This last week I've jumped back into another round of EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) experiments with my long lost cousin and EVP researcher, Randall Keller. I'm not far into reviewing my sessions so far, but like most of my EVP sessions in the last year, the actual live experience is pretty quiet and sometimes boring. In fact, my father participated in a session today and it turns out it was so boring that after only one minute of recording he was asleep and snoring in his chair. You see, it is in the review or analysis stage where the excitement usually comes in. The woman in the basement of the church tells you “it's all over me”. In the audio from a private investigation of a home you discover a hopeless sounding voice asking “Can you help me?” only to later discover that you were wrong and the message captured was actually way more disturbing. (You can use your imagination, but you won't see the actual message for the last one displayed here.)
Finding EVP is incredibly exciting, but there's nothing quite like sitting down for a session and being aware that someone is with you and clearly willing to have a conversation. Readers who have been with me from the beginning will remember my three exciting sessions with an entity I named “my rapper”. It all started not long after I finished a book about Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism. I learned so much from the book and I was a bit obsessed with those events and the time period. The Fox sisters are widely credited for starting the Spiritualist movement and developing a system of spirit communication known as “rapping”. For several sessions I requested communication from the Fox sisters. Then it happened. After the excitement of the first visit in March of 2012, I was up almost all night long composing my hyper thoughts into a blog post. I was on a high for a few days after that. Did one of the Fox sisters get my invite? Was rapping how I was going to establish spirit communication from now on? My rapper returned for two sessions after that but hasn't been heard from since.
Right now I'd like to throw an invite out there into the ether. I miss my rapper. Come back, old friend. Stay longer. Tell me a story. And please, TELL ME WHO YOU ARE!
If you missed the excitement the first time around, here are some highlights, including audio artifacts, below.
From the post EVP Update: My visit from a rapper!
Below are summarized segments from my notes and some audio files. Times are represented in minutes and seconds. For example, one minute and 30 seconds = 1:30. “Tap” and “knock” are pretty much used interchangeably as it is hard to decide which is which right on the spot.(From the Tascam digital recorder)
Thirty seconds into the recording there is a knock (before I even said anything), at 1:24 a tap. I then ask “Is that you making that noise?” No response.
I then ask “Can you make another noise if that was you?” Several seconds later… “Like two taps or two knocks?” A few seconds later after getting no response I asked “Have you been present with me before in one of these sessions?” Two loud and clear taps at 2:02. The first one further away and the second one closer to the recorder.
At 2:35 I ask if they could give me two more knocks just for validation. I got two taps at 2:51.
I then decided that 1 knock was going to mean “yes” and two knocks was “no”. I asked “Have you been with me in one of these EVP sessions before in the last couple of weeks?” and 15 seconds later there was a faint unidentified noisein the background followed by a tap.
A few questions with no responses.
At 5:10 I ask “Do I know you?” A very light tap can be heard at 5:20. I mentioned “I THINK that was a tap” and then “Yes? Thank you.” Maybe there was another light tap before I answered but I cannot hear it in the audio.
At 5:50 there is another tap while I’m in the middle of a rather long question. I was asking for them to pass on a message, tell me who they are, etc. After the tap I finished my question and also asked where they were talking to me from… the other side? No response. My question ended at 6:00. At 6:16 there is a tap.
At 6:30 “You seem to be good at the knocking thing. Can you tell me… are you male?” For several seconds there is no response. “Maybe that’s ‘no’.”Immediately there is a tap at 6:47.
At 6:52 I asked “Are you female?” No response.
At 8:17 I’m playing music and ask “How many of you are with me?” At 8:34 you can hear a very loud knock somewhere in the house.
At 9:07 I ask “Can you make anymore noises? I think the noises are just how you want to communicate today.” No responses.
I then started up the pink noise portion of the session got no responses to several more questions.
At 11:42 I ask “Is there something I can help you with?” A few seconds later at 11:46 (pink noise still playing) you can hear what sounds like a very soft and low-pitched “no” (11:42 in PX-820… sounds a bit different but still there). A second later… “Or are you here to help me?” No response.
At 12:32 after pink noise is turned off I ask “Are you still there?” At 12:23 in the PX-820 there is two syllables of something heard very softly… right before “Are you still there?” At 12:41 there is a knock. I say “Okay!”
A few seconds later (12:53) I say “I’ve been asking for the presence of Sarah Estep or Cathy…” Before I could finish the question there was a very loud tap right in the room! I say “Ooh… Sarah, is that you?” No response. At 13:98… “Sarah Estep?” No response. At 13:15… “Or Cathy? Is that you Cathy?” A few seconds later… “Cathy from The Big Circle?” No response.
