EVP Expert Jonathan Farrell Shares His Techniques

EVP And The Ghost Box

Paranormal investigations have become extremely popular over recent years, with many amateur enthusiasts seeking out ghostly phenomena and proof of the unknown. The area of research which seems to be the most popular, and indeed the most accessible by all is EVP or electronic voice phenomenon. The thought of capturing voices and receiving messages from those passed away on ordinary audio recording devices is an area that intrigues all and I am certainly no different.

I have been a paranormal investigator for many years now and recently have focused my attention on studying and recording EVP. I have used many methods for capturing EVP evidence ranging from leaving old cassette recorders taping in empty rooms, to contacting ITC (instrumental Transcommunication) devices on Skype. Some methods seem to be more successful for spirit communication than others and one of the most interesting  and thought provoking methods I have found lately is that of  the ghost box.

The designer of one of the first ghost box‘s (the Franks Box), Frank Sumption designed a device that produced random audio segments and white noise through an AM tuner. The noise that was created was then thought to be manipulated by spirits to form words, and unlike ordinary EVP recording this enabled the possibility of having a 2 way conversation, hearing voices of the dead in real time! Following on from Franks work, more recently paranormal researchers and developers have found ways to modify basic portable radios to continually sweep the AM or FM band frequencies, the most famous being the Shack Hack. These hacked radios which are generally now known as ghost box’s have a similar effect to that of the Franks Box, creating  tiny audio snippets and background static as it sweeps the frequency ranges. This method has caused a lot of debate in the paranormal field, are we just hearing bits from the radio waves or is it possibly spirits or other beings coming through trying to communicate with us? Of course, it goes without saying, yes we do capture tiny audio segments from broadcasting radio stations, but that is the whole point of the modern day ghost box. It is these tiny pieces of raw sound that in theory is remodulated by possible entities to talk to us.

 

My Methods And Experiences

The setup I use is quite simple really, I connect the ghost box to a set of desktop speakers and have an external microphone connected to my laptop. I will then start my ghost box, sweeping the AM band and then record the session on my computer using software such as Audacity (which is free) and Cool Edit Pro. In the recorded session, you will hear the audio coming from the ghost box and my voice as I ask the questions and try to communicate with the other side. You don’t have to use a PC to record the session though, any ordinary Dictaphone, digital or tape will do. Occasionally, I may even film the session in case any visual phenomena in the area manifests as I am recording. Once everything is set up I will then proceed to try and establish some communication by asking various questions and talking in general.

Ghost Box Setup Video

The questions I ask vary depending on the responses I hear and as with most ordinary EVP recording I wont hear all of them until I play the recording back, but a lot of the time you will hear the voices as they are being said live in real time! It is always good practice also to ask questions that require more than a yes or no answer, the longer the sentence you capture, the harder it is to debunk by normal means. Other things I may ask are things that only I, or anyone in the room with me would know and more often than not I will hear the answers to my questions being said correctly. What are the odds of hearing an exact and correct answer to questions asked at that precise moment in time coming through randomly on the radio waves? On all recordings, my own name is always being said and this is the same with all ghost box users, their name will always come through very frequently.  All this tied together makes it highly improbable that you are co incidentally hearing nothing but natural radio segments. I have kept an online diary of all my ghost box recordings, all in order up to the present day and I have found the more I use it, the stronger the communication seems to be becoming.

Ghost Box Diary Play-list

Oujia Boards – A Reflection In the Mirror

In the oft-misunderstood spirit of Halloween, as the days grow shorter and the nights grow darker, the cool winds of autumn pull at our coat tails and coloured leaves litter the streets.  We revel in the excitement of our children, as visions of ghouls and ghosts become mixed with sugary notions of fun and costumed trickery.

October is the month of dying seasons, when our thoughts often turn to those people that have passed before us.  In contrast to the historical idea of Samhain (commonly referred to in Wiccan circles as All Hallows Eve) and also known in Catholic traditions as All souls Day, most people these days take pains to celebrate this typically convoluted and commercialised holiday at the end of October, the vast majority having little idea of the real sentiment behind the celebration at all.

Mixed in with these month long advertising frenzies for plastic costumes, candy and a general condoning of impious attitudes toward the dead, is a yearly flood of interest in what may be the most misconstrued item of occult renown the world has ever known; the Ouija Board.

If you were to step out your door and ask any number of people you may run into on the street, what a Ouija Board is, there will be no mistaking the widespread familiarity people have with this lettered board and harmless planchette; people will expound on the creepy powers of Ouija, they will warn of the dangers and extol memories of past transgressions, usually at the mercy of some terrifying encounter with demonic influence, and most will relay the idea that the Ouija Board is an ancient practise of magical commune with the dead.  Most would do this, though most would be completely wrong.

The Spirit Board, as the Ouija is generically referred, is by all accounts a very recent invention.  In fact Ouija, a word whose etymology is entirely unknown and is widely believed to be completely made up, is a trademarked product name, owned by Hasbro.  Yes, the toy company.

The Spirit board and each of its hundreds of various incarnations is, in all seriousness, a toy; though it didn’t necessarily start out that way.  A man by the name of Charles Kennard, along with his attorney and associate Elijah Bond, made application to the US Patent office for a planchette and lettered board on May 28, 1890, and subsequently received US Patent #446,054 for what they termed ‘Psychographs, with sound producing numbers’.  In the patent document, at the very top, the classification for the product is specified as “Toy or Game”.[1]

In 1901, Kennard, through the ‘The Kennard Novelty Company’, handed production of the Spirit Board over to his employee William Fuld, who coined the term Ouija (most believe he fabricated the word from the French “oui” , meaning ‘yes’ and the German ‘ja’, also meaning ‘yes’).  It was Fuld’s ingenious marketing of the product, hence forth known as the Ouija Board, that skyrocketed it’s popularity among both competitors in the Toy and Game making industry of the turn of the century, but also among the wildly growing Spiritualist movement of the same time.

During his reign as the worlds only Ouija manufacturer, Fuld was the complainant in many trademark and patent infringement lawsuits, against others who saw a financial opportunity in selling what may be the highest profiting entertainment device conceived of prior to modern electronics.

hasbro_box_4ColorAt the conclusion of Fuld’s life in 1927, he held exclusive rights to the use and manufacture of the game, though his estate brokered a deal with the budding toy manufacturer Hasbro in 1966, to have them purchase the rights to the Ouija franchise, and since that point, the Ouija Board has been manufactured and distributed by the Hasbro Toy Company exclusively.[2]

This somewhat bland history of the Ouija Board -now also known by many other names, such as The Angel Board, The Spirit Communication Board, Planchette Ghost Board, Ghost Board, and a host of other such terms- says nothing about the game’s ability to either communicate with the dead, or to open gateways of spiritual commune, or to scare the bejesus out of kids and adults alike.  It says nothing about the efficacy of the concept of Spirit Board communication as a tool for Ghost Hunting or spiritual research, and it says nothing about the legitimacy of the concept as anything more than a novelty.

The legendary ability of Ouija Boards to facilitate question and answer periods between educated paranormal investigators, or ignorant teenagers or even robe wearing psychic charlatans, and the dearly departed, is founded on nothing more than the glorified marketing of Mr. William Fuld at the height of western society’s most gullible period of development.  This was a time when flimflam was a respectable profession among salesmen, when snake oil and mechanically aided séance were rampantly offered to anyone with the means to afford the scam. (Though one wonders how far we’ve really come)

In your impromptu street survey (as suggested earlier), you would certainly have encountered a preponderance of expert advice for how to deal with the Ouija Board, and likely at least a few warnings to avoid the use of this toy, for fear of inviting such forces as demons, inter-dimensional creatures, evil spirits and even the devil himself, right into your home, or even your own soul (depending on the theistic beliefs of the advisor in question).  Popular culture has simultaneously vilified and mystified the reputation of the Ouija Board; there is a general consensus that mistreating or disrespecting the so-called power of the Ouija Board is akin to taunting a violent bully when there’s no way to escape his inevitable wrath.

In fact, the government of Great Britain has banned the sale of Ouija board and the like since the 1970’s, though this legality is based more on the idiotic behaviour which people will partake in on their own accord, rather than any demonic or otherwise influence exerted by the board.

In reality, the Ouija Board, by that name or by any other, is a simple collection of cardboard, or wood, and plastic.  There is no ritualistic practise in its manufacture or sale, there is nothing special about any part of it, except…the person who intends to use it.

And a great many people have criticised the intention of the people who would find themselves using such a toy for anything other than party tricks.

Dr. Jimmy Lowry has been outspoken about the fallacy of Ouija Boards, and of the mindset that fools regular people into believing that the simple act of placing your hands on a plastic planchette will somehow open a doorway to another realm.  His theistic damnation of the toy does seem to be a bit much, but his point remains as poignant to the agnostic as to the devout parishioner.[3]

So what is happening when a pair of would-be mediums tempts the spirits with the use of a Spirit Board?

The most popular theory, the Ideomotor effect or automatism -essentially this is the psychological process by which an idea or suggestion creates a subconscious action intended to complete the idea- is a fancy way of saying that the results achieved by users of Ouija Boards is entirely self-inflicted.[4] Others suggest that there is an element of telekinesis involved, which might explain the vastly divergent results experienced by so many people; some experience immediate and dramatic response from the board (or from their own psyche, depending on which explanation you subscribe to), while others experience little to no response at all.

