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Voice Transmissions With The Deceased
by Friedrich Juergenson
251 Postscript
The Case of Rigmor Andersson
A year has passed since I finished this book in Pompeii. I have returned once again to my beloved Italian countryside, this time with the intention of participating in the excavation of a house in Pompeii. I have actually succeeded in obtaining the necessary resources and authorization for the excavation from the authorities concerned. My task consists of making a documentary film for Swedish television that will cover the excavating process from the first turning up of the sod to the complete excavation of the house. The selected house with its facade already excavated is located very close to my terrace.
It is strange that at the time when our excavation plan began to take on concrete form, in June of 1967, there occurred a tragic event in
To put this back into perspective, I have to ask the reader to refer back to Chapter 46, in which I wrote, i.e.: “Today there is new hope in the
I copied and listened to most of Berndt’s recordings and was certain 252 that the voices recorded by Berndt, which incidentally showed the same multilingual character as my own, originated with people who had passed on. However, the voice of the late Mrs. Eivor Andersson could not be heard in any of the recordings, it was missing completely. I could not conceive why such a loving wife and mother consistently avoided such contacts. Berndt had told me that his daughter Rigmor greatly resembled her mother in her looks and demeanor. She had the same mild manners, was kind and patient, it was clear that the father nourished a deep affection for his younger daughter. My sister Elly, who was a good friend of the Andersson family, told me one day that Rigmor had become engaged. Afterwards half a year passed and I did not hear any more from the Andersson's.
At the beginning of June, we were just sitting with visitors from Naples, my sister called me from Koeping (Sweden) in great agitation. She reported that Rigmor had been missing for four days and that authorities feared foul play. Two unsolved sex murders of women had recently taken place in Koeping. A missing person report issued by the police had been broadcast and police and army search teams were combing the surroundings of Koeping.
So much for Elly’s report. Since the Swedish press has covered the case extensively, it suffices that I summarize the following facts:
After eleven days Rigmor’s body was found on a forest slope. According to press report, she had been chocked to death. It turned out
The event seemed like an awful nightmare. I could only hope that the poor child did not suffer long; at any rate for her the worst had passed. However, I doubted that her father cold ever recover from this blow. 253 At the beginning, before the murder had been cleared up, the papers printed all kinds of speculations and it was hoped that she would be found alive. As I found out later from Berndt, he knew of the fate that had befallen Rigmor from the first day on. I will return to this statement later.
Right after my sister’s call, I postponed the Pompeii project and decided to devote my time and attention to the Rigmor case. At first I let several days pass before I took up contact with my invisible friends. I hesitated for the following reasons. If someone had murdered Rigmor, it was the task of the police to find the murderer.
My own task in connection with the tape recorder contacts was to stabilize the bridge, certainly not in operating a crime information bureau. If Rigmor had died a violent death she would need time to recover from the shock. I knew from experience that even people who had died as the result of illness had to overcome orientation difficulties in the initial period after their passing and that they sometimes were in a considerably confused state.
I felt that I had to act very objectively in this matter. Rigmor’s voice had a distinctive warm timbre and she spoke with a regional
Around October 6, 1966, I started with some hesitation to take up tape recording contacts in the hope that Lena, my assistant, would give me some tips. I need to emphasize here that at this point the question as to whether Rigmor had died or whether she had left her home for some reason had not as yet been cleared up.
Initially I tried to reach Lena via the microphone in the following way: I voiced a question into the microphone and, as usual, employed that 7 ½ i.p.s., 19 cm/sec speed. After the recording of my question I switched the speed to 3 ¾ i.p.s., 9.5 cm/sec and listened to Lena’s reaction. I knew from experience that Lena spoke in whispers and gave her answers either in gushing haste or sometimes in a dragging fashion. It was evident that Lena was using certain frequencies of my own voice and external noises. She did this in a masterful fashion taking into account a certain stretching of the time frame that would result from the switching to the slower 3 ¾ i.p.s. speed.
