In my new book I discuss in some detail the channels of communication between the Daemon and the Eidolon. These can be a voice in the head, dreams, hunches, and sometimes, via physical movement not initiated by the Eidolon. However communication between the Daemon and the outside world is somewhat less common. Indeed it is reasonable to conclude that as the speech areas of the brain are located in the dominant hemisphere (Broca’s Area) then vocal communication may be virtually impossible for a daemon. However it has been suggested that under certain conditions a daemon may appropriate the verbal centres of the dominant hemisphere and vocalize its thoughts and opinions to the outside world. Occasionally this has occurred during deep hypnosis sessions. At other times unusual neurotransmitter activity seems to also facilitate Daemonic manipulation across the corpus callosum and into Broca’s Area.
However I have recently come across evidence that the Daemon may have another way of communicating – this is a phenomenon known as “Reverse Speech”.
This was first suggested by an Australian named David John Oates. Oates claims that humans exhibit "bi-level" communication, that is to say forwards and backwards simultaneously. He argues that clear understandable reverse speech is occurring in bursts every 6 to 10 seconds continually during our forward communication.
Oates began his research in 1984, intrigued with the occurrence of backwards masking in rock and roll records. Backwards masking is a recording technique for purposely embedding backwards messages into music. While searching for these intended messages Oates says he stumbled onto his discovery of many messages, unintentionally embedded in the words of the music. He then quickly began studying all kinds of recorded speech looking for backwards messages. One of his earliest discoveries was in the famous recording of Neil Armstrong's "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Oates reverses this statement for the audience using computer software to reveal that this sentence played backwards says "man will space walk."
Excited by this discovery Oates next turned to the famous live recording of the television announcer commentary while witnessing the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Forwards the announcer says "There has been a shooting." Backwards the statement appears to say "he's shot bad, stop, look up." Such examples, says Oates demonstrate "congruent" reverse speech communication. More intriguing, however, are Oates' examples of incongruent communication. In his lectures Oates regularly plays a recording of a Patsy Ramsey being interviewed about the death of her daughter, Jon Benet. In the interview Ramsey says forwards "at least two people on the face of this earth know who did this, the killer and someone they may have confided in." Played backwards you can hear the statement "I'm that person."
Another example is ex- President Clinton's famous denial speech. Forwards, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Backwards, "I hate to say yes."
Now in ITLAD I argue that even in very young babies the Daemon is fully aware of who it is and where it has come from – it simply cannot communicate these facts. In a startling itladian example Oates cites examples of some reverse speech research he did with his twin girls. Starting at birth Oates was able to begin documenting reverse speech single words sentences at 4 months of age. What seemed like gibberish “baby talk” (or “egocentric speech” as the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky termed it) when played in reverse yields the surprisingly clear impression of the baby saying "hello." At 7 months of age he began documenting two word sentences in reverse speech. In one astounding recording he held a small recorder up to the baby's face and the baby made common baby gibberish sound. Yet in reverse one can hear the baby say "what's that?" At 13 months of age Oates recorded the gibberish of his daughter as she reached for a cup. Reversed it yielded the sentence "David, help me." (These can be listened to at
However I have recently come across evidence that the Daemon may have another way of communicating – this is a phenomenon known as “Reverse Speech”.
This was first suggested by an Australian named David John Oates. Oates claims that humans exhibit "bi-level" communication, that is to say forwards and backwards simultaneously. He argues that clear understandable reverse speech is occurring in bursts every 6 to 10 seconds continually during our forward communication.
Oates began his research in 1984, intrigued with the occurrence of backwards masking in rock and roll records. Backwards masking is a recording technique for purposely embedding backwards messages into music. While searching for these intended messages Oates says he stumbled onto his discovery of many messages, unintentionally embedded in the words of the music. He then quickly began studying all kinds of recorded speech looking for backwards messages. One of his earliest discoveries was in the famous recording of Neil Armstrong's "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Oates reverses this statement for the audience using computer software to reveal that this sentence played backwards says "man will space walk."
