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18·NEXUS In the early 1960s, 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 c;qlled the Neurophone-an electronic instr.ument that can succes.lfully programme 'sugges tions direuly through contact with the skin. When he attempted to patent the device, the government demanded that he prove it worked. When he did, the NSA (National Security Agency) confiscated the Neurophone. It took Pat years of legal battle to get his invention back. HISTORY OF THE NEUROPHONE The first Neurophone was made when I was 14 years old, in 1938. A description was published in our first book, Pyramid Power. The first Neurophone device was construct ed by attaehing two Brillo pads to insulated copper wires. BrilIo pads are coppcr wire seouring pads used to clean pots and pans. They are about two inchcs in diameter. The Brillo pads were inserted into plastie bags !hat acted as insulators to prevent electric shock when applied to the head. The wires from the Brillo pads wcre eonnected to a reversed audio output l.!'lmsformer that was attaehed to a hi-fi amplifier. The output voltage of !he audio transformer was about 1,500 volts peak-to-peak. When the insulated pads were placcd on !he temples next to the eyes and the amplifier was driwcn by speech or music, you could 'hear' !he resulting sound inside your head. The perceived sound quality was very poor, highly distorted and very weak. r observed that durjng certain sound peaks in the audio driving signal, the sound per ceived in the head was very clear and very loud. When the signal was observed on an os.eilloscope while listening to the sound, the signal was perceived as being [oudest 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 frequen cies of 40-50 kHz. The next Neurophone eonsisted of a variable frequency vacuum tube oscillator that was amplitude-modulated. This output signal was then fed into a high (requency transformer that was flat in frequency response in the 2().1 00 kHz range. The ekctrodcs were placed on the head and the oscillator was tuned so that maximum resonance was obtained using the human body as part of the tank circuit. Later models had a feedback mechanism that automatically adjusted !he frequeney for resonance. We found !hat the dielectric constant of human skin is highly variable. In order to achieve maximum transfcr of cnergy, !he unit had to be retuned 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 !hen connected to !he body by means of two-inch diameter electrode discs that were insulated by means of mylar films of different thickncsscs. The Neuropho!J.e is really a scalar wave device since !he out-of-phase signals from the eleetrodes mix in the non-linear complexities of !he skin dielectric. Th~ signals from each capacitor eltXtrode are 180 degrees out of phase. Each signal is transmitted into the eomplex dieleetric of the body where phase caIlcellatioll takes place. The net result is a scalar vector. Of course r did nol know this when I first developed the Neurophone. This knowledge came much later when we learned that the human nervo\!,,, system ,is especially sensitive to sealar signals. The high frequency amplitude-modulated Neurophone had e~cellem sound clarity. The perceived signal was very clearly perceived lfS if it were coming from within the head. We established quite carly that some totally nerve-deaf people could hcar wi!h the device. For some reason, however, not all nerve.deaf people hear wi!h itlhe 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 sURgest FtBRUARY -MARCH 1994