This article deals with the new forms of communication with the dead which appeared in our modern world as a result of technical progress. These are the contact forms based on using a lot of different technical devices, such as photo, audio and, less often, video ones. Most of them are based both on so-called Electronic Voice Phenomenon, “discovered” in the 1960s by Friedrich Jurgenson and spiritualistic photography which was very popular in the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century. In the 1917s, all of these types of communications were named “instrumental transcommunication”. The article observes the main methods and process content of instrumental transcommunication, justification of this phenomenon by its researchers, relations between the roles of operator and devices’ functions in this process. The author also considers the researchers’ world view for justification of their experiences and results, relations of modern methods with the ones used by spiritualism followers, and purposes set by the people who practice different methods of instrumental transcommunication. The author pays attention to source of specified methods and changes which occurred in separate ways of communication with the dead, their appearance, and their use by Russian researches in our time. The paper questions the possibility of assignment of this way of communication with the dead to necromantic practice, and of relation of the practicing communities to mystical and esotherical ones. Consideration of all of these questions is important for understanding the changes which we see in traditional magic practice depending on technical progress in modern society.
Keywords: esotericism, necromancy, communication with the dead, modern technology, modern esotericism
DOI: 10.22250/2072-8662.2019.4.37-43
About the author
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Anastasiia A. Novikova – postgraduate student at Russian Christian Academy of the Humanities; 15 Fontanka river embankment, St. Petersburg, Russia, 191023; 381838@rambler.ru
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