By Dina Patel, CRSP, CRST
When a critical viewpoint is assigned to any new theory or invention, it is an acceptable fact that it will initially attract approval as well as skepticism from the wider audience and some may even label it with the word “pseudo-science” as they do not fully comprehend the new concept in which it is to be applied. However, this kind of attitude and labeling can have a very prohibitive and damaging effect on any new discovery and can not only jeopardize its future evolution but also suppress new concepts and ideas taking shape so the word should be used with great caution and an in-depth evaluation with an unbiased approach is absolutely necessary before describing it in such a manner.
Reverse Speech is one such technology which has been unjustifiably branded in this way and is in dire need of correction and so this article proposes to counter the negative connotations which have been baselessly attached to it. What is more, there are many adherents of Reverse Speech who will vouch for its validity for use in a wide context but whose opinions, unfortunately, were not sought when compiling so-called evidence against it so there deserves to be a properly informed and balanced approach to the self-limiting views that have been aired in the past.
The founder, David Oates, has worked tirelessly and painstakingly in its development for over thirty years to present it in its current format so that when honestly reviewed it holds up to scrutiny. It therefore seems unfair to judge it in such a harsh manner as has been done by certain parties when a great deal of meticulous research and endeavor has been undertaken and especially, as mentioned before, when there are countless beneficiaries throughout the globe who are able to corroborate these concepts and who will attribute the positive transformation that has been afforded to them in its application and the lasting positive change that has been achieved in their lives as a result. Such irrefutable and far-reaching validations cannot be ignored and must be given opportunity for further examination to prove their efficacy.
David certainly does not claim to be a scientist, nor is he “more interested in making a profit than educating others”1 but like any person wishing to make a living he is proposing a new hypothesis which should be given at the very least, an airing, and at the very most an opportunity for further academia research that is open and transparent in its approach in order to validate his methods, rather than have them ridiculed by so-called “experts.”
If we examine the word pseudo-science in detail it is explained as a 2”claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status.” Reverse Speech does not deserve to be characterized by this label as David has documented evidence of countless hours of recordings over the many years of research he has carried out and even produced successful outcomes for recipients of this technology-individuals like you and me, who have greatly benefited from his invention.
It is also interesting that 3Princeton University historian of science Michael D. Gordin summed up his interpretation of pseudoscience in his book The Pseudoscience Wars (University of Chicago Press, 2012) “individual scientists designate a doctrine a ‘pseudoscience’ only when they perceive themselves to be threatened—not necessarily by the new ideas themselves, but by what those ideas represent about the authority of science, science’s access to resources, or some other broader social trend. If one is not threatened, there is no need to lash out at the perceived pseudoscience.”
When delving into this even more what is more revealing is that the word “pseudo-science” is bandied about at random and 4“is subject to adjectival abuse against any claim one happens to dislike for any reason.” Furthermore many of Freud`s theories and even Einstein`s theory of relativity could not be disproved (in the case of the latter the theory was later proven) but they have nonetheless withstood intense scrutiny and the test of time and so are now accepted as the norm in their respective fields.
There are several cases in point to give further ammunition to the incorrect labeling of pseudo-science to Reverse Speech and we only have to look at past evidence where science has been proven to miscalculation –
5Nassim Haramein predicted as early as 1991 that all galaxies are centered by black holes. He was dismissed and ridiculed at the time by mainstream science but now the very community that disparaged him are in awe of him and agree with the theories he expounded only because new technology can now reveal that this is what the forty closest galaxies do indeed contain.
Greek philosophers believed that the earth was spherical but could not prove it – Pythagoras in the 6th century BC and Parmenides in the 5th both thought this to be true but their theories were denounced by the Church and only given credence when around 330 BC the Greek philosopher Aristotle, through his observational evidence and physical theory of a lunar eclipse wrote about it.6
Complementary therapies are another example of how science and its flag-bearers dismissed it as a passing fad and labelled it as a “pseudo-science” because of insufficient data to prove otherwise. Many decades later these therapies are an acceptable part of treating individuals and have been found to work so effectively that they have been integrated within the NHS (National Health Service in the UK) in the U.S. and several other countries around the world by the very profession that chose to denounce it before.
