Subliminal messages

[asajoseph]

First of all, a warning: the link below contains songs, played in reverse, which it is claimed contain satanic and other subliminal messages.

http://www3.telus.net/jefmil/stairwaybackwards.htm


So, before I begin, I'd just like to make it very VERY clear that I'm very skeptical about these examples. But I have a few questions - does anyone have any specific information with regards to the Led Zeppelin track? I know they were into Crowely, but it's only circumstantial.

Secondly, does anyone believe that the media conveys subliminal messages, of any kind, in this or other ways?

Asa

[Dilettante]

asajoseph, I share your skepticism about subliminal messages in general.
If you go to http://skepdic.com/subliminal.html you'll see why. By definition, anything subliminal cannot be perceived by us, so it can't have any effect. The whole subliminal mania can be traced back to a single instance reported by a single individual and which not only has never been reproduced in controlled conditions, but has also been shown to be a hoax. I'm talking about James Vicary's 1957 movie theater story.

While I don't have any specific reliable information about the Led Zep track ( all I have is hearsay information, which is not worth posting in my opinion), I have often wondered how exactly does one go about playing a vinyl record backwards. In the days before PCs became widely available, it seems to me that it would not be easy to listen to those allegedly "satanic" messages. Supposing, for the sake of argument, that those messages were actually planted there by musicians and are not a pareidolia-related phenomenon, why bother if people were not going to be able to understand them?

[otseng]

So, before I begin, I'd just like to make it very VERYvclear that I'm very skeptical about these examples. But I have a few questions - does anyone have any specific information with regards to the Led Zeppelin track? I know they were into Crowely, but it's only circumstantial.

Secondly, does anyone believe that the media conveys subliminal messages, of any kind, in this or other ways?

This is often referred to as backmasking.

Backmasking is the name given to the practise of incorporating hidden messages in music passages, by reversing them. In other words, in backmasking a message is recorded, and is then embedded backwards into the music.

Source: Backmasking FAQ

As to its effects, it is generally acknowledged that backmasking has no effect. "Subliminal messages are generally ineffective or quite limited in their influence." - Religious tolerance

But, I think the more interesting question is, how did they get there?

There are a several answers that I can think of.

1. It was intentionally put there by the artist.
2. It is a totally random event. That is, it is just a lucky happenstance that something seems to make sense backwards.
3. There is some sort of supernatural influence.

For #1, for an artist to have something sound normal forward and also be intelligible backwards would be hard to imagine. I know of singer that has gone through this effort to make something intelligible forward and backward. So, #1 is out.

#2 is a strong possibility. However, the backward messages for some reason are of a religious or, more commonly, evil nature. This site has listed some messages that are found in backmasking. So, if it was truly a random event, then we would expect the message contents to be random. But, this does not seem to be the case.

I believe #3 to be the strongest possibility. One reason is that the backmasking messages all seem to have a spiritual message to them. I do not believe that spiritual forces are trying to give subliminal messages, but the backmasking is simply a fingerprint of forces behind the artists.

For the curious, here is a site I found that has some MP3 backmasking tracks.

[asajoseph]

fascinating Otseng, I'll have a look at your sources.

Before doing so, I'd like to suggest a fourth option.

#4 - There is no actual message there at all - it's the result of someone listening to the record, imaginatively fitting some words to the sounds, and then using the power of suggestion to convince others.

I don't know about you, but listening to the Led Zep track, before looking at the lyrics, I heard absolutely nothing. Of those listed, the only ones I heard without the lyrics were the Britney Spears one (which I think was hilarious), and the Pink Floyd one (which was deliberate). Also, you'll notice that it's not even whole songs listed on this site - it's only parts. Are similar 'messages' found even in the rest of these songs?

[Dilettante]

I agree with asajoseph.

And, otseng, I believe it is easy to explain why the content of those alleged messages is religious or evil in nature:

The people who tend to identify supernatural messages where there are none are people who either are into occultism already or are religious and extremely afraid of the Devil. So it's no wonder they think they've heard a Satanic message rather than, say, the local news report.

[asajoseph]

There is a common denominator here though - both Zep and the Beatles (probably the most commonly linked bands to this kind of thing) dabbled with Aleister Crowley. Stuff like Cradle of Filth is also overtly satanic.

Whilst the evidence remains far from convincing from my point of view, has anyone done any research into whether or not bands have actually tried deliberately to record this stuff (rather than people with apparently overactive imaginations identifying it)?

[otseng]

#4 - There is no actual message there at all - it's the result of someone listening to the record, imaginatively fitting some words to the sounds, and then using the power of suggestion to convince others.

That could be a possibility also. However, I have listened to some of these backmasking tracks. And when someone does point out what the messages could be, I could hear those messages for myself. And I didn't really have to make much of a stretch of my imagination to make out those words.

