Ghost Box Read online

  Spirit Technician Communication

  I’ve been blessed to deal with scores of Spirit Technicians throughout the years. When I first communicated, it was very chaotic. I would say “Technicians, assist” and it sounded like a large group of people talking to one another and attempting to push their way through. After I heard a distinct voice, I asked, “Who am I speaking to?” After a brief pause, one of the entities would answer in a clear voice over the static and I would know that was the Tech who would be assisting me for that session.

  Over time, things got more organized and I became familiar with a small group of spirits. After reaching this stage, I was fortunate enough to begin dealing with Technicians on a one-on-one basis.

  Many of the technicians I’ve dealt with have spoken to me in clear English, which is by far the easiest way for me to understand and relay messages. I’ve also dealt with several different dialects, which seem to have either a Spanish or Italian origin. Some of the most intriguing dialects I’ve dealt with have been not of this world at all. Often when the entities that work as Technicians on the other side speak to me in English, it’s very apparent the information is being translated either by another Technician or some sort of translation program. It’s extremely hard to describe. The way I interpret it is similar to a computer or robotic voice coming through the speakers. In other rare instances, I’ve heard something I’d never heard before come through the device and for some reason I’m able to understand it, communicate with it, and relay messages. This is where my mediumship abilities prove invaluable.

  Also—and I know this is an unpopular opinion for many researchers and psychics—there are very few people that were meant to work with these devices. It takes a very unique mediumship ability to not only receive messages from the device but also to power the device. The medium becomes one with the machine and the energy flows in a circular motion.

  I’ve never had what would be considered a “bad” experience with the Spirit Technician—but there have been many instances in the past where I found it extremely difficult to work with certain Technicians, much like any workplace. Once I realize that my energy is connecting with one of these Technicians at the start of a session, I try to be as polite as possible and let the Technician know that I would prefer to work with another individual in the future. So far I haven’t had any negative repercussions from doing this.

  Spirit Technicians as Troubleshooters

  I have many spirits that stay with the Ghost Box until they get their message through. I am always willing to help in the spirit of the light, but if they are disrespectful or pushy, I will ask my Technician to remove them from communication. From what I understand, they do so by simply blocking the bothersome entity from the device.

  People have asked me if the spirits or entities stay in the device or if they ever come through in dreams, show up at my house, etc. In most cases, the spirits that attempt to communicate with me through the device will follow the device until it’s turned on again. In the ground rules that I’ve set up, I insist that spirits speak only to me through the device. If they choose to harass me in an attempt to get their story through, I will simply ask a Technician to eliminate them from further communication.

  Frank’s Box Evolution

  There were at least six incarnations of Frank’s Box, each an improvement over the previous model—smaller, or with less static. The last version Frank Sumption was working on when he passed away even had a video component.

  The first device Frank built was a huge, heavy machine that was extremely difficult to transport and required electricity to function. The second-generation device was about half the size of the first, much lighter, and included a handle for somewhat easier transport. The third-generation device was much smaller and ran on a large surplus of AA batteries. The only drawback of the third-generation device was that, due to the size of the machine, the speaker and power amps were much smaller and it was somewhat difficult to hear.

  As for the fourth-generation Ghost Box, I contacted Frank with a specific request for a machine. The Spirit Technicians had come to me over several different sessions and told me what I would need for clearer communication. I contacted Frank and provided him with $275 to complete the machine to the Technician’s specifications. Once again, without fail, Frank contacted me less than two weeks later with the completed device. It was a wooden box with a brass handle. There was a small latch on the front of the device and when you lifted the cover, the facing of the device was inside. There were speakers on the front as well as the sides of the device. It offered both linear and random function as well as an AM/FM source switch. The device had several different knobs for volume and rate adjustment as well as two antennas that ran from the upper left-hand corner of the device. This device, unlike the others, ran on rechargeable gel cell batteries. The machine could run for several hours without having to be charged again and offered the opportunity to use the machine in new and exciting ways. This is still the primary device that I use today.

  Thomas Edison

  Thomas Edison seems to be the brains behind this operation, which really is the embodiment of his “Telephone to the Dead.” He’s very much in charge and only comes through when a strong message needs to be delivered from up top. Rarely does Mr. Edison make an appearance during a private or public session, but when he does his voice is very clear and distinct as if he’s achieved a certain spiritual level that I can’t fathom.

  I believe that my involvement with Mr. Edison’s team was foretold long before I became aware that I would be involved in this project. I think the timing of the message “Technicians, assist” at the infamous Sallie House in Atchison, Kansas, was simply my introduction to the spirit team. I can’t say for sure how many levels of the spirit team exist. It seems that Mr. Edison carefully thought out this project and I believe that he himself is being directed from a much higher level.

