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The Mediumship of Attila von Szalay – Raymond Bayless [from Experiences of a Psychical Researcher]

Due to the fact that Mr. von Szalay believed that he was producing a form of psychical "voice," a voice outside and away from his body, we began systematic, preliminary experiments in 1956 to explore their characteristics, but primarily to develop the phenomena.

A microphone was placed inside a closet which was used as a mediumistic "cabinet," as well as to provide some degree of soundproofing, which led into a loud- speaker and tape recorder outside the closet in the front room. Experiments were made in dim lighting and in full light -some with Mr. von Szalay inside the cabinet, but most with him sitting in the front room totally away from the microphone.

Naturally, the door of the closet remained closed during such tests. The "voice" first manifested in the form of tiny, shrill whistles and answered questions in that the whistles were heard when a question was asked. They were, however, not intelligible.

Eventually, on occasion, an intelligible voice spoke, sometimes several words, though very, very low in volume. The resemblance of these voice effects to those of Dr. Raudive will be immediately noticed as well as those reported in the presence of the medium, Jurgenson.

I have for years insisted that most research societies-and I am a member of several-avoid psychic phenomena like a plague. This was proven to me when I tried to interest these organizations in making a complete investigation of Mr. von Szalay's mediumship. As time and tests went on, a number of voices were recorded which did speak words. To mention just a few examples, on one occasion a voice spoke saying, "This is G." At another time a voice said, in answer to a request to repeat the following words, "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you." Still another time a very faint voice said, "Hot dog, Art," and then gave a trilling laugh. Outside of the fact that Mr. von Szalay is called "Art," I can offer no explanation for these odd words.

 After one experiment was finished, I thought that I would make certain tests of the speaker and amplifying system, and stood with Mr. von Szalay a short distance from the cabinet door, the loudspeaker, and each other, and asked him to make single whistles at intervals. We were in full light and in full view of each other. Suddenly single, low whistles were answering each time von Szalay whistled. In all there were six or seven whistles which answered us, and at the end of this series double whistles occurred.

We continued these trials, hoping to have the voice effects improve, and we did receive some very interesting results. Some years passed during which Mr. von Szalay's efforts were in abeyance, and it has been only recently that he has again started working with his phenomena. His sittings or experiments are made only to increase the quality of the manifestations and to study the variety in the development of its many facets, so they are made in a very informal manner. I have sat with him during quite a number of these sittings and have heard many voice effects, most very faint and unintelligible but, nevertheless, human voices. I have also heard a number of examples which could be understood, including my grandmother's name given in answer to a request.

As with Dr. Raudive's voices, the main thing today is not that psychical voices be loud and clear but, in view of the nearly total lack of any psychical (physical) phenomena, that anything at all can occur.

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A very startling incident took place during the time we were conducting our first experiments with his "voices." After we had finished our tests for the day and we were discussing the results, Mr. von Szalay, on a whim, suddenly stepped up to the closet-cabinet door, the room fully lighted, and struck the door saying words to the effect that if anyone was inside would they please rap back.

He stepped back from the door and immediately it was struck such a powerful single blow that the door actually shook on its hinges. The entire happening was very dramatic and provided a wonderful display of psychic force in action. There have been splendid psychical adventures with Mr. von Szalay, both with his personal phenomena and in investigating various cases with him. Some of these cases in retrospect were very funny, some quite entertaining at the time, some downright disgusting, and others, the gold of psychical research, genuine examples of supernormal activity.