ITC Voices: Contact with Another Reality? Dr. Anabela Cardoso INTRODUCTION The term ITC (Instrumental Transcommunication) was coined by Professor Ernst Senkowski, a German physicist of the Faculty of Engineering in Mainz, Germany and one of the most eminent figures in the world of ITC research. With this designation – ITC – Professor Senkowski wished to characterize a vast array of phenomena that transcended the scope of EVP (electronic voice phenomena) the term that until then had been used in the English speaking world to designate a special kind of paranormal phenomena consisting of words or sounds of unknown origin recorded by electronic devices in a way that defied every normal explanation. As the words imply, Instrumental Transcommunication means communication beyond (trans) our known reality through instruments or technical devices. Dr. Senkowski introduced the term at the beginning of the 1980’s and intended it to include other phenomena (in addition to vocal messages) received from that trans reality by technological means. Indeed an abundant flow of communications originating from unknown sources began to be received at that time, mainly in Luxembourg and Germany. These communications consisted primarily of images, computer texts and fax and telephone messages. By virtue of their extraordinary clarity, self- evidence and contents they have been considered one of the most impressive and important phenomena in the history of physical research (see e.g. Brune 1988 for a comprehensive survey of this historical background). The terms EVP and Psychophony previously used respectively in the English and the Latin speaking countries (to the best of my knowledge France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the South American countries) refer to a paranormal phenomenon that first occurred in the 20 th Century and that has caused excitement and incredulity throughout much of the world. As I said above, EVP involves sounds or voices mysteriously recorded on audio tape either spontaneously or in response to questions put by the experimenters. From the very beginning, the voices identified themselves as belonging to people who had lived on Earth and who had transited into another world after physical death (see e. g. Jürgenson 1968). This is indeed a phenomenon of the 20 th Century, but in the 19 th Century there were already attempts made by some of the most remarkable scientists of the time, to contact instrumentally the world of the dead. One of the best examples was Thomas Edison who, as he himself put it, worked on “a device to enable the spirits of the dead, if they existed, to communicate with the living”. Edison’s invention consisted basically of a microphone installed inside a wooden box together with a large aluminium cone filled with potassium permanganate and crossed by an electrode (e.g. Fernández 2002). One of the wires of the microphone cable was connect to the aluminium trumpet, and the other to an aerial. In his 1

own words, reported in the newspaper ‘Le Soir’ Brussels, December 26, 1920, Edison said he wanted ‘to give the spirits an opportunity to communicate more efficiently than the tilt top tables, the blows, the ouija board and other rough methods’ that were considered the only ways of communicating (see e.g. Grandsire 1993). Edison’s search for a more efficient method of communication seems very pertinent. It may have marked the beginning of the attempts by the spirit communicators, as they themselves have repeatedly said, to establish ITC, and it has captured the attention of some of the most remarkable investigators, such as George Meek, about whom I shall speak later, who founded the Metascience Foundation, a research laboratory in Philadelphia, to work exclusively on the project that had foiled Marconi and Edison, namely ‘a communication system capable of allowing two-way conversation with the higher levels of consciousness’ (e.g. Meek 1987). I myself like to compare ITC contacts to looking at a movie of a trip made to an unknown country, while mediumship contacts are more like the report of the same trip told to us by someone we do not personally know. ITC has some of the characteristics of so-called physical mediumship in that through it self- evident, verifiable, objective phenomena are produced. These phenomena can be seen and heard by everybody present. The big difference with ITC, however, is that the phenomena are obtained, as the communicators have themselves frequently said, “directly through the devices”, while in physical mediumship phenomena only occur in the presence of a medium. Therefore ITC contacts are less likely to be attributed to the so-called SuperPSI theory (the theory that suggests all apparent spirit communications are due to telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition or psychokinesis by the living rather than to those in the next world). Indeed, because it is so incompatible with the SuperPSI theory, I will introduce here, out of its chronological context, a series of experiments conducted by Dr. Sinesio Darnell of Barcelona, a pioneer of EVP and one of the most prominent ITC researchers in the world (Darnell 1979). At the start of the series Dr. Darnell invited one of his colleagues to collect, from 30 persons in Spain and elsewhere and to whose identity he remained blind, individual audio tapes on which they had recorded questions of their own choice, allowing a two minute silent interlude on the tape between each question. The tapes, that had no labels of any kind, were then randomised. Meanwhile, Dr. Darnell set up two audio tape recorders in his studio, one to play an example from the collection of randomised tapes, and the other simultaneously to record a blank tape. A timer was programmed to switch both tapes on at random intervals, with no-one present in the studio at any time during the experiment. When switched on, one tape recorder would play the questions, while the other would record both the questions and any EVP answers to them occurring during the two minute intervals between questions. Each experiment using this procedure ran for a number of separate weeks over a two year period. Describing the experiments in his book ‘ Voces Sin Rostro ’ Dr. Darnell tells us that some of the questions produced EVP replies. The questions on the 30 tapes were in many different languages (Spanish, English, German, French), while the replies were generally in Spanish, with a few in German and one in an unidentified language. Dr. Darnell’s written report of the experiments was confirmed to me verbally during one of our meetings. 2

