The Neurophone

In the early 1960's, while only a teenager, Life magazine listed Patrick
Flanagan as one of the top scientists in the world. Among his many
inventions was a device he called the Neurophone -- an electronic instrument
that can successfully program suggestions directly through contact with the
skin. When he attempted to patent the device, the government demanded that
he prove that it worked. When he did the NSA (National Security Agency)
confiscated the Neurophone.

SPEED LEARNING, NEW HEARING, AND ELECTRONIC TELEPATHY

      Copyright Š1995 by Dr. Patrick Flanagan and Gael Crystal Flanagan

  1. HISTORY OF THE NEUROPHONE
  2. HOLOGRAPHIC SOUND
  3. SPEED LEARNING-- NEW SOUND
  4. THE EARLY DESIGNS
  5. HOW DOES IT WORK?
  6. ELECTRONIC TELEPATHY
  7. ORDERING INFORMATION
  8. CONTACTING DR. FLANAGAN

                         HISTORY OF THE NEUROPHONE

The first Neurophone was made when I was 14 years old, 1958. When I was 15
years old, I gave a lecture at the Houston Amateur Radio Club, during which
I demonstrated the Neurophone. The next day I was contacted by a reporter
from the Houston Post. He said that he had a relative who was nerve-deaf
from spinal meningitis and asked if we might try the Neurophone on his
relative. The test was a success. The day after that, an article on the
Neurophone as a potential hearing aid for the deaf appeared and went out on
the international wire services.

The publicity grew over the next two years. In 1961, Life magazine came to
our house and lived with us for over a week. They took thousands of pictures
and followed me around from dawn to dusk. The article appeared in the
September 14, 1962 issue. After that, I was invited to appear on the I've
got a Secret show hosted by Gary Moore. The show was telecast from the NBC
studios in New York. During the show, I placed electrodes from the
Neurophone on the lower back of Bess Meyerson while the panel tried to guess
what I was doing to her. She was able to 'hear' a poem that was being played
through the Neurophone electrodes. The poem was recorded perceived by Ms.
Meyerson, the panel could not guess what I was doing to her. As a result of
the Life magazine article and exposure on the Gary Moore Show, we received
over a million letters about the invention.

The U.S. Patent Office started giving us problems. The examiner said that
the device could not possibly work, and refused to issue the patent until
1967. It was only after my lawyer and I took a working model to the patent
office that the patent was issued. This was an unusual move since inventors
rarely bring their inventions to the patent examiner. The examiner said that
he would allow the patent to issue if we could make a deaf employee of the
patent office hear with the device. The employee was able to hear and the
patent for the Neurophone was issued.

A research company, the Huyck Corporation, became interested in the
invention. Huyck was owned by a very large and powerful Dutch paper company
with offices throughout the world. They began researching the device and
were favorably impressed but because of the problems with the patent office
they dropped the project.

At Huyck I met two friends who remained close to me for many years, Dr.
Henri Marie Coanda, the father of fluid dynamics, and G. Harry Stine,
scientist and author. Harry Stine wrote a book called The Silicon Gods
(Bantam Books), which was about the potential of the Neurophone as a
brain-to-computer connecting interface device.

The next stage of Neurophone research began when I went to work for Tufts
University as a research scientist. Together with a Boston based
corporation, we were involved in a project to develop a language between man
and dolphin. Our contracts were from the United States Naval Ordnance Test
Station out of China Lake, California. The senior scientist on the project
was my close friend and business partner Dr. Dwight Wayne Batteau, Professor
of Physics and Mechanical Engineering at Harvard and Tufts.

                              HOLOGRAPHIC SOUND

In the Dolphin Project we developed the basis for many potential new
technologies. We were able to ascertain the encoding mechanism used by the
human brain to decode speech intelligence patterns, and were also able to
decode the mechanism used by the brain to locate sound sources in three
dimensional space. These discoveries led to the development of a 3-D
holographic sound system which could place sounds in any location in space
as perceived by the listener. In other words it could be sent in a way where
the sound appeared to be coming right out of thin air!

We also developed a Man-Dolphin language translator. The translator was able
to decode human speech so that complex dolphin whistles were generated. When
dolphins whistled the translator would produce human speech. We developed a
communication system between ourselves and the two dolphins we were working
with at that time. The dolphins were located in the lagoon of a small island
off of Oahu, Hawaii. We had offices at Sea Life Park in Boston and commuted
between the points to test our various gadgets.