But throughout all of this we are faced with a truth, a truth that is ignored by so many people, in so many various positions and endeavours on spiritual fronts.  In our world, our reality, which includes some of the strangest natural phenomena, some of the weirdest science and the oddest environmental influences conceivable by man, why do we jump to the conclusion that the effects shown to us (or by us) through the Ouija Board are the will of ghosts or demons?  Is our obsession with death and the hereafter so compelling that we actively seek out ways to express our own hopes and fears in that regard through toys?

The answer to that last question is most definitely ‘yes’, though the first question is a little harder to satisfy.  Of the possibilities, most significantly including the untapped powers of the human brain, we give credit for the awesome potential of mankind to the mysteriously safe entities of fantasy and dream.  It’s a cop out…it’s an excuse and a way to avoid the ultimate culpability, to avoid the admission that we are all, ultimately accountable for our actions, our words and our thoughts.  If we buy into the marketing of Fuld or his predecessor Kennard, and we accept that it is the influence of the hereafter that affects our fates, then we are no longer responsible for where that influence takes us.

In the end of it all there is no reason to fear the Ouija; it is not a demonic doorway, nor is it a tool for communicating with the dead…it remains a toy, and a fun house mirror of our own fears and fantasies.  Though, in so much as there is no factual reason to avoid the game of fortune telling with a Spirit Board, there is also no reason to connect it to what should be a hallowed celebration of those people who have passed on before us.


[1] See (via Google Patents) US Patent #446,054: http://www.google.com/patents?id=0aU_AAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&source=gbs_overview_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

[2] See the Wikipedia entry for Oujia Board: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouija

[3] For more information on Dr. Lowry, see: http://www.paranormality.com/ouija_board.shtml

[4] See the Wikipedia entry for Ideomotor Effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideomotor_effect

To Zeta Reticuli and Back; A Case For Abduction’s Sake

terry-hadler-new-hampshire-betty-and-barney-hill-driving-at-night-see-a-ufoA 1991 Roper poll, titled ‘Unusual Personal Experiences’, conducted on behalf of Dr. John Mack and Robert Bigelow, showed that nearly 2% of all Americans not only believe in alien abduction phenomenon, but have experienced it first hand.[1]

This means that, at the time of the study, roughly 4 million Americans were willing to admit having had some level of exposure to alien abduction phenomenon.[2]  The number of reported abductions on an annual basis world-wide is staggering, if not elusive; the actual number is unknown, for several reasons, but estimates put it high in the hundreds of thousands (conservatively).  If we guess at a figure of 100,000 abductions taking place in a year, that means that on average, there are 250-300 people being abducted every day around the world.  That number becomes frightening fairly quickly if we allow a more liberal estimation.

Where the obvious discrepancy in these estimates comes from, is the unfortunate but understandable fact that the vast majority of Abductees (also known as Experiencers) are reluctant to come forward.

This is not the case for all Abductees however.

On September 19, 1961, a young Portsmouth New Hampshire couple were driving home from a vacation in Canada.  While on their late night interstate drive, they happened upon a “strange point of light” in the sky.  As the story goes, the couple stopped along the roadway, just south of Groveton New Hampshire on US Route 3, to walk their dog before completing the final leg of their long journey home.  Shortly after their pit stop, the couple suffered what seemed to be a lapse in memory, and found themselves again driving along Route 3 with no recollection of having gotten back into the car.

I am of course, referring to the infamous abduction story of Betty and Barney Hill, and the above is one of the many variations of their abduction story that have surfaced over the years.  Betty, born Eunice Elizabeth Barrett, a direct descendant of European Pilgrims who immigrated to the US aboard the Mayflower in 1620, married to Barney Hill, an Ethiopian-American, is touted to be the Mother of Alien Abduction Stories.

Depending on the specific version of the story you happen upon, the Hill’s were either on their way home from their Canadian Honeymoon (which is not correct), or just on their way home from visiting family, when they chanced to see a bright light in the sky above them.  Their account tells of a wild chase through the White Mountains of New Hampshire, playing cat and mouse with what ultimately was found to be an immense alien craft, littered with coloured lights.  They tracked the craft along the lonely mountain roads, watching it’s movements through a pair of binoculars they happened to have with them.  Nearly an hour into the sighting, the Hill’s found themselves confronted by the craft and its inhabitants as it descended onto the road in front of their car.

Different versions of the story offer different details on what happened next, some suggest that Barney exited the car with a pistol in hand, others say he was curiously drawn to the ship.  Whichever version you believe, the apparent results remain the same.  Mr. and Mrs. Hill suffered abduction at the hands of an alien species whose apparent intent was to examine this stereotypical American couple in great detail.

Betty_and_Barney_HillIf, for a moment, you forget that we’re talking about the first and most famous widely accepted alien abduction story in modern history, it might actually seem just like any other, and what strikes me about this accounting, in all its convoluted glory, is that each element of this case has become a sort of founding compass for all abduction stories to come after it.  You could say that it holds all of the classic abduction story characteristics, though of course, it is the classic abduction story.

You end up with 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th kind encounter scenarios, lost time, implants and medical experimentation, hypnosis recovery, and even government cover-up (depending who you believe).[3]

After the alleged abduction, Betty Hill went on to become the first UFO/Alien related celebrity the world had ever known.  The Hill’s story was told the world in the way only Betty could tell it, on radio, on television, in newsprint and through the gossip chains of Middle American households, and with that fame came both opportunity and criticism.

On September 21st, two days following the incident, Betty reported the event to Peace Air Force base by telephone, and the following day participated in an investigative interview with Maj. Paul W. Henderson.  The findings of that investigation were less than charitable, citing that the Hill’s had most likely observed and misidentified the planet Jupiter in the night sky.  This may have been the result of deliberate government efforts to conceal the nature of the encounters, or it may simply have been that Mrs. Hill was unconvincing in her initial report.  It is widely known that she withheld certain details in her telephone report, and that some details were completely different in the Major’s findings.  Thus begins the sceptic’s examination of her testimony.

It has been said that following her interview with Major Henderson, Betty borrowed several books on UFO’s, extraterrestrials and abduction from her local library, which bears a significant amount of criticism from those who understand the fallacies of eye witness testimony.  The difference between her original statement and what she swears to after this cursory research is, as critics claim, more than suspect.

In the early 1960’s however, and considering the fantastic nature of her claims, the populous was eager to soak up her every word.

In successive weeks, the Hill’s recounted their story, adding detail as they went along.  Betty endured horrific nightmares and both husband and wife began displaying tell-tale signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, at the time a psychological concept still in its infancy.  Through her post-abduction research, Betty came across a book written by retired Marine Corps Major Donald E. Keyhoe, and apparently due to something she found relevant in the book, she attempted to correspond with Keyhoe, who was the then leader of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP).  Keyhoe eventually put the Hill’s in contact with fellow NICAP member and astronomer, Walter N. Webb, who conducted a six hour interview of each Mr. and Mrs. Hill, now famously known as The Webb Interview.  The results of the Webb interview are pointedly bland; NICAP held a standard policy of general scepticism and from that position, Webb remained unconvinced of the truth behind the Hill’s encounter.

The subject of Betty Hill’s dreams quickly became the focus of the Hill’s story, which has also become known as the Zeta Reticuli Incident, after the amazing detail eventually recovered from both Betty’s dreams and from later hypnosis sessions, in which she describes star maps and other features of the alien ship with surprising depth.  And though it may be an astounding assessment at this point, this is where the story gets really weird.

From shortly after the Webb Interview until her death in 2004, Betty Hill repeatedly extolled the fantastic circumstances of her abduction, as remembered through her dreams, to nearly anyone who would listen.

The following is a reasonably accurate paraphrased account of Betty’s dream, found on Wikipedia.com[4]

“In the dream, Betty seemed to be struggling to regain consciousness; she then realized that she was being forced by two small men to walk in a forest in the night-time, and of seeing Barney walking alongside her, though when she called to him, he seemed to be in a trance or sleepwalking. The small men stood about five feet tall, and wore matching uniforms, with caps similar to those worn in the U.S. Air Force. They had no hair on their heads, and had large bulbous foreheads.

In the dreams, Betty, Barney, and the small men all walked up a ramp into a disc-shaped craft of metallic appearance. Once inside, Barney and Betty were separated. She protested, and was told by a man she called “the leader” that if she and Barney were examined together, it would take much longer to conduct the exams. She and Barney were then taken to separate rooms. Though the leader and the other men spoke to her in English, their command of the language seemed imperfect, and they had difficulty communicating.

Betty then dreamt that a new man, similar to the others, entered to conduct her exam with the leader. Betty called this new man “the examiner” and said he had a pleasant, calm manner.

The examiner told Betty that he would conduct a quick exam and a few tests to note the differences between humans and the craft’s inhabitants. He seated her on a chair, and a bright light was shone on her. The man cut off a lock of Betty’s hair. He examined her eyes, ears, mouth, teeth, throat and hands. He saved trimmings from her fingernails. After examining her legs and feet, the man then used a dull knife, similar to a letter opener to scrape some of her skin on to a glass slide.

