Dale Palmer

Dale Palmer opened the Saturday presentations with the story of how the NII computer center came to be.  In 1994 Dale sat with his good friend Willis Harmon who was working on a project concerning communication between dimensions of reality.  Willis asked Dale to go out in the world and check on this with people who were claiming to communicate with other worlds through electronic means and report back in six months about what he had learned.

Dale had seen one presentation about EVP but was unconvinced.  He then called on a retired schoolteacher named Sarah Estep.  She asked him to come to her home at 4am, which he did.  After some conversation, Dale was taken to the area where Sarah did her EVP recordings.  She started the recording with a prayer and then after awhile told those on the other side that they had a guest.

She then asked Dale if there was something he would like to ask.  He asked if Dr. Raudive was there.  When the tape was played back there was a noise after his question.  Sarah said, “Well, did you hear that?”  She played it back about ten times, saying that it was very clear.  Dale laughed and said that Sarah had to play it another ten times, but that then it did become clear to him and he was able to hear “Yes, Raudive here.”

With that Dale learned that the phenomena was real and was hooked.  That first voice that Dale heard led him down the path that has now resulted in the nearing completion of the NII computer center for EVP/ITC experiments.

Sarah Estep

Sarah led off the conference and played that important voice, “Yes, Raudive here.”

She talked about how she became involved with voice phenomena, and her journey and involvement through the years with EVP.

Sarah was a complete disbeliever of life after death when she started her work in EVP.  She recounted her young years spent in her grandparent’s funeral home and her times of looking into caskets at those who were so very dead.  The stillness of those bodies convinced her that there was little hope of heaven or hell.  Death was a casket, and her convictions on this did not change for over forty years.

When Sarah learned about voice phenomena she was skeptical but decided to look into it.  She received her first voice on the sixth day of recording.  In answer to her question, “What is your world like,” the word, “Beauty” was heard on playback.  She was still not convinced but continued with her research into EVP.  After a few months the voices started to come every time that Sarah recorded.  Her book, Voices of Eternity, details the first 12 years of her contact with other dimensions. (The book is available here as a free download)

With the help of her daughter, Becky, Sarah played many excellent EVP examples.  She talked about her contact with Ludwig van Beethoven that went on for months.  She had asked for proof that it was, indeed, him.  Beethoven told her that he would play for her one evening.  When that evening came, there was a horrible thunder and lighting storm.  Sarah was fearful of recording during such a terrible storm but felt that she must.  She ended her talk with the eerie and enchanting one-minute of music that Ludwig van Beethoven recorded for her that evening.

Lisa Butler

Lisa talked about her discovery of EVP through the work of Sarah Estep.  She recounted how, during the time that she lived in Kansas, there had been a serious flood.  The news pictures of cows and pigs stuck on top of farm roofs upset her and every night she asked those on the other side about the animals.  Each night for over a week, they patiently told her that the animals were all right.  They told her that there were entities on the other side who helped those who died, across to their new life on the other side.  Every night she was assured that all animals and all things continue after death.  Finally on the seventh day, she recorded a loud voice that said, “Stop with the animals.  They are okay.”

Before attending the gathering Lisa made a recording and asked her friends on the other side if they were aware of the conference, and if they would help with it.  She played two loud answers that were recorded immediately after her question, “We know Sarah’s coming,” and, “I’m gonna help Tom.”

Lisa talked about the difficulty people who record have in hearing that first EVP message and how this is the most difficult hurdle that those interested in the phenomena must get through.  She discussed some of the recent breakthroughs in software that can help people in listening to EVP recordings.

Lisa played several EVP examples and ended her talk with a recording of a message from her mother, “I miss you, Li---sa.”  She related to the audience how the communication with her mother had been totally unexpected.  Her mother did not know that she worked with EVP, and due to her mother’s religious convictions, Lisa had never called on her to speak.  But her mother was also the person that she needed to hear from the most.  There were several issues and unresolved guilt that had continued to influence her life after her mother’s death.  This communication through EVP has affected her deeply and allowed for a healing that she had not thought possible.

Tom Butler

Tom talked about some of the beneficial traits that are helpful for EVP/ITC experimenters.  He talked about the importance of enthusiasm, patience and open mindedness for success in EVP/ITC experiments.  He talked about how those with backgrounds in science, the scientific method, philosophy and mediumship can help all of us to understand the phenomena better.  And, how those with these types of backgrounds can assist in bringing the knowledge of EVP to the world.

Tom presented information on the environment of EVP and ITC research.  He discussed some of the things that we have learned about EVP regarding background noise, software and sounds that are heard before messages.  He discussed experiments done by Alexander MacRae and Bill Weisensale that conclusively show that EVP is not the result of stray radio signals.

Tom discussed some of the areas of development being worked on with EVP such as Alexander MacRae’s work with Holophonics, Stefan Bion’s EVPMaker and Erland Babcock’s work with digital cameras.  He talked about Matti Pitanen’s attempt to provide a mathematical model of nonphysical reality, others who are working on a standard test bed for EVP hardware experimentation and the Noetics Institute development of an Internet based tool, with which the public will be able to conduct EVP experiments.

