Vocal identification: The metatextuality of the electronic voice phenomenon

Based on the transcript “Breakthrough” by Konstantīns Raudive

Abstract

The article’s subject deals with some aspects of transcommunication and its relation to literature; in particular, the metatextual nature of transcommunicative audio recordings as material for the methods of instrumental transcommunication (ITC) and the phenomenon of electronic voice (EPV). These terms are used to describe the data, obtained through the use of electronic devices and technologies to communicate with spirits or entities from other dimensions. The article problem is focused on the essence of the basic EVP form of paranormal investigation utilized to identify and interpret messages, images, or other forms of communication from the “meta-sphere” using devices such as radios, televisions, computers and other electronics. Konstantīns Raudive, one of the first researchers of transcommunication, believed that these devices, radios in particular, could be used as a means of making contact with spirits or entities that exist outside of physical reality and can manipulate electronic signals or other forms of energy to send messages that can be interpreted by the living. The article aims to methodologically process transcommunication as a controversial field that is not widely accepted by the scientific community due to a lack of empirical evidence to support the existence of entities or communication of this type. That is why many skeptics claim that this experience can be explained by natural phenomena such as pareidolia (the tendency to perceive meaningful patterns in random stimuli) or electromagnetic interference, and therefore many examples of EVP are dismissed as fictitious, amateurish, and staged. It is important to note that paranormal researchers approach transcommunication with a considerable level of skepticism and caution, and therefore the results of the research are full of potential for further studies to recognize that this field of science is overwhelmingly speculative yet prospective, especially when viewed from a literary perspective. The article novelty encapsulates the possibility of a literary interpretation of transcommunication from the standpoint of metatextuality as one of a myriad of feasible approaches.