The doctor removed Betty’s dress. He told her to lie on a table. Saying he was examining her nervous system, he dragged a machine somewhat resembling an EEG device over her front and back body. The doctor cleaned his hands with a liquid and put examination gloves on. He took out a hypodermic needle some four to six inches long to conduct what he said was a pregnancy exam. He used a wet swab on her navel. He thrust the needle into it, which caused Betty agonizing pain, but the doctor rubbed her forehead and the pain vanished.

Betty was told that her exam was complete, and that she and Barney would shortly be returned to their automobile. She began conversing with the leader, only to be interrupted when another man rushed into the room and – seemingly excited – spoke with the leader in a strange language. They hurriedly left the room, leaving Betty alone.

Returning in a few minutes, the leader examined Betty’s mouth and seemed to be trying to pull her teeth from her mouth. When this was unsuccessful, the leader asked why her teeth were fixed while Barney’s came out of his mouth. Laughing, Betty told them that Barney wore dentures because humans often lose their teeth as they age. The leader seemed unable to understand the concept of old age. She tried to explain what a year was, but he didn’t seem to understand.

 

A rendering of Betty Hill's map of Zeta Reticuli

In the dream, Betty asked the leader if she could take an artefact from the ship in order to prove the reality of the encounter. The leader let her take a large book whose pages were filled with symbols filled in columns.

She then asked the leader where he and his craft had come from. Betty wrote that, in response, from the wall the leader “pulled down a map, strange to me … It was a map of the heavens” marked with numerous stars and planets. (Clark, 281) There were different types of lines between some of the stars which denoted, she was told, trade and exploration routes. The leader asked Betty if she knew where the Earth was located on the map. Betty responded by saying that she did not, being unfamiliar with the map. The leader then said that because of her ignorance, it was impossible to explain where he had come from.

Betty then suggested that humanity would like to meet other inhabitants of the universe, and tried to persuade the leader to openly announce their presence on Earth. Amid her pleas, the men brought Barney into the room. He seemed to be in a daze.

The men began escorting the Hills from the ship, though an argument broke out amongst the men in the strange language they’d spoken before. The leader then took the large book from Betty. She protested, saying that the book was her only proof of the encounter. The leader said that he personally did not care if she kept the book, but the other men of the ship did not want her to even remember the encounter. Betty insisted that no matter what they did to her memory, she would one day recall the events.

She and Barney were taken to their car, where the leader suggested that they wait to watch the craft’s departure. They did so, and then resumed their drive. Betty stated that the event was miraculous and exciting, but Barney said nothing.

Betty’s dream concluded with her asking, “Now do you believe in flying saucers?” Irritated, Barney said, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

While Betty thought the dreams might reflect actual events, Barney was more sceptical, thinking that his wife had simply had a number of unusually vivid dreams.”

It wasn’t until three years later that Betty and Barney Hill underwent hypnotic therapy at the capable supervision of Dr. Benjamin Simon of Boston MA.  Simon’s sessions with the Hill’s were extensive and as controlled as could be managed in a hypnotherapy setting.  Ultimately, Simon too was unconvinced of the truth behind the encounter.  He was one of the first to suggest that Barney’s recollection of the events was likely the result of memory transference from Betty’s continuous retelling of the encounter since that night, but he was not the last.

In the years after this precipitous event, Betty and Barney tried to go back to their normal lives, Barney was a hard working US Postal Service employee, and Betty a social worker, but thanks to John H. Lutrell’s story in the Traveller on October 25, 1965, the Hill’s fame was secured, and their story was printed for all to read shortly after in John G. Fuller’s book, The Interrupted Journey.

hillpic6The Zeta Reticuli Incident, as Betty Hill preferred to call it, is perhaps the most famous abduction case in the history of UFOlogy; followed by such incidents as The Walton Incident, which was the inspiration for the hit sci-fi movie Fire in the Sky, and the Rendlesham Forest Incident.  Whether the details were embellished by Betty Hill, or recounted word-for-word as gospel certainty, the underlying truths to the story remain difficult to deny.  On that night, on the dark and lonely US Route 3 in New Hampshire, Barney and Betty Hill encountered something that changed their lives.  They became the impetus for many more abductees to come forward and share their stories, and like so many of the incidents that have happened since, and which happened before 1961, theirs is one of the foundational memes of UFO culture worldwide, whether by accident or design.

Did Betty Hill meet with, discuss the comedic value of dentures with, and ultimately come to respect actual extraterrestrials?  We may never know for sure, but if the incidence of similar reports every year since then is any indication, we may know more than we did sometime soon.

 

 


[1] An approximation of the 1991 Roper Poll is available here: http://www.freedomofinfo.org/poll/roper06.html

[2] The Roper Poll in question is no longer available from the Roper Organization, though many UFOlogists have published and analysed the data from that poll with included commentary.  See: http://www.viewzone.com/abduct.html and http://www.hyper.net/ufo/abductions.html and http://www.alienresistance.org/arforums.htm

[3] The four kinds of alien or UFO encounters are defined as: 1st– A sighting of one or more unidentified flying objects, 2nd– An observation of a UFO and of associated physical effects from the object, 3rd– Observation of alien beings or operators of said UFO, 4th– Abduction by alien beings or associated UFO.

[4] Source URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_and_Barney_Hill_abduction

Missing Time – An Accidental Encounter

The power of the human mind is vast, so vast that our potential may never be known, our intellectual evolution may outrun our ability to understand precisely what it is that we’re ultimately capable of.

“Let me tell you this; mine is no mesmerism, miracle or magic. Mine is genuine DIVINE POWER.” – Atharva Veda

Although we cannot all be as convicted as Veda in our declaration of psychical powers, it has been conceded on many levels, that all mankind has the ability to use the mind beyond simple domestic labour.  And it may be said that while a great many people embark on a metaphysical journey, even a meta-psychical journey, some of us may happen on that path purely by accident.

UFOabduction2Beginning with what may be the most famous case of believed alien abduction in history, the missing time episode of Betty and Barney Hill on September 19, 1961, wherein the world (for the most part) is satisfied that the Hill’s left our planet aboard a vessel, constructed and operated by an intelligent alien species.  We are to believe that what they experienced on that lonely road in Groveton New Hampshire, was none other than the first widely accepted UFO abduction in modern record.

Since the time of that abduction, some 47 years ago, there have been literally thousands of reports, some well documented, others questionable and most lacking in any kind of verifiable substance.  Though there is one element of what is the questionable majority of these thousands of reports that stands out; not the extraterrestrial influence, not the reputation of the abductee, but the phenomenon of missing time.

Taken on its own, Missing Time phenomenon is a troubling idea, especially so for the experiencer.  It often involves hours of blank recall, of untold injuries, mysterious and startling travel and often a sense of some external force that has exerted its will upon the experiencer, usually manifesting in the form of an alien abduction.  But for the empirical observer, there is little connection between the phenomenon and the belief that aliens are involved in any way.

To the believer, there is little doubt that there is some external and typically extraterrestrial will at play, and those who claim to have experienced such events are adamant that Missing Time is a symptom of a larger abduction experience, though there are other explanations that are often overlooked in the name of overzealous categorization of these events.

One such explanation might be the highly misunderstood idea of accidental hypnosis.

“MESMERISM, n. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner.” – Ambrose Bierce

There are few people who lack at least a basic understanding of what hypnosis is, though there are equally few people who understand the long standing history of the condition of hypnosis on the human psyche.

The concept of hypnosis, while not known by that specific term, dates back to ancient Hindu and Persian meditation teachings, as a self-healing practise of introspection.  In more modern settings and through the evolution of magnetism, western and European science began to experiment with mesmerism, coined in homage to the first western scientist to study its effect in a clinical setting, Franz Anton Mesmer.  Mesmer began working with hypnotism, also known as animal magnetism (though that term is condemned for its highly misleading nature), in the mid 18th century, and his involvement is what brought the practise to mainstream culture as a form of entertainment.

sigmund-freud-medPerhaps the most famous 20th century character to have used hypnosis with any professional credibility is the venerable Dr. Sigmund Freud, though he was certainly not the last practitioner of psychology to tempt the fates with the use of hypnotism.

The glaring difference between the efforts of Franz Mesmer or Sigmund Freud, and the silly idea of accidental hypnosis is exactly what it seems.  Freud and his modern or even historical contemporaries were deliberately inducing a hypnogogic state with the intended purpose of sweeping aside rational control over the conscious mind in favour of interacting directly with the subconscious mind.  A practise which they became quite good at I might add.

Mesmerism, as it is commonly known in entertainment circles, has become the stuff of magicians.  There was a time when Las Vegas was the home of some of the most talented Mesmerists the world has ever known, and the likes of Chris Angel and David Blaine are examples of the heights to which this craft can be taken, but again, this is all deliberate exploitation of the mechanism that allows the human mind to exaggerate the separation between conscious and subconscious thought processes.

While it is entirely natural, and thought to be a defensive attribute of our highly evolved brains, what can be done deliberately, can also, always be done accidentally.

In much the same way as the so-called ‘Mind Freak’ can convince you that he just levitated, or drove a spike through his heart or whatever else his overly dramatic act entails, everyday activities can fool you into thinking some of the strangest things, and under the right circumstances, can completely hypnotise you and cause you to believe that events have occurred, which most certainly have not.