When I put the question as to Rigmor’s fate for the first time, I was expecting as usual Lena’s whispers on replay of the tape, that is to say I concentrated my attention on a certain hissing frequency and paid no attention to the other sounds. To my great surprise I did not receive any kind of a direct reply at that time, except for a whispered sentence at the beginning: “This evening via the radio…”
A little disappointed I decided to start the radio contact in the evening. I was in a rather tense mood. The case had not been solved by any 255 means and the possibility that the unfortunate girl was perhaps still alive could not be excluded. It was this agonizing uncertainty that made objective listening more difficult. Thus it happened that I completely overheard a clear reply that was given at the time. Only half a year later I discovered that which I had missed in Pompeii. It happened in the following way:
Since my excavations had been delayed considerably for various technical reasons, I decided to devote my spare time to a thorough examination of the Rigmor case. At the time, Florence and northern Italy were affected by devastating floods, and heavy thunderstorms had hit southern Italy. I had borrowed a larger tape recorder and whenever thunder and lightning had subsided outside, I replayed my recordings of June 1966. I try to listen in a completely unbiased manner when I replay an old tape recording for control purposes. I listen to the tape inch by inch, more or less as if I had never heard it before. It is not difficult to achieve this mental attitude because it is impossible to remember all of the details.
I had copied my recordings pertaining to the Rigmor case on both tracks of a large reel of 540 meters. It so happened that the registering mechanism of the recorder I had borrowed in Pompeii did not agree with the time sequence numbers I had noted, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it forced me to start literally afresh.
I had much time on my hands and was in a harmonious mood. Moreover, I was rested and could devote my entire attention to the monitoring of the tape recording.
As already mentioned right at the beginning there appeared Lena’s whispers: “this evening via the radio…”
256 But before I had concluded my question to Lena, and this is the essential point, a clear male voice came through and said quickly but firmly “Rigmor dead!” The voice, reminiscent of Felix Kersten, spoke, it did not whisper.
It happened to me only in rare cases that voices I recorded at normal speed could be heard with equal clarity clearly after switching to the slower speed of 9.5 sec/min. This is an extremely curious phenomenon because if you consider that the recording was made at a speed of 19 cm/sec, all voices and sounds that were recorded along with the questions I put in my own voice should have been lowered by an entire octave automatically after switching the speed to 9.5 cm/sec. However, the male voice that said “Rigmor dead!” spoke in a normal tone of voice exactly as if it had been recorded originally at a speed of 9.5 cm/sec, which represents an absolute technical impossibility.
But the voice was present, everyone could hear it. However, I had overheard it in my haste and my narrow concentration focus at the
On June 11, 1966 eleven days after Rigmor’s disappearance, some young people engaged in outdoor training exercises discovered Rigmor’s body in the woods. Early morning the next day Berndt Anderson phoned. Somehow internally I had been prepared for his call. Berndt did not say much, he identified himself and lapsed into silence. I answered that I was expecting his call, that I had already started taping contacts a short time earlier and that I would do my best to bring about a connection. Then I asked him to visit me in Nysund to which Berndt agreed, adding “but only after the funeral”.
257 That which was not spoken during this short conversation made me understand the decisive significance a contact with the departed held for a person in deep grief. Especially in Berndt’s case it could only be a personal identification of the departed that would ease his suffering.
I knew from experience that a contact could be made but never forced. It was now my task to establish and strengthen the needed contact with the greatest patience and persistence possible. In other words I needed to feel my way in the dark to reconnoiter a suitable means by which the desired contact could be established.
The same evening I turned on the radio and began to monitor the frequencies as usual. As I mentioned already earlier, such a procedure cannot be undertaken successfully without the help of an assistant on the other side. Since I depended personally on Lena’s cooperation, I first needed to get into contact with her that is to say to understand correctly her mostly hasty whispers. I must confess that in spite of my eight years of experience I do not always succeed right away in understanding Lena’s words without a doubt.
Surely Lena is also facing major technical difficulties, not only due to electromagnetic interference, but also many other factors that are still unknown to me. The fact alone that now and then Lena is able to speak clearly and distinctly, but in other cases literally tosses out her communications in hasty and fragmented parts of words and sentences, speaks for itself. I often got the impression as if our time frame, perhaps measured in seconds, was of decisive significance for the departed even if a favorable contact could be established. One got the impression that all the participants were in an extreme hurry, as if they had to use a very 258 brief time window very quickly, like calling out a greeting to a friend from a passing car. Fortunately one can also establish clear contacts at normal tape speed without these time expansions.
These contacts provide the best evidence, they are direct hits that do not require any additional comments. A message of this kind brings to those who experience it not just the fresh fragrance of eternity, but is addressed here directly by immortality.
