The two Pioneers 1

Fredrich Jurgenson (1903 -1987) 

We know the exact date of the discovery - the 12th June 1959. At that day, Friedrich Jurgenson, born in Odessa and later naturalised in Sweden, where he became a well-known portrait painter and film director, spent some days in his country house. Jurgensen who also was very interested in ornithology had set up a tape-recorder and a microphone in his garden in an attempt to record the voice of a chaffinch. When somewhat later he listened on his tape to what he thought was a successful recording of some chaffinch-song, he was surprised by a sudden interruption in the middle of the recording. First came a strange roaring sound and then a Norwegian masculine voice began to speak of "nightly bird voices", then came a mixed chorus of different bird voices and suddenly the whole was over and the chaffinch-song continued to the end of the recording. From his film work Jurgenson was familiar with the possibility of radio breakthrough when making sound recordings. Nevertheless he thought it was a somewhat strange coincidence that exactly in the course of the few minutes he was recording a birds song, the breakthrough should contain a voice speaking of "bird song". He decided to try to repeat the recording situation and after some tests at home with a microphone and different background noise he succeeded - voices appeared on his tapes. Jurgenson became fascinated by this strange phenomenon, continued his experiments and soon he also got longer sentences - some of them directly addressed him, mentioned his name and commented his work.

After having worked about a year he came upon that he could improve both the quality and quantity of the phenomenon by disconnecting the microphone and connect the output from a radio-receiver directly to the input of the tape recorder. The receiver was then tuned to one or more week foreign broadcast stations. It was a two-edged sword this change... On one side an improvement, on the other side it opened for an endless number of mistakes and only with a very critical attitude towards the heard voices, e.g. when the present persons were directly addressed by name (which I must admit often happened) it was possible to accept them. Nevertheless - used as a documentation the method is worthless. Far more important was that this discovery had done away with the myth of the voices as an acoustic phenomenon - a fact which importance neither Jurgenson nor his many followers ever understood.
That was the very beginning of a work, which should occupy Jurgenson the next 28 years until his death 1987.

Naturally Jurgenson speculated about the origin of the voices and for a time he was of the opinion that he had established contact with flying saucers. At the end he became convinced that the voices originate from deceased persons. It was this hasty interpretation (in fact very far from any serious documentation) that became fatal for a possible future development of every investigation around this interesting phenomenon. Jurgenson wrote two books concerning his work with what he called the "Tape Voices". One 1964 in Swedish which was the very first book entirely devoted to the Voice Phenomenon at all. Three years later came his chief work, a strongly revised edition of the first book and this time in German, and it was that book which made his work known on the continent, where it during the next twenty years appeared in several editions. In both books he maintains his spiritualistic postulate concerning the origin of the voices. books

In the folowing years many different people from several countries visited Jurgenson's home in Sweden and attended his experiments and he also held several press conferences, but only few show a real serious interest. Nevertheless two of his visitors should be mentioned. The German parapsychologist Professor Dr. Hans Bender, University of Freiburg, and the Swedish parapsychologist Dr.John Bjorkhem.

  Professor Dr. Hans Bender:"..the paranormal hypothesis of the origin of the voices is highly probable...
(Maybe it is worth here to mention a statement Dr.Bender made during a meeting in Horb, Germany 1972 : " The phenomenon is incomprehensible and deeply disturbing. It refers to a world structure which we cannot grasp with the today's implemental of scientific thinking.")
But any real scientific discussion with Jurgenson had never been possible and during his last years he and his work became (at least in Middle-Europe) a well known but also a somewhat strange part of the spiritualistic establishment. A tragic but not unknown consequence of confusing experience and interpretation. Moreover Jurgenson regarded his work as a gift to mankind and was fairly indifferent to what the establishment thought of his discovery. He was sure of the truth of what he had published - and he felt that this must be enough.

Jurgenson looked for the origin of his voices everywhere, in the far space, in a hypothetical afterlife. One may wonder why he never looked at the place nearest to him - his own mind.

  This peaceful urn churchyard in the small Swedish place Hoor holds the ashes of Friederich Jurgenson - the discoverer of the Voice Phenomenon. Maybe he did make some misinterpretations or some mistakes. But making mistakes is the prerogative of all true pioneers.
(The lady on the bench is Mrs. Maerte A. who took care of Jurgenson during his very latest years.) 

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