  In a related case of synchronicity, during one of my Ghost Hunter University events I taught at the Mason House Inn, I discussed the Ghost Box and how Mr. Edison was the original inventor. An older gentleman’s hand popped up in the audience who provided some insight on Thomas Edison. He informed me the way Edison used to work was by giving specific tasks to each person on the team. Each of these individuals was highly skilled in one narrow area of expertise. In doing this, Edison would be provided the highest level of quality and would ensure that no two individuals shared information with one another. This is the way he kept anyone from stealing his work before it was patented. Apparently, he called these individuals “useful idiots.” I realized that, in a very strange way, I’m just another one of his useful idiots.

  Purpose of Frank’s Box

  A few years after I started working with the Ghost Box, I had a very interesting discussion with Mr. Edison and a few higher-

  level members of his team about the wider scope of the entire project. I was told about a project code-named “The 2012 Directive.” I was informed the veil between the worlds is thinning due to several different circumstances. Apparently, this had been foretold near the beginning of the project. I was told that my specific role was to take these machines into the world and expose as many individuals as possible to the realities of spirit communication and the messages that wait for them in the next world.

  I wasn’t sure what to make of this message at first. (Anyone who knows me knows that I check my sanity each and every day!) The thing that really amazes me is that everything I was told during that session has come to fruition. I was told I would be presented opportunities to share my gifts and the team’s message, even in times when that seemed impossible. I’ve been amazed at the synchronicity that has occurred in my life since working with the Ghost Box—I seem to be put in the right situation at the right time, every time. Even in the instances I’ve questioned why I’m at a particular event with low attendance or a non-receptive audience, I have always been rewarded with being able to dramatically
help at least one person.

  I was also told there would be a large contingent that would attempt to discredit me and would work tirelessly to destroy my messages of enlightenment and hope. This was evident right from the beginning. I was told I would suffer immensely throughout these trials, and this, too, was a sad reality. But the message that resonated with me was that I truly had a team behind me and that if I stayed true to the message and the cause, we would overcome and thousands of people would be provided true comfort and hope through demonstrations of the device. This, too, has become a powerful reality.

  I was conducting one of my college lecture tours and had been away from home for many weeks. I was doing a session at one of the schools and jokingly said out loud, “I wonder if I’ll ever get a break?” And the voice from the box responded immediately, saying, “We have a desk here waiting for you.” I knew at that moment that my work wouldn’t end after death.

  Frank Sumption

  After Frank Sumption passed away in 2014, I wasn’t sure if we would ever hear from him again. By then, Frank and his wife, Norma, had become good friends with my wife and me. In later years, Frank had become so despondent about individuals taking the work he had devoted his life to and trying to make it their own that he once publicly made the statement, “When I die, you’ll never hear me come through one of my own boxes!” I’d always known that Frank was feisty and a little bit stubborn, so I wasn’t sure if he would make good on that promise or not. I hoped he might see things differently when he crossed over to the other side.

  Before I attended and spoke at Frank’s funeral, I decided to turn on one of his boxes to see if he might make an appearance. I was delighted when he did come through and passed on some messages for his widow, Norma. I was also amazed when Frank made an appearance during one of my private sessions on his Video Box 1, which is like FaceTime with those in the spirit world. I immediately knew it was Frank when he showed up on the screen wearing his famous baseball hat.

  Some time went by before I heard Frank’s voice again, but he did finally make an appearance during one of my public sessions. When Frank’s voice came through the Ghost Box, it was stronger than in the initial session I had with him. He seemed to have found his place on the team. I quickly learned that Frank had no intention of working as a Spirit Technician in the sense of becoming a facilitator of communication. Just as he was when he lived here on earth, Frank was mainly concerned with improving the technology, now from the spirit side of things, and taking advantage of the position that he had in the spirit world. It was good to get affirmation that our personality doesn’t change when we cross over.

  [contents]

  CHAPTER · ONE

  Frank Sumption and Edison’s

  Telephone to the Dead

  In 2002, I was searching for EVP specialists on Yahoo groups to help me decipher Direct Electronic Response EVP, or DER EVP. I was well known in the paranormal community for being able to come up with new and unique ways to record ghost voices and communicate with spirits. (My role as co-founder and editor of Ghost Hunter magazine, plus years of conducting EVP sessions at paranormal investigations using a variety of original techniques, gave me a solid foundation of familiarity and expertise capturing and deciphering EVPs. This background, along with extensive experience in the field, had established my reputation as an EVP expert.)

  My Yahoo posting read: “EVP specialists needed.” I then went on to describe the position. Several people contacted me whom I hired, some that I still work with to this very day. The one email that stood out the most was from a guy named Frank Sumption. Frank took the heading of the email and changed it to “EVP specialists?” He then erased the body of the ad and replaced it with a tirade of insults toward me. He basically told me I was a moron and didn’t understand anything about spirit communication. I took offense to this email and wrote him back a scathing message. Thus began an epic flame war. For three solid months we wrote inflammatory messages to one another, never making any progress in our feud. One day, my mother saw me responding to one of these emails. Aware of my fight with Frank, she said, “It’s time to end this.”

