An evolution of centuries-long efforts to contact and communicate with the dead, the practice of recording voices from the great beyond was attempted almost as soon as radio and tape recording technology became widely available in consumer devices. From garbled electrical chirps emanating out of swathes of white noise, to perfectly clear, eloquent speech, the results across the years have been as varied as they have been numerous. Up there with the capturing of “orbs” on camera in regards to its plausibility, EVP Research has somehow survived sceptical analysis and become a surprisingly persistent area of parapsychology. Though there were several pioneers in the space, there was one man who was supposedly so invested in the subject by the time of his death that he decided to come back and continue the job from the afterlife, through the medium of the telephone.

SOURCES

Jürgenson, Friedrich (1967) Voice Transmissions with the Deceased. Firework, Sweden.

Raudive, Konstantin. (1971) Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead. Smythe, UK.

Roach, Mary. (2005). Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. W.W. Norton & Co. UK.

Banks, Joe (2001) Rorschach Audio: Ghost Voices and Perceptual Creativity. Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 11, pp 77-83. MIT Press, USA.

Estep, Sarah (1988) Voices of Eternity. Fawcett Gold Medal, NY, USA.

Estep, Sarah (2005) Roads to Eternity. Glade Press, MN, USA.

Moreman, Christopher M. (2013) The Spiritualist Movement: Speaking with the Dead in America and Around the World. ABC-CLIO, CA, USA.

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Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

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