We recorded dolphins and whales in the open sea and were able to accurately
identify the locations of various marine mammals by using the concepts
discovered in our work. The system used the same method as the human brain
in locating sound sources.

A person can locate sound sources in space because of the way the outer ear
handles incoming sound signals. You can test this by closing your eyes while
having a friend jingle keys around your head. With your eyes closed you can
pinpoint the location of the keys very accurately.

If you distort your pinnae (the projected part of the exterior ear -- the
part we see -- collects and directs sound waves into the inner portions of
the ear) by bending your outer ears out of shape, your ability to locate
sound sources will be reduced or destroyed. The so called cocktail party
effect is the ability to locate specific voices in a noisy party. This is
due to the brain's ability to detect phase differences and then pay
attention to localized areas in 3-D space. Thus we can not only tell who is
speaking but the location of the speaker can also be detected. A favorite
'intelligence' trick is to have sensitive conversations in a 'hard room'
with wooden walls and floors. A microphone 'bug' will pick up all the echoes
and this will scramble the voice. Almost all embassies contain 'hard rooms'
for sensitive conversations. If you put a microphone in the room with a
duplicate of the human pinnae on top of it, you will be able to distinguish
the voices and tune out the echoes -- just like we do in a party.

In order to locate whales and dolphins under water, we used metal ears 18
inches in diameter that were attached to hydrophones. When these ears were
placed under water, we were able to accurately localize underwater sounds in
3-D space by listening to the sounds with earphones. We used this system to
pin point the location of whales and dolphins. Sound travels five times
faster under water so the artificial ears had to be larger to give the same
time-ratio encoding as we find in the air. We also made large plastic ears
that were tested in Vietnam. These ears were of the same proportions as real
ears but much larger. They enabled us to hear distant sounds with a high
degree of accuracy enabling us to locate the position of the originating
sounds in the jungle. It seems that we can adapt to ears of almost any size.
The reason we can do this is that sound recognition is based on a time ratio
code which the brain translates into what we 'hear'.

We were able to also reverse the process. We could take any sound recording
and condition it so that it would be perceived as coming from any point we
wished to project it in 3-D space. Using this system we could spread out a
recording of an orchestra so that it was as if we were listening to the
music coming from many points in a room just like a live concert.

We developed a special Neurophone that enabled us to 'hear' dolphin sounds
up to 250,000 Hertz well beyond what is otherwise possible with the human
ear. By using the device as part of the Man-Dolphin communicator we were
able to perceive more of the intricacies of the dolphin language. The human
ear is limited to about 16,000 Hertz (vibrations, pulses or cycles per
second) while dolphins generate and hear sounds up to 250,000 Hertz. Our
special Neurophone enabled us to hear the full range of dolphin sounds.

As a result of the discovery of the encoding system used by the brain to
find sound location in space, and also to recognize speech, we were able to
create a digital Neurophone.

When our digital Neurophone patent application was sent to the patent
office, the Defense Intelligence Agency slapped it under a secrecy order. I
was unable to work on the device or talk about it to anyone for another five
years. This was terribly discouraging. The first patent took twelve years to
obtain and now, after all of our work, we had our work locked up in a
national security order.

                         SPEED LEARNING -- NEW SOUND

The digital Neurophone converts sound waves into a digital signal that
matches the time ratios codes understood by the human brain. These time
signals are used not only in speech recognition but also in recognizing the
location of sounds in 3-D space as mentioned earlier in the "jingling keys"
example.

The digital Neurophone is the version that we eventually produced and sold
as the Mark XI and the Thinkman Model 50 versions. These Neurophones were
especially useful as speed learning machines. If we played educational tapes
through the device, the information is very rapidly incorporated into the
long-term memory banks of our brains.

                              THE EARLY DESIGNS

The first Neurophone device was constructed by attaching two Brillo pads to
insulated copper wires. Brillo pads are copper wire scouring pads used to
clean pots and pans. They are about two inches in diameter. The Brillo pads
were inserted into plastic bags that acted as insulators.

The wires from the pads were connected to a reversed audio output
transformer that was attached to a hi-fi amplifier. The output voltage of
the audio transformer was about 1,500 volts peak-to-peak. When the insulated
pads were placed on the temples next to the eyes and the amplifier was
driven by speech or music, you could 'hear' the resulting sound inside your
head. The perceived sound quality was very poor, highly distorted and very
weak.

I observed that during certain sound peaks in the audio driving signal, the
sound perceived in the head was very clear and very loud. When the signal
was observed on a oscilloscope while listening to the sound, the signal was
perceived as being loudest and clearest when the amplifier was over-driven
and square waves were generated. At the same time, the transformer would
ring or oscillate with a dampened wave form at frequencies of 40-50 kHz.

