ts’irk sa-syge (jerk sausage)

Psycholgists have observed that elements of reverse speech sometimes become subconscious expressions. The reverse of Jesus Christ (and other important names) may somehow affect everyone, whether we believe it or not.

Now, EVP shouldn’t have anything to do with “reverse speech”, “backward masking”. EVP is allegedly caused by paranomal means, reverse speech is allegedly something a little more mundane.

But there’s one explanation that would link these two allegedly different phenomena together. And that is the prosaic, skeptical, “knee-jerk” idea that both are simply auditory pareidolia, simulacra arising from randomness and our amazing but fallible brain. So, I emphasize that no matter what the “clarity” or even the alleged “context” of a message, that in itself is not satisfactory evidence. The message could still be just coincidence.

In any event, I see no problem with anyone researching this subject, specially if trying to find solid, reasonable, scientific evidence for their claims. There are no stupid questions, really. And if you find there’s indeed no convincing evidence of any of this, time wouldn’t be wasted, because you would have a very solid result in that direction, contrary to our “default” and superficial dismissal of it.

The problem are those who make wild claims, without anything close to a convincing proof of them. And making money from it — taking it from the gullible, as this is a zero, or even negative sum game.

Contrary to real science, where everyone gains, as “a mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions”.

Best

Now that CAN be your attitude, and that seems to be the prevailing attitude of skeptics, but it is reasonable for that to NOT be your attitude as well.

Now I understand what you mean about clarity and a “sufficiently large and varied sample.” And I would find that argument more convincing if some of the messages I am hearing (and at this point I admit I’m giving the benefit of the doubt to the finders of these things because I haven’t had the time to try to reproduce their results yet) were of a type such as “baloney sky farts in glass hello Madge is your crawfish delerious?”

But some of the actual results (see parenthesis above) do appear to be relevant either to the context or to the suspected character of the speaker, AND to make sense. It isn’t just a string of words that you can clearly hear. It’s not just that one thing. In addition, some of these apparent meaningful ones are found in relatively short speeches. We’re not talking about “War and Peace” length diatribes. So when you have a short speech that produces a clear example that is relevant to the context of the speech, AND meaningful, then I think it’s much more interesting, and the counterargument you make above is less powerful.

Not having solid “proof” doesn’t mean it isn’t real anyway. Every day of our lives we act on beliefs and assumptions that are less than solid. We have no choice because we are not omniscient and our knowledge is not perfect. We do not have the option of standing still, only taking the next step when our knowledge of its outcome is absolutely certain. Going out into the world each morning is more like jumping out of an airplane and hoping your chute opens that day too.

I like your site, by the way.

Cheers.

D.

It’s upon those who claim a backward speech was deliberately encoded, and more, that it can be noted and perceived, consciously or not, that it influences people, etc, to prove all those claims.

One must understand that simply pointing a “clear” backward message is just the first step in that direction. No matter how “clear” it may sound. There are many other arguments and evidence that should be offered to prove all the other claims.

Regards

Despite what skeptics may say about those examples, it is no more a matter of hearing what you want, in those examples, than when you hear and understand a simple sentence in a conversation. The you-hear-what-you-want-to explanation can only go so far, and in some cases it doesn’t go far enough.

In addition, I see nothing impossible to believe about the notion that our minds may be capable of encoding backwards messages in forward speech, which other minds may hear and decode subconsciously.

Some people just have a knee jerk reaction to dismissing anything that sounds strange. And then comes the patented response that if there’s no hard evidence then it must not be real. Which is of course an argument from ignorance response that does not mean it’s not real anyway. It’s the sound of the snooze button being hit again.