Mark L. Cowden is the author of Spirit Voices: The First Live Conversation Between Worlds, a book that ought to be causing a stir on the paranormal scene.
Cowden specialises in audio technology, and in this capacity joined the Northern Ireland Paranormal Society (now renamed ‘PSI Ireland’). Members of the team, including Cowden, featured in a BBC television programme, Northern Ireland’s Greatest Haunts, which has so far completed two series.
Mark L. Cowden, 'Spirit Voices: The First Live Conversation Between Worlds' (Anomalist Books, 2011). Click image for more information.
In episode one of the second series, during the investigation of a supposedly haunted location, Cowden succeeds in using specially adapted equipment to record the ‘voice’ of a spirit replying to questions asked in a separate room by mediums Marion Goodfellow and Andy Matthews. When Goodfellow later hears Cowden’s recordings, which support the inaudible communications she claimed to be receiving, she breaks down in tears. ‘For the first time ever,’ explains Cowden, ‘other people could hear exactly what Marion heard when she was communicating with a spirit’ (p. 145). A clip of this incident, and the full episode of the show, are currently available on YouTube. Cowden describes how he was able to repeat this feat at a second location, later in the series.
However, the book is more than a description of a technological process. It is mainly the story of how Cowden awoke to his own psychic talents. ‘[T]he recorded evidence I was getting had little to do with the equipment,’ he writes. ‘I was getting results because I was evolving in the right direction with my own spirituality’ (p. 150-1). The right direction, according to Cowden, is to undertake paranormal investigation in aid of a greater good, which involves liberating earthbound spirits and awakening ordinary people to the reality of spirit.
Although in the television programme he is portrayed as a member of a sceptical paranormal team, in his book it is clear he has come to regard himself as a spiritual practitioner, like the mediums. The only difference is in his use of electronic equipment to augment his psychical abilities. Otherwise, Cowden is swinging a pendulum, sensing energies, and receiving communications from entities just like any common or garden psychic. ‘I was becoming more interested in just how my intentions and my own spirit related to the success of my recordings’ (p. 119), he writes.
But just as sceptical materialists harbour untested assumptions, mediums and psychics can also do the same. Medium Andy Matthews, listening to Cowden’s recordings on the television show, comments that they are a clear demonstration of ‘intelligent contact’. Yet we have to question this, I think, because Cowden’s remarkable work foregrounds the important question of what a record of the paranormal actually is.
Not all ‘records’ are analogues or pictures of what they represent – such as a hologram, for instance. A web page is another example (one that I understand better), which is also not an image so much as a series of instructions for constructing itself on a specific device. (Select ‘View Source’ from your browser’s menu to see exactly what I mean. A web page isn’t an image; it’s code.)
Mark Cowden demonstrates his recording set-up. (YouTube clip. Click image to view.)
What if a ghost or spirit were something similar? I think there might be good reason for supposing that it is. Cowden, however, contrasts the intelligent communications he captured with another type of recording, which he aligns with the famous ‘Stone Tape’ theory of hauntings: ‘The voices didn’t seem to be interacting,’ he remarks of these. ‘I had tapped in on conversations conducted hundreds of years previously’ (p. 142). Clearly, Stone Tape phenomena would be images of past events. But what if the ‘intelligence’ manifested in the other type of recordings is not originating from some supposed mind behind the voice, but from the execution of a set of ‘instructions’? If a ghost were a bundle of meanings and feelings triggered to run on contact with a human consciousness, this might create an impression of intelligence, but it would be artificial.
This has certainly been my experience, when working with spirits of the dead and other discarnate entities. In spirits of the dead we encounter a very limited constellation of emotions and motivations. A living person can be different things to different people at different times, whereas the dead are trapped within a specific story. This is not a person; neither, in my view, can it really be considered an ‘intelligence’, it is only the remains of one. An animal has a far greater range of responses and a more expansive personality that what we ascribe to a ghost. That’s probably why it seems an act of kindness to help a ghost ‘move on’. Becoming nothing restores a ghost to a nature that is paradoxically more human than the obsessive and static collection of attributes we ordinarily suppose a ghost to be.
The same is true of other kinds of spirits and of deities. We turn to them for the attributes they offer. We couldn’t work with Ganesha, for instance, if he had the ability to one day become more like Kali – as a human might do, either willingly or unwillingly. Working with gods and spirits produces change, but our consciousness is what executes those changes, not the gods and spirits themselves. Our consciousness can turn itself to anything because it isn’t, in itself, anything. Ganesha’s clearance of obstacles, Kali’s cleansing destruction, and uncle Albert’s inability to realise he died in 1941 are all nowhere without a human consciousness that turns itself towards them and manifests them.
