Voices From Beyond

Can spooks speak to us from beyond the grave??

I have always been fascinated with the other side. What happens to us. What is it like when we pass. Can we still see people left behind, can we interact with them? I watch and often re-watch every show about hauntings and ghosts that I can find. I have as I mentioned in last years post about ghosts, had my own experiences as well! One thing that always grabs my attention is EVPS~ Electronic Voice Phenomenon. I had never really studied the origins of how that got started however until now. 

"Electronic voice phenomena (EVP) are electronically generated noises that resemble speech, but are not the result of intentional voice recordings or renderings. Common sources of EVP include static, stray radio transmissions, and background noise. Interest in the subject normally surrounds claims that EVP are of paranormal origin, though there are natural explanations such as apophenia (finding significance in insignificant phenomena), auditory pareidolia (interpreting random sounds as voices in their own language), equipment artifacts, or simple hoaxes which are offered to explain them. Recordings of EVP are often created from background sound by increasing the gain (i.e. sensitivity) of the recording equipment." via

The Spiritualism religious movement came to the forefront in the 1840s–1920s believing that the spirits of the dead can be contacted by mediums. Photography as well as spirit boards were quite often used and very popular means in which to communicate with the dead. But of course there were a lot of fakes out there; playing on peoples emotions and pocketbooks. Bumps, table movement, voices, sounds, white mists and even ectoplasm could be faked. 

Harry Price one of the leading people involved in Spiritualism in the 1920's. 

It was so popular, despite fakery and hoaxes, the Saturday Evening Post used this image on one of their covers!

Thomas A. Edison

"In the 1920s, Thomas Alva Edison, inventor of the electric light, the motion picture camera, and phonograph, was busily at work in his laboratory building a machine to achieve spirit communication with the dead. His assistant, Dr Miller Hutchinson, wrote, “Edison and I are convinced that in the fields of psychic research will yet be discovered facts that will prove of greater significance to the thinking of the human race than all the inventions we have ever made in the field of electricity.”

Edison himself wrote, “If our personality survives, then it is strictly logical or scientific to assume that it retains memory, intellect, other faculties, and knowledge that we acquire on this Earth. Therefore … if we can evolve an instrument so delicate as to be affected by our personality as it survives in the next life, such an instrument, when made available, ought to record something.” 

Unfortunately, Edison died before he could complete his invention. Yet, as he lay dying, he remarked to his physician, "It is very beautiful over there." Edison was a scientist, very factual, and as a scientist would never have reported "It is very beautiful over there," unless he believed it to be true.

In 1936, American photographer Attila von Szalay began experimenting with a record cutter and had moderate success capturing spirit voices on phonograph records. In the 1940s he had better success with a wire recorder. In the 1950s writer Raymond Bayless began a collaboration with von Szalay, and the two men documented Von Szalay’s results in an article for the American Society for Psychical Research in 1959. Neither the Society nor the authors received a single response from readers." VIA

Message from the Other Side
Seance movie scene c.1920s

I have never collected an EVP myself, but one day I hope to have such an occasion, I believe that there are spirits among us, and I am very eager to see what they have to say to me. There is so much more history on this subject and the field continues to grow and develop. New equipment is produced as time goes by that seems to make it easier to communicate with the other side. No matter what you believe or don't, it is a fascinating.

Read more HERE 

 One of my favorite shows from The Travel Channel,airs Friday nights.