The other day I said "We are only separated by time" and the answer of Timestream came unexpected : "We are separated by your prejudices". In different occasions Timestream has said "we are outside time", "you are inside time", "we have another space", "we are at an edge of space", "you have answered, your answer came out just into our space!", etc.

On that particular day, Timestream voices were loud and strong filling the room with their hammered, beaten, metallic sounds far away at so many instances and yet so close. Feeling touched by the closeness but impotent to reach them, I ascribed to time the responsibility of the separation. But Timestream said differently. And I thought then how powerful are the mental barriers. How strong and deeply rooted they are. Rupert Sheldrake says that repeated habits become a second nature and finally integrate the nature of the species that perform them. So it is with prejudices and the human race, I believe.

Our representation of the world is necessarily based upon our physical senses. Our mental construction of the world is anthropomorfic and anthropocentric. It is necessarily reductive, leaving behind an array of unexplained phenomena.

When for instance, a tree grows beside an older tree and its trunk inclines outside in an angle of almost 90 degrees, for straightening up again when the branches have enough space to grow freely, we do not call it a conscious act but prefer to ascribe it to some obscure law that has not been enunciated.

This arrogant and obscurant attitude makes us ordinarily consider that intelligence and sensitivity are characteristic of humans, while the other beings are either ornaments or are at our service, thus depriving them of their existential dignity. This narrow minded perspective at the dawn of the third millenium, prevents true Wisdom, impedes total, holistic and cosmic Knowledge.

Preconceptions have moulded all aspects of human knowledge from religion to science. Science has followed the path of a technocratic economy, in a biased perspective, all rooted upon the material, forgetting its primordial aim of exploring the ultimate nature of Reality. It is still embodied with the idea of "the whole being the sum of the parts".

David Bohm said differently. Others whispered. However, the decisive step that would allow illumination, that would allow science to look at Life with the eyes of innocence and wonder that make discovery possible, has not been taken.

Therefore in such a scenery it is perhaps no surprise that although ITC is growing everywhere, when thousands of people all over the world try and contact other Realities, science has not dared to acknowledge or even study the physical evidence of ITC phenomena.. There are of course a few exceptions, but the general attitude of scientists is to deliberately ignore what their mental barriers do not allow them to accept.

Besides prejudices though, I believe that science also fears to examine ITC phenomena. Because indeed if fully demonstrated - as surely one day they will be - ITC would shake up the foundations of the science of our time that recognizes only the material, its tool being the repeatability of the phenomenon, not being able to fully realize all the implications of quantum mechanics.

After the publication of the first issue of this Journal, some friendly critics said that I needed to clarify what Timestream Station really is. I think they are right and I apologize to the readers of the first issue who might have been puzzled by the contents of my article. It is indeed easy for somebody who is inside a situation to forget that others cannot follow a message they are not aware of, which besides contradicts the established set of values and beliefs of our society.

Timestream says for instance that in their world which is "the gate of light", "all beings are equal", "all beings have the same degree of autonomy", "plants and animals collaborate in their ITC projects", "ex humans, animals and plants can communicate by telepathy", and other affirmations that thoroughly contradict our anthropocentric set of values.

And above all they tell us that the physical is an instrument, a tool of the spiritual. This is the Natural Law common to all beings.

A few years ago, ignoring everything about the subject, I read Hildegard Schäffer's and Maggy Harsch Fischbach's books on ITC. They spoke about Timestream Station. From one to the other, I was puzzled and amazed. The reason was the extraordinary possibility they asserted of a physical evidence of life after death on one side, and on the other the contents of the messages being so far away from our mental universe. Naturally that when I started trying contact by EVP with other realities, a hopeful but only remote possibility for me at the time, I asked questions about Timestream Station. This was October 1997. On January 1998, the first answers by EVP started coming and very fast increased from then on.

On March 11, 1998, alone at home, while trying contact by EVP as usual, I heard the first direct radio voice. It was Carlos de Almeida. My question had been if the answers we were getting (we were then a small group of three) were really coming from Timestream Station. Carlos de Almeida sounded loud and clear, the background white noise of the old shortwave radio suddenly silent and this amazing voice speaking to me.