And yet Cowden’s achievement was to record voices. So surely something is actually out there, operating of its own accord? Watching the television programme, it’s not that Cowden recorded the specific words that Goodfellow claimed to hear (does she even claim to hear ‘words’?) but he certainly obtained responses that followed the gist of the conversation Goodfellow claimed to have. Just as every different type of web browser interprets the instructions for building a web page broadly the same, yet with slight differences, so it seems that Cowden rendered not an exact image of what Goodfellow clairvoyantly received, but something that conveys its general sense.
The utterances captured didn’t sound to me what we might expect from a speaker of eighteenth century English – the period in which had lived the historical person identified by the mediums as the ghost. Likewise, in Cowden’s book, when he divines the name ‘Darren’ for the spirit of a mill worker (p. 37), you have to wonder how common that name would have been back in the day. (Cowden doesn’t consider this and I’m no expert, but my guess is ‘possibly not very’.) And when a female spirit is recorded saying, ‘It’s okay’ (p. 156), then that word dates her to possibly no earlier than 1790, but – again – no comment is made on this.
The 'Philip' Experiment. A still from a dramatised reconstruction. (YouTube clip. Click image to view.)
If we assume that ghosts are actual people from history on another plane of existence, then such assumptions must stand or fall on details such as these. However, if we accept that there’s no ghost without an interceding, interpreting human consciousness, then it doesn’t much matter. The ‘Philip’ experiment at Toronto University in 1972 demonstrated how human belief alone can produce a ghost with tangible physical effects, even though the historical back-story intentionally ascribed to it has no basis in historical fact. Cowden’s recordings can stand, not as the actual voice of a ghost, but as the manifestation of a ghost’s voice mediated by human consciousness.
Since my night alone in the company of one, I’m less inclined to view ghosts as evidence for survival of the personality post-mortem, but I’m more inclined to the view that working with spirits facilitates our own spiritual development. Beyond the grave, I think that non-existence awaits. Anything that endures on this side is karmic traces, the remnants of a personality. On the basis of my experience so far, I don’t believe there’s another world, but instead the lack of one, which – to the extent we can approach this through spiritual practices whilst still alive – suggests something far more amazing.
Brilliant, as usual. The more work with entities I do, the more I’m inclined to agree with you, especially this: “I’m less inclined to view ghosts as evidence for survival of the personality post-mortem, but I’m more inclined to the view that working with spirits facilitates our own spiritual development.”
Greetings Mr. Barford. The mill in question produced linen from the mid 1800′s until the 1960′s. The name Darren which is of Gaelic or Welsh decent, certainly fits within this time frame. Darren as a possible sir name, would go back even hundreds of years before that.
From all of the recordings made, some seemed to interact, others did not. The terms paranormal/ghost possibly has hundreds of possible explanations. Some scientific, some spiritual, some of an occult nature, others possibly discarnate personalities, each definition possibly completely unrelated to the others. Perhaps, the only connection with the possible hundreds of origins for what we label a ghost, could be the fact that they are all, in this day and age, paranormal.
Thank you for taking so much time with this. You have many valid points.
Thanks for dropping by, Mark! I always enjoy trying to get my head around original and interesting work in the paranormal field, so I consider your book time well spent.
And thanks for the substantiation of ‘Darren’. If you’re interested, check out the popularity of the name (compared with other names) on this widget that I found: http://babynamewizard.com/voyager I can’t vouch for the authority of this information, of course!
Very possibly it’s based on U.S. data…
Ahh, the babynamewizard……… a bundle of dark energy from the depths of despair which could only be described as, paranormal.
Eat your greens kids, or you too could end up a statistic. The baby name wizard is gonna get ya………..ah ha ha ha ha
hey, I wonder if we could develop a portable device which ghost hunters could take on location to cross reference baby name information. In my world, this would go like so……………………..
Agent Yellow from the Smoky Mountain Ghost Getters: “Sir, the ouija board says the ghost is called Finbar and he was born in 1894.”
The Guy Who Designed the Team t-shirt for the Smoky Mountain Ghost Getters: “Quick, cross reference that information with the portable infrared ultrasonic hand held babynamewizard!!!!!!”
Agent Yellow: “Sir, the data says that the name Finbar was not in the top 1000 most popular names in 1894.”
The Whole Team: “FALSE INFORMATION, HE’S GONNA ATTACK”.
(The Smoky Mountain Ghost Getters all jump out a window to get away from the evil bad ghost, all, except for the brave team skeptic, who notices that the infrared ultrasonic hand held babynamewizard has registered a temperature drop of 2 degrees.) His views of the paranormal have now been changed………..There must be something out there.
A light haze can be seen streaming through the trees of the Smoky Mountains. Wait, that’s not a haze, it’s, it’s, smoke. But what are they burning? It’s a book, no, a pile of books. What book could they possibly be burning? Tune in next week to find out.
