EVP III (Electronic mediumship)

Broadly speaking, mediumship can be defined as a person's ability to get in touch with the spirits. This concept follows very closely a famous definition made by A. Kardec in his treatise on mediumship, published in the heyday of Spiritualism. At the time, it was clear that mediumship manifestations could make use of external objects (as in the case of the celebrated "table-turning" or more generally in the haunting phenomena) or simply transmit elaborate information through the so-called "intellectual mediums".

It is understandable that the invention of electronic communication systems (as new manifestation media) prompted the emergence of new effects under the action of corresponding electronic mediums. As in every mediumship, the new ability can be understood as a more or less developed human skill to communicate with spirits through electronic equipment. "Development'' refers to the observed level of elaboration in the communicated message, or how complex or well-presented the transmitted information appears to the external world. 

Kardec proposed a 4-dimensional characterization of the mediumship faculty based on traits of:

• Passivity: characterizing the extent to which the medium can influence the content of a communication. The extremes of this dimension are complete passivity (e. g., clairvoyance) and active mediums (who have an active role in conveying information as in certain non-mechanical psychography mediums).
• Awareness: or how aware the person is of his or her role as a medium. Awareness is split into two classes: unconscious versus conscious mediums. In the first case, also known as involuntary or natural mediums by Kardec, the person is completely unaware of the ability. This variety is highly frequent among children and teenagers. In the second case (facultative mediums) there is complete awareness of the ability to produce or suppress phenomena through the will.
• Tangibility: referring to the intellectual versus "material'' effect produced by the mediumship. Physical effect mediums produce tangible phenomena (movement of objects, sounds such as raps and noises, healing etc). On the other hand, intellectual mediums produce intelligent, informative, or artistic communications (for example, painting mediums etc).
• Spontaneity: involuntary mediums cannot control the onset, end, duration, and content of the manifestation. The majority of recorded psychic effects throughout history are of this type.  On the other hand, some mediums are able to control (or at least suppress) the manifestation. 

According to such a scheme, one can conceive electronic mediumship as a kind of psychic faculty capable of producing tangible effects (signals in the form of noise or voices) through electronic media almost exclusively. We say "almost exclusively" because it is uncertain if electronic mediums are able to manifest other mediumship types (for example, intellectual effects). EVP are tangible and mostly spontaneous, but the medium is seldom aware he/she is responsible for them. The manifestations are apparently spontaneous mainly in the early stages and remain uncontrollable throughout the medium's life.

No mediumship ability can be dissociated from “animism” which is the manifestation of the spirit of the medium through its own body. In other words, electronic mediums can subtly modify the content of EVP messages. This is true even for purely "mechanical mediums" as pointed out in on the medium's influence in the content of spirit communications:

Do these explanations imply that the spirit of the medium is never completely passive?

“It is passive when it does not mix its own ideas with those of the communicating spirit, but it is never completely nullified. Its cooperation is indispensable as an intermediary, even in so-called mechanical mediums''. (Question 10 of Paragraph  223 of "The Mediums' book").

Thus, the content of many EVP recorded by K. Raudive, a mixture of words many times uttered in different languages Raudive knew very well, might be explained as the result of this influence, despite the unintentional (and unconscious) character. This does not mean that the message content is familiar to the medium, or cannot be attributed to the spirits. 

The most distinguished dimension of electronic mediumship is its unconscious character. It does not seem to require mental concentration, no "trance" is necessary. This principle was put forward by the spirits themselves to Kardec:

Can a spirit act without resorting to a medium?

"It can act without the medium being aware of it; in other words, many persons help spirits to produce certain phenomena without even suspecting it(*). These persons are like fountains from which spirits draw the animal fluid they need. Consequently, the conscious participation of a medium, as you know, is not always necessary, especially with spontaneous phenomena.'' (my emphasis, Part II, ``The action of spirits upon matter'', Paragraph 74, Question 15 of "The Mediums' book.)

Therefore, the presence of a nearby but unknown electronic medium might explain many eventual recordings. 

By relying on special mediums the phenomenon is thus more prevalent in the presence of certain people than among the majority. This explains the futility of trying to "replicate" EVP when an electronic medium is missing. On the other hand, granted their presence, EVP can be replicated although no control over the message length, frequency, and content seems possible. 

Notes

(*) Original in French: "beaucoup de personnes servent d'auxiliaires aux Esprits pour certains phénomènes, sans s'en douter".

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