haunted
by
captain mission

in 1979 i built a transistor radio / tape deck, that could tune into frequencies as yet very unexplored, especially on a level that this device could penetrate. to look at it was a kind of normal radio, although from the chunky late 70's. It was black with silver dials and i'd managed to install an terrestrial antenna for very low frequencies from 50 to minus 500 kHz. the main dial was the tuner but there were two other dials, one was to focus the tune thus getting clarity, the other emitted a low frequency attraction pulse. the idea being that the attraction pulse acted like bait, and the focus dial basically fine tuned while the big dial just tuned into the frequencies. if one looked inside the components you would be surprised to see some organic material amongst some basic electronics.
without giving details away there would be a bat skeleton, hair from a deceased human, some blood and tears mixed in a small vial (not my own) there was also the 'secret' section from the necronomicon that i had ritually prepared and inserted in the circuit boards.
the other main element to the radio was a high quality mike, hooked up to the tape recording part of the machine. this radio was a device that cold speak to the dead and record the answers. pretty good at a time when electronic voice phenomena (EVP) and instrumental transcommunication (ITC) where almost unknown.
anyways my idea was to use the elementary science and advanced magickal techniques i had learnt in a practical way and see what the results where. unfortunately i had made an error, it was not a 'bat' that was required at all, it was a raven or crow skeleton, and more specifically only the skull. years later when i rediscovered an interest in communicating with the dead i amended my mistake. (thanks people at neuro-magick conference 1997)
the results were brilliant in their clarity and execution, soon i was in command of the realm of the dead, people would come to consult me and my notoriety became almost global in an underground way. the strange thing was the dead would also come, i'd just have to turn the machine on and the dials would tune themselves, information became revealed as both the living and the dead made their exchanges. i learnt that there is always a two way process, but it is the living that are the most selfish.
where is the treasure?
where is the family fortune?
yet the dead only wish to know that they were loved and remembered.
my evenings and nights (the radio could only operate after sunset) where spent hour after hour fulfilling requests and i was beginning to suffer a bit myself, no time for sleep, no time for anything other than this strange mediation between living and dead. on average i received 30 to 40 letters a day, and at least 80 phone calls.

one day i picked up a strangely familiar voice, a soft broken transmission, with a hint of poetry and sadness, it was mine. my own voice, a communication from myself, maybe from the future because i am not dead yet. fear seized hold as i wrestled with the message. 'stop... transmission, tear hole.... in dimensional fabric stop...transmission stop...danger danger mission terminate mission.' etc. i unplugged the device quickly and buried it.
there were protests from the living and some from the dead, i still have disembodied voices whispering to me to retrieve the device and continue the dialogues, for the dead seek a salvation from the living, but i never succumb to their demands. i don't wish to be responsible for any anomalies in the fabric of space and time and these disembodied tragic 'voices' i can live with them. But could you?