Excited by this discovery Oates next turned to the famous live recording of the television announcer commentary while witnessing the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Forwards the announcer says "There has been a shooting." Backwards the statement appears to say "he's shot bad, stop, look up." Such examples, says Oates demonstrate "congruent" reverse speech communication. More intriguing, however, are Oates' examples of incongruent communication. In his lectures Oates regularly plays a recording of a Patsy Ramsey being interviewed about the death of her daughter, Jon Benet. In the interview Ramsey says forwards "at least two people on the face of this earth know who did this, the killer and someone they may have confided in." Played backwards you can hear the statement "I'm that person."
Another example is ex- President Clinton's famous denial speech. Forwards, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Backwards, "I hate to say yes."
Now in ITLAD I argue that even in very young babies the Daemon is fully aware of who it is and where it has come from – it simply cannot communicate these facts. In a startling itladian example Oates cites examples of some reverse speech research he did with his twin girls. Starting at birth Oates was able to begin documenting reverse speech single words sentences at 4 months of age. What seemed like gibberish “baby talk” (or “egocentric speech” as the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky termed it) when played in reverse yields the surprisingly clear impression of the baby saying "hello." At 7 months of age he began documenting two word sentences in reverse speech. In one astounding recording he held a small recorder up to the baby's face and the baby made common baby gibberish sound. Yet in reverse one can hear the baby say "what's that?" At 13 months of age Oates recorded the gibberish of his daughter as she reached for a cup. Reversed it yielded the sentence "David, help me." (These can be listened to at
Lots of other examples can be found at:
In my opinion David's work is potentially very interesting and worth investigating further.
16 comments:
Tony: Hmmmmm! Interesting Daemonic take on the whole Oates oeuvre.
*raises eyebrow*
I'm rather with you that my initially skeptic and rational mind tends to simply associate things like this with NLP and Suggestion, Priming & Prompting.
For example, in the post Tony states:
"One of his earliest discoveries was in the famous recording of Neil Armstrong's "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Oates reverses this statement for the audience using computer software to reveal that this sentence played backwards says "man will space walk.""
Now, some may call me a pedant (and often do) but there is a very important, but subtle, detail to be changed here which completely alters the meaning. Oates told the listening audience before playing the tape backwards what they should here; "Man will space walk". Thus he could be using a subtle Psychological technique known as Priming (which I myself teach as part of my Body Language and Suggestion training course I deliver) which places a subconscious or unconscious suggestion which the conscious mind then mistakes for belief or empiric experience later.
Also, Oates states that such "reverse speech" as this communicates unconconscious truths.
"Man will space walk."
How does this translate as an unconscious truth? For one thing, Astronauts and Cosmonauts had already space walked many years earlier. What is it that Armstrong could have been trying to unconsciously convey with such a statement?
According to Oates, "human speech has two distinctive yet complementary functions and modes. The "overt" mode is spoken forwards and is primarily under conscious control. The "covert" mode is spoken backward and is not under conscious control. In the dynamics of interpersonal communication, both modes of speech combined communicate the total psyche of the person, conscious as well as unconscious."
I can't see how or indeed why the Daemon would wish to unconsciously communicate in a reverse timeline to the Eidolon and indeed a reverse timeline to Daemonic-Time (with one eye on the present and one on the future)
"Reverse Speech", in its language of metaphors, may be tapping into what Carl Jung described as "the collective unconscious." But here again, when you have a message made up of metaphors - much like dreams - the metaphors can be viewed and interpreted in countless ways.
What makes scientific testing difficult is the lack of consistency in what a reversal might mean.
As Joan Allen writes in an essay on reverse speech:
"Within the rule of complimentarily are multiple types of reversals.
1. The reversal may agree with the forward spoken words. This is congruency.
2. The reversal may add information to the forward speech. This is an expansive reversal.
3. The reversal may totally contradict the forward spoken words. This is a contradictory reversal.
4. The reversal may contain exactly the same words as the forward spoken words - a mirror reversal.
5. There is also a trailing reversal in which the reversal relates to words spoken forward that occurred prior to the words upon which the reversal actually occurs."