Some of the most mundane things we encounter everyday hold the potential to throw us into a hypnotic state, and in fact, these things do exactly that on a regular basis.  Watching television, listening to music and even driving a car, all of these things are, as the swinging pocket watch was to Freud, a mechanism that causes the subconscious mind to assert dominance over the conscious mind.

hypnosisFor the experienced driver, it’s an worrisome thing to be travelling a stretch of familiar road, letting your mind wander and then suddenly realising you’ve completed your journey with only a vague recollection of having operated the vehicle.  Or late night TV watching, settling in and being swept away by the ideas and images that flash before you on the screen, suddenly realising hours later that you haven’t moved, you may not even have blinked, but the time passed and you have no recollection of any events outside of the frame of the TV show.

It’s no real coincidence that the majority of Missing Time reports have the experiencer travelling at night, and on lonely roads; seemingly perfect conditions for a little lapse in concentration, but what if you combine the effect of driving while fatigued or distracted, with soothing music and low visibility?

You can fairly easily see where this is going, but the suggestion is not that these victims of missing time are simply guilty of a lapse in concentration; absolutely not.  This ability to separate our conscious attention from the subconscious operation of a motor vehicle is not a new idea, it’s one that’s been tested time and again, and modern car manufacturers use ingenious techniques to keep drivers alert while on the road.  No, the subtle difference here is, where the masses are capable of achieving a light state of hypnosis through mundane and familiar acts or behaviours, there are those among us who are far more prone to hypnotic suggestion than others, and it is those people who may be finding themselves at the mercy of their subconscious mind in at least a portion of these missing time reports.

The experience would be frightening, terrifying even, and it is no wonder that induced hypnosis would be successful in retrieving altered memories from an earlier period of accidental hypnotic action; the two processes would compliment each other nicely.

This, obviously, is not to say that all reports of Missing Time are the result of accidental hypnosis, nor is it to say that all reports of alien abduction are false, misrepresented or mistaken; it is only the suggestion that among the many thousands of storied claims that are tossed about the arena of doubt and ridicule, we should stop and think once in a while about much more earthly factors that could be playing much larger roles than we had previously acknowledged.

Caveat Emptor…Ghost Radar Is Fake

1) Start by picking your Favourite number

2) Multiply by 3, then

3) Add 3, then again Multiply by 3

4) You’ll get a 2 or 3 digit number….

5) Add those digits together.  If you end up with another two digit number add those digits together until you have one digit.

Now Scroll down…

With your number in mind check the list below to find which fortuitous path I have divined from the universe for you:

1. Become a lecturer on the quantum physics science tour
2. Start a New World Religion and recruit Sylvia Brown
3. Read War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, then send him a written critique
4. Quit your job and become a faith healer for your local homeless shelter
5. Stay on your current path; you are righteous and wholesome
6. Start a Sherlock Holmes re-enactment society in your basement.
7. Announce your candidacy for the office of the President
8. Invent and apply for a patent on a free-energy device
9. Send the value of your last three paycheques to Paranormal People
10. Drool in the corner for an hour every day
11. Become a Scientologist
12. Start a religious-military cult and populate it with those who got #10

Okay, you can stop picking other numbers, the Universe has spoken. I’ll be expecting payment before the 1st of the month.

Have I made my point, or should we go on?

This has been a lesson in the virtues of critical thinking.  I suspect that the vast majority of you got a chuckle out of the above math magic, and then quickly decided it must be some sort of a scam (others may already be looking for accepted payment methods), and I also suspect that the point of the above test is not lost in the humour of it all.

It would seem, from the vast array of tom-foolery going on the in the western marketplace, that the people of America (the Continent) are entirely the most gullible people on the planet.  There are exceptions of course (so cool your jets on that strongly worded email for a minute), but occasionally there comes a product that is so fantastic, so wondrous, so ridiculously fake, that we can’t help but open our hearts and our wallets as we clamber over one another to get a piece of material happiness.

k2_meter_good-2In the paranormal world especially; we enthusiasts, hobbyists, researchers and investigators are inundated with a catalogue of products that are touted to offer us exclusive insights into the ethereal world of ghosts, ghouls and goblins.  In a perfect world, these products would be constructed based on science, based on proven methodologies and on commercial accountability.  They would be backed by fiscally responsible and morally dependable companies, and they would be marketed with transparency and honesty.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world.  Of the untold numbers of products and devices that the paranormal community is bombarded with, there are some that stick out as being…worthy of some scrutiny.  In recent years such devices as the K2 Meter and the notorious Ovilus I have dragged the paranormal research community through the proverbial mud.

Whether we’re talking about an overly sensitive and poorly designed EMF meter, or in the case of the Ovilus, a pre-programmed random word generator, the consequences are the same in every instance.  Flocks of would-be ghost hunters swarm various online retailers in hopes of purchasing one of these devices that’s purported to change the metaphysical world forever.  Invariably, these devices are debunked by learned men and women in the field, but not before a host of lesser informed people wastes their time and money on the product, and worse yet, not before so-called evidence of paranormal activity is showcased with a thank you nod to these ridiculous pieces of electronic crap.

Now, however, we have a new technological enemy; one that is combined with a trusted name, a financial giant and with a long standing history of general consumer popularity…the I-phone.

I should say, right of the bat that it isn’t the I-phone itself that’s the problem.  In-and-of-itself it truly is a technological marvel, providing instant and easy connectivity between people and information; a perfect tool for today’s culture and society.  No, it isn’t the I-phone itself, it’s actually an I-Phone app that I’m questioning today.

GhostRadarGhost Radar, developed by none other than Spud Pickle.[1]

As outlined on the Spud Pickle website for this particular application, Ghost Radar measures quantum flux (quantum fluctuation) in the atmosphere and translates that into any one of a variety of display modes, from a cartoony graphic radar screen, to a numerical value.

I had to give my head a shake when I first read the above on their website.  I mean, the I-phone seems like a pretty sophisticated device, but I don’t recall hearing that it could measure quantum flux.  After all, it’s only a cell phone, albeit, a cell phone on steroids.

By the developers own admission, the I-phone itself doesn’t have the necessary equipment on board to actually measure quantum flux.  Among its many capabilities, the I-phone and the I-pod touch carry a host of electronic gizmos that make them work as a cell phone, mp3 player, mobile computer etc (respectively).  Such as Wi-Fi transceivers, touch sensors, gyroscopes, accelerometers, speakers and microphones, some of which are designed to allow the device to be aware of its physical environment, and to display its various media according to its attitude or movement.

It does not, however, house any type of laser micrometer; its chronometer is not accurate to within one millionth of a second (as would be required for quantum measurement), it doesn’t have the hard memory necessary to house the highly complex calculations and mathematical theories needed to quantify any such fluctuation, and simply put it doesn’t have the ability to see quantum particles, nor does it even have the basic ability to detect electromagnetic frequencies (EMF).

Right off the bat, the I-phone fails as a ghost hunting device, just from a look at its hardware; but what really does this software do?  Is it anything more than a glorified random output generator?  All indications are that the answer is �?no’, it is nothing more than a cleverly programmed cell phone application that generates seemingly non-random display results.

On the Spud Pickle website you’ll also find a host of user testimonials, most of which are nondescript kudos to the developer for making such a �?cool app’, but some are more detailed pseudo-analyses touting unbelievable results.  And I warn you, beware what you believe from some anonymous tribute to a questionable device.  This application is not capable of doing what the developer claims, however, just as any analog or digital recording device can be manipulated by ambient energies to provide mysterious EVP’s, so too can the I-phone be manipulated by the same energies, though this is not a technological market cornered by Apple, nor is it the exclusive domain of the Spud Pickle application developer.

On an aside from the above, Digital Dowsing, the makers of the infamous Ovilus I (the “I” being an indication of a generational product), have terminated production of the Ovilus I and have since replaced that product with their own I-phone app: I-Ovilus.

Now, while I’m personally pained by their lack of creativity with the naming of their application, I want to point out that this transmutation of their original abomination is no less ridiculous, and in fact, since the I-phone contains none of the measurement hardware contained in the original Ovilus, the I-Ovilus is in fact even more useless than its namesake.

The moral here, besides the obvious, is that in our pursuit of an understanding of this strange and beautiful world around us, there are no easy answers.  There is no button to push, no machine to rely on and no computer to tell us the answer.  This remains a burgeoning field of academic study and lain before us is a long and winding path of hard work and experimentation.  If anything, the popularity of the above devices and applications is a simple testament of the divide between those in the paranormal community who seek truth, and those who seek notoriety, and even yet, those who seek only cheap thrills.

Authors Edit: January 26, 2010

In the three months since this article was posted, I must say that I am astounded by the lack of critical examination, of even my own assessment of the Ghost Radar application.

In the above article, I played a trick on you.  I laid out the hardware requirements that such a device would need in order to measure “Quantum Flux”  But it seems, either the reader is ignorant of just what quantum flux is, or is not concerned with the truth behind such idiotic gizmos.

Quantum Flux is an idea, rooted in the science of physics, that pertains to a measurement of magnetic fluctuation. Quantum, a fancy way to say the resulting measurement, is simply a study of magnetic fluctuations within superconductors.  It is not related to paranormal phenomenon whatsoever.

There are those, however, who have speculated and theorized about there being an energy, which they have called quanta (not to be confused with Einstein’s labeling of light matter as quanta), that is responsible for a connectivity between all matter, living or otherwise.  It is, with a certain auspicious amount of ambiguity, this quanta that the Spud Pickle developers claim is measured by the Ghost Radar app.

