Testcard: New Insight 2002

Is it really possible to tune your brain into the frequency of the spirit world? Adrian Shephard thinks so; what's more he's recorded his findings too.

- David Bramwell from New Insight Magazine investigates

For years I'd pondered about the spooky hooded figure in blue overalls that used to skulk around the North Laine, lugging what appeared to be a collection of television sets attached to the severed legs of shop dummies. Like poor Jacob Marley and his chains, he seemed destined to have to drag these bizarre objects about with him forever, owing perhaps to some perverse sins committed in a previous life. I'd also spotted him floating around at the Cinematheque, Brighton's underground movie-theatre, and it was here that I eventually got to learn more about the man. There is a small office to the side of the projector room, where I'd sometimes catch a glimpse of him tinkering with strange machinery. He gave the outward appearance of a modern-day Frankenstein bringing the dead back to life, and through our brief encounters over the years I came to the conclusion that I hadn't been too far from the mark. Meeting up recently to discuss past performances, his fascination with mind-control, and encounters with ghosts, Adrian revealed that he was on a journey to bring the spirit world into regular contact with the physical world, and planned, via the internet, to eventually make this world accessible to everyone. Nine year ago he set up a co-operative of like-minded musicians, artists and spiritualists, under the banner of Testcard, to help with his experiments. He began by explaining the origins of this.

'As a kid I'd always had this fear of the Testcard,' he recalled, 'with that solitary tone and weird picture that signalled the termination of all programmed transmissions, it was like the end of the world, and a battle into the unconscious. The perfect metaphor for the journey I wanted to undertake,' he recalled. Testcard's early performances proved to be a somewhat exotic affair. One event, using children to mime a 'live' music performance at the Albert, accompanied by 16mm footage from a mental hospital, got them into trouble ('looking back it was a bit irresponsible' Adrian mused) while another got them in the local press and even earned them a few pages in the book 'Brighton Ghosts, Hove Hauntings', when they decided to perform a live exorcism on local radio.

The trouble started when, after arriving at the radio station by taxi, the group discovered that the 20p from the cab change was embossed with '666'. 'Not surprisingly, we took that as a rather bad omen. And when we set up the ouija board for the transmission, the voices that came through were very confused. The only clear message that came out that night was - 'We do not want to take part in your games.'' Adrian remembered suffering terrible nightmares for weeks after the event. 'I felt that the session opened up a gateway in me to another world. My house became haunted - a strange energy appeared in the stairwell, and my girlfriend saw the spectre of a man there. Since then, many other visitations from the spirit world have occurred but I've got used to it now. I've learned meditation techniques to channel these experiences and if I ever feel uncomfortable with a presence from another world, I find that getting annoyed, laughing or whistling will soon make them go away.'

In further attempts to contact the dead, Adrian took to the practise of EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon), a method involving listening through silent audio recordings for disembodied voices. This can be done using everything from brand new blank audiocassette to, in Adrian's case, scanning outdoor recordings for extraneous sounds.

Having taken himself off to Paris last year, Adrian spent two weeks in Pere La Chaise, recording the silence of this vast graveyard and then searching through the recordings on the computer for unexplained voices. Back at his flat he played me these strange spooky messages, as, rising out of a sea of white noise, came such messages as - 'I have a voice now,' 'I fell down,' and 'Brother announce me.'

'It's fear that keeps us from speaking with the dead, if you're receptive you'll find a way.' Adrian explains. 'We could apply these principles to use the internet to tune in to their dead relatives but the user has to be prepared for it.'

Having achieved the 'right' state of mind himself, through meditation, Adrian set about building a machine to help others tune their brains into frequencies more sympathetic with the spirit world. Showcasing the machine in Russia, 18 months ago, under the name 'Liquidstatic', Adrian and collaborator Malcolm P. Dick connected' 10 people to the 'Brain Machine'. By controlling the frequencies of the lights and sounds (via headsets) they found that they were able to synchronise the different brainwaves of the individuals together and therefore influence each person's conscious experiences. The Communist Times reported that volunteers had experienced shared memories and flashbacks from childhood, while others feared that they had been brainwashed.

Perhaps then, through the sterling work of Adrian Shephard and others, there may come a time when our dearly departed are only a phone call away, though recalling the Woody Allen tale in New York Stories, when the ghost of his deceased mother appears above New York and begins nagging him in front of million strangers, some of us may prefer to remain ex-directory.

For more information:

www.testcard.org www.liquidstatic.org