In the evening after Berndt Andersson’s telephone call, I sat before my radio receiver when Lena cut in suddenly, and shouted quickly and emphatically: “Maintain contact!”
I switched on the tape recorder immediately, regulated the sound level and listened attentively to the sounds of the ether.
Let me emphasize the following at this point: We should not forget that on such occasions even if the reception is clear, only a portion of the communications can be understood right away.
The process not only takes place too quickly, but in most cases there is also static and atmospheric interference to contend with, which can confuse an untrained ear. Only after a recording has been completed can an objective and thorough control be accomplished. This can take lots of time even given clear reception.
In short, here is the result of the recording. Fortunately this time there was no atmospheric interference. One only heard that characteristic hissing sound that occurs almost always in the case of direct contacts. Then came Lena’s emphatic shouts: “Lena, Lena! – take up contact – radar contact!…”
259 For a little while all was quiet in the ether. From somewhere in the distance, I cannot put it more precisely, a female voice started to sing or better said, formed itself out of a ringing sound that suddenly changed to a clear text, which was recited at the same time in German and Italian.
I knew this melody, it was a typical sound sequence that was often used by the departed, but I had never before heard the vocalist, a clear, nearly child-like soprano. The whole thing consisted of a humorous greeting to me that said in translation: “Pelle (that was my nickname at home), honored Pelle! The dead greet you – Skal! A skal for the young man!”
Immediately following the song a male voice interjected in German, emphatically and urgently with a message that seemed to be directed at Lena: “When she talks with him, bring a message!”
At this point I accidentally cut off the recording. But who was that clear soprano that had greeted me in that typical polyglot language? As mentioned, I did not know the voice, at any rate I had never before heard this female sing. Could it possibly have been Rigmor? After all that had happened to her I could not imagine what the occasion was for this unfettered cheerfulness?
I put a few questions to Lena, but did not receive a reply. “We are working keep the machine going…” was all that Lena said.
On June 16th, in the evening, I switched on the radio once again that was connected to the tape recorder. This time Lena announced “direct contact” with an acquaintance that had recently died. She mentioned his family name clearly but his voice got lost in the noise of the ether. 260 A couple of friends greeted me. All of them seemed well-informed about my plans in Pompeii. A male voice called out quickly: “Here from your Pompeii – one hears Bojevsky”.
Then sounded the voice of the old Jew who added in Swedish: “Farewell, I await in Naples!”
A friend of our oldest son Sven who was visiting us in Nysund, asked my permission to participate in one of my recording sessions. He had lost his father a few years ago and I agreed willingly. In sum: the young man actually was greeted several times. I am not sure whether the greetings came from his father. At any rate he was addressed twice by his first name and once by his rather unusual nickname. I have rarely seen an individual weep as emotionally during recording sessions.
When I was alone later on, I once again turned on the equipment. Lena announced “direct contact”, but I was disappointed to hear the voice of a female Russian announcer. My first impulse was to change the frequency, but I knew from experience that Lena did not usually make mistakes and I let he tape roll on. Here is the result of this recording:
It started with a known male voice announcing in German and Swedish “Here is Sweden!” Almost simultaneously Lena signaled “direct contact”. A male voice called out hurriedly “girl!” Afterwards the well-known hissing sound through which one could hear the voice of the female Russian announcer. Her last words were: “With the following word…”
At this moment came the clear, girlish voice, the same soprano that had greeted me previously. “Friedrich, I want to help”, she sang 261 distinctly in Swedish. Then came a longer pause and the same voice singing in German from what sounded like a greater distance: “Believe it, we are coming!”
Lena signaled quickly “radar contacts!” which was followed by a purely personal message for myself. Three friends addressed me almost simultaneously. The clear soprano emerged again, her voice sounded a bit agitated and she sang in German: “Friedel is looking for us!”
And then came the high point of the transmission, when the same voice broke through suddenly, moved to the forefront reminiscent of the way a particular scene is emphasized in a film by means of a zoom lens, and sang with a loud and clear voice in German and Swedish: “I need help – I am with Freddie!” With this the transmission ended.
Now it became my task to determine who had been the soprano. Since Lena did not provide any information I had to find out for myself. One thing was certain, namely that the singing voice with its high, girlish tone came through much clearer than the other voices. Its higher frequency broke through the lower sounds and static effortlessly. This too must have been the reason that the young girl had selected a song as the medium for her message.