How though? How does one measure an energy that no one has ever been able to prove exists.  In fact, the current state of quantum physics suggests that such an energy does not exist. It should be said that these people mentioned above, whom believe this energy exists, are not physicists, they are not physcial scientists and they are not well schooled in the various theories of quantum physics.

If such an energy exists, it remains laughable that the makers of the Ghost Radar I-phone app gained some miraculous understanding of a purely theoretical and fantastic idea of universal connectivity, there-by allowing them to program the application to measure this energy.  An energy that no one can prove even exists.  But for arguments sake, if we take for granted the idea that they did achieve this feat of physics mastery, are we supposed to now believe they found that the best way to proceed with this ground breaking research and knowledge was to make it into an i-phone app?

I suppose the Nobel Prize is much overrated these days.

I’ll suggest now, that if you don’t see the flaw in this situation, then you deserve to get caught in their scam and lose your hard earned money.


[1] See: http://www.spudpickles.com/GhostRadar

Darwin…Is Our Big Brain The End of Us All?

Charles Darwin

Is humanity an evolutionary dead end on the tree of life?

All creationist ego and vanity aside, if we can accept Charles Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection to be true, can we sit in awe of our own magnificence and contemplate our singular ability to so drastically change the entire environment in which we live, including our own biology, with an innocent reverence, and not face that we are violating possibly the most fundamental posit made in The Origin of the Species.

Higher intelligence is the gift of our evolutionary past, it’s wrapped in a struggle for competitive dominance over all other species, and tied with the elegant little bow of our unending egocentric attitude toward life and the entire universe.

I use the term “higher intelligence” loosely, as I sit in a hotel room, surrounded by the products of the most recent manifestations of that gift, a state of the art lap top computer, my ever needy Blackberry personal data device, and the often underappreciated and always over watched hotel television.  Streaming across the screen of this TV, in bright, true to life colours, fed by digital cable signals, broadcast over satellite radio signals and all fed into my brain almost as directly as an IV drip, are the images of big money programming; drama, comedy and most disturbing, news.

It strikes me that our collective arrow of achievement has landed somewhat low of the target.  We’ve not only allowed our minds to become obsessed with popular culture (though I can’t for the life of me figure out why it’s popular), but we’ve devoted the potential of our future to leisure, and all subsequent pass-times are a means to that end.

War, medical advance and business immediately come to mind, though, maybe not to yours; in my mind they comingle and underscore the heart of the issue.  Mankind has become petty -stated as though we weren’t always so- but I hereby claim that the vain pursuit of pleasure used to be offset by the competition for survival.  Once upon a time not so long ago, Darwin’s pigeons were cooped and fed by a creature whose life was not so easy.  These days however, as the so-called “baby boomers” swell into the ranks of the nearly departed, medical science works feverishly to find ways, any ways, to increase their life expectancy, and ultimately, their burden on the resources of our environment.

I know, I know, the last thing you want to read is another eco-argument, well, that’s not what you’re reading.  This argument reaches far deeper than that.

Charles Darwin contended that: Natural Selection may only operate where no conscious intentions are at work at the same time.

When I first contemplated that statement through a peripheral study of our great historical scientists, my mood was akin to both the excitement of a ‘eureka’ moment and the disappointment of lunch-bag-let-down.  I mean, really…evolution only works on those too dim to understand it?  Maybe that’s oversimplified, and if it is, that’s admittedly unfair.  So in turn I’ll be generous.  Higher intelligence in-and-of-itself does not necessarily negate the effectiveness of natural selection, but (and this is a big but), the various manifestations of our ‘gift’ just might.

Now, the last thing I want to do is play my cards into the hands of the religious fundamentalists who are ever ready to pounce on any spec of evidence to support their argument against the (possibly) valuable Stem Cell Research of recent news, but sometimes reason and logic are a slippery slope.

6101medical_scienceIf we ardently ignore the medical benefits that have been realised since the acceptance of Germ Theory, and then compare the runaway and breakthrough developments that have steadily come about in the medical community since that time, to the notion that conscious intention interrupts natural selection, one might begin to sense that our higher intelligence has not only removed us from the competition, it’s ejected us from the stadium.

The point I am carefully dancing around here is that we are medically engineering ourselves beyond the reach of evolution.  To some, this might seem both inevitable and ultimately encouraging for our chances of ensuring the longevity of the human species, though careful examination of these concepts could lead one to believe quite the opposite.

As most everyone understands (whether they accept it or not is for another argument), evolution is the process of organisms passing on beneficial genetic material -and therefore beneficial biological characteristics- down through their progeny, and ultimately eliminating undesirable or unsuccessful traits through the eventual demise of those not capable of survival through reproduction because of those faults.

Here’s my problem though, our sometimes subtle, often deliberate and usually obtuse meddling with the health and life span of our species has had the effect of passing along traits that would normally have led to the elimination of certain unsuitable characteristics from our collective genome (i.e. eliminating disease through vaccination rather than natural immunity).  In the span of our lives, this may seem not only inconsequential, but noble and desirable.  Who thinks saving lives through medical research is immoral?  But over the long term advancement of our species, we will be guilty of propagating undesirable, ineffective and potentially retarding genetic characteristics, which in turn, may lead to our removal from the proverbial tree of life.

It is conceivable that technological advancement, which is far outrunning our own development, will be the answer to our long term dilemma.  Though that hotel TV I mentioned earlier has suggested that the prospect of technological integration is a less than glamorous solution.  Our imaginations are rife with visions of the possible marriage of technology and biology, most of which are littered with our historically proven penchant for unparalleled violence.

The question still remains; is our higher intelligence capable of taking over for Mother Nature?  Those who would argue semantics in the face the above questions cannot avoid the weight of this one.  There are few among us who do not see the precipice on which we are perched, though there seem to be equally few who question whether or not we are capable of flight before we collectively jump into the chasm.

human_brainThere are blatant and undeniable facts that need be considered, not the least of which is our total and utter lack of understanding toward the residual or collateral effects of manipulating biology.  Within the human body, there are countless chemical processes conducting a precision ballet that keeps us hurtling forward through time.  The basis of all medical science is the manipulation of those chemical processes.  Though herein lies the problem; all drugs have side effects.  Well duh!  It seems a moronically silly idea, but it has far reaching consequences.  The reason all drugs have side effects, is because of the way they work.

All drug therapies are based on the manipulation of chemicals in the body, chemicals that typically have more than one function in more than one system of the biological machine that is our body.  Some would say that often the side effects are tolerable, when weighed against the benefits of the alleviated illness or affliction.  Though, not all side effects manifest themselves in any visible or measurable way; which presents us with unseen and completely incomprehensible consequences of our medical manipulation.

That higher intellect of yours is probably telling you…“we’re human, we’re at the top of the food chain, we’re the dominant species on earth, and we’re special enough in the universe to take control of our own destiny and edge out Mother Nature’s influence.”  Though, what would your higher intellect tell you if I said that maybe we’re not supposed to carry the evolutionary torch into the distant future?

Besides the indignant accusation that we’ve squandered our ‘gift’ and are no longer worthy of an evolutionary leg up on everyone else in our biological community, there is a crude egotistical wring to the idea that we were ever worthy of such advantage.  Some view our big brains as an evolutionary inevitability, the product of selection at its pinnacle and therefore the crowning achievement of mankind (as though we really had any choice).  Though when one begins to explore the vast empty spaces of our universe, or the crowded and intensely overpopulated biosphere that is our earth (and that overpopulation isn’t a reflection of our prevalence, but that of microbial life around the planet), one must begin to bring our place in the evolutionary process of life into perspective.

We are not the most dominant form of life on this planet.

It may be cruel to make such an assertion and then leave you to ponder it without discussion, but that is what I’ll do.  Instead, consider the following, with the former in mind.

The higher intellect of the species homo-sapien is an abhorrent anomaly; a mutation that, in evolutionary terms, provided an environmental advantage to our distant ancestors, which, oddly enough has become, or rather, holds the potential to become the very undesirable genetic characteristic that could lead to our naturally selective elimination from the tree of life.

If higher intelligence were the inevitable outcome of evolution within our environmental habitat, we would not be the only species of mammal on the planet to have found that adaptation and carried it to the degree of our current state.

Believe me when I say, the above idea is more than sobering to my limited understanding, such as it is, of the evolutionary process, and our place in it.  Where ever we might be headed as a species, it is clear that we are treading a path that has not been walked before.  Each step we take could be the next on our road to extinction or the first on the journey to immortality; either way, the choices we make today will have far reaching and drastic consequences in the future.

…Whether we realise it or not, whether we like it or not, we are about to witness a paradigm shift in our role as the caretakers of this little corner of the universe.

Human Superiority and Our Grasp on the Golden Throne

Artificial Intelligence or the scientific pursuit of AI is insulting to me as a biological entity.

The very idea of replacing human control over both the developmental pace and capacity of computers is to me an idea fraught with folly.  Not the least of my concerns is the eventual obsolescence of humanity on earth, but more to the point, I think there are better ways to apply the collective knowledge of genomics, nanotechnology, computational engineering, evolutionary biology and cyber-neurology

What is meant by the often abused title Artificial Intelligence?

