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Articles
ITC and its Role in Survival Research
by Professor David Fontana
Previously published in the April 2007
ITC Journal
©David Fontana - All Rights Reserved
Interest in Survival
I can never remember a time in my life when I was not
interested in the question whether or not we survive physical death. It
seemed to me, even as a very young boy, that this question was relevant
not only to what happened when we die, but to the way in which we live
our lives while on this Earth. If death was the end of everything, then
life here and now was meaningless, a cosmic accident that led to
nothing. On the other hand, if we survived, it meant we were part of a
greater scheme of things, with this life only a stage on our journey, a
stage in which our behavior determines what happens to us when we move
on to the next stage. It surprised me that most people seemed not to
share this interest. At the church I attended everyone seemed to believe
in an afterlife, yet to have little idea of what it was like. We were
supposed to take everything on trust, and to look forward to a kind of
vague afterlife in which (presumably if our voices were good enough) we
joined a heavenly choir.
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aaevp2006-cardoso_fontana_vigo.jpg) |
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David Fontana with Anabela
Cardoso at the 2006 ITC Journal conference in Vigo, Spain. |
Although this seemed to satisfy most churchgoers I doubted if God really
wanted us to stand (or sit) around simply praising him. Surely he would
have far better things to do with his time than listen to us, and surely
he would expect us to contribute more to the next world than just hymn
singing. God would not have created us just to tell him how wonderful he
is, since surely he must know this already. So although one could take
the existence of an afterlife on trust it seemed to me as a boy that
there could be no harm in wanting to know more about it and to find out
what evidence had accumulated for it over the years. When I grew older
and discovered psychical research I found that indeed a very great deal
of evidence had accumulated, and once I became involved in this research
I was fortunate to be able to come across similar evidence for myself. Much of this evidence, both from the literature and from my personal
experience, is summarized in my most recent book, Is There an Afterlife?
Which brings me on to a further question, why isn’t this evidence more
widely known and accepted? Let us take ITC as our example. The evidence
for ITC has been growing steadily since
Jürgenson’s pioneering work over
half a century ago. As evidence, it has three unprecedented advantages
which we can look at in turn. The First Advantage of ITC
ITC evidence is evidence that anyone can try to obtain for oneself,
directly and in the privacy of one’s own home. The equipment involved is
easy to obtain and relatively cheap – a tape recorder, a microphone and
a source of white noise – for convenience usually a radio tuned between
two stations. A computer is also necessary if one prefers to record onto
the hard disc instead of onto tape. One can work at one’s own speed and
in one’s own time, devoting as little as a few minutes once or twice a
week to the work. There is no need for a medium or for any previous
experience. The only personal qualities that are needed are patience,
commitment (it may be weeks or months or even longer before the first
results are obtained) and an open mind. Working with one or two
like-minded friends or family members helps to maintain interest and may
produce quicker results, but this is by no means essential. Many people
get on very well on their own.
The Second Advantage of ITC
The second advantage of ITC is that, as the communications come through
electronic media rather than through the mind of a medium, they are
unlikely to be influenced in any way by human thought. It is true that
some critics suggest that psycho-kinesis (PK) from the living – the
supposed ability of the mind to affect matter directly – may be
responsible for impressing the communications on tape or onto the radio
waves, but we have no evidence that PK can produce anything approaching
the extensive messages that have been received by ITC researchers. In
addition, some of these messages contain material that was unknown to the
researcher at the time, rendering it doubly unlikely that the latter was
in any way responsible for the phenomena. Thus the belief that the human
mind is not responsible for ITC communications seems well founded. In
addition, since it is clear that electronic media can hardly obtain
material telepathically from the researcher or clairvoyantly from the
environment in the way that the medium can, it is fair to say that ITC
effectively disposes of the SuperESP (or
SuperPSI) hypothesis, the idea
that all survival-related messages come psychically (albeit
unconsciously) from the living rather than from the deceased.
The Third Advantage of ITC
The third unprecedented advantage of ITC is that when results are
obtained a permanent record of them is created. Psychical researchers
have long sought for what are called PPOs (‘Permanent Paranormal
Objects’), objects that are obtained paranormally and that remain in
existence as good evidence for anyone to see and examine. ITC presents
us with just such objects in the form of recorded communications
apparently from the deceased. Of course, it has to be provable that
these recordings are paranormal if they are to qualify as PPOs. Anyone
who is sufficiently dishonest or foolish can fake voices on tape or
through the radio and claim they were obtained paranormally. It has to
be demonstrated beyond doubt that the recorded voices cannot be
explained by normal means. There are two methods for doing this, the
first of which applies only to the
Direct Radio Voice (DRV) and the
second of which applies both to DRV and to EVP.