Also, she must have known me because she called me twice Pelle and Friedrich, and one time Freddie. I was especially interested in the Swedish words for “help”, because in both cases one could distinguish a broad regional (Vaestman) inflection. Could the singer have been Rigmor after all? My suppositions seemed justified but it would be easier for Rigmor’s father to make the determination.
At every radio contact in the past few weeks I had steadfastly addressed Rigmor in my thoughts with a request that she come through with a message for her father. I was fully conscious that her 262 appearance on a tape would be extremely significant, not only for her father and sisters, but also for all those who had lost their next of kin in a sudden accident. The circumstance too that Rigmor’s tragic fate had been covered so extensively by the Swedish press could be a positive factor in the case of a tape contact.
The sentence “Friedrich, I want to help!” did it not sound like a direct promise of future collaboration? If the soprano turned out to be Rigmor, she had recovered unusually quickly from the shock of her passing. Just the circumstance that she made use of the polyglot language of the dead indicated an alert and elastic assimilation skill because as far as I knew she had never been taught Italian during here life on earth. If the connection and cooperation with Rigmor could be strengthened further we would receive an insight into conditions on the other side if someone who had been murdered a short time ago could report on tape for the first time about herself. And not only that, her testimony would help us recognize the effect of a violent act on the human psyche, to help us track down the laws of cause and effect.
I waited impatiently for Berndt Andersson’s visit, but Rigmor’s funeral had been delayed because of the autopsy. But then something happened like magic that put the Rigmor case into a clear perspective. I received a transmission that vastly exceeded my expectations. I had no idea that this would be just the beginning of a planned series of transmissions, which I would receive in the course of the next eight days.
It was June 21, 1966, the evening of the summer solstice around eight p.m. As usual I had connected the tape recorder to the radio and was 263 turning the dial gingerly in the hope of establishing a connection with Lena. After a little while, Lena appeared on a frequency that had almost no interference. After Lena came a female voice known to me speaking in Swedish and Italian. She was conversing with someone about the vice of smoking.
He had the impression that the conversation was carried on in the foreground near a microphone. A little while later a male voice became audible saying: “Friedel – Maelar is listening!” As I had mentioned earlier, the name Maelar or Maelarhoejden, a suburb of Stockholm on Lake Maelar, represented a code word for a special transmission center on the other side, from there, I was told, originated all of the transmissions that were destined for me. The same male voice continued in forced haste so quickly that I could catch only a part of the message. Then came a distinct change in the tone character of his transmission. A mild female voice came through the hissing sound saying in Swedish “try…” in a tone of affectionate encouragement.
When I heard the voice, I had a flash of clear certainty: This is Rigmor’s mother! I did not know Mrs. Eivor Anderson when she was alive. The few sentences that I tape recorded after her death were certainly not enough to allow for a clear identification of her voice. But I knew intuitively with complete certainty that I had just heard her voice. The rapid male voice came through again in German, Swedish and Italian. I could not understand the entire text but it seemed to make comments about tape recorder, my radio and myself. At the same time it seemed to me that someone was being encouraged to make contact. The voice of a young woman suddenly sounded in the foreground, 264 saying shyly and with some hesitation in Swedish: “Fred – this is
It was a wonderful to hear Rigmor’s warm voice at that moment. She spoke exactly as in life with her broad Vaestman inflection.
Right afterwards a female voice began to speak in German and Swedish, but I cold understand only a part of her words. She said emphatically: ”Rigmor you have to (go to) Fred…Pelle speak German also”.
Again the rapid male voice called to me in three languages: “Frederico I will report quickly. Eivor (which was Rigmor’s mother)…the dead…”
Here Lena interjected a quick whisper: “Take up contact mother” and then added distinctly, “one loves, one has peace…”
In the foreground again Rigmor’s voice, speaking slowly and with pauses: “Fred…I have…Munthe…” and then added with emotion “I regret…”
A strange organ chord was heard and then the voice of our friend Arno Falck half singing in Swedish with a Norwegian accent: “Where does one get the bill?”
A new chord and the same rapid male voice from before interjected again, saying emphatically in Swedish: “Rigmor think about karma!…”
In the foreground Rigmor sang pensively in Swedish: “This is karma” adding rapidly, “hungry…” The rest was drowned out by background noises.