Intelligence exhibited by an artificial (non-natural, man-made) entity; the branch of computer science dealing with the reproduction or mimicking of human-level thought in computers; the essential quality of a machine which thinks in a manner similar to or on the same general level as a human being.” [en.wiktionary.org/wiki/artificial_intelligence]

A computer that thinks; this is opposed to the computers we have currently, computers that are exceptional in their computational abilities, but which cannot perform even the simplest task without instruction from a human being.

Even without invoking the ever popular notion that Skynet will take over the world –in a violent attempt to either defend itself against destruction (or deletion, or disconnection, or whatever other apocalyptic processes a computer might eventually deem it needs to defend against) or act to protect us from the perceived threat of, us– I can articulate a number of other possible negative outcomes of the race to AI.

Perhaps our robotic progeny will advance so fast in intellect and reasoning ability, somewhere in the range of an exponential increases in both computational power and cognitive scope, as many who work on such projects realistically predicts will be the case, that our interference will be deemed akin to the presence of termites in the walls of our homes, and of course be subject to extermination.  Or perhaps our little AI creations will simply leave us behind, ejecting themselves off and away from this planet doomed to biological destruction, forsaking all that which we most self-righteously demand they owe us from their creation.

It has always annoyed me, the scope to which humanity’s anthropocentric attitude blinds us to the unbiased reality of our environment.  Every assignment of the idea that we are at the top of the food chain, that we are the most intelligent beings on this planet, or that we somehow deserve evolution’s progressive respect (as such demanding that we should stay in our self-imposed position of superiority over nature), is an insinuation that our position is anything more than an egomaniacal fantasy.  Our big brains are an impressive example of evolution’s propensity for bio-complexity, but the result is nothing more than luck.  We are not the winners in a global lottery of species, now righteous in our celebration of the riches we’ve won.  We are freaks of nature, and a more succinct description could never be designed by either evolution, or monkeys on typewriters.  Our brains, and in turn our vast intellect are products of genetic mutations accumulated over millions of years of biological development; accidents of copy fidelity in our respective DNA and nothing more.

Perspective in mind, does the creation of an Artificial Intelligence preclude the notion that we have some right to sit where we do in terms of intellectual superiority?  No, it most certainly does not.  Hence, at the first opportunity, our position at the top of the ladder will quickly be supplanted by the first entity that is capable of doing so, whether created by us or Mother Nature.

If the worst case scenario is death and destruction, and the median might be abandonment, could the best case scenario be captivity?  I’m not necessarily saying that all AI research be stopped immediately, not at all.  AI research holds the potential to unlock the secrets of our vastly complex and secretive brains, it can, through its respective contributory sciences, serve to engineer humanity itself into that golden seat of actual superiority, immortality and infinite intelligence.

All that I’m suggesting here is that the pursuit of AI would be better aimed at integrating the longevity of computers that learn directly with human intelligence.  Whether that be a neural download (or would that be an upload?), a confluence of technological systems with biological systems…or even a full realisation of the Bionic Man’s opening Mantra: “…we have the technology, we can rebuild him.”

To me, the difference amounts to making devices that can outrun our intellectual possibilities, or increasing our own intellectual possibilities themselves.  It should be known that there are people working on both sides of this coin, there are those scientists who would have every home equipped with a AI butler, there are those that would have the internet converted into a learning machine (which presents me with a frightening mental picture), and there are those who would take AI research to the level of creating a whole new class of artificial entities, based on human technology and neurology.

This doesn’t belie the actual research being done on both fronts, AI and BioEngineering, wherein scientists are, with relative quickness, making discoveries that will doubtless enhance what it means to be human, not the least of which is the prospect of using nanotechnology and biomedical engineering to re-grow severed limbs and organs, or the decoding of human neurology in order to facilitate notions of Radiotelepathy and neuronally transmitted communication.  We are moving ahead, as a species, this is a fact none can rationally deny; where were headed is another question, and is wholly up for debate.

Artificial Intelligence; The Complex Pursuit of Complexity

Why does the pursuit of Artificial Intelligence (AI) -the pursuit of artificially duplicating the complexity of the human brain- typically ignore the basic embryological facts of human cognitive development?

Edge.org, a self ascribed web 3.0 social experiment greatly contributed to by Editor and Author John Brockman, produces annually / semi-annually a thought provoking book based on a simple idea: Ask a profound question of the 100 greatest minds you can find and publish the result.  The most recent incarnation of this effort is titled: This Will Change Everything (Edited by John Brockman), in which they’ve asked the simple question: “What will change everything?  What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?

There are some striking ideas in this book; some inspiring, unexpected and scientifically creative notions poke their heads through the stiff membrane of scientific supposition.  There are some equally frightening, bland and even ignorant ideas as well (though, when one asks a silly question…).  What’s particularly striking though is the popularity of the notion that AI will be the next major breakthrough for mankind.  For various reasons and along various lines of logic, and with hugely varying timelines, among this group of 100 scientists, authors, philosophers, professors, and inventors, a great many have declared that AI will be our crowning achievement for the not-so-new-millennia.  All of course with this one caveat; the human brain is so hugely sophisticated in terms of its computational power (read neural complexity, not an ability to compute like a PC), that the achievement of this power in an artificial environment requires the development of AI’s sister science, quantum computing, in order to succeed.

The human brain is simply too complex, and I would agree (with certain individual exceptions), however, man does not leap from the womb spouting prose and calculus; he is not readily a master of his intellectual domain.  No, in fact many adults never reach the status of intellectual amateur, let alone master.  And therein seems to lay at least a portion of the problem.  Human development, be it cognitive or physical, is based entirely on cumulative embryological growth.  Cell division, parlayed into tissue growth, parlayed into organ development, parlayed into sense memory and learning and cognition.  It is not an instantaneous process, as though an infant’s perception of its strange new non-embryonic world was just suddenly switched on the moment the good doctor gave him a slap on the back.

No, cognitive development begins the very moment there is an opportunity for it, namely, when there is brain matter capable of supporting neural connections.  Indeed, this happens very early in the embryonic development of all complex life.  So, why then do AI researchers and computer development scientists, try to construct the baby full grown?

Embryology is, in my own humble words, a process of building on top of what you’ve already built.  A foetus (or zygote or whichever particular embryonic label you prefer to use), human or otherwise, undergoes 6-18 months of gestation (generally speaking), a time during which its sensory input field is drastically reduced by way of its embryonic shield (the womb), allowing for uninterrupted development of the most basic cognitive processes -subconscious and autonomic processes and the like- the most necessary of which are ostensibly well developed by the time the creature is birthed into this cruel world of sensory overload.  Obviously not a fool proof plan, but efficient enough as is evidenced by our current population.

Then, of course, and depending on the particular species of animal we’re speaking of, comes years, decades or in some cases more than a century of further development.  Continuous learning isn’t simply a Human Resources catch phrase; we quite literally are learning (read developing) new neural pathways and connections every second of every day.

The point of all this is, we, as in animals with functioning brains, do not spring into this world with much more than an operating system installed in this supercomputer of a cranium.  So why do these AI developers think that their AI companions should be different?  After all, they are trying to emulate a human brain.

It could be said that the developers haven’t the time to wait -decades or centuries as the case may be- though I would argue, time is one thing they have in abundance.  There have been older generations of AI programming that have been analogous to foetal and/or infant neural capabilities, in one form or another, but as one reads more and more about the current direction and failings of AI research, it’s difficult not to come away wondering how they all missed it.

If one wants to construct an analog of a human brain, first start with an analog of a human brain in its earliest stage of development.  From there, build on top of what you’ve already succeeded.  Better yet, start by building an analog of a brain that is ten-fold more simple than a human brain, that of a chicken for example, and instead of simply mimicking the behaviour of the creature in question (as has already been done in the case of chickens), mimic its simplified neural systems and develop your engineering process from that simpler schematic.

I’m always impressed by the ability of scientific orators and their colleagues to use large numbers to simultaneously intrigue the learned onlooker and scare off the ignorant.  However, I can scarcely remember reading an article on the development of AI that didn’t make use of the notion that there are millions of trillions of neural connections to account for in the adult human brain; impressive to be sure, though utterly meaningless to be equally sure.  Pick up any scientific journal, magazine or periodical (providing it deals with computer science) and there will be at least one author explaining how closely related the successful development of AI is to the successful development of quantum computing; this as a direct result of the unfathomable number of neural connections that need to be mapped and interpreted.  And, I offer no direct objection.  Instead I offer an alternative.  Stop trying to replicate the effect of a million trillion neural connections for a while…and start trying to replicate the effect of 100,000.

I’m certain there will be readers who will balk at the notion that the complexity of the human brain is irrelevant to AI research, and to be perfectly clear, I agree that the limitations of standard computer science are also the limitations of classic AI research.  However, what I don’t agree with is the anthropocentric human ego which says, AI must, by definition, be equivalent to an adult human’s intelligence.  Is it not, for the achievement, admirable enough to duplicate in every sense, into an artifice, the relative intelligence of an infant, or for that matter the relative intelligence of a dung beetle?

Yes, there already are many examples of bug-robots roaming all over robotics labs around the world, though these are specifically not examples of AI for two reasons.  The vast majority of these bug-robots mimic only the behaviour of its biological counterpart (hence being called robots), and no part of the creatures brain function has even been considered in its design.  Would it not be a remarkable achievement, even in the shadow of mainstream AI research, for computer scientists to map, engineer, design and build a bug brain?  And would not such an achievement constitute at least a small step forward in AI research?

