 1989). Approximately one year after I received my first DRV communications, Carlos de told me “Já pus a ponte” (i.e. “I have already placed the bridge”), and I will play you a recording of this message next.

The Nature of the Communications Carlos de Almeida was my first communicator through the DRV method. He announced to me in those first weeks of contact in March 1998 that the ‘Robot’ would start working. Indeed during the month of April, on several occasions, a metallic, apparently non-human voice could be heard by me for periods of over ten minutes always repeating the same words – “RITI no escucho, INIT no escucho”, followed by some strange sounds apparently of counting. ‘RITI’ in Portuguese or Spanish and ‘INIT’ in English are the acronyms for ‘International Network of Instrumental Transcommunication’, an organization of ITC researchers that had been constituted some time before.

From the very beginning of my DRV communications, there were frequent but intermittent voice transmissions and one of these, by somebody who identified himself as ‘Filipe’ speaking from Rio do Tempo Station, is very special for its content. I have chosen the last sentence to be the motto of the ITC Journal that as mentioned earlier I founded and edit, and I would also like to leave it with you as a special message to take home from this Conference. I shall only play a short segment more easily understandable, but the whole communication is long and says among other things:

“Rio do Tempo fora do contexto … e sinto um collie bem inglês …, entre Riti, entre Riti em tempo diurno … e sinto um pouco de urze,…… e sinto outra cor, sinto o meu poder de infinito, o inconsciente de Deus a todos cobre, pense sempre em nosso mundo, quem pensa no nosso mundo as distâncias reduz.”

Literally translated this means:

“River of Time out of context … and I feel a very English collie” [I have an English collie who was in the garden at the time of the communication] … “enter Riti, enter Riti in diurnal time ... and I feel a little heather … and I feel another colour, I feel my power of infinity, the unconscious of God covers all, always think of our world, whoever thinks of our world reduces the distances”.

The communicators seemed to obey a predetermined plan and schedule, and to illustrate this I will play a segment of one of the longer communication, by somebody who identified himself as Carlos de Almeida. At the beginning of May of the first year I began to receive DRV, Carlos de Almeida announced that from the 1st of June regular communications would come from their station. In translation, his message said among other things “... one day yes one day no call my name in June ... first of June, first of June ...it will transmit on the first of June...”, and as a matter of fact on the 1st of June, and after that on every other day, his group communicated with amazing regularity and precision.

In the course of time I have received DRVs of people who have identified themselves variously as Carlos de Almeida, as Filipe, as Joan Colbert, Pedro Roque, Boris, Homero, Ramiro, Tadeu, Susana, and as many others (see e.g. Cardoso 2000, 2001, 2003; Fontana and Cardoso 2002; Fontana 2003). Most of these names are of persons unknown to me, but I have also received voices claiming to be of my grandmother, my father, and my brother who died suddenly of a heart attack in 1996. I once got a low, child-like, feminine voice that identified itself as belonging to Nisha, one of my best-loved dogs, who lived with me for ten years prior to her death. Since then Nisha has spoken to me several times through DRV, always with the same child-like voice. I have also several recordings where the communicators call my name loudly and clearly. Often they use my petname ‘Bela’ instead of Anabela. Throughout my life I was called ‘Bela’ only by members of my family. It is interesting to note that Friedrich Jürgenson had a similar experience – almost always he was called ‘Friedel’ (his petname) by the communicators. You have heard instances of this in the examples I have already played of Jürgenson’s voices, and you will now hear a few extracts from all the personal communications that I have just been describing.

I have also received a very short voice that strikingly resembles that of the so-called ‘Technician’, an advanced entity who was first recorded by Maggy and Jules Harsch-Fischbach and their group in Luxembourg, although at the time I received this voice I had had no contact with the experimenters in Luxembourg or with anyone else directly involved in the work of ITC. In fact I desperately needed assistance from ITC experts in this world on the subject, particularly because, as already mentioned, I had no background in psychical research or in any form of Spiritualism. I felt very puzzled by voices that said they were always with me everywhere I went, and perhaps even more so by voices that said mundane things such as “Let’s go for coffee” (while speaking among themselves) or “I am within the radio”, or – one day when I had just returned from the beach and my feet were full of sand – “Go and wash the feet”.