7Edwin B. Twitmyer, a Professor of Psychology originally discovered the conditioned reflex and presented his data to The American Psychological Society in 1904 but his theories had no impact on his peers and so due to a lack of support he abandoned his experiments. Significantly a few years later when a Russian, Ivan Pavlov put forward a similar hypotheses he was given a platform to explain what he had discovered and then given credit for the discovery and the scientific community that rejected Twitmyer`s work now lauded Pavlov`s work despite showing similar results.
Although not categorized as pseudo-science the example above is a classic case where science, with its restrictive thinking at the time, failed to embrace new ideas and concepts, a result of which has the effect of restraining and even strangling new ideas which stunt development in various fields and it further prevents us from evolving into better informed individuals. We should be more open to those people who possess “forward thinking minds” and dare to explore and go beyond the norms of restrictive current thinking and these lessons of the past should be learnt. Edwin B. Twitmyer (as mentioned above) surrendered to the negative response from his peers and gave up further research he was conducting regarding the conditioned reflex, only to discover years later that had he continued his work, he would have contributed greatly to the understanding of the mechanism of behavior, and subsequently, gained the recognition from his peers that was instead conferred upon his successor, Pavlov, who took up the baton in this field of research.
8In a similar vein articles by Byrne and Normand on their “Skeptical Inquirer” website concerning Reverse Speech entitled “The Demon Haunted Sentence: A Skeptical Analysis of Reverse Speech” claim that the research they have carried out condemn Reverse Speech as unethical and an attempt to fleece money from the unsuspecting even quoting various research papers to substantiate their views.
It is unfortunate that they have not taken their task of research seriously and only focused their attention solely on web articles about Reverse Speech as this is a very narrow minded view whose approach inevitably leads it towards a conclusion that is biased and limited. Had they been more judicious in their research, they would have found insurmountable evidence in its favor, instead of belittling the work that has been put forward by David Oates.
What is more, some of the referencing they have utilized dates back to an era when new technologies were unavailable and in a specialized field where clarity of audio input is essential to gain notable results, it is indefensible that they have not been so discerning in their research and opted to disregard the evidence that has been mounting up to support what is regarded as a very powerful tool by the beneficiaries who have experience of it and who can therefore vouch for its efficacy in the formats that David has described.
There are two sides to a coin and if Byrne and Normand had taken the time to peruse all the available data at their disposal their conclusions would have shown Reverse Speech to be precisely what it is.
Furthermore, in referencing an article by 9Vokey and Reid they fail to understand that the primary purpose of that research was to identify how the impact of messages inserted in the media affected behavior in the listener or viewer (they concluded that this was not the case.) In fact some of the messages that Vokey and Reid refer to were recordings of music where messages were placed in records intentionally by artists who then engineered them in such a way as to be inaudible when played normally but when played backwards revealed clear and distinct messages. This type of recording known as backward masking was prevalent in the late 60`s 70`s and 80`s and artists readily admit that the concept was devised as a novel way to gain publicity and sell more records (see website www. backwardmasking.com.) and so Vokey and Reid`s statement “that the apparent presence of backward messages in popular music is a function more of active construction on the part of the observer than of the existence of the messages themselves” can easily be refuted by those artists.
Byrne and Normand go on to add that “…existence of reverse speech is ecologically invalid” and another statement in which they comment that “..Backwards” language does not convey meaning to a listener – in other words it does not make any sense….” and “to our knowledge there is not one empirical investigation of reverse speech in any peer-reviewed journal….” only adds to their ignorance of this subject as the founder of Reverse Speech, David Oates, can corroborate with over thirty years plus documented evidence to counter their statements. They cannot “peer review” a subject of which they have no prior knowledge of and for which there are, at present, no peers to refer to because it is such a novel and unique concept.”
10Byrne and Normand also use Skinner`s experiments and his invention of the Verbal Summator to substantiate their claims regarding Reverse Speech but Skinner, in his experiments (1936) used recordings which were played softly and so the subjects were already at a disadvantage when that experiment was being conducted because the spoken word was difficult to decipher and the results themselves confirmed this when it was concluded that “illusory changes occur if the repeated word is faint or indistinct …”. The recordings that have been compiled through years of application by David Oates are clear and distinct and what is spoken cannot be mistaken. Furthermore the recordings used in the experiment by Skinner used technology that was available at the time – record players which were placed on a turntable which then revolved in order for sound to be heard, or cassette tapes later on. In the current age of digital revolution that is available to us, sound is much more audible and technology more advanced to allow us to achieve further clarity and definition that would not have been possible then and so surely research should be conducted using modern methods which will prove to be more productive.
