“Totenfunk”: Investigating the Techniques and Theologies of the Electronic Voice Phenomenon
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis was an interesting profile of the methods and beliefs of EVP/IT practitioners. It was thoroughly researched and examined from many angles.
There were numerous writing errors throughout the paper. Sometimes subjects and verbs didn't agree, or there were awkward and inaccurate constructions. For example, this sentence: "This is, although not an argument, that I will return to in this article, and in general, I will apply what Peter L. Berger has described as 'methodological atheism' to these practices." These must be addressed.
It also seemed to me that the concluding remarks (mistakenly called 'conclusive') were excessively long and redundant. This section should be shortened considerably to a paragraph or two.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageSee above
Author Response
Thank you for your review. I will work on the language issues.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors“Totenfunk” – Investigating the Techniques and Theologies of the Electronic Voice Phenomenon.
It should be made clear that this investigation relates only to Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVPs) obtained during the Jürgenson/Raudive period, as there is a body of modern evidence regarding the description of an afterlife which may support/contradict these findings.
The paper examines techniques and theologies of EVP, and as such is not a critical paper but rather an attempt to categorise how specific practitioners report how the world after death appears. It manages this successfully. It may benefit from briefly looking at what might cause Raudive/ Jürgenson to interpret the voices in the way they did (for example as Raudive states that he required 3 months training to distinguish the voices, was he then interpreting them according to his beliefs and what were these beliefs).
The paper also brings in occult and spiritual ideas that can be considered alongside EVP, which is a novel way of examining the phenomenon.
Line 27 – the history of EVP does not start with Jürgenson, but the popularisation of EVP may be thought of as starting with both Jürgenson and Raudive.
Lines 63/64 a bit confused and not entirely sure what the meaning is
Line 80 Parapsychology was a field striving for acceptance – source?
Lines 80 – 83 make clear that this relates to exploration of life after death
Line 100 – why tape recorders? The obvious initial answer is that this was how the voices were initially recorded, so research initially concentrated on being able to replicate the results. The rest of the paragraph would follow on from this.
Line 114 – expand on “freezing speech” and why it was hard to understand.
Line 127 – explain the “South Korean Elevator ritual”
Line 130 – this is fiction, is that relevant?
Line 163 – needs rewriting to make the meaning clearer
Line 249 – “in its time” – need to clarify that it is still a technique used and the author is talking about the Jürgenson/Radive time.
Line 373 – explanation of the frequency between the main radio transmitters – what does this mean?
Line 374 – what is a “wobbly tune”?
Line 380 – Raudive used many variations on the methodology used to obtain EVPs
Line 390 – how do the Psychophone and Diodeninspielung work?
Line 393 – needs an explanation of how running water works eg it can be used as a carrier wave for the EVPs.
Line 486 – Jürgenson was receiving voices before he started capturing them on tape, he was potentially a medium although he interpreted some of the messages as coming from outer space
Line 557 – explain what Orgone energy is
Line 694 – need a reference
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageGrammar needs some tidying up in places to make meaning clear, but the majority of the paper is readable and understandable
Author Response
Thank you for a great review! I will look into your comments and revise accordingly.