In the first method the voices are either received under conditions that
rule out any possibility of fraud (the experimenter receiving the voices
knows fraud is not involved, but it is not easy to convince a skeptical
scientist of this!) and in the second method the voices themselves are
acoustically analyzed to see if they show characteristics that differ
significantly from the human voice and that cannot be imitated correctly
by faking. Neither of these methods is particularly easy to implement.
To achieve the first, one needs to have independent witnesses who
ideally provide their own equipment (tape recorder, tapes, radio,
microphone etc.) and have full control of it throughout. Furthermore the
possibility that transmitting devices are hidden nearby for the purposes
of faking voices needs be ruled out by holding the experiments in a
neutral venue – which raises a problem in that successful ITC results
appear to depend upon a special relationship between the communicators
the experimenter, the equipment and the location, and moving to a
neutral venue may thus disrupt this special relationship and prevent
good results. Consequently a better procedure is to use one of the
highly sophisticated devices currently available that tests for the
presence of spurious radio signals while the ITC experiment is taking
place (although even here it is important that such tests are carried
out and recorded by the independent witnesses). If financial concerns
rule out the possibility of obtaining such devices, an alternative way
of guarding against spurious radio transmissions is to provide two
radios, both tuned to the same frequency, on the grounds that if
communications are received through one radio and not through the other
then this supports the claim that no such transmissions are being
received. As a further precaution both radios can be tuned to
frequencies forbidden by law to amateur radio operators (see September
2005 ITC Journal, pages 38 to 56, and April 2006 ITC Journal, pages 68 to 69 for details
of these frequencies). Again independent witnesses would need to be
present to confirm everything is done correctly. Failure to provide all these elaborate and expensive precautions allows
hardened skeptics to claim triumphantly that they have discovered how
the ‘trick’ is done. The absurdity of such a claim is all too obvious,
but hardened skeptics are far more interested in discrediting ITC than
in absurdity. The difficulty involved in providing these precautions
means it is virtually impossible for most people to set up skeptic-proof
experiments. In consequence – and rightly – they are far more interested
in convincing themselves than in convincing skeptics. Nevertheless such
experiments are vital and will be set up in due course; the expertise
exists, it is only the funding that is lacking. In the meanwhile, all
those working on ITC can use the simple experiment that I have tried in
two of Anabela Cardoso’s DRV recording sessions, i.e. to ask the
communicators to repeat phrases after me. Anabela had no idea on the
first occasions that I had even thought up such an experiment, so our
successful results ruled out any possibility of subterfuge. Obviously an
independent witness should ideally again be involved, and an experiment
of this kind can even be tried with the tape recorder (EVP) method. When
using this method the request for repetition should come from the
independent witness and at an unspecified time, and the tape should then
remain under his or her control until it is rewound and played back.
Hopefully an ITC voice will be heard repeating the words concerned. The second of the two methods for demonstrating beyond doubt that
recorded ITC voices cannot be explained by normal means, the acoustic
analysis of the ITC voices, looks much simpler at first sight, and has
the added advantage that it can be used both with DRV recordings and EVP
recordings. A further, and particularly important advantage, is that the
analysis can be carried out and confirmed any number of times by
skeptics themselves (assuming they have the expertise and the
appropriate software). Again however there are problems, the most
important of which is that the equipment required to carry out the
analysis is expensive and highly specialized, and can only be operated
by an expert and appropriately qualified acoustic engineer. Anabela and
I are currently conducting research of this kind as part of the Oliver
Knowles Research Project with the help of acoustics expert
Daniele Gullà
(see Gullà’s paper in the Proceedings of the First International
Conference on Survival/ ITC for details of the acoustic analyses used. [Editer:
See Computer–Based Analysis of Supposed Paranormal Voice: The Question of
Anomalies Detected and Speaker Identification for a related article
by Gullà] ),
and hope to be able to publish results soon, but the need for
professional software and for the involvement of a suitably qualified
acoustic expert means that it is not the kind of work accessible to most
people. Why the Struggle for Acceptance?
