Raudive, Dr. Konstantin

Raudive, Dr. Konstantin (1909–1974)

Over a number of years Dr. Konstantin Raudive, former professor of psychology at Uppsala and Riga universities, collected dozens of tapes of recorded spirit messages, totaling 72,000 voices. According to Worlditc.org,

In 1967, (Friedrich) Juergenson’s book Radio Contact with the Dead was translated into German, and Latvian psychologist Dr. Konstantin Raudive read it skeptically. He visited Juergenson to learn his methodology, decided to experiment on his own, and soon began developing his own experimental techniques. Like Juergenson, Raudive too heard the voice of his own deceased mother, who called him by his boyhood name: “Kostulit, this is your mother.” Eventually he catalogued tens of thousands of voices, many under strict laboratory conditions.

At the eleventh annual conference of the Parapsychological Association, held at the University of Frieburg, Germany, in September, 1968, Dr. Raudive played some of these tapes to Dr. Jules Eisenbud (who worked with Ted Serios on thought photography, or “thoughtography"), Mrs. K. M. Goldney from the British Society for Psychical Research, Dr. Walter Uphoff of the University of Colorado, and others. Dr. Uphoff said,

All we could do was listen and try to figure out what might explain what we were hearing. Some voices were clearer and more distinct than others; the level of static or background noise was high because the volume had to be turned to maximum level in order to reproduce the otherwise faint voices; and the cadence certainly suggested that these were not likely to be bits of stray radio signals.

Most of the received voices had been inaudible at the time of recording. The strategy was for the moderator—in this case Dr. Raudive—to announce the date and time and then to invite any spirits to communicate. Later playback called for increasing the volume and, in most instances, changing the speed. Raudive had published his results in a book (Breakthrough) which attracted publisher Colin Smythe, who wanted British rights to the book. But Smythe also wanted fresh proof before he published. He followed Raudive’s instructions and succeeded in obtaining a voice himself—that of a colleague’s (Peter Bander’s) deceased mother. Bander was a psychologist who went on to translate Raudive’s book into English. Bander also wrote his own book on the subject (Carry On Talking: How Dead Are the Voices? 1972) and appeared on more than twenty radio and television shows to discuss the subject. In his book, Bander reviewed how the Raudive voice phenomenon was investigated

In 1971, Raudive performed a controlled experiment with technicians at Pye Records. In the sound lab, special equipment was installed that would cut out any possible intrusion of outside radio or television signals. Raudive used one tape recorder, monitored by a control deck. He wasn’t allowed to touch the equipment himself but could only speak into the microphone. This he did for twenty-seven minutes. The engineers were sure that no other sounds had been picked up, yet on playback they found more than 200 voices had been recorded over the time period. The voices spoke in various languages, many of them so faint that they were hard to decipher. This experiment was sponsored by the British newspaper, the Daily Mirror. Smythe later commented, “We were all amazed. The evidence was very clear—there was no way the voices could have been produced except by paranormal means. The engineers who supervised the experiment began with an attitude of healthy skepticism which changed to one of conversion.”

Peter Hale, an expert trained in the suppression of stray electrical signals such as radio emissions, conducted further tests at the laboratories of Belling & Lee. Afterward Hale commented, “From the results obtained … something is happening which I can’t explain in normal physical terms.”

In the mid 1980s, Klaus Schreiber received on his television pictures of the faces of various deceased people—including Romy Schneider and Albert Einstein. He got the pictures by focusing a video camera onto the screen of the television and feeding the camera’s output back into the television, forming a feedback loop. About this time a couple in Luxembourg started getting amazing voice contacts through their radio. The then deceased Konstantin Raudive spoke through the apparatus to them in 1994, saying, “It can only work when the vibrations of those present are in complete harmony and when their aims and intentions are pure.”

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