Preview
  • Strange Frequencies

  • The Extraordinary Story of the Technological Quest for the Supernatural
  • By: Peter Bebergal
  • Narrated by: Will Damron
  • Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (51 ratings)

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Strange Frequencies

By: Peter Bebergal
Narrated by: Will Damron
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Publisher's summary

A journey through the attempts artists, scientists, and tinkerers have made to imagine and communicate with the otherworldly using various technologies, from cameras to radiowaves.

Strange Frequencies takes listeners on an extraordinary narrative and historical journey to discover how people have used technology in an effort to search for our own immortality.

Bebergal builds his own ghostly gadgets to reach the other side, too, and follows the path of famous inventors, engineers, seekers, and seers who attempted to answer life's ultimate mysteries. He finds that not only are technological innovations potent metaphors keeping our spiritual explorations alive, but literal tools through which to experiment the boundaries of the physical world and our own psyches.

Peter takes the listener alongside as he explores:

  • The legend of the golem and the strange history of automata
  • A photographer who is trying to capture the physical manifestation of spirits
  • A homemaker who has recorded voicemails from the dead
  • A stage magician who combines magic and technology to alter his audience's consciousness
  • And more
©2018 Peter Bebergal (P)2018 Penguin Audio
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Critic reviews

“With all human culture arguably evolved from Palaeolithic shamanism, Bebergal engagingly explores the uncanny overlap between an ancient landscape of occult ideas and today’s techno-saturated environment, from Victorian table-tilting to the digitally remastered voices of the dead; from confidence tricksters, through the desperate or delusional, to the artists and visionaries currently exploring this marvelous, ectoplasm-damp material. An absorbing, comprehensive guide to the high-definition séance parlor of the modern world, and a timely reminder that, in contemporary civilization, we are never more than a couple of centuries away from an alchemist.” (Alan Moore)

“Even the most well-read esoteric scholar will find some new and fascinating bit of lore in Bebergal’s book...an engrossing read.... And as far as tour guides to the occult underworld go, you couldn’t ask for a better Virgil than Bebergal: his prose is warm, clever and erudite without being alienating. Read it with as open a mind as he wrote it and you’ll be bound to pick up a few interesting frequencies on your wavelength.” (Fortean Times)

“Bebergal dives into the relationship between technical and occult imagination and comes up with something profound about the human experience. By turns funny, spooky, thought-provoking, and moving, Strange Frequencies is brilliant work.” (Daniel Abraham, New York Times best-selling coauthor of the Expanse series)

What listeners say about Strange Frequencies

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Very Compelling Read!

Very Compelling Read! A great mix of scepticism and wonder. It really opened me up. For me it was a blending and balacing of the dichotomy between Technology and Tradition. Highly Recommend even if it's just to gain perspective of what are modern tools can also be used for

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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when magic meets maker

An interesting overview of the history of tech as it relates to the paranormal. Brief but thorough within the devices included.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Enjoyable for what it is

Tried to finish this book for a while and the audiobook helped a lot. I think it’s a good introduction to fringe spiritual and technological thinking, written in a very journalistic way.
If you already know about golems, automata, spirit boxes and the occult, there’s not a ton of new info here and you might be bored with it.
Still, I commend Mr. Bebergal on taking on what seems like a massive amount of research for this.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Great overview.

I wish I had this book when I first started as it is an excellent overview of the more recent history of the spiritualist movement beginning in the early 1900's. It does cover some older tradition, John Dee for instance, but only really in passing. Terrence Mckenna offers better insight (and criticism on that.

He mentions Robert A. Monroe and even John A Keel, both of those authors offer better material with greater depth than you will find here, particularly within "the eighth tower" by Keel or "Far Journey " by Monroe.

It's a decent overview to new comers, and perhaps a bit of valid criticism to those taken in by the more new agey concepts who need a bit of grounding.

It's a good book. But it doesnt offer anything I didn't already know. It is a great suggested reading list if nothing else.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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SOLID, Interesting, & Great Narration too!

This book is so well written that it's hard to put down.
The narration is perfect, the historical analysis is perfection,
also the subject matter is EXTREMELY interesting.
Amazing book, well written, and easy to fall into.
The best kind of Audiobook. : )

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    2 out of 5 stars
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Couldn't Get Into It

I became interested in this book after hearing the author interviewed on the Witch Wave podcast. It sounded like a really interesting premise, but ultimately it failed to deliver. I keep finding myself tuning out to the narrators droning voice. I'm sure the right kind of listener could really get into it, but it's just too technical and cerebral for me.

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