Many other experimenters have recorded EVP voices in their absence. I myself have had both EVP and DRV (Direct Radio Voices) recorded while I was away from my studio. Work of this kind would be very difficult indeed to explain by SuperPSI. One would have to suppose that the experimenter was able firstly to know (either telepathically or clairvoyantly, either consciously or unconsciously) the nature of the question, secondly to formulate a response (again either consciously or unconsciously), and thirdly to impress this response upon the tape even though not physically present at the time. There is no evidence from any area of psychical research to suggest that the human mind is capable of this kind of feat. After this digression, let me return to my chronological survey of ITC work, picking it up with a reference to Guglielmo Marconi, who was himself a believer in the possibility of survival of death, and who as a young man expressed a wish to build a system to contact the dead. We have no record that the construction of such a system was ever attempted, but Marconi certainly received Morse Code signals of unexplained origin during his experimental transmission and reception of radio signals. As Marconi was the only person with radio equipment at the time, there was wide speculation as to the nature and the origin of these sounds, and opinions attributing these signals to the spirits were advanced in Spiritualist circles in Great Britain, where Marconi was now living in order to register patents for his inventions. At the same time Nikola Tesla, another leading inventor and pioneer, also received strange signals of unknown origin during his experimental attempts to transmit electrical energy without cables by using the earth as a conductor, although he attributed them to extraterrestrial rather than spirit contact (Fernández ibid 2002). THE FIRST VOICES It is interesting to note that predictions of ITC contacts were received through mediums as early as the 1930s. In 1936 the editor Paul Leymarie published Suzanne Max Getting’s ‘Messages by a Liberated Spirit’ (see Grandsire ibid 1993). 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. 3

And the message continues: I summarise: 1. Capture of the waves will be similar to radio reception except that the tonality of the waves we send to you will not sound like the human voice. 2. Equipment will transform these unintelligible waves into sounds audible and comprehensible to humans. In the future there will be an adaptation of visual media that will allow distant entities to be photographed, a process that will produce magnificent results. Vision and sound from those who have ‘disappeared from Earth’ will result in equally interesting talking pictures (television will be an example of this process. We will apply the same procedure, with modifications). Mediums are mocked at, spiritualists are vilified. In the future science will be triumphant in vindicating them, even though it now cries out in horror and in denigration when communication between Earth and the next world is mentioned. In 1935, in another continent, the medium Edith Ellis of New York City channelling Wilfred Brandon, reported in her book ‘Open the Door’(see Meek ibid 1987): Yet science is on the verge of discovering the secret of life after death. It is all but able to connect with our plane. Marconi and those who study the marvels of the ether will in time find the connecting wave length and we shall then be united in a common understanding of the Law of Life … We speak and the sound is forever there. We are continually pictured there also, as on a cosmic photographic plate … Your radios have already made that plain to you. Every sound is there in space. It needs only a mechanised device to connect the etheric world with the material world. How? By discovery of the laws of vibrations which are universal and hold on all three planes of matter: and possibly beyond them. All of these (automatic and trance mediums) are makeshifts which we must use until we can, through them, work with your radio engineers, until we can perfect a mechanism that we can use automatically. This is possible and will doubtless be the next step after television.

A little later we read in ‘Esoteric Healing’, channelled by the Tibetan Master Djwhal through Alice Bailey (see Meek ibid 1987): Towards the close of the (20th) Century, electric devices will be used to contact departed souls, together with photographing of thought forms, thus opening a new area of spirit photography … The astral 4

body will be susceptible of photographing, but never the mental vehicle … Yet the first demonstration of existing after death, in such a way that it can be registered upon the physical plane, will be via the radio because sound waves always precede vision. No radio now exists that is sufficiently sensitive to carry sound waves from the astral plane.

And even as late as 1972, communications channelled through Stainton Moses tell us that (see Meek ibid 1987): … ere long there will be an instrument that will make contact between the two worlds a fact, so that the most highly sceptical will be convinced of life after death. When that time comes, all the barriers that now stand will be broken down. The first paranormal voices seem to have been recorded in Siberia around the year 1901 by an American ethnologist Waldemar Borogas (who was studying the Tchouktchis tribe. In the course of his studies, Borogas recorded the ritual chants of the shamans with one of the first rudimentary phonographs, and when he listened to the recorded material there were voices that had not occurred during the shamanic invocations (see e.g. Grandsire 1993). As early as 1915, the English journal ‘Light’ published an extensive article on the possibility of capturing electromagnetic waves originating in the next world. Between 1923 and 1925 an Italian medical doctor, Ferdinando Cazzamalli, captured strange paranormal voices on a radio receiver placed in a Faraday Cage, while researching telepathy in psychotics. Cazzamalli considered that the phenomena was due to telepathic waves from his psychotic subjects registering on his receiver (see Fernández ibid 2002). In Brazil, a country of old and strong spiritist traditions, a Portuguese researcher, Augusto de Oliveira Cambrais, constructed in 1909 a device with which he claimed to capture spirit voices, and this was actually patented in the National Archive of Rio de Janeiro under the name “The Cambraia Vocative Telegraph”. Sadly, no information is available as to the efficacy of this invention. In 1933, also in Brazil, a spiritist inventor by the name of Prospero Lapagese published in the ‘International Revue of Spiritism’ the plans of an ‘electric mediumistic device’, intended not only to capture the voices of the dead but to photograph them through an X ray system. These various attempts to replace classical mediumship with electrical equipment naturally caused much stir and indignation among orthodox, conservative spiritists, and Lapagese was forced not only to abandon his attempts but to leave the spiritist movement (see Fernández ibid 2002). However, it fell to Father Agostino Gemelli, the founder of the Catholic University of Milan and President of the Pontifical Academy, and Father Pellegrino Ernetti, a Benedictine monk at the famous Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, to be the first people to record identifiable paranormal voices. On September 17 th 1952, the Fathers were working on the 5

