Voice Transmissions With The Deceased
by Friedrich Juergenson

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50 CHAPTER 10

The first “public” demonstration – the invisible have their say - true rigors - Arne becomes rigorous

I knew Dr. Bjorkhem’s name for many years. I had read about his experiments with deep hypnosis. This highly talented researcher had a doctor’s degree in Philosophy, Theology and Medicine, and I thought that as a psychiatrist and parapsychologist he would be able to recognize the true meaning of my contacts. Since Dr. Bjorkhem’s name was well known beyond the borders of Sweden, and he was presumably subjected to a heavy workload, I had my concerns that I would not be able to get through to him.

To my surprise, a very positive telephone conversation took place between us. One doesn’t need to use a lot of words with this man, in order for him to grasp the meaning of things. Dr. Bjorkhem promised to visit me at my home in Stockholm on Monday, December 28, 1959.

Besides Dr. Bjorkhem, I decided also to invite a young friend and his wife, Arne Weisse, from the Swedish Broadcasting Company, with whom I produced numerous radio broadcasts. In addition, my sister Elly was present, who was staying with us over the Christmas holidays, and my sister-in-law Annica, whom I had especially invited for this gathering.

Our guests arrived at 6.00 p.m. sharp. After a little snack, we moved to the family room where we sat awhile and carried on our conversations. Even though there was an up-beat mood, you could sense a certain tension becoming thicker in the room.

51 Personally, I was feeling a little unsure. I found myself in comparison to the painful position of a theater director who doesn’t have a clue if his cast will appear for the scheduled performance or not.

I sat as far away as possible from the recorder and the switched-on microphone for most of the time next to Dr. Bjorkhem.

Following a collective wish, I activated the “record” switch on the tape recorder, while the conversations of the people present did not cease. The tape recording was running directly over the microphone in the presence of seven witnesses and in full electrical illumination. Since I’m going to be describing numerous recordings that were recorded in a different technical mode, I will limit this reports to the essentials of this first “public” recording.

It was about 7:30 in the evening when I turned the equipment on to record, and at the same time I exclaimed “Now!” Later when we listened to the tape, we discovered that a loud male voice preceded me and clearly interjected “Poskala!” but none of us had perceived this. So, with the name of a Swedish town, we began our recordings.

As our youngest son Peter entered the family room for a moment, a woman’s voice that called him by a very special nickname remarked on his appearance. The lady voice spoke German and Swedish, but one could detect a Finnish accent in both languages. Her message was of a purely private character and need not be reported here.

After a little while, a elderly sounding male voice, a bit nasal but distinguished, said: “…tanto parties…” We conversed only in Swedish, and I had just answered my sister’s question, when I said “monga, monga”, which means “many, many”. On the tape followed 52 “tanto parties”, which was a combination of the Italian word “tanto” (many) and the English word “parties”. This seemed to be a continuation of my answer. Since none of us actually heard the voices, we continued uninhibited with our conversation.

What followed now was very strange. One of the ladies had directed a question to Dr. Bjorkhem, who answered in his calm fashion. On the tape however, a completely different series of words could be heard on top of Dr. Bjorkhem’s voice. He never said, but we heard “Stackars lilla Bjork!…” (Poor little Bjorky!) Possibly this was a reference to Dr. Bjorkhem’s grave heart problems that thanks to his self-control was unnoticeable to others.

The same female voice that called Peter by his nickname appeared later again, and in a short pause she managed to call out loud and clear “tanner – tanner!” Since no one had heard this during the recording, the surprise was great when it was audible during the playback of the tape.

This clear voice phenomenon, that by the way sounded a little mechanical, had somehow left Arne Weisse taken aback, because he suddenly got up, placed himself in front of the microphone and loudly ordered our invisible guests to leave the house.

I tried to deflect this embarrassing incident with a little humor explaining with a smile that we had all gathered here precisely for the purpose of listening to these voices. I jokingly remarked that we should be polite towards our unknown visitors. Inside however, I was shocked, for I feared that Arne had driven my “cast” away.

53 As the tape recorder was switched to “record” again, I asked aloud the question, if there was anything we could do for our unseen friends and if anything is actually expected of us.

Annica suggested a short silent pause, which after, we sat for a few minutes without making a sound, and then I replayed this part of the tape. There, from the quiet of the room, sounded that tireless woman’s voice whispering in German with deep emphasis: “You are only human…”

For a while nothing remarkable happened, and we continued our lively conversation in an exited babble of voices. I told Arne about the “exhaling” incident, when the (then) unknown voice said, “so cold”.