It was the most memorable day of my life. It is very difficult to describe the mixed feelings I experienced. I was in a shock like state for over 24 hours. I could not turn the radios on for a couple of days. I had no one to speak to, no one who could help me with an explanation. I had been caught by surprise, my preconceived construction of life and the world had been shaken and fell apart. All those centuries of what I call now "counter culture" suddenly crumbled to nothing. I did not know what to do. Then slowly, shyly, I continued trying and waiting, the heart full of wonder, joy and gratitude.

When I thought of starting this Journal, my painful experience of those first months was also behind it.

Getting back to Timestream, it seems that they are a sending and receiving Station that allows and promotes contacts between the next world and the various physical worlds, among them the Earth. This does not mean that one can tune in Timestream Station. But rather that contact is established with some experimenters on Earth according to circumstances that we ignore, which "depend on Time (Timestream)". "There are no conditions attached to the contacts", says Timestream adamantly.

I wish this Journal to be guidance and incentive to those who wonder if ITC really can be.

I believe that only the massiveness of ITC when many thousands or millions of people will try and obtain contact with the next world, will ascertain the reality of ITC. The alternative being of course the confirmation by science, as Nils O. Jacobson said on his article "ITC and Science" published on vol. I of this Journal. Will the prejudices allow for it? We certainly hope so. From their side, Timestream team work incessantly to tell us that they exist. This is their most important message.

In my house the radios are on for hours upon request and under the timetable established by them. "This is very and very difficult", "it is difficult for both" said Carlos de Almeida on different occasions. "The work is very difficult" they usually say when I ask how is the work going. And I think this is the reason why our family and acquaintances just say a few words, confirming an identity, or replying to a question. Their voices sound different, at least in my experience, of what their human voices were like. They sound like all other voices at Timestream Station. Replying to this remark of mine, they said "voices are different, they are always the same".

I have heard voices identifying themselves as my father, my grand mother, my brother, my uncles, other ones that I do not know, Celso, Franco, Homero, Helder Pedroso, Boris, Ramiro, Pedro Roque, Joan Colbert, Perpétua, Paulo Jacobo, and many others. Or they say that they are "the Portuguese group at Timestream Station", "we are Portuguese", etc. "The speakers of Timestream" who identify themselves as such, speak and they speak well. They seem to be the ones who answer regularly.

It seems that their work of producing clear and understandable voices free of background noise is extremely difficult. They practise and practise, requesting that the radios be at top volume, sometimes for two days without stopping. This is usually followed by the same period of rest with the radios off.

When they practice, the noises of the radios go through all sorts of changes. And suddenly the loud white noise of the radios is suppressed as if it were swallowed by the radios themselves, as if somebody were holding it. It can stay like that for several minutes. Then suddenly again, like a cascade, the noise is released. It is really impressive to witness Timestream work with the noise of the radios or with the making of the voices. They repeat and repeat the same words (or broken words) - "we are the dead", "we are the dead of Timestream", "we are Timestream", etc. Two different voices practising: "say it again!", the other voice "ANHH…" in an obviously failed attempt. And so it goes for hours. Sometimes the type of noise made by the radios is drastically altered in a moment. Or the voices jump from one radio to the other, tuned in a different frequency. How could you do that? I asked. "Did you like it? It was Paulo Jacobo", they answered.

But if we ponder upon Timestream statement "we modulate the waves with thought", replying to my question as to how they produce the voices, we can imagine how difficult a task it will be, what a tremendous effort of concentration it demands. Often they say "we are very tired", "uuh, I cannot stand this noise" one day when the noise of the radios was particularly harsh, leading me to ask if they could feel what we feel with our physical senses. "We can, we also have a body", they said. It is a body "free of diseases", "always young", that "can travel with the power of thought". They can also "be in their world and in ours at the same time". These "extraordinary capacities are granted to them by their world".

I understand how similar to Spiritualism and even to some principles of Spiritism are some of the statements made by Timestream.

I follow no religion. I have had little contact with Spiritualism and about none with Spiritism (Alan Kardec). After Timestream messages, I continue to be and think independently of any doctrine. I speak freely. I think I could not be in a more unsuspected position. One day, when I said to Timestream that I thought ITC should remain free and independent from any religion, doctrine or movement, not allowing even Spiritualism or Spiritism to call it theirs, since it is a means, a techique of communication with other realities within the reach of everybody, the answer came clear "You speak!"

I would like to ask the readers of this Journal to write and give us their opinion. Their experiences are also important. The readers' column will be a pillar of this publication. The ITC Journal is for everybody. We wish it to be humble, open and free.