recording of Gregorian chants at the Laboratory of Physics at the Catholic University of Milan, using the tape recorders of the time that used wires instead of magnetic tape. The work was constantly interrupted by breakages in the wire, and on one of these occasions Father Gemelli called out in exasperation to his deceased father for help, a habit of his when he was in difficulties. After repairing the wire and listening to the recording the Fathers suddenly heard, instead of the Gregorian chant, the voice of Gemelli’s father saying “Of course I help you, I am always with you”. Astounded, the Fathers repeated the experiment, and obtained the same results. Father Gemelli asked “Is it really you Papa?”, and the recorded reply came “Of course it is I, don’t you recognise me testone?”. Extremely impressed, the Fathers requested an interview with Pope Pious XII, to whom they told the whole story. The Pope seemed very pleased, and put the worried Fathers at ease by telling them ‘Tape recorders cannot be influenced’. He then declared that the results could mark ‘The beginning of a new scientific study that would confirm faith in the Beyond’. Shortly after this, Raymond Bayless sitting with the medium Attila von Szalay in the USA, received strange voices on his recordings that were unheard during the sittings (see Brune ibid 1988 for a full account). Subsequent to the experiences of Fathers Gemelli and Ernetti, the Roman Catholic Church has maintained a discreet, tolerant attitude towards ITC, accepting the attempts to contact the dead as legitimate if they are for scientific purposes, or if they are intended to console the bereaved. Father François Brune, a highly respected Catholic priest and theologian, has as a result of his interest in psychical research and in the study of survival become one of the top experts on ITC. His books on the subject, some of them co-authored by the renowned scientist Remy Chauvin, have been translated into dozens of languages, and constitute, together with the publications of Professor Ernst Senkowski, one of the most important commentaries on ITC in the literature (see Brune ibid 1988 ; e.g. Brune and Chauvin 1999). So far, I have been describing what are now called EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) voices to distinguish them from DRV (Direct Radio Voices). EVP voices (or Psychophonic Voices as they are called in the Latin speaking world), are voices that occur on audio tapes but that are not heard by the experimenters at the time of the recording. Both sets of voices now come under the heading of ITC. Friedrich Jürgenson, the well-known Swedish painter, musician and movie director, is undoubtedly the great pioneer of ITC. His interest was aroused in the subject in 1959 when, while recording the song of night birds in Malmö for the sound track of a documentary film on the life of birds, he accidentally recorded his first EVP voice. The experience was repeated a number of times, with voices that spoke to him in German, Italian, Hungarian, and Swedish (Jürgenson, like many other famous ITC researchers, was fluent in some eight languages). The voices gave him several identification names, among them those of members of his own family, and called him by his pet name, thus convincing Jürgenson that he was indeed listening to the dead (see e.g. Jürgenson 1964). Subsequently he presented his findings to the Swedish Society of Parapsychology, but as with Raymond Bayless in the USA, he found little interest among parapsychologists. Undeterred, he continued his experiments, even abandoning his professional and artistic life to de dicate 6

himself fulltime to the research of the voices. He spent long solitary periods in his country house away even from his own family, relentlessly working with the voices, and listening over and over again until he had properly identified each word of the communications. In 1964 he published ‘Voices of the Universe’ and later ‘Radio Communications with the Dead’. The late Hans Bender, one of the most respected of European parapsychologists and Director of the Institute of Parapsychology at the University of Freiburg became interested, and investigated Jürgenson’s work thoroughly. In the company of technicians, technical advisers and physicists from the University and elsewhere, Bender carried out experiments with Jürgenson over a number of years in various locations throughout the world. As a precaution, he used many different tape recorders and precise unidirectional microphones that eliminated the possibility of picking up random sounds. Even the electrical cables were kept very short to avoid the remote chance of capturing stray radio signals. Various different oscilloscopes were used, and electromagnetic wave detectors were set up to analyse the environment of the different laboratories in which the experiments took place so that the equipment could be set up in areas where the levels were at their lowest. Using these strict controls, some of the most important recordings were made in the presence of Dr. Keil, Director of the Department of Psychology at Tasmania University and an army of technicians (see e.g. Bender 1985). Hans Bender was adamant that the results of these experiments could not be explained by normal means. However, he himself remained sceptical about the possibility of survival, and preferred to attribute the phenomena to psycho kinesis by Jürgenson. Perhaps the first person to receive DRV was Friedrich Jürgenson, but Konstantin Raudive, a Latvian philosopher and literary scholar educated at the Sorbonne and the University of Salamanca, was the first to systematise the study of EVP. With an extreme interest in philosophy and parapsychology and with published work to his credit, Raudive learnt of ITC from Jürgenson, with whom he collaborated for a few years, and with a simple tape recorder he captured over 70,000 EVP voices. From 1969 onwards the two men worked separately. In addition to his work with the voice phenomena, Raudive became well known as a consequence of his scholarly background and his reputation in psychical research. In 1968 he published ‘Unhörbares wird hörbar‘ and this was followed a few years later by the English translation, ‘Breakthrough’ (see e.g. Raudive 1971). Before bringing out this translation, the English publisher, Colin Smythe, arranged for Raudive’s work to be put to scientific test. With the technical assistance of acoustics experts Ray Brickett and Keith Attwood, and in the presence of Colin Smythe, Peter Bander, Sir Robert Mayer and Raudive himself and under the supervision of experts from Pye Records, four tape recorders, suitably shielded from radio interference, were set to play for 18 minutes. Instruments revealed that recordings were taking place although the listeners could hear nothing through their headphones. On rewinding and playing the tapes, over 200 voices, of which 27 were clearly understandable, were heard, Sir Robert Mayer recognising one of them as that of Arthur Schanabel, a friend who had recently died (Brune ibid 1988). A second series of experiments was held in the technical studios of Belling and Lee in 7

