Backmasking
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"Backward masking" or "backmasking" was first noticed when the Beatles became popular and teenagers began to talk about hidden messages in some of their music. Religious fundamentalists created further interest by stating that certain songs contained negative, subliminal phrases and commands, commercial suggestions, and other cryptic messages discernible only when the music was played backwards.
Now, Oates has proven that reversals are indeed present in music and, much more significantly, he has discovered that reversals exist naturally in all human speech, no matter what the subject and no matter who is talking. Any recorded human speech, when played backwards, contains reversals that appear as intelligible forward phrases amid the backward gibberish. In addition, these reversals are not just random words they actually communicate to anyone who will listen. They verify, negate, or expand upon the subject that is being discussed.
Naturally occurring speech reversals go far beyond the early attempts at intentional backmasking in rock music. Reverse Speech is an entirely different issue. In this book, David discusses at length his revolutionary discovery that:
Human speech has two distinctive and complementary functions and modes. The Overt Mode is spoken forward and constructed by conscious cognitive processes...