In view of these three major advantages, which potentially put ITC in a
particularly favorable position when compared not only to other forms
of research into survival but all other forms of psychical research, why
is it still struggling to gain acceptance outside the circle (admittedly
a large and growing one) of those who have experienced results at first
hand? The answer is that it shares the opposition that exists towards
all forms of survival research. This opposition comes primarily from
four groups which we can look at in turn. Established Science
Typically scientists claim they don’t find the evidence for ITC or for
survival in general convincing, but the truth is they have never studied
this evidence and show little sign of wanting to study it. Lack of
knowledge of a subject is acceptable – most scientists find it difficult
to enough to keep abreast of advances in their own field and can hardly
be expected to wade through the extensive data on survival of death (I
have over 600 books on the subject), but what is not acceptable is lack
of knowledge that dishonestly claims to be knowledge. Thus we still hear
top scientists maintaining in the media that no properly conducted
studies have ever found claims for the existence for survival or for
psychic abilities to be anything other than nonsense. Such behavior is
not only misleading but very poor science. A cardinal rule in science is
that you don’t pretend to knowledge that you do not have, particularly
when you know that your views carry weight with both colleagues and
laypeople. The complexities of modern science and the aura of
infallibility that surrounds it mean that many people take the
pronouncements of eminent scientists on trust, wrongly believing that
such is their distinction in their own fields that they must know what
they are talking about when they pronounce on any subject.
The main reason for this uninformed hostility on the part of many
scientists towards psychical research is the belief that if psychic
abilities exist and if the mind survives death (and is therefore
non-physical) many of the most fundamental laws of science would have to
be re-written. This claim is of course absurd. The known laws of science
have their own range of convenience within which they work perfectly
well, and far from challenging them the existence of psychic abilities
and of a non-material mind simply adds a new dimension to our
understanding, just as quantum mechanics adds a new dimension to
Newtonian physics. This fact leads me to suspect that behind this
hostility towards psychical research and survival lies the fear that if
such things are true they challenge the supremacy of material science.
Instead of being the final authority on life and death and everything
else, material science simply becomes the science of material things.
Many scientists appear to resent the idea of the
physics/chemistry/biology triumvirate being dethroned in this way,
forgetting that science is really about the search for truth and not
about the protection of authority and status.
Parapsychology
The second group against which research in survival has to struggle is
parapsychology – the very subject that should be most identified with
survival research. As Edgar Muller put it in the last issue of the ITC
Journal (September 2006) "… survival [research] has a low status within
parapsychology. It seems that most parapsychologists endeavor to avoid
being connected with the topic." The reason is of course that
parapsychologists believe psychical research will never be accepted by
established science if it involves itself in hauntings, séances,
mediumship, poltergeist phenomena and anything that goes on outside the
laboratory – most particularly research into survival. This attitude
dates back to Professor J. B. Rhine, who was one of the principal
founders of parapsychology, and although more than 25 years have passed
since his death parapsychologists still insist on clinging to it – in
spite of the fact that the subject is still not accepted among
scientists regardless of the extensive range of positive results
obtained by it (see e.g. Radin 1997 for an excellent survey). Even
demonstrating an interest in the subject risks blighting the career of
even the most promising young academic. Sadly it has to be said that the
consequence of the efforts by parapsychologists to appeal to established
science has therefore not been scientific acceptance. Instead it has
been the diversion of attention away from the very subject, survival
research, that helped inspire parapsychology in the first place. Professor
William MacDougall, who established what became the
parapsychology unit at Duke University with Professor J. B. Rhine in
charge, believed like the founders of the
Society for Psychical Research
(SPR) that mind is non-physical. MacDougall, who served as SPR President
in 1920 and whose book Body and Mind remains a classic study of the
mind-body relationship, put it that although the SPR takes no formal
position on such issues its principal aim "is to obtain, if possible,
empirical evidence that human personality may and does survive in some
sense and degree the death of the body," and adds that "A considerable
mass of evidence pointing in this direction has been accumulated"
(MacDougall 1928 page 347). MacDougall also insisted that his own theory
of the mind-body relationship, which he called Animism, "is the only
psycho-physical hypothesis which is compatible with a belief in any
continuance of human personality after death" and points out its
relevance "[now that] for the first time serious attempts are being made
to discover empirical evidence of such survival; and the fact that these
attempts seem already to justify hope of their success …." (ibid page
202). Most parapsychologists seem to have forgotten – if they have ever read –
MacDougall’s wise words. And even those parapsychologists who do show
some interest in survival research seem to incline towards the view that
communications from the deceased can best be explained by the SuperESP
theory mentioned earlier. However, not only do results show the
inadequacy of this explanation in the context of ITC, it is unconvincing
even when applied to mediumship. The notion that mediums may,
unconsciously and while deceiving themselves that the deceased are
responsible, be capable of hunting through living minds and through the
environment for information associated with the deceased even though
they have no clue where to look and no emotional connection with the
people or the information concerned stretches credulity beyond the
bounds of possibility (I have set out these arguments and others more
fully in Fontana 2004 and
2005).