In fact I often heard DRV voices during my recording sessions that seemed to be engaged in conversations among themselves, and indeed they once told me when I asked them if they were speaking to me or between themselves “We are not speaking to you, the voice just happened to drift there”. On another occasion they said “It’s Rio do Tempo transmitting to Europe”. At this time I had no idea that Dr. Konstantin Raudive and Friedrich Jürgenson describe similar experiences in their books. I only obtained a photocopy of Breakthrough two years ago and a photocopy of a privately published translation of one of Jürgenson’s books a little later. However, the similarities between their experiences and mine seem to me to be highly meaningful and very important data for the systematic scientific study of ITC that urgently needs to be done.

Contents of the Communications I have asked Rio do Tempo many things, in particular about the existential issues that interest me most. In brief their replies tell us the following (all communications in italics were received directly by me, and I give the exact words used by the communicators in italics and inverted commas):

Survival is the Natural Law. “‘All beings – animals, plants, humans” - perhaps even minerals, although I have never questioned my communicators about this - “survive physical death”.

Survival does not depend on the moral conditions or the ethical or religious values of those concerned – it is simply an inevitable fact of life.

“ Our world is very similar to your world [our physical world ] but much more beautiful”.

In the next world “all beings are equal” – it appears that even “animals and plants collaborate in [their own] ITC projects.”

“There are many other physical worlds” in addition to our own.

When I asked what were the basic conditions for progress (i.e. spiritual development) the reply was “It is time and it is space”. This, I assumed, refers to life on Earth (i.e. to life in time and space).

There are “many trans-physical worlds”, depending upon the spiritual development level of the beings who inhabit them (though of course it is important to recognise that the communicators may mean by ‘spiritual development’ something very different from our own interpretation of the term).

In the world of Timestream “we[they] also have a body”

The entities in the world of Timestream have extraordinary capacities, such as being in two places at the same time in full consciousness; “these capacities are a natural condition in our [i.e. their] world”.

The entities in the world of Timestream “travel with thought”.

The bodies of entities in the world of Timestream are “much more beautiful” than they were when on Earth.

“Suffering is very important for spiritual development. All beings on Earth feel suffering”.

The entities in Timestream world know the thoughts and actions of those working with them on Earth.

“The disposition of the experimenter on Earth influences the work of the communicators”, though “mediumship is not necessary for ITC contacts”.

Reincarnation is a sporadic event, and happens “only when there is no other way”.

The Group Soul is a reality in the world of Timestream. The Technician said in Luxembourg that the descriptions given of the different planes of existence by F. W. Myers through the automatic writing of medium Geraldine Cummins (Cummins, 1932) are the nearest approximation to the next worlds - e.g. “Carlos de Almeida has passed to the 4th plane, a world of light, like a sun”.

About time and space: “You are inside time, we are outside time”. “We live in an apex of space”. “We are in space” - this compares interestingly with communications received by Jürgenson, and the statement has been said to me on a few occasions when the communicators started speaking.

The entities in the world of Timestream appear to have a wonderful sense of humour. For example, when I once came into my studio accompanied by my small ginger cat, they said “Go and wash the cat, he’s yellow”. Their voices also manifest a peculiar rhythm, syntax and symbolic use of language, the characteristics of which appear common to ITC communications in general.

One thing that puzzles me immensely is the process that enables communicators to hear the experimenter’s voice. The telepathy hypothesis is a possible explanation but I believe there is more to it since I have several recordings where they tell me “estou a ouvi-la muito baixo” (we are hearing you very low), “estamos a ouvir bem’ (we are hearing you well), ‘estamos a ouvir tudo” (we are hearing everything) or a voice just says “today we cannot hear”, etc. I’ll play now some examples of these communications.