Arne grabbed the microphone again.

“Where is Tanner?” he asked a few times in his clear strong voice. “I Sverige!” (In Sweden!), came a quiet answer.

“I don’t believe anything about you!” added Arne energetically, who had not heard the answer yet. “You don’t exist at all! How can you answer when you can’t possibly give an answer?”

“Nonsense!…” replied the same voice as we heard during replay of the tape.

“Where is it cold?” he persisted and repeated the question several times, but there was no answer.

No doubt, most of us were feeling ill at ease. The uncertainty, or better said the fear of the unknown made itself felt in the room. You could clearly sense that the mood grew tense.

54 Later when Dr. Bjorkhem and my sister-in-law Annica had left, Arne and I decided to conduct another recording session in the studio.

One of the ladies, I believe it was Arne’s wife, suggested that we should sit still and let the equipment run for a while.

What resulted from that was peculiar. We had sat still for three minutes. On the tape you can hear muffled street-noises. Suddenly a loud male voice sounded resolutely and with clear emphasis and said, “Grecola!”

For a few seconds it was quiet, then Arne’s wife interrupted the silence and said with resonating voice: “If I wasn’t scared, I would go into the kitchen. Monika would you go with me?” Els-Marie had laid her little son to sleep in the kitchen. Only after three years would I find out what “Grecola” means, and this was through Dr. Alf Ahlberg who had visited me in 1963. “Grecola” was a term used in the old Roman Empire as a term of deprecation. It was a Latin expression for a fearful Greek. Possibly it could be rendered as: “Scared little rabbit.”

Here I would especially like to point out that with most recordings the meaning of particular, seemingly senseless words would emerge only much later, sometimes years after the fact. No matter how trivial and incoherent some words or pieces of sentences sound they all are hiding a particular meaning or purpose.

The reader has probably asked himself or herself the question, for example, what the words “tanner – tanner” mean? We had also in vainly racked our brains about this, but none of us could find a satisfying explanation. In the year 1963, I visited a lady from central 55 Sweden. Her fiancée had taken his life, and in her desperation the girl was about to do the same.

In such a case, clever suggestions, consoling phrases and sanctimonious exhortations don’t really help. Only one’s genuine sympathy and true understanding can help loosen and lessen the pain of loss and isolation.

Many telephone conversations took place between us later, and one day I received a book from her, written by an English scholar, Dr. L. Johnson, titled: “The Big Problem”. The book had appeared before World War Two. The lady had directed my attention to a particular page, where among other statements, a message was given by one of deceased through a medium. “Research all possible ways of wireless connections! We (the deceased) are preparing ourselves to reach you in this way. It only depends on the wavelength…”

As I was leafing through the book, my gaze suddenly fell on the name “Tanner” printed twice on the same page, it was the name of a well-known English medium.

Now back to the 28th of December 1959, when Arne and I were starting a recording session in my studio.

We left the ladies, Arne’s wife, Els-Marie, Monika and my sister Elly, in the living room, carried the tape recorder into the studio and set up the microphone in the corner. We closed the door behind us and switched on the equipment. Arne was pacing back and forth restlessly. “How, how cold!” said someone half aloud in German as it turned out when we listened to the tape. Arne kept up his lively pacing because neither of us had heard that remark which was captured only by the tape recorder.

56 “It seems like they expect us to talk…” said Arne, “…but then again the voices need a break for a while” he continued in a half tone.

“No!” interrupted a German male voice, again only on the tape.

“No, at the equipment we stay…” here the voice switched to Swedish, “…from morning until evening into the night.” Then she finished in German and said, “So cold it is in you!…”

The last sentence was said with a loud voice, no doubt it gave a direct answer to Arne’s repeated question.

Two audio experts of the Technical University in Stockholm examined the tape recording at a later date.

I will refer to this subsequently.

The voice that said, “So cold it is in you” sounded a little hoarse. She really reminded me of the male voice that in the beginning called out “tanto – parties”. As our ladies listened to the recording, it created quite a stir. Everyone was talking at the same time, only Arne sat there deep in thought. He later admitted that he had understood the meaning of the answer. You get cold inside when you are afraid of something. Before our guests departed, Arne turned the tape recorder on again. We found ourselves again alone in the studio, and I said something like the following: “We humans are like that, before reason takes a hold that there could be another living-plane, all proof won’t help.”

“But Friedel”, interrupted Arne, “I think so…” “Goer Ni?” (Swedish for “Do you really?”), a male voice interjected with amusement. This ended our experiment on the evening of December 28th .