The next Neurophone consisted of a variable frequency vacuum tube oscillator
that was amplitude-modulated. This output signal was then fed into a high
frequency transformer that was flat in frequency response in the 20-100kHz
range. The electrodes were placed on the head and the oscillator was tuned
so that maximum resonance was obtained using the human body as a part of the
tank circuit. Later models had a feedback mechanism that automatically
adjusted the frequency for resonance. We found that the dielectric constant
of human skin is highly variable. In order to achieve maximum transfer of
energy, the unit had to be returned to resonance in order to match the
'dynamic dielectric response' of the body of the listener.

The 2,000 volt peak-to-peak amplitude-modulated carrier wave was then
connected to the body by means of two-inch diameter electrode disks that
were insulated by means of mylar films of different thicknesses. The
Neurophone is really a scalar wave device since the out-of-phase signals
from the electrodes mix in the non-linear complexities of the skin
dielectric. The signals from each capacitor electrode are 180 degrees
out-of-phase. Each signal is transmitted into the complex dielectric of the
body where phase cancellation takes place. The net result is a scalar
vector. This fact was not known at the time I invented the device. This
knowledge came later when we learned that the human nervous system is
particularly sensitive to scalar signals.

The high frequency amplitude-modulated Neurophone has excellent sound
clarity. The perceived signal was very clearly perceived as coming from
within the head. We established quite early that some totally nerve-deaf
people could hear with the device. For some reason, however, not all
nerve-deaf people hear with it the first time.

We were able to stimulate visual phenomena when the electrodes were placed
over the occipital region of the brain. The possibilities of Neurophonic
visual stimulation suggests that we may someday be able to use the brain
like a computer or television screen.

                              HOW DOES IT WORK?

The skin is our largest and most complex organ. In addition to being the
first line of defense against infection, the skin is a gigantic liquid
crystal brain.

The skin is piezo-electric. When it is vibrated or rubbed, it generates
electric signals and scalar waves. Every organ of perception evolved from
the skin. When we are embryos, our sensory organs evolved from the folds in
the skin. Many primitive organisms and animals can see and hear with their
skin.

When the Neurophone was originally developed, neurophysiologists considered
that the brain was hard-wired and that the various cranial nerves were
hard-wired to every sensory system. The eighth cranial nerve is the nerve
bundle that runs from the inner ear to the brain. Theoretically, we should
only be able to hear with are ears if our sensor organs are hard-wired. Now
the concept of a holographic brain has come into being. The holographic
brain theory states that the brain uses a holographic encoding system so
that the entire brain may be able to function as a multi-faceted sensory
encoding computer. This means that sensory impressions, like hearing, may be
encoded so that any part of the brain can recognize input signals according
to a special type of signal coding. Theoretically, we should be able to see
and hear through multiple channels not just our eyes and ears.

The key to the Neurophone is the stimulation of the nerves of the skin with
a digitally coded signal that carries the same time-ratio code that is
recognized as sound by any nerve in the body.

All commercial digital speech recognition circuitry is based on so-called
dominant frequency power analysis. While speech can be recognized by such a
circuit, the truth is that speech encoding is based on time ratios. If the
frequency power analysis circuits are not phased correctly, they will not
work. The intelligence (sound) is carried by phase information. The
frequency content of the voice gives our voice a certain quality, but
frequency does not contain information. All attempts at computer voice
recognition and voice generation are only partially successful. Until
digital time-ratio encoding is used, our computers will never be able to
really talk to us.

The computer that we developed to recognize speech for the Man-Dolphin
communicator used time-ratio analysis only. By recognizing and using
time-ratio encoding, we could transmit clear voice data through extremely
narrow bandwidths. In one device, we developed a radio transmitter that had
a bandwidth of only 300 Hertz while maintaining crystal clear transmission.
Since signal-to-noise ratio is based on bandwidth considerations, we were
able to transmit clear voice over thousands of miles while using milliwatt
power.

Improved signal-processing algorithms are the basis of a new series of
Neurophones that are currently under development. These new Neurophones use
state-of-the-art digital processing to render sound information with much
greater clarity.

                             ELECTRONC TELEPATHY

The Neurophone is an electronic telepathy machine. Several tests prove that
it bypasses the eighth cranial nerve, the hearing nerve, and transmits sound
directly to the brain. This means that the Neurophone stimulates perception
through a seventh or alternative sense.