It is in these detections of inner, often hidden feelings that supporters of reverse speech see its greatest potential benefit - and possibly eventual validation. Oates believes that it may not only be able to detect lies, it may also be able to uncover repressed traumatic memories.
This "it-can-mean-almost-anything" nature of reverse speech makes it highly susceptible to interpretation.
*runs off to play my Judas Priest albums backwards like I was back in the early 1990s*
aha! So the Beatles Sergeant Pepper track at the very end of the vinyl record DID actually mean something then?
Seriously, even for my very open mind this sounds dubious. I'm with Karl in his challenging of some of Oates' evidence.
Personally, I think that there is much more to be discovered - and less questionably - by exploring Tony's earlier examples... "it has been suggested that under certain conditions a daemon may appropriate the verbal centres of the dominant hemisphere and vocalize its thoughts and opinions to the outside world. Occasionally this has occurred during deep hypnosis sessions. At other times unusual neurotransmitter activity seems to also facilitate Daemonic manipulation across the corpus callosum and into Broca’s Area."
Apologies if I sound like a heretic.I'm really a great believer in Daemonic activity. I just feel that some people (perhaps Oates, perhaps not) may want to create the illusion of reverse speach just for some selfish commercial or theatrical purpose.
Ed
(Hope you are all well.)
Tony: What caught my eye in terms of "reverse speech" and daemonic communication is more subtle, so will not involve pedantic or polemical words. I had been reading Rudolf Steiner back in 2006 when I first found your CTF essay, and became interested in your daemon theory. Steiner had talked about communication with the dead, which I was highly sceptical of, yet I found it fascinating that he felt the dead would "speak in reverse", and use verbs where we use nouns, etc. I recall thinking that this would surely apply to the Peakian daemon realm as well, and made a notation of that in the Steiner book. To me, this is that idea, popping up here on the blog. Thank you.
Anthony: I just thought of another related thing, again, subtle, but telling. In his Interpretation of Dreams, Freud stresses that a dream must often be understood in reverse. For example , laughing in a dream may signal despair and crying. Certainly the daemon would be the organizer of this unconscious material of which Freud speaks. So in Steiner and in Freud, there is reversal of speech and of the speech of dreams, and that would indicate that the general idea of daemonic activity and reverse speech is sound.
Karl i played Neil Armstrong's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind in reverse and it said, we have fooled you, we are in a hanger in area 51.
I have heard this guy on a late night talk show,i think it was the James whale show and it was really interesting.But as Tony said it needs more research into it.
Hi all - david oates here - i'd like to make a couple of comments.
Regarding the neil armstrong example, "man will space walk", i am a little puzzled why you can't see the significance of this reversal - he is talking globally - as neil armstrong steps onto the lunar surface he expressed forwards the monumental achievement mankind has made to walk on the moon - his reversal expressed the same sentiments - man(kind) WILL walk into space and has started this great trek - our destiny is in space or "man WILL space walk" - just because it is future tense does not mean that it hasnt already happened - i can say i will eat dinner tonight and that doesnt mean i didnt eat dinner yesterday - the same is true of the neil armstrong example - he is think gloabally of mankind's great destiny.
regarding the prompting of reversals - it is simply not true that you are only hearing the reversal because it is suggested - if i suggested that you hear something that is not there you will not be able to hear it because the phrase does not exist - numerous blind tests we have conducted shows this to be the case - additionally when i do my lectures i often play reversals without prompting and the audience will usually hear it - this also happens in class when analysing live tapes - most students will often hear the same phrase at the same time - additionally, how many times have you watched tv and they put subtitles on the screen for difficult audio or people speaking with thick accents - we dont discount that by saying ah, they put subtitles in therefore what he is saying is not real! - the same is true of reverse speech - the accent of reversals can sometimes be difficult for the newcomer to understand and so i will sometimes tell them what it says to help in comprehension
hope this helps
Ed: Thank You. I am glad you can see my logic and psychological interpretation.