  The first ever Frank’s Box used in the field.

  I wrote Frank back one last email that stated, “You stay on your side of the street and I’ll stay on mine.”

  Frank replied with one last email, because that’s just how Frank was. In the message he said, “You may wonder why I’m such an expert in EVP. I’ve completed Thomas Edison’s Telephone to the Dead.”

  The second version of Frank’s Box.

  I laughed. Thomas Edison’s Telephone to the Dead? That was just a legend. Researchers did know that it was a fact that Edison had begun work on such a machine. It seems crazy to think about an inventor with such an incredible scientific mind working on such a device. Apparently, Edison’s mother was a Spiritualist and he was very close to her. After her death, Edison started to re-examine his views on the afterlife. He realized that since energy could neither be created nor destroyed and that it could only change form, we humans (being energy) had to go somewhere. Edison believed that he could create a machine that would not only bring through the spirit voices of people who had died, but also their personalities. He began work on the project and talked about his progress in publications such as Scientific American and Forbes.

  His contemporaries were not at all happy with him publicly talking about this project. Upon his death, no machine or blueprints were ever found for the device. Those who know of Edison’s work know that he kept meticulous notes about all of his ideas and everything that he worked on. Mysteriously, all of the pages regarding the machine that he was working on were torn out of his journals. It is commonly believed that his contemporaries, fearing Edison would be considered insane, tore out all of these journal pages and destroyed them. It is said that in the years following his death, Edison attempted to communicate with several mediums in an effort to complete the machine he had been unable to finish himself. Unfortunately, none of the mediums he contacted had the technical ability to begin work on any device. And so it became legend.

  An early echo box built by Frank.

  When I read Frank’s claim that he had completed Thomas Edison’s Telephone to the Dead, I genuinely thought he was out of his mind.

  I wrote him back and said, “If you really completed Edison’s machine, I will fly to any location you are just to see this thing work one time.” It turns out Frank Sumption lived about fifteen minutes from my office! (You’ve got to love the Internet.) I set up a formal meeting with Frank, and the only logical place to meet was at the International House of Pancakes. My father and I dressed professionally, got our laptops and briefcases together, and went to meet Frank. When we arrived at IHOP, there stood a man looking not the way I had expected. He wasn’t as tall as I envisioned and his long red hair was tied back into a ponytail under a tattered baseball cap. He wore a button-down flannel shirt with jeans and tennis shoes. I remember Frank looking back and forth at my father and me. Once he was convinced that we weren’t CIA, NSA, or any other government agency, he decided he could tell us the story of how the machine came to be.

  My father and I sat on the opposite side of the booth from Frank and his wife. He told us the most amazing story I’ve ever heard. Apparently, Frank was a shortwave radio buff who also liked to work with electronics at home. He was reading an article in a 1997 issue of Popular Science that talked about how one could hear “voices of the dead” coming through shortwave radio by conducting a certain type of experiment. Frank, thinking that there was a logical explanation for this, conducted the experiment to the article’s specifications, with the intention of writing a letter to the magazine to debunk the claim. The first time Frank tried, voices came through shortwave calling him by his full name. Frank shut off the radio and walked away from it for several months. Curiosity got the best of him and he went back to see what else he could hear. This time, the voices not onl
y called him by name but also told him how to complete Edison’s Telephone to the Dead. The voices talked about circuit boards, diodes, and components.

  Frank, being somewhat eccentric, listened to these voices and built the machine to their specifications. He said the first time he was about to turn on the device, he didn’t believe there was any way it would work. While plans were simple, some things just didn’t make sense. He flipped on the machine the first time and apparently those same voices came through the speaker much clearer than on the shortwave radio. They told him how to build a better device. Now, at this point, you have to imagine what my father and I were thinking. We had been kicking each other underneath the table almost the entire time Frank was telling the story in an attempt to not burst out laughing.

  The third version of Frank’s Box.

  I said, “Wow, Frank. That is an amazing story. Is there any way we could see the device work sometime?”

  He said, “Yeah, come down to my workshop next weekend and I’ll show you how it works.” The following Saturday came and my father and I arrived at his home. Frank’s workshop was in his basement. As we began to traverse the stairs, I started feeling uneasy. The only way I can describe what I saw was a cross between a bad 1950s sci-fi movie and Deliverance. There were speakers hanging from the walls, there were wires hanging, there were fur pelts, and there were crossbows. As we walked into the main room, just to add a final perfect detail to the odd, ominous vibe of the room, there was a gigantic tinfoil pyramid hanging from the center of the ceiling. I turned to my father and whispered, “We’re not going to make it out alive.”