Bugs, of course are just one example of the huge genome of animals available to act as a model for this mannequin chiselling, and though I concede that there are many other seemingly insurmountable issues to be considered by AI researchers, not the least of which is identifying exactly how memory is stored in brain matter, I’m speaking only of the heralded obstacle AI researchers and their compatriots themselves have identified as their biggest hurdle.

This of course, is about to digress into a discussion about the meaning of intelligence and sentience; is a dung beetle intelligent, by any standard?  Some would answer yes (as would I) and others would answer no, then others still would insist on dragging arguments for a soul into the mix, and much as I’m clear on my own opinion, I have no interest in hearing everyone else’s, not at the moment at least.

So, even as these are not the romantic issues offered by a typical discussion of AI –like the ethical implications of creating sentience, and/or (as Hollywood would have us focused) on the possible long term ramifications of providing machines with the ability to reason– there is, I think, little to fear from the laboratories of AI researchers, not for a great while at least.  Our culture (western culture that is) is replete with failed notions of futurology.  It seems we have a penchant for projecting both our best hopes and worst fears on the future, and as always, the reality of that future unfailingly lands somewhere in the middle.  We are no more now like Stanley Kubrick’s vision of what ten years ago should have been, than we are like the Jetsons.  And whether you agree with the ethical, moral and humanistic elements of AI research or not, it stands to reason that you won’t have all that much longer to wait for some incarnation of a thinking and feeling robot in the lab and on the street.

Buy a copy of John Brockman’s book, This Will Change Everything in Paranormal People’s Amazon.com Book Store.

Spirit Communication; Making Waves

[Caveat – Throughout this discussion you will find me referring to spirits as real entities and with a basic definable humanity to them, however, this discussion is not an attempt to define what these spirits are, nor is its purpose in labelling them as anything more than spirits.  It is unfortunate for this discussion that we cannot simply hang up our disbelief for a moment and assume the popular definition to be true; but even so, you will find that I am being far more generous with this idea than I otherwise would be.  Additionally, the below theory does not speak to the credibility of other theories, such as psychical influence, environmental interference or Apophenia (or even blatant hoax) in explaining the phenomenon involved, it remains only a starting point for further discussion.]

Harry Houdini with his version of a Medium's Trumpet

Harry Houdini with his version of a Medium’s Trumpet

These days when one speaks of mediumship, mental images of such famous psychics as John Edwards, Sylvia Brown and even Chip Coffey (of Paranormal State) are conjured; we think of a spiritualistic gift possessed only by a select few, who have the ability to wield this power over the world of the dead (and the living in some cases).  Often we assume that mediumship is bound by rules and procedures, and is divinely regulated with a higher purpose and a nod to some afterlife mission to either dispose of or assist souls who’ve become trapped in some purgatory state beyond what we each know as reality.

Though in truth, the term ‘mediumship’ provides shelter for a wide variety of phenomenon, and it is only the more sensationalistic (and as some might argue, myself included, the more easily faked) incarnations of the term that survived history and are paraded around on TV today.

In the early days of the Spiritualist movement, to which every idea we hold about ghost hunting owes its existence, mediumship was thought of as a much more fluid term, meant to represent several ideas rooted in just the simple notion that the living can communicate with the dead.  It wasn’t an exclusive club, nor was it meant to be a money-making, commercial endeavour (though many then, as now, have worked very hard to make it that way).  Now though, a simple Google definition search will reveal the convoluted and highly suspect redefining of this term, to fit whatever biased notion the ‘definer’ wishes to convey.[1]

This is all somewhat inconsequential, though it is always good to start with an idea of where such terms come from, regardless of what they have been twisted to mean in modern times, especially when our topic today is so closely connected to the historical ideas of mediumship, rather than modern ones.  Etymologically, medium is derived from medius, which historically meant “intermediate agency, channel of communication�? (c. 1605), and you can see how that etymology eventually came to represent a “person who conveys spiritual messages�?.[2]

While the subject of mediums and the various ways in which they ply their craft is a topic of interest, and one which I may cover at another time, today I wish to discuss a specific tool that has historically been synonymous with mediums, and at one time was considered to be just as popularly accepted as EVP “research�? is today.[3]

The tool I speak of is the Medium’s Trumpet, which was a tool of so-called direct-voice-mediumship of the late 19th century.  Among other devices in the Medium’s employ, such as the medium’s cabinet, the curtain, the (tipping) table and the like, the Medium’s Trumpet was one of the earlier inclusions to the Medium’s bag of tricks.

Essentially, the Medium’s Trumpet, which is largely identical to a simple voice trumpet, is a cone of wood or tin with some kind of reed or baffle inserted into the small end to act as a vocal apparatus (similar to a musical wind instrument).  They were used by mediums to provide a physical apparatus for the spirits with which they communed through séance to speak to the rest of the group (the sitters).  This is in direct opposition to non-direct-voice-mediums, who (with all the charity I can muster) allowed the spirits to use their own vocal cords and windpipe to speak.[4]

Some relatively famous names are often connected to direct-voice-mediumship and to the Medium’s Trumpet; Margery Crandon and Eileen Garrett were among them.  This phenomenon had its investigators and sceptics too, one of them being Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of the Sherlock Holmes character), and the chief call of hoax in this regard was in ventriloquism.  The first cry of which may have come from Frederick Myers (Doyle 1926), though the logic of Myers could hardly be dismissed by any sceptical observer (except maybe Doyle himself) and was often repeated.

As interesting as the histrionics of direct-voice-mediumship are, it’s the phenomenon itself I’m concerned with today.  To again relate the Medium’s Trumpet to the modern idea of electronic voice phenomenon, underlying all of these strange happenings is a relatively simple concept, spirits of the hereafter (whatever and wherever that may be) are communicating with this reality on a fairly regular basis.  That concept may be simple to lay out under a single defining statement like this, but it’s anything but simple to explain, or even to describe what is happening in either case (EVP or DVM).

The modern conundrum with EVP has been how exactly, a spirit can make a vocal impression on a recording medium, whether that be digital or analogue, without causing an actual audible sound in the environment of the recording device at the time.  And here, I think, is the connection…

As was suggested by Margery Crandon’s control Walter[5]: “we can walk on the vibrations of your laughter.�?, Nandor Fodor, one time associate of Sigmund Freud and author of the Encyclopaedia of Psychic Science (University Books 1952), suggested that environmental vibration was key to spirit voice communication.

As we all know, sound is the product of vibration moving through our environment, whether the air, or through another medium (i.e. structures, water, etc), and ultimately becoming sound waves.  It is the interaction between the vibrational medium (air, water, etc.) and the receiving device (whether the ear or a tape recorder) that creates sound.  In this interaction there are typically believed to be three elements; the source of the vibration, the vibrational medium and the receiver; but what if we consider that the vibration itself is another independent element in this equation?

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The most prevalent problem we encounter when trying to explain both direct-voice-mediumship and EVP is how does the spirit cause a sound without causing a sound?

With the Medium’s Trumpet, it was said that the trumpet was meant to facilitate the spirits voice by giving them an apparatus with which to cause audible vibrations, suggesting that they do not possess such ability inherently.  Is this inability linked to the fact that they do not inhabit the vibrational medium in which the sound would travel?

I realise that the above is highly unclear, so let’s look at it from another perspective; sound doesn’t occur in the vacuum of space.  This is because there is no vibrational medium to carry the sound from its origin to a receiver.  Does this, however, mean that a device such as a radio speaker placed in such a vacuum is not creating audible vibrations?  Certainly it is…the problem is not the vocal apparatus; it is the vibrational medium.

If we turn that same idea inside out have we not created conditions similar to that which would be experienced by a spirit?  Wherein the spirit does not possess the apparatus to create vibrations which are compatible with our vibrational medium, which means that spirits, in common circumstances, cannot affect or create sound without assistance.  Unless that is, they eliminate the need for the vibrational medium altogether.

If we go back to our radio singing away in the vacuum of space, though not making a sound, can we think of any way to fix this problem (without resorting to adding an alternative vibrational medium)?  I would suggest that connecting the radio speaker directly to a receiving device, through physical contact (i.e. placing it in contact with one’s ear), would eliminate the need for the vibrational medium (though I suspect the sound experienced would be muffled and distorted).  If we again turn this idea inside out, I believe it explains a great deal about both EVP and the Medium’s Trumpet.

Courtesy of www.skeptiseum.org

I’ll deal with each individually for clarity’s sake. Along the same line of logic laid out above, if we concede that the problem for spirits in communicating with persons in this reality is restricted by the vibrational medium (air) in our environment, then we must eliminate that restriction from the equation.  In doing so, we eliminate the possibility of sound being transmitted at all, unless we use the same problem solving technique employed in the space radio issue.  I believe EVP and the idea of the Medium’s Trumpet are both examples of dealing with the problem on two separate ends of the equation.The Medium’s Trumpet:

In accordance with the above theory, to communicate in our vibrational medium (as a spirit) one must physically connect the speaker or origin of the signal (in this case whatever means the spirit uses for creating their equivalent to sound vibrations, herein called foreign signals) with something capable of translating those foreign signals into audible vibrations.  Might that unknown translation device be a baffle or membrane attached to the inner surface of the instrument?  If the spirit is able to physically connect with the baffle, in turn to physically manipulate the attitude of the baffle or membrane, would we not end up with precisely what many séance sitters claim they hear (distorted and disjointed voices)?

