Shamans and spiritualist mediums and channelers have all appreciated their own methods for speaking with the dead. The fact is, we really can’t ever truly know for sure if the dead still exist and if they do exist, if they can hear us. But, we’ve come a long way in figuring out the possibilities and testing them.
Ouija, spirit guides, vision quests, and séances aside, the 21st Century asks for more than dramatics. We really want something that any Joe or Jane on the street can hear and receive. The ghost hunting world in the past several decades has undergone what the Christian church has undergone in the past centuries; the concept that perhaps you don’t need a special interpreter to speak to the source, but you yourself can simply talk directly to the spirit world. No cash exchanging hands. Just you and a microphone…or perhaps another method (explained in this post).
EVPs are the most popular form nowadays of talking with the dead. The concept is to record yourself asking questions and pausing for answers and play it back on your computer and listen for any potential answers. There are drawbacks to this method. For one, how do we know spirits here us at the Hertz level in which we communicate? Humans speak between 800-1200 Hertz. Supposedly, according to those who regularly capture EVPs, they are speaking in an infrasound level (too low for human ears to hear) at as low as 19 Hertz. For EVPs to be truly effective, we should both be using a meter to measure if anything in that Hertz range is sounding in environment while recording and also be taking our questions and translating them to an infrasound level so they can hear and understand. EVPs are also tricky because recording devices are receivers and anything from radio waves to walkie talkies to satellite phones could be sending signals that are picked up. You hear a blip of a few words and you can make it fit your answer. When I was a kid, we had a game we’d play when we were bored witless. You take the Bible and ask a question, open it up and read the first thing your eyes see. It always sounded like it answered the question! The other game was to go through the Psalms and pick out the one that was the number of the year. If it was 1974, you’d look up the 74th Psalm and it seemed to describe the year in the world. So, saying that you got a direct and intelligent response is a hard thing to prove, especially if you asked a “yes” or “no” question. I want a class A recording that is clearly language and is understood as the same words by everyone who hears it without prompting them. I also want to ask questions that are not easy to answer such as “do you want us here?” I’d rather ask, “I was in the bedroom and now I’m in the kitchen. Which room do you want me to stay in?”
Another way to attempt a communication with the dead is to do what Pagans do. On Samhain, when they believe the veil between the living and dead is the thinnest, they remember the dead. They put out photos, candles, mementos and even the favorite food of the deceased loved one. It’s an invitation to witness that they hve not been forgotten. There is something to be said about this. As a ghost hunter, I have noticed that recently visited graves in cemeteries have a lot more activity. The family was just there concentrating on them, talking to them, remembering them, missing them… It seems to draw a spirit to them. A Joe or Jane on the street could create this sort of working shrine in their home. If they had a recorder or a K-II meter or even a lit candle, they could try to create a conversation. Speak out loud. Talk to the loved one. Bring up memories, look at pictures, touch objects. Open the conversation, let them know how to reply—whether it’s to talk to the recorder, blow out the candle, or get near the meter. This is a sort of updated version of a séance. If the spirit does not need a body, then the spirit can go anywhere it wants.
This I believe will be the next generation of ghost hunting—bring the ghosts to you instead of going to the ghosts.
Psychics? I understand people seek out psychics to talk to the dead and I understand psychics need to make money too. I personally have problems with the concept of paying someone for a service that has no product and no verification of its truth. The problem is that with no licensing or regulation or verification, it’s like the clergy. They can feed you bits and tantalizing pieces knowing they can keep you coming back each week to pay more. No one is to say they do or do not have a line to the other side or God. If you want them talking to the dead, know this; you have no way of knowing if they’re reading the dead or reading you. If you think you might want to see them again, they better have told you something that shocks your socks off. And don’t feed them any info. There’s a lot of cold readers out there who can make things fit depending on your reactions. Keep your poker face on and make them work for it. It will ultimately come to you to figure out if they are reading what you know of the dead or reading the dead or reading your body language and suppositions based on how you’re dressed or what you look like. I’m not saying psychics can’t talk to the dead, but like the mall Santa, they can’t all be Santa and like the clergy, they don’t all have a direct line to God. Be skeptical, be wise, try not to get in awe of someone who supposedly sees and hears things you don’t. In other words, be a good consumer.
Communicating with the dead often times feels as if we do all the talking and they do all the...nothing. All of us who've lost a loved one know that at some moment in time, we cave in and beg and plead for them to be there when we go through a bad incident in our life and need their advice. We are met with a considerable silence and an ice cold feeling in our bellies that maybe they simple do not exist anymore. The thing to remember; however, is that we communicate as spiritual beings inside of human bodies. That means our only way of communicating is through our senses. The deaf use sign language, the blind use their sense of touch, we all use what we have. But, if you do not have a body and 5 senses, what is your means of communication?
Really think about this one.
You can't make a living person hear you, however, sometimes they can capture a sound. You can't make them feel you, although at times they can get a sense of something there. You can't make them see you, except faint glimmers occasionally. What is left to you? Their soul can communicate--but only with your soul. In that moment you beg your deceased father to guide you, you begin to feel a peace and then a moment of quiet and introspection and then a realization of what your father would do. From a moment of frenzied desperation to resolution and peace. It would be my guess that the soul does communicate, but not with the human body.