Enfield, England. This laboratory was equipped with a shield for radio frequencies which prevented the intrusion of any kind of electro-magnetic waves. Peter Hale, an expert in electrical screening techniques, and Ralph Lovelock, a physicist and electronics expert, supervised the recordings, during which a series of clear EVP voices was again captured (Brune ibid 1988). Undeterred by sceptics, Raudive continued his work, developing the theory of an “opposed world”, an alternative level of reality intimately connected to our own, where the spirits of the dead live and try to communicate with us. A large number of Raudive’s recordings have been preserved in Münster, Westfalia in Germany, and another collection has recently come into the possession of the British Society for Psychical Research and been given by them to the British National Acoustics Laboratory. Currently the Italian researcher Marcello Bacci is one of the most important workers in ITC. Originally inspired by Jürgenson’s books Bacci recorded thousands of EVP voices before receiving his first DRV voices in 1970. His laboratory at Grosseto holds weekly listening sessions, mainly for those who have lost children during which all can listen live to DRV communications. In April 2002 Bacci took part in a particularly important experiment during which Professor Mario Festa, Professor of Physics in the University of Naples, and technical expert Franco Santi removed two valves from the ancient shortwave radio favoured by Bacci for the production of DRV. Firstly Franco Santi removed the oscillation converter valve ECC 85 that controls the frequency modulator, and then removed the local medium frequency oscillation converter type ECH 81. Professor Festa then checked that removal of the latter valve completely silenced all the short wave frequencies. However, the production of the DRV voices remained unchanged, and Professor Festa confirmed he had no explanation for this. After 40 minutes of DRV Professor Festa checked once more that no radio waves reception was possible, and the valves were then put back into place and the radio found to work once more as normal (see e.g. Festa 2002). In the 1970s another leading ITC researcher, George Meek, was also responsible for groundbreaking experiments. Engineer, inventor and prosperous businessman Meek retired in 1960 to concentrate upon survival research, establishing for the purpose the Metascience Foundation in Franklin, USA. Hearing of ITC during one of his trips to Europe, Meek used leading mediums in an attempt to contact deceased scientists and technicians with a view to obtaining information on how to improve ITC contacts. One of these mediums, William O’Neil, who was also an electronic engineer, received instruction for the construction of a highly complex device that combined the emission and reception of electromagnetic waves with certain acoustics elements. Thus was born the famous “Spiricom” through which O’Neill was able to contact Dr. George Mueller, who had died in 1967 (Meek ibid 1987). Details of Mueller’s life, unknown to the researchers, were given through Spiricom and later found to be correct, and from then on Mueller was a frequent communicator and collaborator. In 1982 Meek demonstrated the Spiricom to a Press Conference at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. Sadly however, the success of Spiricom was short-lived. Dr. Mueller warned that the contact could not long be maintained, and his words turned out to be correct. However, enough had been discovered to prompt Meek to spend the rest of his life pre senting 8