At 13:31… “I’m kind of excited! Who is this?” You can hear a few very light pops or taps. At 13:48… “I feel like I can’t go on without knowing who you are.” No response. At 14:04… “Should I continue? Or should I end this session and listen?” No obvious responses. You can hear two very soft taps that are very close to the microphone… but I can’t be sure if it’s something I’m doing or not.
A few more questions with no responses.
At 16:04… “So could this knocking be from Sarah?” No response. At 16:18…“Cathy?” At 16:31 there is some kind of knock in the room. At 16:40… “Was that a ‘yes’ for Cathy? Did I hear you correctly? Is this Cathy then?” A few seconds later… “Knock if it’s Cathy”. Other than a dog barking outside, there are no responses.
At 17:05… “Are you someone other than Sarah or Cathy? Or ________? Could you knock if you’re someone else?” At 17:20 there are two faint knocks that I acknowledge hearing in the recording. I’m not sure if this was the answer of “no” or if this was an entity just knocking in response to my question, in general.
At 21:02 I began to do my usual thank you to anyone helping me, but I didn’t get very far. I began “Well I want to thank you for your energy…” and there was a pretty loud knock close by. I excitedly say “Oh!” and you can hear a dog barking loudly outside in the background. A few seconds later… “Thank you, there’s one.”
At 21:16… “I feel like maybe you’re playing games with me. Every time I move on I hear a knock” (more dog barking). A few seconds later… “…but as I was saying, thank you for your presence and your energy… and your assistance.”A few seconds later… “Any last messages… before we end?” No response. A few seconds later… “Thank you.” Then my elbow popped and I laughed and said “Now my bones are popping!”
End of recording.Audio from the first visit…
Beginning… “Is there someone present with me today?”
Let’s have a conversation
Have you been with me before?
“How many of you are with me?“
Possible voice before “Are you still there?” and knock
“Sarah, is that you?”
“…should I end this session and listen?”
“…thank you for your energy”
“Is there something I can help you with?” (“No”)
From the post The Return of the Rapper
Below are segments of the transcript from my 4/6/12 EVP session. I’ve included links to some of the audio. 11:02 – a knock was heard after asking for a sound
11:38 – a knock was heard after “If you can do that again we can begin to communicate.”
11:57 – I asked the following questions and got no response. “Can you make two of those knocks? Two knocks in a row.”
12:26 – I asked “So maybe it’s not very easy to do two knocks in a row?” No response to this question, either.
12:39 – I asked “Can you do the one knock again? Just one knock by itself?” I received a response of two knocks.
16:06 – possibly 2 quick soft taps after the question “Give me two knocks if you have NOT attempted to speak to me.”
18:10 – 1 tap after “Have I known you ever in my life?”
20:56 – There is immediately 2 knocks (the loudest knocks from the session and both sounding different) after the question “What can you tell me about your family?” I had pink noise playing in the background.
23:39 – 1 knock after “If you can knock on something, maybe you can touch me” (one knock for “no”?)
From the post Identifying the Rapper and a Recent EVP
In an EVP session on May 11, 2012, I once again ended up having communication with who I can only refer to as my “rapper” who has been visiting frequently in sessions. There were several responses, but I couldn’t hold back my excitement when a little more than six minutes in I ask “Is there any way you can give me two pretty big knocks just before I leave… just to validate that you were here today? Two loud knocks.” A few seconds later you can hear two significant knocks or taps right in a row.
Two significant knocks…
Later in the same session I decide to go down the alphabet old school like Kate and Maggie Fox. Maybe this rapper would spell out a name to help identify him/her? I went slowly through the alphabet and allowed the rapper to knock after the first letter of their first name. I got a knock after “B”. I asked for a knock to verify that “B” was correct and unfortunately I didn’t get one. Now I made the attempt to identify the second letter of the first name. We went all the way through the alphabet again and I didn’t hear a significant knock. We then tried it again for the initial of the last name, but before we started I asked if they were still with me and asked for a knock. I didn’t receive a response. I started through the alphabet anyway and when I got to “B” again and I got several little taps or crackles in response. I asked if it was accurate that the initial of their last name was “B”… and if they were a “B.B.”… No response. So I decided to try again for a second initial. No “B” this time around. I continued on and got a tap after calling “H”. No other responses or validation. I gave up for the day.
Does my rapper have the initials of B.B.? B.H.? Am I only talking to creaking walls that mysteriously only creak when I ask them to?
Related Posts
Spirit Bilocation: Is it Possible? (Big Séance)
Speak With the Dead: Seven Methods for Spirit Communication (Big Séance)
The Fox Sisters (RonNagy.net)
The Spiritualist Church, a Place Where the Paranormal World is Accepted as Fact! (DeborahJHughes.com)
The Secret Link Between Magic and the Occult (News from the Spirit World)