Meanwhile, I have no problem at all with helping move on the spirits of people that never actually existed – if they ask for it and it seems that I can help. But I do wonder what these spirits are, and why they make such a fuss about the things that happened in their lives, if they never actually lived them…
those questions could certainly drive one mad.
The iPhone, er, portable baby name wizard has IrDA?
Careful Mr. Mind. Don’t forget about Newtons 3rd law. For every action, there’s an opposite but equal reaction;
Whenever you promote an iPhone, a child somewhere has its birthday taken away. Now look what you’ve done, I too am now responsible for the un-birth of a small innocent child.
But yes, not only does our new invention have IrDA, but it has IRDNA. That’s right, if you manage to get a shot off at said pesky ghost, with the flash of an IR light, you can trace its family history all the way back to that fish in Australia, that first walked out of the water; or else Jesus, or a monkey; or the mother ship, depending on what settings you have it on. But if you miss, well, at least you’ll know where the bricks in the wall were made.
Speaking of iTechnology, “Spirit Voices” is now available for the iPad.
I thank you
and remember, laughter is the key to survival.
‘The Scole Experiments’ are examined in this full length documentary that’s worth a look. Speaking to entities through a domestic radio…
If you’re into such experimental EVP then you may find Leonard Lander’s e-book ‘Beyond The Dial’ quite useful. It can be downloaded for free here:
http://www.okok.org.uk/Releases/releasespage.htm
@ORBE Wonderful! Thank you! I’d seen DVDs for this film touted around, but hadn’t realised it was viewable on-line.
My own investigations have produced no evidence for a permanent, separate self in life, let alone in death. Yet this is precisely the conclusion arrived at by the mediums and believers in the film. I don’t think the evidence (if it is paranormal, which I’m inclined to believe that some of it might be) necessarily points to any such thing. This, for me, raises the question of what might want to lead us toward such a view, and what its motives might be.
There does seem to be some kind of fiendish Control entity (of the type William S. Burroughs documented) running the show, that would promote the idea of the individual, eternal self so it could continue playing with us. As Burroughs’ surmised, maybe control just wants to control; there is no other motive or goal?
I heard someone say once that, should an asteroid crash into the Earth and instantly wipe out all existing life, then no one would even notice; things would just carry on, like a scene-change in a dream. Has something like this happened before, or many times?
“This, for me, raises the question of what might want to lead us toward such a view, and what its motives might be.”
Perhaps just our own beliefs/delusions, or those of numerous others? I have also found it quite odd to consider that any separate self exists after death; for some reason I find it easier to consider in the case of a famous ghost (ie Cleopatra, Crowley, John Dee, and so forth) – where the attention of thousands of people could generate some kind of accessible entity, just as with deities.
Ona,
Yes, this is a fascinating area. Jesus, for instance; even if such a figure never actually existed 2000 years ago, he sure does now, after all the attention/belief/power showered on him. This mass-empowerment process has surely been noted by the powers that be, who have instigated experiments to create such made-up-but-real beings. A case in point is the grey aliens. Whitley Strieber publishes ‘Communion’ with the grey alien image taking up the entire front cover, accompanied by a massive publicity campaign including giant advertising billboards with the grey alien image on them put up across America. Then hey presto!, after a while loads of people start meeting grey aliens, and continue to do so.
As for a separate self continuing after death, some cases do point to this, such as the Maria Marten/Murder in the Red Barn case [http://www.stedmundsbury.gov.uk/sebc/visit/redbarn-intro.cfm], where she is said to have come back from the dead to inform her mother of the person who killed her.
Hi Duncan. I very much enjoying reading your blog. Thanks for putting this together.
“In spirits of the dead we encounter a very limited constellation of emotions and motivations.”
Reading this passage made me think of Robert Monroe’s work with out-of-body experiences. In his book Far Journeys, he says he encounters energetic “entities” that are unaware that they are dead and are often infatuated with a certain emotion or thought. He calls them the “Locked-Ins”. There are also entities that also do not know they are dead, but can tell something is different about their experience. These he calls the “Wild Ones” because they often try to replicate singular human experiences in extreme proportions. It seems as though this is a similar experience to yours.
Monroe also creates a map of the spirit world he explores. It consists of a series of rings with the Earth as their center. The innermost rings are most physical and are where the Locked-Ins and Wild Ones can be found. Moving outward away from the Earth, Monroe encountered more entities but they were different in that they knew they were dead. Monroe’s map is spatial for heuristic purposes and he reminds us that he encounters these entities in a timeless/spaceless awareness.
You might already know all this, since Monroe’s work is pretty well-known. Thought I’d share in case you didn’t because I really admire Monroe for what he accomplished.
All the best,
Jake