the Spiricom and other ITC results worldwide, with the aim of demonstrating that objective contact can be established with another reality without the intervention of human mediumship and to the satisfaction of many scientists (see also Fuller 1985). One of these is electronic engineer Hans Otto König. Originally a sceptic, König set out to demonstrate the impossibility of ITC contacts. However, in the course of his work he found himself receiving voices of extraordinary quality, some of which appeared to be from his deceased mother and deceased friends. Convinced of the reality of the voices, König then developed a series of complex devices such as his now famous “fields generator”, which generates rectangular electromagnetic waves in the band of ultrasound that are then mixed, modulated, demodulated and filtered through a complex electronic system. König has become famous in the history of ITC both for the development of the fields generator and for one of the most remarkable ITC experiments ever carried out in public. Invited by Radio Luxembourg to demonstrate direct radio dialogue with the next world live on television and radio, König succeeded in doing so for two million listeners and viewers under the supervision of the Radio’s technicians and sound engineers. One of those present was George Meek, to whom the voices referred by name. Rainer Holbe, the prestigious television announcer who presented König’s dialogue with the next world and who confirmed on air that there was no possible way in which the voices could have been faked, subsequently followed up König’s work, publicly defending his integrity and publishing work of his own that adds importantly to the ITC literature (see e.g. Macy 2001). Rainer Holbe also followed up the work of another remarkable ITC researcher, Klaus Schreiber, the great pioneer of paranormal images on video tape, work that reached its most impressive level with the research of Maggy and Jules Harsch-Fischbach in Luxembourg. The images received in public by the Harsch-Fischbachs over a number of years represent some of the most important data ever collected in the history of research into survival of death. The images remain unparalleled in their objectivity, clarity, and quality, as do the contents of the extraordinary verbal messages also received in the course of this work. As usually happens in ITC research, the Harsch-Fischbachs had begun by trying for EVP messages, receiving in the process instructions on how to build and set up complex arrangement of equipment, some of which was also built to the recommendations of an entity said never to have been incarnated and who referred to himself as the Librarian, Archivist or Technician of planet Earth (see e.g. Harsch and Locher1989). The contacts received by the Harsch-Fischbachs were by all known forms of ITC, and in their own home on July 1 st 1988, for the first time in history and following the instructions recommended by the Technician, sound and image of another reality were heard and seen simultaneously, orchestrated it was said by the now deceased Konstantin Raudive. The setting for this extraordinary event was later exhaustively investigated by technicians and scientists from all over the world, who themselves were present when direct dialogues with the next world were held, and images and voices of unmatched quality and clarity were received. Among these technicians and scientists were Father Andreas Resch, a doctor of 9

Theology and Psychology and Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Lateran in Rome, George Meek, Professor Ernst Senkowski, Dr. Ralph Determeyer, Father François Brune, and the Director of the Institute for Frontier Areas of Science in Innsbruck (Brune ibid 1988). In Germany, Homes and Malkhoff were also obtaining their results using equipment built to the instructions of the Technician, and as happened in Luxembourg, receiving communications from entities identifying themselves as Swejen Salter (who informed them she had lived her physical life on a planet other than Earth), Werner von Braun, Einstein, Paracelsus, Raudive, Henri Sainte-Claire Deville, Richard Francis Burton, Jürgenson, Seth (who claimed to be from the “fifth plane”) and many famous personalities from Earth. Communications also came from family members and from animals, as did images of landscapes said by the communicators to be from their world. The voices claimed to speak through a special arrangement (supposedly of devices and other unknown elements) which they called “Bridges”. In Luxembourg the GA 1 Bridge, the Euro Signal Bridge, and the Burton Bridge were set up as per the recommendations of the communicators (Brune ibid 1988 and e.g. Schäffer 1989 ). (Incidentally, it is interesting to note that I have also received several very clear recordings in which the communicators also speak of “Bridges”). From a technical point of view, it is important to stress that, as with the Spiricom, none of the pieces of equipment constructed in Luxembourg and elsewhere to the specifications of the spirit communicators makes any sense in normal electro-acoustic terms. So-called “cross correspondences” (complementary or identical messages received through investigators working in isolation from each other) also occurred between the researchers in Luxembourg and Adolf Homes and Friedrich Malkhoff in the German town of Trier. These included communications that were started by the spirits in Germany and finished by them in Luxembourg and vice versa, the announcement in Germany of the time and place at which spirit contact would be made in Luxembourg, and the same messages or images appearing spontaneously and simultaneously on the computer screens of both the Harsch-Fischbachs in Luxembourg and of Homes and Malkhoff in Germany. The spirits involved in this work identified themselves as belonging to ‘Zeitstrom’ (i.e. ’Timestream’) Station and claimed to be supervised by the Technician, to be technically guided by Dr. Swejen Salter, and to be philosophically led by Konstantin Raudive. While communicating with Luxembourg, Raudive introduced Carlos de Almeida, said to belong to the Portuguese group within Timestream, who then spoke directly to Luxembourg in Portuguese and gave the Group’s Portuguese name, “Rio do Tempo”. PERSONAL EXPERIENCE It is to Rio do Tempo that my personal experience in ITC relates. Together with a small group of three friends (Carlos Fernández, who is now the technical editor of the ‘ITC Journal’, which I founded and edit, and the mother and the father of an 18 year-old boy who had died in a sailing accident) I started trying for EVP contacts at the end of October 1997. Later we also tried for video images, using the method developed by Klaus Schreiber (the 10