Also, you'll notice that it's not even whole songs listed on this site - it's only parts. Are similar 'messages' found even in the rest of these songs?

Are you asking if a song is completely filled with backmasking messages? I don't believe so. It's only snippets. But, you also don't find fingerprints completely covering a crime scene either.

So it's no wonder they think they've heard a Satanic message rather than, say, the local news report.

The support of this argument would be finding backmasking messages that contains local news reports (or other such random messages).

[Dilettante]

This hidden-message business is pretty old. Remember the "Paul is dead" urban legend which developed around the "Abbey Road" Beatles album? What I still don't know is how to play a vynil record backwards. Not one of the many turntables I've owned in my life has had that function as an option. It's easy to do with a Revox spool tape recorder, but ordinary rock fans didn't usually own one.

Any recorded sentence, if reversed, can potentially be interpreted as a hidden message. Reverse speech is like the Rorschach test, if we pay enough attention we’ll “discover” something even if it is not there at all.
The backmasking myth was dealt what should have been a fatal blow in 1986 when another Birmingham (UK) heavy metal band, Judas Priest, was taken to court by the parents of two Reno, Nevada, teenagers who had shot themselves the year before, allegedly after listening to a song by the band with a hidden message which said “do it!”. The evidence was examined very carefully, and the judge finally dismissed the charges in 1990.

Now for my own backmasking story: many years ago my father had a special Philips cassette tape player to learn English. He ended up giving up on learning English and passed that tape player on to me. Me and my siblings played a lot with it, because it had an unusual feature: it was one of those where you listen to the teacher model the pronunciation on one side and you could copy him and record your efforts at the same time. What I mean is that the tape player played both sides of the tape at the same time. As a result, if you used blank tapes, backmasking was easy. It was a matter of talking into the microphone, them flipping the cassete over to the B side, and listening to strange vocal sounds. We discovered that many of those sounds could be, with a little imagination, interpreted. Many times they were garbled or jumpy or clipped, but since they retained the same rythm patterns (only inverted) of the language, we could "discover" occasional words which made (limited) sense. We never heard anything creepy or satanic. It was just a game. It's similar to EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) people hear into white noise from a TV or radio receiver and then claim it's "voices from the dead."

Of course, hearing isolated phrases is relatively easy, and there is nothing paranormal about it. Hearing a news broadcast would certainly be more unsettling. But I doubt that would be possible. What would you have to say into a mic in order to have it played backwards as "hi, this was the five o'clock news...stay tuned..."? It only works with simple messages.

[ST88]

As to its effects, it is generally acknowledged that backmasking has no effect. "Subliminal messages are generally ineffective or quite limited in their influence." - Religious tolerance

I never understood why this was such a big deal. How in the world is anyone going to be affected by the reverse of a song when it is always played forward?

But, I think the more interesting question is, how did they get there?

There are a several answers that I can think of.

1. It was intentionally put there by the artist.
2. It is a totally random event. That is, it is just a lucky happenstance that something seems to make sense backwards.
3. There is some sort of supernatural influence.

For #1, for an artist to have something sound normal forward and also be intelligible backwards would be hard to imagine. I know of singer that has gone through this effort to make something intelligible forward and backward. So, #1 is out.

You're probably right. I haven't so far seen (heard) any songs before 1966 or so played backwards, probably because this was the time when audio tape was starting to be manipulated. It would be interesting to see if the increase in the amount of slurring done by a singer has an effect on the number of interpretations of the backward playing. Most non-blues singers before this time were careful to enunciate.

Petra had a song back in the 80s that began with an intentional backward mask: "Why are you lookin' for the devil when you oughta be looking for the Lord?"

There is also the case of David Lynch instructing his actors to read their lines phonetically backwards, so that the resulting forward dialogue is sufficiently weird to appear to be coming from a different realm.

#2 is a strong possibility. However, the backward messages for some reason are of a religious or, more commonly, evil nature. This site has listed some messages that are found in backmasking. So, if it was truly a random event, then we would expect the message contents to be random. But, this does not seem to be the case.

This is the most likely explanation. Often, including the site mentioned in this thread, the phonemes required to produce the back-masked words are not present, and the brain has a remarkable ability to fill in the blanks when prompted.

I believe #3 to be the strongest possibility. One reason is that the backmasking messages all seem to have a spiritual message to them. I do not believe that spiritual forces are trying to give subliminal messages, but the backmasking is simply a fingerprint of forces behind the artists.

Bollocks.

The reason these songs have spiritual messages is that the people who are looking for them have a predisposition to find them.

[Dilettante]

For backmasking to be intentional (I understand it sometimes is) we would have to hear some garbled speech when the song is played forwards. This is not the case with the Led Zep song. The most devilish thing about it is that everybody learns that song's intro and then tries to impress their guitarist friends who obviously can play it too--happened to me actually!
A great place to read about this is http://www.skepdic.com/backward.html