He ended his talk by saying, “I personally believe that interest in EVP/ITC is reaching critical mass.  As Willis Harmon held in his book, Global Mind Change, Humankind is at the threshold of change in the way we look at reality.  Soon, I expect, our scientific community will no longer be able to ignore this phenomenon.  Soon, every University will have a research program that is in some way seeking to define the nature of the interface between physical and nonphysical aspects of reality.

Erland Babcock

Erland discussed the collection of journals that he has written over the last twenty years.  The twenty-five, three hundred page journals are about Erland's research with spirit communications and his work with the Metascience Foundation started by George Meek.

Erland showed slides concerning some of his earliest ideas about sound and how to improve EVP communication.  He also showed slides of equipment setups and drawings for various EVP/ITC experiments.  Erland heard about Klaus Schreiber, who was using video to photograph his dead daughter and decided to duplicate these experiments.  This was the beginning of Erland’s video experiments and his many interesting ITC pictures.

Erland explained that all ITC images are based on video feedback.  His presentation conveyed the evolution in techniques he followed while developing video ITC.  The images were fascinating with pictures of individuals, groups of people, landscapes and buildings.

Erland ended his talk with a picture of what he calls the “Green Beam.”  He was taking pictures of a monitor and had not see the green beam as the picture was being taken.  The picture shows this beam going into one side of the monitor and coming out the other.  It shows that light can travel through a solid object.  Please note that the picture has been enhanced for clarity.

Bill Williams

Bill Willams is a researcher in Psychical research, and in particular, life after death.  He is the Canadian representative for the Scole experiments in Canada.  His wife Muriel is an accomplished medium.

Bill went over some of the 4000 years of documented evidence that proves a case for personal survival.  Much of the evidence that he presented was from his library of some 2000 books.  He related several of his experiences in searching for the truth.  Bill has studied many religions and found a common thread that runs through all of them.  This is the belief in a divine or higher power.

Bill talked about his relationship with the late Professor Ivan Currie who wrote; “You Can Not Die.”  Prior to his crossing, Bill and Ian made a pact that whoever went first would try to communicate back to the person still on earth.  Prof. Currie has kept his word and there have been over one hundred conversations that have been documented with him through Muriel’s mediumship.  They are now in the process of compiling a book on this titled, “Hi There, I’m Over Here, My Life in the Spirit World.”

Euvaldo Cabral, Jr.

Professor Euvaldo Cabral, Jr. is instrumental in the work that is being done on the NII computer system.

His interest in the phenomena began in 1976 when he read Jürgenson's book, Roesterna Fraen Rymden (Voices from the Universe).  His experiments with tape recorders started the same year.  His interest in the subject led him to a career in Electronics as he felt that the solution to EVP/ITC was hidden in secrets related to pieces of electronic equipment.  In 1979 he began designing and assembling equipment for experiments.

Cabral presented a list of the many experiments that he has done in trying to decipher the mystery of the voices.  This list was very impressive.  He is now focusing his research on results that are suitable for publication in mainstream scientific journals.

Cabral explained his research into extremely low signal to noise ratio speech enhancement techniques that he will use to develop a software-based method for recovering voices from background noise.  After his many years of research Professor Cabral has come to the conclusion that software may be the answer that he has been searching for.  By creating software to enhance the very weak voices out of the background noise, he feels that scientists in any part of the country will be able to obtain the same experimental results using the NII web site as a remote laboratory.

Gary Schwartz

Gary Schwartz is a professor of Psychology, Medicine, Neurology, and Psychiatry at the University of Arizona.  He is also the Director of the Human Energy Systems Laboratory there.  We have reported on the mediumship research and experiments that have been conducted by the Laboratory.  Some of this research has been published in the “Journal of the Society for Psychical Research.”

Gary began his talk by explaining how he became involved in doing the Mediumship experiments in the first place.  It was a friend, Linda Russek, who asked him if he thought that her father might have continued after his death.  He was surprised at the question and asked her if it was really that important to her what he thought.  She told him that it was, as he was a scientist and if he believed that we continued after death then he must have a good reason.  He told her about the theory that everything in the universe is eternal, alive and evolving.  (Read “The Living Energy Universe” by Gary Schwartz and Linda Russek).  From this conversation the work began.

The first two years of research were done in secret with interesting but not publishable results.  The research has now become very public.  It was featured in an HBO special, written up in countless newspaper articles and published in the SPR journal.  A book will be released on the experiments this winter titled, The Afterlife Experiment, Breakthrough Scientific Evidence for Life After Death.

Gary spoke about how the experiments were run in great detail and also presented much of the results of several experiments.  As an example the mediums in one set of experiments were 83% accurate, while 68 people in a control group were only 36% accurate.  Participating mediums included James Van Praagh, John Edward, Suzane Northrup, George Anderson and the Rev. Anne Gehman.

Gary mentioned Peter Russell who has said that we need a new meta-paradigm, something that goes beyond the way we typically think.  Gary feels that this may come from research in mediumship and EVP/ITC.  “If anything in the history of Science is going to cause us to change the way we think, … it will be this kind of work.”

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