About 35 years ago, I came across a claim by G. Harry Stine that a man had invented and patented an invention that acted as a really effective hearing aid, as it allows you to experience sound by an external excitation of the nervous system.

So I looked up the patent number (U. S. 3,647,970) and found a huge number of hits on Google. This reference - http://www.rexresearch.com/flanagan/neuroph.htm - has the more serious articles and the patent information.

The weird part is the number of web sites that claim that the neurophone (that's the name of the device) is being used as a means for the CIA/unknown governmental agencies to control selected persons by an equivalent to telepathy.

So, for fun and so on, have a look. You get the conspiracy sites by googling the patent number. And the device actually exists for sale. Who will be the first to buy one and report on the effect? (Assuming the CIA or whoever will let him.)

 

I would expect some incompatibility between the signal levels of the device and the ones that are interpreted by the brain. And I'm being optimistic.

 

I wonder why it's marketed as an electronic Prozac instead of the ultimate hearing aid?

The device made an appearance at about the same time as the Dean Drive that supposedly converted rotary motion to a linear thrust. If either of these devices really worked, you might have expected the government to have pounced upon both of them.

If I win the lottery, I'll buy a couple Neurophones and look into the effect. Or maybe flange up something based on the circuit in the patent application.

It's really interesting, especially as my hearing is somewhat impaired these days. I really can't tell what is real and what is made up. Maybe I'll see about renting one?!?

Mind control? Well, I'll just attach a few hundred ferrite cores to my foil hat - no problem.

 

I just worked down to the patent application. It appears that it is for a speech compressor. Absolutely nothing to do with neural stimulation.

 

I just worked down to the patent application. It appears that it is for a speech compressor. Absolutely nothing to do with neural stimulation.

Patent applications are written in a language called "lawyer language". The patent is written in such dubious way that it covers most applications as possible, even applications not intended to be covered. This means money for the owner and lawsuits for all others. Software patents are the best examples on how a patent can be dubious and a trap.

 

It's not just obfuscatory language - it's that one can never really figure out what the device is, or the manner of how it works.

Reading over the "literature", it operates at RF/audio frequencies, and uses electrodes of zirconium titanate/stainless steel that directly stimulate the nervous system/induce bone conduction/ultrasonically affect certain skin structures.

It is able to let profoundly deaf persons hear/induce feelings of peace and contentment/enable the government to control your thoughts via satellite (the same ones that can track every human being in real time).

Everybody who reports on it seems to have some agenda to pursue, if only profit, so it is hard to determine if there is some real effect. And it keeps begging the question that if it can really aid hearing, why isn't it being sold as such?

 

Oh, now you're trying to tell me that the voices in my head are the CIA?

Well, I guess everyone has their opinion.


...yes, we do.

 

If that's the case, whose voices do they hear?