Susan Marie: Regarding Steiner, I still find it hard to contemplate why The Daemon would wish, or be required to, communicate in a reverse timeline to the Eidolon.
Redwolfe: David, fabulous to have your involvement here, thank you.
Semantically I can't agree with your definition of "will" (and this time thankfully it is not the Philosophical definition of "will" that is the issue)!
*smiles and waves at SMK*
"Man WILL Space Walk" implies a future tense. Your "I WILL eat dinner tonight" individualises the "dinner" and thus is not (either grammatically or in reality) the same "dinner" as you ate last night. Thus "Man WILL Space Walk", if unconsciously spoken in anything other than the future context, should be "Man SHALL Space Walk" (and even then it is still debatable). "Man DOES Space Walk" is better.
Now, as a practitioner and tutor of Psychological techniques, Priming IS a very strong tool, delivered either consciously or subconsciously. I'm not saying that Priming is the overall cause of hearing Reverse Speech but it has to be eradicated from the objective evidence to make the remaining evidence stronger (much the same way that I employ my Kangaroo Paradox of Coincidence to Tony's collection of Synchrondipitous events - see BLOG and FORUM for examples)
Collated evidence should be challenged, analysed and developed, for through this process the weak evidence is syphoned off leaving a stronger base of firm evidence which is then open to scentific analysis.
Thank you David.
Baphomet: *giggles*
Totally agree Dave, now David has collated this evidence, it should now be analysed and researched, investigated and thus developed.
David: I am really delighted to have you on board. I am sure that this discussion will be of great importance in the ongoing development of the theories debated upon this site.
I am hopeful that you may have opinions on some of the other elements of "Cheating The Ferryman".
Hi, Ed here.
Hello David. It's really good and a kind of honour (at least to me) that you have come onto the blog.
I am still confused by the rationale for the daemon to inspire phrases that have a philosophical meaning when heard in reverse audio. Perhaps it's about subtle foretelling. Or perhaps it's about providing 'clues' as to which moment sin our history are the really significant ones to analyse or study.
Whatever it is, I must listen to some examples, and their contexts, for myself (If I can find a machine to help me!)
I must also learn more about your work. What would you recommend?
I look forward to watching this topic as the days go by.
bye, Ed
PS... Karl, Tony, the removed posting from earlier today was done in error by me..(oops.) I've had some trouble getting Blogger to work properly.
Ed: Glad we could sort out the blogger problems (one way or another)
David: Welcome to the CTF Blog.
Karl or David or Tony: Might the Daemon, here, somehow, in it's electrical or electromagnetic orientation, spin counter to the direction of the Eidolon's electrical or electromagnetic spin, or some such thing ?
Taken together, then, do the two halves of the one whole in some way spin in opposite directions, each spin counteracting or offsetting the other, such that we each present as one whole, not spinning, but stationary or cohesive or focused ?
After all, everything in the world as we "see" it, does seem to have a spin to it, from planets, to electrons
David: Perhaps another question might be, do the same results hold true for other languages ?
Tony: I also wonder what's happening when Dervishes twirl. Are they each perhaps moving into synch with the spin of their Daemon, or looking to ?
David: No time yet to look further into what your theories suggest, but it does look interesting.
Tony: I was also recently intrigued that one CTF Forum participant, Espiralli, who appears to live with deja vecu on an on going basis, had "coined" a word in reverse, "Etamnioc", as a name for a friend, Art Funkhouser.
I had commented on that, in a Forum posting, not long before this Blog posting here was put up.
Her reponse was it wasn't a constant thing with her, just a word used for a nickname, for a good friend, or in honour of a good friend.
Still, it's interesting.
Two identical posts. Sorry, I don't know how to delete one of them. Thx for any help there.
Cam: At the very bottom of your comment, under the date and time, you should see a "trash can" icon.
If you click this icon you will be able to delete one of the duplicated comments.
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