projection of a continuous video loop with continuous filming of the video monitor), and from the second or third attempt we achieved some success (see e.g. Cardoso 2001). One of the most readily identifiable images was of a black and white female Great Dane dog that I had found abandoned and that I had treated and cared for two years before she died. And on the 17th of January 1998 we received our first feeble, whispered paranormal voice. On the day concerned we were using as our background support noise a live short wave radio transmission in German of a male voice, and I had recorded the question whether or not our failure to receive contacts thus far was due to attempts by the spirits to protect us from negative influences. The answer, “Sí”, came in Spanish, in a low monosyllabic feminine voice in the middle of the German transmission. From then on we started receiving regular EVP voices, meeting weekly in my home in Galicia, Spain, where I then lived. I then started, rather timidly, trying three times a week or more for results on my own. During all these various sessions, we would ask a variety of questions – technical, philosophical, and existential - about the world inhabited by those at Timestream station. I also tried to assemble a data base of technical information about the most suitable sources of white noise, the most favourable positions in which to place my items of equipment, the most suitable hours in which to try for contact, and the many other variables that I thought might affect results. Some years previously I had read “Technical Contacts with the Beyond” by Maggy Harsch-Fischbach and Theo Locher (Harsch and Locher ibid 1989), and I also found the guidance given there of great help. In those early days, I found the results themselves so extraordinary in terms both of quality and content, and the descriptions by the communicators of their world so unlike my concepts of how such a world would be, that I abstained from any judgement as to what I was receiving. However, fascinated by the teachings of the Technician, and following the advice of a Portuguese friend who was well- informed on ITC and other contacts with the Beyond, I started calling upon Carlos de Almeida, who seemed to lead the Portuguese group at Timestream Station for protection and help at the beginning of every session. On March 11 th 1998, at 7.30 p.m., and while alone at home with my dogs, I started an EVP session, following my usual procedure. To my astonishment (if this word is sufficiently strong), I received a direct answer through one of the old valve radios tuned to short waves that I was using for background white noise at the time. The voice giving me this answer then dialogued with me in Portuguese interspersed with Spanish at some length (sometimes with different accents that might have been Brazilian and African). From that day forward, I continued receiving DRV of people who identified themselves as Carlos de Almeida, Filipe, Joan Colbert, Pedro Roque, Boris, Homero, Ramiro, etc. (see e.g. Cardoso 2000, 2001; Fontana and Cardoso 2002). On the 29th March of the same year, in my house and in the presence of Carlos Fernández and an employee of mine, Mukesh Godyal, a voice spoke for over two and a half hours, although less distinctly than on the occasion of my first DRV. It is very difficult to describe the emotions I felt as a result of this extraordinary and unexpected happening. They ranged from incredulity to amazement to the greatest joy. I had, however, to get over the barrier of fear. I 11

have no spiritist or any other religious background, and at the time I had done no research into psychical phenomena. Although extremely interested in the meaning of existence and in life and death, I was truly a lay person in the area. My technical knowledge was, and still is, very deficient, as I am a diplomat interested in ecological issues rather than an engineer or a physicist. I also had to overcome many difficulties in working with the computers that were to run the soft ware I planned to use to help me analyse the communications. I also had no previous experience in using a video camera. However, in spite of these problems, these early contacts provided me with the most extraordinary times of my life. I find it hard to convey to you the feeling that comes from apparently speaking to another world through a radio. There is nothing with which this feeling can be compared. Frequently during my DRV contacts the spirits identify themselves, loudly and clearly, as the Portuguese group at Timestream Station. Over the last four years, I have recorded literally thousands of communications from this group. Often, at my request, the communicators have given me their own names. Usually these names are of persons unknown to me, but I have received voices claiming to be of my grandmother, my father, and my brother who died suddenly in 1996. I once got a low, child-like, feminine voice that identified itself as Nisha, one of my best-loved dogs, who lived with me for 10 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 received a very short voice that resembles that of the Technician as recorded in Luxembourg, although at the time I received it I had had no contact with Luxembourg or with anyone else directly involved in the work of ITC. In fact I desperately needed assistance from experts on the subject, particularly because, as already mentioned, I had no background in spiritism or in psychical research. 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” or “I am within the radio”, or – one day when I had just returned from the beach – “Go and wash the feet”. On occasions, having only Carlos Fernández, whose interest was solely in the technical side of things, with whom to speak, I seriously feared I would lose my sanity. However, through an interesting coincidence, I was able in 2001 to get in touch with Professor David Fontana, a professor of psychology in the UK and a Past President of the Society for Psychical Research, who had an extensive knowledge of parapsychology. Since then, he has personally accompanied me in my work. On his very first visit to my home – currently in Lyon, and where contacts continue to take place – he sat with me in my studio and, without telling me the protocol in advance, he asked the DRV voices (that were loud but very distorted at that moment) to repeat words that he dictated to them. The words concerned were “Hello David” and “How are You?”, and to our shared delight the voices repeated these, clearly and loudly (Fontana and Cardoso ibid 2002). From then on, the voices again sometimes greet him with “Hello David” or “How are you?” when he enters the studio in Lyon (examples of this will be played later). But a particularly important point is that, as I had no idea that Professor Fontana was to use this protoc ol on that 12