We would therefore invite further research before disparaging remarks about Reverse Speech are made.
In fact as far back as 1988, experiments conducted by an Adelaide psychologist who ran brain wave analysis tests confirmed that brain activity was altered significantly in both right brain and left brain hemispheres when reverse speech occurred so it would be more appropriate to conduct further in-depth tests before comments such as those made by Byrne and Normand are made.
11Prior to this in a report by Robert Cohn in Science Magazine in 1971, another experiment to differentiate cerebral processing of data has also “indicated that the right cerebral hemisphere processes noises and other nonverbal data and that the left cerebral hemisphere processes verbal material.”
12In another experiment to analyse neural responses during speech the results were that “different neural events occur in the left hemisphere during analysis of linguistic versus non-linguistic parameters of the same acoustic signal.”
This coincides with what David himself has stipulated, that the right hemisphere of the brain deals with imagery and other precepts whilst the left hemisphere deals with linearity and logic and other functionalities. This theory is also shared in other models which are more readily accepted now but were once themselves similarly open to ridicule.
As to the presence of Reverse Speech an experiment conducted by Monash University in Australia concludes that “…for any Forward Speech sequence, there will obviously be some alleged Reverse Speech sequences which are more readily heard than others…. and we do not deny that in some cases Oates has been adept at finding such sequences…”. The University was unwilling to further their research and promptly halted any further investigations into this matter.
13Byrne and Norman add “In their critique of Oates’s theories, Newman (sic) and Curtain (1998) conducted a simple experiment in which subjects under various conditions tried to detect examples or reverse speech from Oates’s audiotapes. As expected (note: negative bias ‘as expected’), they found that subjects who were told what to listen for were much more successful in hearing the phrases than those not expecting what they would hear.” However, what Newbrook and Curtain actually found was quite the contrary, which privately they have admitted. After conferring with Oates on the experimental model, they proceeded to ignore those protocols (having gone to the trouble to confer and gather them), and still found and noted positive results.
14In their article Byrne and Normand compare RS with facilitated communication and their lack of understanding of Reverse Speech becomes evident – they state themselves that facilitated communication “is no longer considered to be scientifically valid by most professionals” and so to then compare it to RS is a misnomer. What is more interesting is that the experiment they refer to was conducted with subjects who presented with communication handicaps in speech and its conclusion also confirmed that that model would be inappropriate with those individuals possessing motor skills “… In facilitated communication, a non-speaking individual receives assistance from a “facilitator” who guides his or hands across a keyboard so that a message can be typed. Curiously many nonspeaking individuals who seemed to benefit from facilitated communication did not have motor deficits…it was therefore unclear why motor assistance would help them communicate…”
So if there is to be an argument against Reverse Speech it would be appropriate to challenge it with evidence that has been compiled in this era, rather than research that has been gathered in the past which has no validity or bearing on this subject.
It is interesting that when David was invited to speak to the U.S. secret service organisation circa 1991 his files and notes were “borrowed” and he was never to hear from them again. Is this the type of response you would expect if Reverse Speech is adjudged to be “a potential disaster” as claimed by Byrne and Norman? To further claim that there is “great potential for harm” discredits all the hard work he has been doing, after all he has been in the field of therapy for well over forty years, even before he started reverse speech and he has other qualifications to boot – he is a certified youth pastor, counselor and hypnotherapist, to say nothing of the experience he has accumulated over the years.
The article by Byrne and Norman infers that there is a lack of empirical evidence to substantiate the claims that David Oates makes so let us first define what empirical evidence is. In an article submitted by Alina Bradford to livescience.com she defines it as 15“…information acquired by observation or experimentation. This data is recorded and analysed …and is a central process as part of the scientific method. The scientific method begins with scientists forming questions, or hypotheses, and then acquiring the knowledge to either support or disprove a specific theory.” The information that David Oates has in his possession has been gathered using this criteria.
Aside from the evidence he has accumulated over the years, the speech reversals that have been documented by David Oates adhere to strict protocols which would meet the structure required for grammatical sentencing and there is a stringent list of conditions that must be passed. To then claim the phenomenon of pareidolia (where the human brain perceives there to be patterns of speech in random noise) and phonetic reversal without being privy to all of the documented evidence he has gathered is completely nonsensical.