All hearing aids stimulate tiny bones in the middle ear. Sometimes when the
eardrum is damaged, the bones of the inner ear are stimulated by a vibrator
that is placed behind the ear on the base of the skull. Bone conduction will
even work through the teeth. In order for bone conduction to work, the
cochlea or inner ear that connects to the eighth cranial nerve first must
function. People who are nerve-deaf cannot hear through bone conduction
because the nerves in the inner ear are not functional.

A number of nerve-deaf people and people who have had the entire inner ear
removed by surgery have been able to hear with the Neurophone.

If the Neurophone electrodes are placed on the closed eyes or on the face,
the sound can be clearly 'heard' as if it were coming from inside the brain.
When the electrodes are placed on the face, the sound is perceived through
the trigeminal nerve.

We therefore know that the Neurophone can work through the trigeminal or
facial nerve. When the facial nerve is deadened by means of anesthetic
injections, we can no longer hear through the face.

In these cases, there is a fine line where the skin on the face is numb. If
the electrodes are placed on the numb skin, we cannot hear it but when the
electrodes are moved a fraction of an inch over to skin that still has
feeling, sound perception is restored and the person can 'hear'.

This proves that the means of sound perception via the Neurophone is by
means of skin and not by means of bone conduction.

There was an earlier test performed at Tufts University that was designed by
Dr. Dwight Wayne Batteau, one of my partners in the United States Navy
Dolphin Communication Project. This test was known as the "Beat Frequency
Test". It is well known that sound waves of two slightly different
frequencies create a 'beat' note as the waves interfere with each other. For
example, if a sound of 300 Hertz and one of 330 Hertz are played into one
ear at the same time a beat not of 30 Hertz will be perceived. This is a
mechanical summation of sound in the bone structure of the inner ear. There
is another beat, sounds beat together in the corpus callosum in the center
of the brain. This binaural beat is used by the Monroe Institute and others
to simulate altered brain states by entraining (causing brain waves to lock
on and follow the signal) the brain into high alpha or even theta brain
states. These brain states are associated with creativity, lucid dreaming
and other states of consciousness otherwise difficult to reach when awake.

The Neurophone is a powerful brain entrainment device. If we play alpha or
theta signals directly through the Neurophone, we can move the brain into
any state desired.

Batteau's theory was that if we could place the Neurophone electrodes so
that the sound was perceived as coming from one side of the head only, and
if we played a 300 Hertz signal through the Neurophone, if we also played a
330 Hertz signal through an ordinary headphone we would get a beat note if
the signals were summing in the inner ear bones. When the test was
conducted, we were able to perceive two distinct tones without beat. This
test again proved that Neurophonic hearing was not through bone conduction.

When we used a stereo Neurophone, we were able to get a beat note that is
similar to the binaural beat, but the beat is occurring inside the nervous
system and is not the result of bone conduction.

The Neurophone is a 'gateway' into altered brain states. Its most powerful
use may be in direct communications with the brain centers, thereby
bypassing the 'filters' or inner mechanisms that may limit our ability to
communicate to the brain.

If we can unlock the secret of direct audio communications to the brain, we
can unlock the secret of visual communications. The skin has receptors that
can detect vibration, light, temperature, pressure and friction. All we have
to do is stimulate the skin with the right signals.

We are continuing Neurophonic research. We have recently developed other
modes of Neurophonic transmission. We have also reversed the Neurophone and
found that we can detect scalar waves that are generated by the living
system. The detection technique is actually very similar to the process used
by Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama in Japan. Dr. Motoyama used capacitor electrodes
very much like those we use with the Neurophone to detect energies from
various power centers of the body known as chakras.

                             ORDEING INFORMATION

The Flanagan Neurophone Thinkman(tm) will be available through Vortex
Industries when it is ready to ship. Orders will not be accepted until then.

The best way to ensure that you can get one is to get on our wait list by
writing or calling. Wait listed people will have priority on these devices
and initial quantities will be limited.

These devices are in production now and it is estimated that they will be
priced at about $595 to $695. You will be notified of the actual price as
these devices are available.

                          CONTACTING DR. FLANAGAN

                      Flanagan Neurophone Thinkman(tm)
                           Available Soon through:
                              Vortex Industries
                        1109 S. Plaza Way, Suite 399
                             Flagstaff, AZ 86001
                           Telephone: 602 392 2052
             E-Mail: Patrick Flanagan <[email protected]>

    Copyright Š 1995 by Dr. Patrick Flanagan and Gael Crystal Flanagan.