I once asked Carlos de Almeida how they could hear my voice and he replied “É o ritmo” (It is the rhythm) and he continued “nós sabemos quando o seguimos” (we know when we follow it). I shall also play this recording to you. What rhythm does he mean? Brain rhythm? I am sure that the experts on ITC communications that we are fortunate to have with us in this Conference will certainly be very interested in this statement that reaches us from the other world. This is perhaps one of the most important issues in ITC – how do the communications happen? The answer would allow us to understand many other things in this extraordinary new process of communication between two worlds. Unfortunately I did not go back to the question whenever I could maintain a reasonable dialogue with them. However, they have told me in other occasions that I should inform them of how their voices sound to us.

On another occasion I told them that somebody had identified himself as my Father (speaking through DRV) but the voice did not resemble my Father’s voice, it seemed different to me although under the circumstances I suppose it would be very difficult to be absolutely sure, and to this they said “voices are different, they are always the same”. And they added when I asked what process they used to produce their voices “damos-lhe a certeza que mascaramos, fazem-nos um sonograma” (“You can be sure we disguise, they do us a sonogram”). You will also hear the recording of this communication. Nevertheless, when the voices are received by the EVP method the resemblance with the voice of the same communicator when he or she was alive is sometimes striking.

Technical conditions of my recordings In common with other transcommunicators, I choose the type of radios I use, decide on their position in my studio, set up my equipment and select the type of white noise largely according to the advice of my communicators. Over the five years of my experiments, I have also added further radios to the number in use in response to their instructions. At present, I work with four modern, top of the range Sony short wave radios (two ICF SW77 models, one ICF SW7600G model, and one ICF SW7600GR), one Sony portable radio tuned into the so-called Jürgenson waveband (1500 kHz) that has never yielded any voices, and two damaged old valve radios that are only electrically active but produce no sound.

Conclusion In Lyon, where I lived for five years, Rio do Tempo’s work continued even more intensely than when I was here in Vigo. The communicators obviously do experimental work and keep telling me they are working to better the contact. They often ask me to leave the radios on night and day for days on end, and they then work incessantly with the white noise of the radios producing all kinds of bizarre noises, making voices that repeat the same words over and over again like “We are dead”, “We are the dead of Rio do Tempo”, “We are Rio do Tempo”, etc., suppressing suddenly the white noise to re-activate it again after as long as five full minutes. They use many other procedures that seem inexplicable, like starting the voices in one radio then continuing with the same voices in another radio, then yet another, or making all the radios - tuned in to different frequencies of white noise – emit the same voices at the same time, etc. As I said before, they also ask me to report to them how their voices sound, in particular their quality and their intelligibility. All this makes me conclude that they carry on a work of intensive experimentation.

During one of his visits to Lyon, Professor David Fontana, former President of the British Society for Psychical Research and currently Vice President and Chair of the Survival Research Committee whom I had asked to co-operate in my work and give me guidance and advice on the publication of my ITC results, unexpectedly carried out the experiment (that I will play next) one evening when the voices had told us in an earlier communication that they would speak, and we were therefore in the studio listening to them. He did not mention anything to me beforehand about the experimental protocol he planned to use, which was to ask the communicators to repeat certain short phrases after him, so there can be no question that I was in any way involved with the results. As you have just heard, the repetition of the words that Dr. Fontana requested the communicators to pronounce is perfectly clear and unmistakable. “How are you?” and “Hello David” can be heard and understood by everybody, even those who do not understand English.. He repeated this protocol again in my studio here in Vigo, again without prior warning (although I was of course now aware of its existence) with the same impressive results (Fontana and Cardoso, 2002; Fontana, 2003).

To finish my presentation and as a tribute to my invisible communicators - to whom I dedicate from my side the creation of this Conference - I’ll play for you one of the several chants I have received from Rio do Tempo.