first occasion, the charge that my ITC results are due to my own psychokinetic abilities looks particularly untenable. In this instance if they were, we would have to assume that at an unconscious level I had become telepathically aware of what he intended to do, and that – again at an unconscious level – I had psychokinetically impressed a response to him upon the radio voices. Such an assumption is clearly absurd (Fontana, in press). In a number of areas, the information I have received by DRV from Rio do Tempo coincides remarkably well with that received by the Harsch-Fischbachs in Luxembourg and by Homes and Malkhoff and by König in Germany. For example, we were independently given the information about Timestream Station. The Harsch-Fischbachs were told that Carlos de Almeida was the leader of the Portuguese group of Timestream, and Carlos de Almeida independently introduced himself to me. The Harsch-Fischbachs in Luxembourg were told that the Portuguese group included Brazilians and Africans as well as Portuguese. (It seems interesting to note that some of the voices I have received have Brazilian or African accents). It is also relevant to note that we have all been told that there are other stations in the next world that attempt to transmit to Earth. The deceased Peter Härting, from Darmstadt in Germany – another important ITC investigator, received contacts from a station other than Timestream, and was told that the communicating entity was known as ABX Juno. The radio voices that communicated with Jürgenson also spoke of a ‘transmitting centre’ in their world (Jürgenson ibid 1967, 1968), while other important investigators such as Hildegard Schäffer, Sarah Estep and Gabriella Alvisi have all received messages whose content is very similar to that received by myself and by those in Luxembourg and Germany mentioned above. In brief these messages tell us that (all communications in italics were received directly by me with the exact words used by the communicators in inverted commas): • survival is the Natural Law. ‘All beings – animals, plants, humans (perhaps even minerals, though I have not been told to this effect) 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 (ours) 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. • 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). • the bodies of entities in the world of Timestream are also ‘material bodies’. • the entities in the world of Timestream have extraordinary capacities, like being in two places at the same time in full consciousness; ‘these capacities are a natural condition in 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 13

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 are the nearest approximation to the next world. (e.g. ‘Carlos de Almeida has passed to the 4th plane, a world of light, like a sun’). • ‘we are in space’ (this compares interestingly with communications received by Jürgenson and has been said to me on a couple of occasions when they start speaking); ‘you are inside time, we are outside time’, ‘we live on an edge of space’. The entities in the world of Timestream appear to have a wonderful sense of humour. For example, once when I 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. TECHNICAL CONDITIONS OF MY RECORDINGS In common with many 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 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). I also use a portable Sony radio cassette player tuned to the so called Jürgenson wave band (approximately 1,500 kHz). In addition, I use two old valve radios that produce no sound or white noise but that are electrically active. These valve radios were damaged in the course of my work, as Rio do Tempo sometimes ask me to leave all the radios on continually for a week or more at high volume while they are practising. This continuous use is well within the compass of good solid-state radios, but it has proved too much for those with valves. As it appears to help the communicators, I also leave a number of various sized crystals, collected at random, near one of the more powerful Sony. Two microphones are set up to capture respectively the sounds emanating from the radios and my own voice. The microphones are connected, via a mixing table, to a Pioneer tape deck CT-W806 DR. When I travel from my studio in Lyon to that in Vigo I take with me only the four Sony radios, the two microphones, the mixing table and the tape recorder. It is interesting to note 14

that both in Lyon and in Vigo, the communicators have asked me not to switch on my computer while they are working. This is a relatively new development, as initially the computer did not appear to interfere with communications. The same sometimes, although not always, applies to my mobile telephone. On occasions, the communicators tell me that it interferes with their work, and at such times, if I need to use it, I have to leave the buildings and even the gardens and go outside the premises (however, the mobile phones of visitors do not appear to disturb the work). Other investigators tell me that mobile phones do not affect their communications, so it does not appear to be a general rule here. Sometime after I started receiving DRV, Rio do Tempo told me not to try any longer for EVP, even when using other equipment. I am unsure of the reason for this, but it seems that one way of working may interfere with another, which suggests to me that DRV and EVP employ different and not necessarily compatible channels of communication. For instance, I notice that while EVP voices are very similar to the voices of the communicators concerned while they were on Earth (on one occasion when I played the voice of a deceased communicator to his mother, she cried out ‘How do you happen to have my son’s voice?’), this does not appear to be true for DRV, which the communicators say are produced at a transmitting station (in this case Timestream Station). As with other transcommunicators and as mentioned earlier, I have received voices in several of the languages in which I am fluent, such as Portuguese, English, Spanish and German. However, nearly all my communications are in Portuguese, although when Professor Fontana, in the course of using the protocol I described earlier, asked them to speak to him in English, they obligingly did so. On one occasion while Professor Fontana was working with the communicators we heard a voice say in English “Help me prove I’m alive”, and another voice that told us “There will be no time until tomorrow” to carry out further experiments. I made clear earlier that my communicators have told me that mediumship (in the traditional understanding of the term) is not necessary in order to make EVP or DRV contact, but this is a somewhat complex issue. In the early days of ITC some transcommunicators (the Harsch- Fischbachs included) were asked to secure the services of mediums, but it appears that as the work has developed mediumship has become unnecessary. The Technician said in Luxembourg that ‘in messages received through mediums in trance, semi-trance etc., you will have four-fifths of the psyche of the medium and one-fifth of the Beyond. In transcommunications through technical means you have one-fifth of the psyche (of the experimenter) and four-fifths of the Beyond’ (Harsch and Locher ibid 1989). The Technician has also said that the eventual aim is to convey ITC messages without any input from the human psyche. It seems possible to me that mediumship is a capacity common to all beings, but undeveloped in most of them. Throughout the history of psychical research there have been cases of animals - I recall here the famous story of the parakeet of Hamburg for example - that acted as mediums for humans (see e.g. Horia 1980). Is it possible perhaps that plants too have mediumship capacities? They are certainly the intermediaries between Earth and Heaven, as witnessed by their roles as life-sustaining agents for the planet. Plants are also a 15

