Konstantin Raudive
Encyclopedia
Dr. Konstantīns Raudive was a Latvia
n writer and intellectual, and husband of Zenta Mauriņa
. Raudive was born in Latvia but studied extensively abroad, later becoming a student of Carl Jung
. In exile following the Soviet re-conquest of Latvia in World War II, he taught at the University of Uppsala in Sweden
.
Raudive studied parapsychology
all his life, and was especially interested in the possibility of the afterlife
. He and German
parapsychologist Hans Bender
investigated Electronic Voice Phenomena
(EVP). He published a book on EVP, Breakthrough in 1971. Raudive was a scientist as well as a practising Roman Catholic.
, some in French
. The last voice on the tape, according to Raudive, a woman's voice, said "Va dormir, Margarete" ("Go to sleep, Margaret").
Raudive later wrote (in his book Breakthrough):
Raudive started researching such alleged voices on his own and spent much of the last ten years of his life exploring EVP. With the help of various electronics experts he recorded over 100,000 audiotapes, most of which were made under what he described as "strict laboratory conditions." He collaborated at times with Bender. Over 400 people were involved in his research, and all apparently heard the voices. This culminated in the 1968 publication of Unhörbares wird hörbar (“What is inaudible becomes audible”) (published in English in 1971 as Breakthrough).
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
n writer and intellectual, and husband of Zenta Mauriņa
Zenta Maurina
Zenta Mauriņa , was a writer, essayist with a degree in philology . She was married to the EVP researcher Konstantin Raudive.-References:...
. Raudive was born in Latvia but studied extensively abroad, later becoming a student of Carl Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
. In exile following the Soviet re-conquest of Latvia in World War II, he taught at the University of Uppsala in Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
.
Raudive studied parapsychology
Parapsychology
The term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir, and originates from para meaning "alongside", and psychology. The term was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research...
all his life, and was especially interested in the possibility of the afterlife
Afterlife
The afterlife is the belief that a part of, or essence of, or soul of an individual, which carries with it and confers personal identity, survives the death of the body of this world and this lifetime, by natural or supernatural means, in contrast to the belief in eternal...
. He and German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
parapsychologist Hans Bender
Hans Bender
Hans Bender was a German lecturer on the subject of parapsychology, who was also responsible for establishing the parapsychological institute Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene in Freiburg. For many years his pipe smoking, contemplative figure was synonymous with German...
investigated Electronic Voice Phenomena
Electronic voice phenomenon
Electronic voice phenomena are electronically generated noises that resemble speech, but are not the result of intentional voice recordings or renderings. Common sources of EVP include static, stray radio transmissions, and background noise...
(EVP). He published a book on EVP, Breakthrough in 1971. Raudive was a scientist as well as a practising Roman Catholic.
EVP research
In 1964, Raudive read Friedrich Jürgenson's book, Voices from Space, and was so impressed by it that he arranged to meet Jürgenson in 1965. He then worked with Jürgenson to make some EVP recordings, but their first efforts bore little fruit, although they believed that they could hear very weak, muddled voices. According to Raudive, however, one night, as he listened to one recording, he clearly heard a number of voices. When he played the tape over and over, he came to believe he understood all of them. He thought some of which were in German, some in LatvianLatvian language
Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
, some in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
. The last voice on the tape, according to Raudive, a woman's voice, said "Va dormir, Margarete" ("Go to sleep, Margaret").
Raudive later wrote (in his book Breakthrough):
"These words made a deep impression on me, as Margarete Petrautzki had died recently, and her illness and death had greatly affected me."
Raudive started researching such alleged voices on his own and spent much of the last ten years of his life exploring EVP. With the help of various electronics experts he recorded over 100,000 audiotapes, most of which were made under what he described as "strict laboratory conditions." He collaborated at times with Bender. Over 400 people were involved in his research, and all apparently heard the voices. This culminated in the 1968 publication of Unhörbares wird hörbar (“What is inaudible becomes audible”) (published in English in 1971 as Breakthrough).
Methods
Raudive developed several different approaches to recording EVP:- Microphone voices: one simply leaves the tape recorder running, with no one talking; he indicated that one can even disconnect the microphone.
- Radio voices: one records the white noise from a radio that is not tuned to any station.
- Diode voices: one records from what is essentially a crystal set not tuned to a station.
EVP characteristics
Raudive delineated a number of characteristics of the voices, (as laid out in Breakthrough):- "The voice entities speak very rapidly, in a mixture of languages, sometimes as many as five or six in one sentence."
- "They speak in a definite rhythm, which seems forced on them."
- "The rhythmic mode imposes a shortened, telegram-style phrase or sentence."
- Probably because of this, "… grammatical rules are frequently abandoned and neologisms abound."
External links
- http://radio.nymoon.com/raudive/ Specters of the Spectrum, by Jared Keane Feldman, New York Moon
- Biography of Konstantin Raudive. Apparently a chapter of a book, Paraphysics and EVP: a mind over matter investigation 1984–2001, author unspecified.