My final conclusion comes in the form of some words of advice, especially for those of you who wonder what all this is about – this issue of life after death and the possibility of contacting the next world through electronic means, and of listening to the voices of deceased people directly from the loudspeaker of a radio!… I agree that it all sounds strange and perhaps impossible. Certainly it sounded this way to me only a few short years ago. Well, my friends, I beg you not to judge, not to have preconceived ideas, just try for yourself and then decide on the reality of what I am telling you and draw your own conclusions. That will be the most important outcome of this Conference, the one I wish for most fervently – that many of you will try for yourselves this new way of attempting contact with the next world. ITC is a method open to all without any special requirements. Perhaps this is the reason why the communicators worked so hard to devise it and continue to work so strenuously to improve it. Once somebody said suddenly from Rio do Tempo about (so I believe) the purpose of ITC communications: “It’s for humble people, it’s to call upon love the panacea of the world, it would be beautiful, wouldn’t it?”. I guarantee you that if you really try and persevere, you will be successful, or at least many of you will be successful. Perseverance and dedication are vital. Some people obtain results after a few weeks, with only two or three sessions per week, others may take a couple of years. And I should say that even if you do not get results personally after this time, you will still have achieved success in that, by trying for results, you will have crossed the barrier of mental and social conventions, and that in itself is a major step forward.

References: Andrade, H. G. (1997). A Transcomunicação através dos Tempos. São Paulo: FE Editora Jornalística. Bender, H. (1981). La Parapsicologia y Sus Problemas. (original version in German Verborgene Wirklichkeit. 1973). Barcelona: Editorial Herder, S. A. (2nd edn.). Brune, F. (1988). Les Morts Nous Parlent. Paris: Ed. du Félin, Philippe Lebaud. Cardoso, A. (2000). The opening of the road. ITC Journal, 1, pp. 4 – 6. Cardoso, A. (2000). Preconceptions. ITC Journal, 2, pp. 14 – 18. Cardoso, A. (2000). Reflections. ITC Journal, 3, pp. 11– 15. Cardoso, A. (20000). The time of death is predetermined. ITC Journal, 4, pp. 7– 12. Cardoso, A. (2001). The river. ITC Journal, 5, pp. 2 – 9 Cardoso, A. (2001). Other voices. ITC Journal, 6, pp. 16 – 22 Cardoso, A. (2003). Survival research. Journal of Conscientiology, 6, 21, pp. 33-63. Cummins, G. (1932). The Road to Immortality. London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson. Fernández, C. (2002). Psicofonías y Psicoimágenes. Madrid: Ed. América Ibérica, S.A.: Biblioteca Año Cero. Fontana, D. and Cardoso, A. (2002). Developing a protocol for DRV. ITC Journal, 12, pp. 55-57. Fontana, D. (2003). ITC research, with particular reference to the work of Dr. Anabela Cardoso. La Ricerca Psichica, X, 3, pp. 77-92. Fukuoka, M. (1987). The Road Back to Nature. Tokyo and New York: Japan Publications. Fuller, J. G. (1985). The Ghost of 29 Megacycles. London: Souvenir Press. Grandsire, J. M. (1998). La Transcommunication. 80290 Poix de Picardie, France: JMG Editions. Holbe, R. (1987). Bilder aus dem Reich der Toten. München: Droemersche Verlogsanstalt. Jürgenson, F. (1964). The Voices from Space. Rosterna Fran Rymden: Saxon & Lindstrom Forlag. Jürgenson, F. (1967). Sprechfunk mit Verstorbenen. Freiburg: Verlag Hermann Bauer KG. Kardec, Allan (1857). Le Premier Livre des Esprits. Paris: Dentu. Locher, T. and Harsch, M. (1989). (original title: Jenseitskontakte mit Technischen Mitteln Gibt Es!). Les Contacts vers l’Au-delà à l’aide de Moyens Techniques Existent ! Luxembourg : Association Suisse de Parapsychologie et Cercle d’Etudes sur la Transcommunication du Luxembourg. (1995 Edition Française, Agnières: Parasciences). Meek, G. (1987). After We Die, What Then?, Atlanta, USA: Ariel Press. Raudive, K. (1971). Breakthrough. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe. Senkowski,E.(1995). Instrumentelle Transkommunikation. Frankfurt/Main: R.G. Fischer Verlag.

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