Established Religion
The third group that has traditionally opposed survival research,
established religion, should in theory also be among its strongest
supporters. Established religion has across the centuries typically
equated communications from the beyond with the powers of evil arguing,
attributing them to impersonations by demons. The justification for this
point of view is sometimes said to come from Exodus Chapter 22 Verse 18
of the Bible when Moses informs the people that one of God’s ‘social
ordinances’ is that ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’. However,
the word ‘witch’ seems to have been chosen by the translators to satisfy
their own prejudices, as the Latin word is veneficus which is more
correctly translated as ‘poisoner’. Even King Saul (Samuel I Chapter 28)
who banished all those with ‘familiar spirits’ (spirit guides) from the
land pays a visit to one of them himself when he wants to consult the
spirit of Samuel to tell him the outcome of his impending battle with
the Philistines Samuel duly appears and tells Saul in no uncertain terms
that he has lost favour with God and not only will he be defeated he
will perish along with his sons in the battle – all of which turns out
to be correct.
Saul’s loss of favor with God – together with the Bible’s account of
his generally shabby behaviour during much of his reign – hardly
suggests he is a suitable role model on how to treat those with
‘familiar spirits’ (i.e. spirit guides). Given therefore that there
seems no Biblical objection to ‘familiar spirits’, we are driven to the
conclusion that the attitude of the Christian churches (Catholic and
Protestant alike) towards converse with the departed stems more from a
threat to the authority of the priesthood than from anything else. I am
not arguing against religious belief, which is an essential part of
human nature, but it seems clear that the teaching which claims that the
priesthood are the intermediaries between man and God and the only key
holders of the Kingdom of Heaven has been an important obstacle to
interest and research into survival. Far from being Biblical, the
beginnings of this teaching stretch back to the decision by the Emperor
Constantine to make Christianity the state religion of Rome, and thus
were always more political than religious. The result of them is that we
in the West lag far behind the cultures of the East, whose
psycho-physical systems such as Hinduism and Buddhism have extensive and
detailed teachings both on survival and on the nature of the afterlife.
The General Public
The fourth group, the general public – particularly the general public
in Britain and in the USA – do not so much oppose survival research as
show little interest in it. We are in fact the only generation in which
the subject of death has been so widely ignored. Right through to the
mid 20th Century and World War Two people lived with the reality of
death. In the earlier part of the Century large numbers of children died
young, and even for adults death was a constant companion. In the 16th
Century scholars kept skulls on their desks as momento mori, and in
Britain the Victorians and Edwardians in the 19th and early 20th Century
frequently wore lockets containing tresses of hair from deceased loved
ones. Catholic countries had their Day of the Dead on November 2nd, and
this is one of the few remembrances that are still observed. Apart from
this, the reality of death is largely ignored. In earlier times people
fell sick, declined and for the most part died at home, and the tragedy
of death was forever present. Advances in medical care and public health
mean that we are the first generation in recorded history insulated from
many of the reminders of our own mortality. Together with the growth of
consumerism and the prevalence of materialistic philosophies, this has
led to a general resistance to any talk of leaving this life and of what
might happen next. There is also a failure to recognize that belief in
an afterlife does not distract us from trying to improve this life.
Instead it gives this life meaning and purpose and increases our
awareness of its sacred nature and of the need to cherish the physical
world and the opportunities it gives to us.
Conclusion
We have reached a point in human history where many people now realize
that science cannot provide us with answers to life’s fundamental
questions, that we have pushed consumerism past its sustainable limits,
and that materialism does not provide the route either to individual
happiness or to a future for our planet. Together with the advances
currently being made in survival research – and particularly in ITC – we
may find that opposition from the four groups we have identified begins
to weaken, meaning that at the very least the results of research into
survival will begin to be taken more seriously. The problem may then be
that parapsychologists, recognizing the importance of the PPOs produced
by ITC, may attempt to claim the subject as their own and to take much
of the credit for its development. We can but wait and see.
References
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Fontana, D. (2004). Survival research: opposition and future
developments. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 68.4 (877),
193-209.
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Fontana, D. (2005). Is There an Afterlife? Alresford: John Hunt.
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MacDougall, W. (1928). Body and Mind. London: Methuen (7th edn.).
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Radin, D. (1997).
The Conscious Universe. San Francisco: Harper Edge.
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