16In his article “From Abracadabra to Zombies” in the Skeptic`s Dictionary, R.T.Carroll goes on to criticize the theme when David relates to his experience with infants and children being able to communicate in reverse language before being able to converse in “forward speech” by stating “…And where is the evidence for his claims about infants and speech, claims which contradict everything that is known about the development of the human brain and speech in children?…”It appears to be a very limited view as there is current research which suggests otherwise in that “17newborn brains are full of feverish activity and… are already gathering and processing important information from the world around them. At just two days after birth, babies are already able to process language using processes similar to those of adults… researchers have demonstrated that they are sensitive to the most important parts of words, the edges, a cognitive mechanism which has been repeatedly observed in older children and adults.” What is more …”18several findings have observed that from birth until the age of six months, infants can discriminate the phonetic contrasts of all languages. Researchers believe that this gives infants the ability to acquire the language spoken around them…” and even Steven Pinker from M.I.T., no less, confirms that 19“Babies can think before they can talk …. babies achieve the feats of phonetic distinctions used in their parents language before they produce or understand words…… it is virtually impossible to show how children could learn a language …. they have a considerable amount of non-linguistic cognitive machinery in place before they start..” so we can discount Mr. Carroll`s criticism.
David also mentions the idea of metaphors and correlates it with past traditions and mythology and his ideas originate from past luminaries who themselves have researched these ideas and which have gained respect and acceptance by their peers.
Language is a complex and unique form through which we humans communicate and Reverse Speech just adds to that kaleidoscope.
For any novice Reverse Speech is a fascinating and perplexing concept to grasp and as in all new endeavors, with practice comes proficiency, so we should not be disenchanted by the mis-information that is presented by a narrow mind-set. Instead we should be more emboldened and committed to demonstrate the validity of Reverse Speech through our practice and the challenge is to achieve and accumulate more evidence in order to generate enthusiasm for further research into this less well-known field.
As Samuel Smiles, the Scottish author and well-known government reformer said “The very greatest things – great thoughts, discoveries, inventions – have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow and at length established with difficulty.”
Read Also:
Response To Skeptical Enquirer
Reverse Speech Reply To Monash
Linguistic Analysis Of Some Reversals
Footnotes:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_speech
2. www.scientificamerican.com › Mind & Brain › September 2011 › Skeptic
3. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-pseudoscience/ What Is Pseudoscience? Distinguishing between science and pseudoscience is problematic – By Michael Shermer | Aug 16, 2011
4. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-pseudoscience/
5. http://www.thrivemovement.com/the_code-fundamental_pattern
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth
7. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6749963
8. http://www.csicop.org/si/show/demon-haunted_sentence_a_skeptical_analysis_of_reverse_speech1/
9. http://www.academia.edu/7175118/Subliminal_Messages_Between_the_Devil_and_the_Media John R Vokey & J Don Read- Psychology in acton , American Psychologist 40: pp 1231–1239 – November 1985 American Psychologist
10. Auditory Perception: A New Synthesis P180 By Richard M. Warren
11. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/172/3983/599.abstract – Science 7 May 1971: Vol. 172 no. 3983 pp. 599-601 -DOI: 10.1126/science.172.3983.599
12. Auditory Evoked Potentials during Speech Perception -Charles C. Wood1, William R. Goff1, Ruth S. Day2
Science 24 September 1971: Vol. 173 no. 4003 pp. 1248-1251 DOI: 10.1126/science.173.4003.1248
13. https://reversespeech.com/2000/03/response-to-skeptical-enquirer/
14. http://www.csicop.org/si/show/demon-haunted_sentence_a_skeptical_analysis_of_reverse_speech1/
15. http://www.livescience.com/21456-empirical-evidence-a-definition.html Empirical Evidence: A Definition by Alina Bradford, Live Science Contributor – March 24, 2015
16. http://skepdic.com/reversespeech.html
17. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150721081725.htm
18. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_acquisition – Main articles: Sensitive periods § Language and Critical period hypothesis
19. http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Papers/Py104/pinker.langacq.html – Steven Pinker Massachusetts Institute of Technology Chapter to appear in L. R. Gleitman, M. Liberman, and D. N. Osherson (Eds.), An Invitation to Cognitive Science, 2nd Ed. Volume 1: Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.