source of tranquil wisdom, consolation and peace for those who claim to be able to hear their voices or to feel their emotions. We could also argue that this communication between plants and humans is also a form of mediumship. It is clear that to judge other forms of life simply in terms of the possession or otherwise of human attributes is both dangerous and scientifically incorrect, because the psycho-physical variables of one species cannot necessarily be extrapolated to others. I am sometimes asked why, if mediumship is not important in ITC, some people receive contacts while others do not. I am not sure of the answer. When I asked Rio do Tempo what is the condition for the establishment of contacts, they answered ‘contact itself”. Professor Fontana once requested I ask Rio do Tempo ‘on what this contact depended’, and their answer was that it depends upon Rio do Tempo. We are, it seems, very much in their hands. Even to argue that investigators who have desirable characteristics such as compassion and kindness are more likely to achieve good results than those who do not is risky. Such thinking may lead us to suppose that a kind of ITC ‘priesthood’ exists on this side of life. Nothing could be less desirable than this, and less in accord with the contents of the DRV voices that I have been receiving. However, it seems to me that characteristics such as persistence, openness of spirit, love for the work and the willingness to devote time and energy to it, together with an interest in survival and a concern for the well-being of those in the next world may be desirable factors. Let me conclude by quoting one of the most helpful and thought-provoking messages I have received from Rio do Tempo. The communicating entity, known as Filipe, told me that I should ‘… always think of our world. Whoever thinks of our world reduces the distances’. REFERENCES Alvisi, Gabriella. (1976). Le Voci dei Viventi di Ieri, Milan: Sugar co. Edizioni, s.r.l. Bacci, Marcello. (1985). Il Mistero delle Voci dall’ Aldillà. Roma: Ed. Mediterranee. Bender, H. (1985). Verborgene Wirklichkeit. Piper. Bonin, W. F. (1983). Dicionario de Parapsicología. Madrid: Alianza Editorial. Brune, F. (1988). Les Morts nous Parlent. Paris: Ed. du Félin, Philippe Lebaud. Brune, F. and Chauvin, R. (1999). À L’Écoute de L’Au-Delà . Paris: Ed. du Félin, Philippe Lebaud. Cardoso, A. (2000). The opening of the road. ITC Journal, 1, pages 4-6.

Cardoso, A. (2000). Preconceptions. ITC Journal, 2, pages 14-18. 16

Cardoso, A. (2000). Reflections. ITC Journal, 3, pages 11-15. Cardoso, A. (2001). Cover. ITC Journal, 8, page 1.

Darnell, Sinesio. (1979). Voces sin Rostro. Barcelona: Ediciones Petronio Darnell, Sinesio. (1991). El Misterio de la Psicofonía . Barcelona: Ed. Fausí, S. A. (2 nd. Edition). Fernández, C. (2002). Psicofonías y Psicoimágenes , Madrid: Ed. América Ibérica S.A. (Biblioteca Año Cero). Festa, M. (2002). A particular experiment at the psychoponic centre in Grosseto, directed by Marcello Bacci. ITC Journal, 10, pages 27-31.

Fontana, D. and Cardoso, A. (2002). Developing a protocol for DRV. ITC Journal, 12, pages 55-57. Fuller, J. G. (1985). The Ghost of 29 Megacycles. London: Souvenir Press Ltd. Grandsire, J. M. (1993). Contact… Guide pratique de Transcommunication. 80290 Poix de Picardie, France: Parasciences Transcommunication. Grandsire, J. M. (1998). La Transcommunication. 80290 Poix de Picardie, France: JMG éditions. Harsch, M. and Locher, T. (1989). Les Contacts vers l’Au-delà à l’aide de moyens techniques existent ! Association Suisse de Parapsychologie et Cercle d’Etudes sur la Transcommunication du Luxembourg. (1995, édition française, Agnières: Parasciences) Horia, Vintila. (1980). Encuesta detrás de lo Invisible. Barcelona: Ed. Plaza y Janés, S. A. Jürgenson, F. (1964). The Voices from Space . Rosterna Fran Rymden, Saxon & Lindstrom Forlag. Jürgenson, F. (1967). Sprechfunk mit Verstorbenen. Freiburg: Verlag Hermann Bauer KG. Jürgenson, F. (1968). Radio and Microphone Contacts with the Dead . Rosterna Fran Rymden, Saxon & Lindstrom Forlag. Macy, M. (2001). Miracles in the Storm. New York: New American Library (Penguin Putnam Inc.). 17

Meek, G. (1987). After we die, what then?, Atlanta, USA: Ariel Press. Raudive, K. (1971). Breakthrough. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe. Schäffer, Hildegard. (1989). Brücke Zwischen Diesseits und Jenseits . Freiburg: Verlag Hermann Bauer KG. Senkowski, E. (1989). Instrumentelle Transkommunikation. Frankfurt: R. G. Fischer. ___________________________________________________________________________ © 2003 Anabela Cardoso Published in 2003 in ParaDocs, http://www.rajatiede.org/paradocs/tutkimuksia.html 18