In my research, I have been unable to find a consistent plan or schematic for such a Medium’s Trumpet, in that those available differ so greatly, that one cannot come to an agreement about the possible science behind the idea.

For my purposes here, I make an unfounded assumption (beyond the initial assumption that spirits both exist and want to communicate with the living), which is that the historical Medium’s Trumpet, with exception, was constructed with the use of a mechanism that may have been similar to the vibrating membrane found in a child’s kazoo (silly as it sounds); but more so that the basic mechanical theory behind the Trumpet was such that it provided a means for communication by employing some such vibrating apparatus, that did not also require a moving column of air independent of the membrane itself.  I suggest that they could not have been constructed to use a reed, such as would be found in any musical wind instrument.  I note that in wind instruments, the reed or vibrating apparatus is not the chief sound making element in the instrument, but rather the moving (vibrating) column of air through the instrument is that element.

In the case of the reed, independent physical manipulation of the reed’s physical status (causing it to move or vibrate) would not produce the sound reported, unless that effect was combined with air flow.  In the case of the membrane (kazoo), airflow is not required, as the membrane itself causes air pressure changes within the chamber of the instrument.  Though membrane thickness, orientation, tensile strength and tautness would be critical factors in the success or failure of such an instrument, and there is no indication that Medium’s Trumpets, now or in the past, have undergone such engineering in their construction.

Nonetheless, in the case of the Medium’s Trumpet, I suggest that direct manipulation of such a membrane apparatus is/was the cause of the experienced sounds.  Unfortunately, until such time as I can conclusively determine the nature of the trumpet’s construction, this part of the theory will remain untestable.

soundwaveElectronic Voice Phenomenon:

As I said above, these two spirit communication events seem to be placed at two ends of the same problematic equation.  In terms of EVP, if we were faced with our space radio problem again, and we determined that changing the format of the transmission (by connecting the origin with a translation device, as done above) is insufficient to overcome the problem or is undesirable in given circumstances, then might we try to connect the origin of the sound directly to the receiver?  If physical position is irrelevant to the spirit (which it is by most accounts), then can we accept that they might be capable of directly affecting the receiving device (a microphone) in a very similar way, as they may do with the above translation device (the trumpet)?  And in doing so, would they not be affecting the same outcome, which is to eliminate the restrictive effect of the vibrational medium?

The most common type of microphone used today, in consumer grade electronics that would most commonly be used to record EVP evidence, is the Electret Microphone.

(A full understanding of precisely how this type of microphone operates would be beneficial to this discussion, but is not absolutely necessary.)

microphoneAll microphones operate on a single principal, which is to change sound vibration into an electrical signal via a thin membrane which interacts with an electrical field in various ways.[6] Electret microphones use a conductive membrane as a diaphragm which is positioned parallel to a second conductive plate across a dielectric compound (thus creating a capacitor).[7] The diaphragm is positioned to interact with sound vibrations in its environment; as the sound vibrations contact the diaphragm, they change its position relative to its corresponding plate, and those changes cause fluctuation in the inherent electrical charge of the capacitor.  In layman’s terms, the membrane moves in relation to its corresponding plate, according to the sound waves contacting it from the environment (moving it closer to, or pulling it away from), it is the measurement of those subtle changes in the distance between those two plates that accounts of the sound recorded or amplified by the device fed by the microphone.

In this process there seems to be room for manipulation, both physically and environmentally.  EM-Interference is a particularly difficult problem for microphones, especially cheaper, less shielded models.  Electromagnetic radiation in our environment, as caused by electronic devices, electric appliances, power lines, communication signals and even naturally occurring EM-Fields can cause and is blamed for a large number of EVP cases, as those fields easily interact with the inherent and necessary electromagnetic fields that the microphones depend on to perform (they specifically measure the changes in their own electric capacity to translate sound into electric signal).

Electret Condenser Microphone Capsules

Secondly, and more importantly for this theory, all microphones are be prone to physical manipulation; it’s easy to understand that touching, moving or physically manipulating the housing of a microphone can and does cause sound transference through the diaphragm, after all this is precisely how microphones are intended to work.  In the science of microphones, vibration equals sound, regardless of the origin of that vibration.  With that in mind, is it not conceivable that a spirit, in an effort to remove the restrictive properties of the vibrational medium of air in our environment, could be affecting the diaphragm directly, and in turn causing sounds to be recorded that were not audible in the environment at the time?  In point of fact, there would be no sound present in the environment at the time, just vibrational contact with the microphone’s diaphragm.

To accept this, we have to accept also that (as above) spirits do exist in some form or dimension, that they have the ability to interact with our environment on some physical level (inherently precise and subtle it seems), that they wish to communicate in some form, and that they do not inherently possess the apparatus necessary to do so without eliminating the problem of incompatibility with our atmosphere.  Once we make those assumptions, whether they are justified or not, a striking similarity appears in this theory, between the possible method of interaction between spirits and both the Medium’s Trumpet and an EVP recording device.

As convoluted and confusing as the above may be, I want to make clear here and now, that I am not proclaiming this theory to be true, nor am I suggesting that it is more valid than any other; my purpose was, and is, to provide a possible answer to the question posed above: how does the spirit cause a sound without causing a sound?


[1] See Google Definition; Mediumship: http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=define%3Amediumship&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

[2] See the Online Etymology Dictionary entry for “medium�?: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Medium

[3] I put the word research in quotations here, because it is clear to me and many of my colleagues, that what passes for research in the case of electronic voice phenomenon these days, is little more than enthusiastic play of a paranormal nature.  Capturing a large and questionable library of EVP recordings with no eye toward investigating what they are and where they come from is hardly research.

[4] In other words, non-direct-voice-mediums, used their own voice to allow the spirits to speak, which offered certain obvious opportunities for blatant hoax, though there have been historical cases that defied explanation due to certain language and dialect issues as well as details in the information relayed, but which leaves the same room for hoax as does the possibility of cold reading in modern psychics.

[5] A control (often known as a spirit control) is the personality being brought through by the medium during séance, often mediums made contact with a single spirit who would return regularly, and were often thought to be their “spirit guide�?.

[6] For reference see the Wikipedia entry on Microphones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microphone

[7] Again, see the Wikipedia entry on Electret Microphones for more detail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electret_microphone

The ESP Enigma; The Scientific Case for Psychic Phenomena – A REVIEW

I’ve recently finished reading a book titled: The ESP Enigma; The Scientific Case for Psychic Phenomenon – by Diane Hennacy Powell M.D., a Johns Hopkins University trained doctor of neuroscience, and one time Harvard Medical School faculty member – and I must say, my passion for the subject has been rejuvenated.

This is what I had to say about it on Facebook’s LivingSocial Visual Bookshelf:

I loved this book! It is easily one of my top 5 favourite titles now.

My thoughts on the subject have been somewhat disorganized, though I do admit that I’ve always harboured a belief in ESP (in its many forms), Diane Powell’s astute research and insight are inspiring to say the least. I did question some of her conclusions, as they seem to be more like authority arguments rather than logical hypotheses, but overall I have to say I agree with her.

I’ve even been inspired to think of and arrange some experiments of my own, and I intend to put some effort into the study of lucid dreaming as well.

I would say that any book, which possesses such passion and coherent thought, that can inspire a reader to act beyond a mere “hmm” at the last page, is a whopping success.

If you are even remotely interested in either ESP in its many forms, or in neurology / neurobiology, this is the book for you…highly recommended!

This book is a succinct collection of facts about ESP or extra-sensory perception, which includes telepathy, clairvoyance, prophetic dreams, Synesthesia[1] (which is an unendingly interesting subject all on its own) and even remote viewing.  More than that though, it’s a thorough and up-to-date discussion on the meaning of consciousness, tempered with the benefit of professional insight in neuroscience and psychology.

This is the book that has been missing from the cannon of information available on the psychic trades.

I’ve been quite clear in the past, in my public distain for psychic charlatans, and I’m not about to change that position.  All the while, I’ve harboured a nascent belief in the phenomena itself.   Sort of a one percent-er rule, wherein the vast majority of people who would publicly (and for profit) claim that they possess an ineffable psychic ability (or some combination thereof) are more than likely full of proverbial bullshit, there are, to my mind, a small percentage of people in the general population who do indeed possess some undefined ability that bears more than a little scientific scrutiny.  Though this scrutiny need not necessarily be to determine the level of bullshit involved, more so to determine how the process works, by what mechanism and ultimately, in what medium.

Powell draws some startling conclusions from her work and from the collective work of many, many scientists over the past 100 years or so.  The most interesting may be (or one of the most interesting) her assessment of the phenomenon of consciousness.  She discusses the two primary schools of thought regarding a definition of consciousness – monism vs. dualism – and presents a more abstracted vision of what consciousness might be (I’m particularly fond of the idea that consciousness is a subatomic field accessed by our minds, through a complex process of neurochemistry and synaptic function).

All of this intertwined with the most astute assessment of so much famous and relatively obscure scientific study of ESP phenomenon the world over.  As I said in my earlier review: “I loved this book!”


[1] Synesthesia (also spelled synæsthesia or synaesthesia, plural synesthesiae or synaesthesiae)—from the Ancient Greek σύν (syn), “together,” and αἴσθησις (aisthēsis), “sensation“—is a neurologically-based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who report such experiences are known as synesthetes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synethesia