Once again the lively male voice conveying its message in a rhythmic 265 German and Swedish cadence: “Federico, an important communication, the Maelar is in touch with Moelnbo, keep contact, Rigmor reports Mikael…we are coming through the radio, we bridge the apparatus of the dead…we bridge…Lena has the connection and the interval. We bring through the radio…examine the radio…” and then at the end with special emphasis: “Rigmor wants a contact…”
This was the result of the first examination of the tape.
Even though a part of the transmission was affected by atmospherics and cold not be heard clearly without filter and amplifier, it was of unique significance.
I called Berndt and reported my contacts briefly. Berndt promised to come to Nysund, Sunday, June 26. In the course of the next weeks I continued to receive detailed daily communications by radio. With
Berndt visited me Sunday morning, June 26th. I purposely had not shared with him the details of my recordings. I wanted to convince myself of the extent to which Berndt would be able to recognize and understand the voices and the text. Unfortunately, Berndt had to return the same day to Koeping, that is why we decided not to make new recordings together but instead to subject my recordings of the 21st of June to a joint examination.
266 It was a nice, sunny morning and we were having coffee together in the parlor. Our conversation involved mainly small talk and I had the decided feeling that Berndt wanted to tell me something important, and was hesitating perhaps awaiting a suitable moment such as a question on my part. I don’t know whether it was telepathy, intuition or accident, but in any case I suddenly turned to Berndt and asked him directly: “Was the uncertainty about Rigmor’s fate not more painful than the naked fact?”
On the evening of June 1st, around 9 p.m., I was lying on top of the bed, I was tired and sought to relax a bit. I don’t remember what I was thinking of, but I was awake. Suddenly I was seized by an acute shock, a mortal agony, an icy fear of death and I knew with dreadful clarity: Rigmor is dying! I know that words fail me here, but the certainty of Rigmor’s death was so real that I could not move on the bed, I was as if paralyzed and then a new experience also washed over me, a feeling of calm and comfort: “Rigmor is with her mother! She is well…all the fear and pain is over…”
A longer pause ensued. I used the occasion to ask: “Did you call Koeping right away?”
“No, I didn’t do it, perhaps because I did not 267 want to extinguish the last spark of hope in me; it was a kind of selfdelusion and faintheartedness. Berndt was silent for a while.
“And what happened then?” I interrupted the stillness.
“Marianne, my oldest daughter, called me after a few days. Rigmor was living by herself at the time in our apartment in Koeping. Marianne was called from Rigmor’s place of work. For me everything was clear. We notified the police. The rest you know already.”
“Did you have any idea who the murderer was?” I asked after a while.
Berndt nodded. “I suspected it, but I did not want believe it. Janne was a nice boy, but when I saw his scratched up face, I knew. I hoped that he would confess, because it pained me that Rigmor’s body was somewhere in the woods subjected to the elements and possibly tainted by animals. As you know, this was not the case.”
The rest I knew. The newspapers did not fail to cover in great detail all the elements of the tragedy. The bridegroom confessed his crime the day of the funeral. I knew that Berndt’s action in this case was of decisive significance. I also knew that in spite of his great grief, Berndt had forgiven the murderer out of human compassion. He felt sorry for the young man who had gone berserk and committed the crime in a state of mental confusion. If you reflect on the tragedy it became difficult to decide whom fate had dealt the hardest blow. Perhaps the dead could give us a hint. We arose and went to my study in the upper story of the villa.
From here one had a nice view of the lake. One could work undisturbed here and enjoy the tranquility of the countryside. I had prepared the tape with Rigmor’s recording and now 268 switched on the recorder to play. I knew that Berndt had acute hearing due to his own tape recordings. And one more thing: Berndt knew the hidden pitfalls of wishful thinking and for this reason was extremely critical of himself. When the clear voice of the soprano came through, Berndt asked me to repeat the segment several times. He understood the text just as I had written it down, but was not entirely sure that the voice was that of Rigmor.
“If she would talk, I would recognize her voice immediately”, he said on reflection.
