Friedel’s Conversations with the Dead is the story of the Swedish painter and opera singer Friedrich Jürgenson, who pioneered the discovery of Electronic Voice Phenomena, in which deceased people appear to be able to make contact with the physical world utilising electronic devices such as radios, tape recorders, computers and televisions.

Born in Odessa in 1903 during the lead up to the Russian revolution, Friedel, as he was affectionally known, witnessed the carnage and dead bodies piled up in the streets at a young age. When he was six years old his father took him to a slaughterhouse, and when he heard the screams of animals being killed, he said there and then, “It is not right for man to eat dead animals.” That was a defining event in his life and he became a lifelong vegetarian. His childhood experiences were a stark vision of the fragility of human existence and the cruelty imposed on animals, and a reminder to him that death is never far away.

Maybe it was a preparation for the day in 1959, when he heard his mother’s voice on the tape recorder that he used for recording birdsong in the forest. That was unusual because the tape recorder and tape were new, whereas she had been dead for five years!

This book documents his encounters with scientists such as Hans Bender, the renowned German psychologist, who after experimenting with the voices concluded, that they couldn’t be explained by normal means and were “probably paranormal.”

TV personalities sought out Friedel, curious and in many cases sceptical about the voices and his claims, and he was the star of Sweden’s version of the TV show “Here is Your Life”, and the subject of a film and documentaries in Europe, and he produced and directed his own documentaries.

He became a regular guest at the Vatican and directed excavations in Pompeii. He painted portraits of two pope’s, Pius XII and Pope Paul VI, which still hang there today. Pope Paul VI later agreed that the voices, were not of earthly origin
(or demonic) and were indeed the voices from the dead.

Friedrich Jürgenson embodied the spirit of a renaissance man and his story is one of the more fascinating adventures of the twentieth century.

Anabela Cardoso is a retired Portuguese diplomat, and a former member of the SPR.

In 1998, Dr Cardoso’s long-standing interest in questions related to life and death led her to start experimenting with ITC (Instrumental Transcommunication). The quantity and quality of her results, obtained under controlled conditions both through the EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) and the DRV (Direct Radio Voices) methods, have convinced her, in spite of the sensitivity of her professional position, to place them in the public domain.

In 2000, Dr Cardoso founded the ITC Journal, of which she remains Editor-in-Chief. The ITC Journal is published in English, and has an Editorial Board of internationally recognised scientists and researchers of the paranormal. Cardoso is a regular contributor to the Journal and to other international psychical research publications and has given invited presentations on ITC and her work in the USA, Brazil and many European countries.

Samples of Cardoso’s ITC results can be found at itcjournal.org.

Anders Leopold Elmquist (18/08/1937; Eringsboda, Sweden – 01/08/2021; Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife) was a Swedish journalist and author who wrote under the pseudonym Anders Leopold. He was known for his investigative journalism and reporting on corruption, organized crime, and other social issues in Sweden.

Leopold started his career as a journalist in the 1960s, working for various newspapers and media outlets in Sweden, including Nerikes Allehanda, Aftonbladet and Expressen. He gained prominence in the 1980s with his reporting on corruption and organized crime, and in particular, the assassination of Olof Palme, the Swedish prime minister, who was murdered in 1986. Leopold maintained that one of those involved in the execution was a right-wing extremist named Victor Gunnarsson, and that he was part of an international conspiracy involving the security services Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (Chile), the CIA and South Africa’s secret police. The reason would be, among other things, to stop criticism of the military junta in Chile and the apartheid regime in South Africa, as well as to prevent a disclosure of the Iran-Contras affair. Palme was vocal in his opposition to apartheid. Gunnarsson remained a suspect for some time but was never charged due to lack of evidence. He subsequently emigrated to the USA and in 1993 was murdered in North Carolina.

Leopold published several books on the subject and produced a number of documentaries. Throughout his career he received numerous awards and honours for his contributions to journalism, including the Cavling Prize, Denmark’s most prestigious journalism award, which he won twice. He was also recognized internationally, receiving the Freedom of the Press award from the International Press Institute in 1989.

After meeting Fredrich Jürgenson, the two became friends and he devoted much of the remainder of his life to investigating Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) culminating in his book on Jürgenson My friend on the other side.
Friedel’s Conversations with the Dead: The Fascinating Story of Friedrich Jürgenson, Pioneer of EVP by Anabela Cardoso and Anders Leopold, his first book in English on Jürgenson, was published posthumously in 2023.