When the soprano appeared the next time, Berndt moved his chair directly in front of the tape recorder. After I had played him the song several times, Berndt could get the text perfectly he said pensively: “This broad hjaelpa really sounds like Vaestman dialect, perhaps it is really Rigmor…”
“Wait a moment”, I interrupted “now comes the recording of June 21st.” Berndt was hunched over the tape recorder. His entire being reflected utmost concentration. I pushed the play button and let the tape roll. When the mild female voice spoke the word “Try” Berndt jerked. “Once again!” he called. His voice was filled with happy surprise. After I had replayed the word several times, Berndt leaned back exhausted in his chair. I knew already what he would say now and I was delighted in advance.
“That was Eivor!” he shouted in agitation. “That was her voice. I know it for sure!”
“Listen to what follows now!” I interjected, and then came the high point of the transmission: “Fred, this is Rigmor Andersson…” I don’t know any more how many times we replayed this segment, in any case both of use were quite exhausted by the afternoon.
269 “Which part of the recording made the greatest impression on you?”, I asked Berndt.
“The vivacious sound of the voices!” he replied spontaneously. “Of course also the content of the words, but above all, the voices themselves. There is doubt. The dead are alive!”
“So Eivor’s voice did not change?” I asked. “Not at all! If anything she sounds perhaps a little more vital than in the last year of her illness, but the timbre has remained the same just as with Rigmor. Beyond anything I am so happy that both are together now.” Berndt promised to return next Saturday. When we said goodbye he looked really happy.
In the course of the next week I was occupied entirely with the tape recordings. Mostly the transmissions came in the evening. Since I am not a night owl, I always started early the next morning to check the transmissions of the previous evening. The day was not long enough. Never before did I receive so many lengthy transmissions.
The loudness and clarity of the communications were quite uneven. There were recordings of superb clarity but also those in which the voices overlapped and spoke at the same time. I received a number of personal messages, mostly from old friends who came from Russia, Estonia and what was then Palestine.
270 And right afterwards came the voice of my mother who called out to me: “My Friedel, you are very tired!” Actually it had turned very late and I had worked hard all day. Incidentally, I was frequently warned by Lena not to work at night.
The reason for this is not only lies in the fact that one overworks one’s hearing and nerves, when one is tired one loses the capacity for objective evaluations. The same day, June 28th, I had recorded a strange sentence spoken by an older man and that in translation says the following: “Rigmor lives after the flesh (physical body) much more comfortably.” I had not heard this voice earlier.
The next day, something very interesting happened. As the reader might recall, I have often reported on the activity of my assistant, Lena. Her engagement is unique and invaluable. Without it no radio contacts of any kind would be possible and since Lena also provides important communications over the microphone, hers is a leading role in this bridge building effort between our world and the hereafter.
Although I had been in touch with Lena almost daily in the course of eight years, I had not managed until now to identify her without question. The evening of June 29th I received a very extensive communication. Several friends spoke, among them Hugo F. It was a purely private transmission. Suddenly a female voice known to me spoke up and said in broken German with an undeniable Russian accent: “You are hearing an opinion from the dead.” And then she told me who Lena had been when she was alive.
It was a happy surprise, but at the same time I was a little puzzled by the strange circumstance that many of the departed change their names after death. As concerns Lena, I will maintain her pseudonym, she 271 was a mature and highly spiritual person throughout her life on earth. Her whole being radiated kindness and candor, I cannot say it any better. Despite her subtle sensibilities and clairvoyant talents she had a practical bent and was able to master in a sovereign fashion the daily gray life in the Soviet Russia of that period. Her mother was Russian, her father was a Swede. Lena was married to one of my childhood friends in Odessa, and after I left Russia in 1925 all contact with her ended. I only know that she was separated from her husband by the political events of the day and I have no knowledge of her subsequent fate.
On July 1st I received a series of interesting communications. A female voice reported extensively about Rigmor. Among other things she reported that Rigmor had received a guide who was going to instruct her in German and that the greatest problems were behind her. After a while Rigmor’s voice sounded. She sang happily in Swedish: Pelle – Rigmor! Pelle is struggling with the radio – Pelle? Can you help my father?…”
I was almost shocked. Here was a young woman murdered a little while ago who sang happily, even a little teasingly…was this death?
The next day, a Saturday, June 2nd, Berndt came to visit. When I played him the male voice that had said calmly: “Rigmor lives more comfortably after the flesh!” Berndt called our spontaneously: “That’s my father, he died a short while ago!”
At Rigmor’s song Berndt moved right up to the tape recorder, his eyes were shiny. “That’s Rigmor, her voice, I recognize it!”
I was especially pleased that Berndt could understand every text word for word without me having to explain the text in advance. 272 He even managed to contextually get the German, Russian and Italian words without understanding their content. We spent the entire afternoon at the tape recorder. After we had consumed a light meal, we agreed to make a joint recording. I turned on the radio and got a contact immediately.
A soft female voice sang a song in three languages. Lena was also present but there was atmospheric interference. After both of us had understood the text, Berndt was convinced that the singer was his wife Eivor, then something very strange happened. The lady sang about Berndt, she mentioned a day in Dalarma and concluded her song with the following words: “Berndt is now haunting the radio…”
As Berndt told me later she was talking about a trip to Dalarma. Eivor, Berndt and a mutual friend had parked their caravan at
Later we recorded several more voices, most of them purely personal messages. First of all came a male voice that shouted briefly: “Berndt, d’aer Einar.” Berndt jumped up and called out happily surprised: “Einar Johansson – my dear friend! He was with us that day in Dalna, he died just a little while ago!”
That evening I could not fall asleep. I sat at the open window and contemplated the play of colors on the horizon. The lake stretched before me like a shiny mirror, the night was still and warm. It was the hour when the green gleam of night begins to turn timidly into the morning glow. Suddenly I had the urge to do a tape recording. It was a strange impulse because I hardly ever searched for radio contact after 10 p.m. 273 But this time I turned on the tape recorder.
Since I knew from experience that Lena could not be reached late in the evening, I did not turn the dial but left everything to chance. There was not the slightest interference, no hissing sound, static, voices or music. Suddenly I heard a metallic switching sound and a male voice known to me called out, no, recited clear and sharp in a kind of half song: “Burchardt – Moelnbo, we are waiting for Lena!” Then the voice of my childhood friend Burchardt came through and chanted clearly: “Lena has Sweden.” (He mispronounced Sweden as Schwaerige, instead of the correct name Sverige, which was typical for him). After a little while came a soft switching sound and then Lena’s voice, a little apologetically: “So many people…”
Afterwards it became entirely still. Was it one of these mystical radar contacts of which Lena spoke so frequently?
At this point I would like to clarify a concept that can otherwise lead to much misunderstanding. By radar or radar-screen one normally understands a movable antenna-like instrument that emits electromagnetic impulses in certain directions. These impulses are reflected back like an echo to their point of origin if they hit a compact mass, aircraft, mountain or cloud and indicate the object they have hit by means of illuminated points on the radar screen.
In case of darkness or fog the radar screen serves as a substitute for the human eye. If the departed use a similar instrument it would mean that our world and we are normally invisible to the other side. In this connection I recall a communication that I recorded here in
274 I regret today that I was not trained in electronics and physics. I am sure that an experienced physicist could improve communication with the dead significantly by means of directional antennas, filters and loudspeakers. It would already be great progress if we could achieve an uninterrupted reception more or less like it happened on that quiet night in July. The next day, Berndt returned to Koeping. He looked pleased and relieved. A week later, my wife, my sister and I left for Pompeii.
I have finished this book several times, but unanticipated events forced me time and again to continue the account.
When I returned to Sweden for a short while in the spring of 1967, Berndt visited me over a weekend in Nysund. On this occasion we took up contacts with the tape recorder that proved very positive. Among others, Eivor Andersson greeted her husband with the same melody she had sung the previous year. Also Rigmor appeared in song and recited the same with the same pitch and rhythm in German and Swedish.
The cheerful tone frequently used by the departed no doubt has a deeper reason. One should seek the explanation for it not only in the fact that they have successfully overcome a “serious operation”, but rather in that they see and grasp the true nature of suffering from an entirely different perspective. They know not only the fleeting nature of fear and suffering but also how mankind is constantly entangled in worry and misery.
It would lead to negative results if the dead were only to console us and to respond to our sorrow. “We live – we are happy!”, is the kernel of their message. 275 This actually tells us everything: the immortal nature of life; the transforming power of death and the existence of the bridge between our world and the hereafter. If we could only comprehend the true sense of these words, we would be free to change our attitude towards life fundamentally. The essence of life reveals itself in timeless creation. Where fear and sorrow prevail, spirit cannot unfold freely.
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