Backward Masking: A personal experience
Two years before I met Jesus, I recorded a secular album with Junaid. We called ourselves “The Happening Jam” and had a really good time recording and everyone who heard the album said it sounded great. It was really all that I thought it would be.
However, our record deal folded & we were left in the cold, but we were happy with what we had achieved, and we were sure that we would get a deal because the music was good.
We went on with our lives, and in Dec 1997, I met Jesus. Around that time, I had seen the “Hells Bells” video and was curious to see if anything would show up if I played my songs backwards. I really did not have to look far. I found a segment on the very first song.
Finding unintentional backward masking in my own album opened my eyes to see deceptions in secular music. I made a commitment then only to play for the glory of my Heavenly Father.
About a week after that Junaid called up and said that a couple of major labels were interested in the album. One of the most painful decisions I had to make was to turn the Happening Jam down. I knew that this album could make it big, but it was never made for Jesus and therefore I could no longer be a part of it. It was purely the Lord’s grace that allowed me to turn it down.
I’m sharing what I have learned about Backward masking in this page. My aim is not to hurt anyone, especially Junaid. I love Junaid with the love of Christ, but I am writing this because I have an obligation to my Jesus to expose Satan’s lies and deceptions that are revealed to me.
For the record, a couple of months after I started studying about the deceptions is secular music, I decided to get rid of all my secular music. I now serve the Lord with the talents He has blessed me with.
Intentional Back-masking
The song or a message is recorded forward first and then pasted backwards into the intended song. To hear the “masked” message, the listener will have to play the song backwards. The presence and the location of this type of back masking can easily be heard and identified by the listener because these words will not make sense backwards and will stand out and be obvious.
Unintentional Back-masking
In this, there is no intentional effort made to hide or mask, but the song when played backwards somehow contains a message.
The amazing thing about this is that the sentence/message makes sense forward as well as backward. As far I know, this is technically impossible to recreate in a studio. This has also been found in recordings taken from live shows!
Wherever these messages are found in music which is not consecrated to Jesus, the messages always seem to stand against Jesus and the Gospel by either glorifying Satan or promoting independence from God and advocating sin.
This is a sample from the Happening Jam album taken from the first song called “Why?”, I found a segment which was praising Satan. You can listen to it here. The lyrics for the part played are as follows: “but the minute that I think of getting close to you, I see you slowly walk away.”
CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SONG PLAYED FORWARD [file name:11_WF.mp3]
CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SONG PLAYED BACKWARDS [file name:12_WB.mp3]
Listen for “Oh he is the way, Satan lives for ever and ever”. Obviously this was not intentionally recorded by us.
How does this happen?
I don’t think anyone knows the exact technical or a ‘natural’ answer to this question. However, the bible does clearly reveal through Ephesians 6:12 that there are forces of evil working in the spiritual realm; meaning there is more to everything than what we physically see or hear, and that it has an effect on us even if we don’t hear what is really being played backwards.
I strongly believe that it is somewhere in this realm that the rulers, or the authorities, or the powers of this dark world or the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms or Satan himself injects this sort of back masking into music that Satan has been given authority over.
If Jesus is not Lord, then in one way or the other Satan or his principalities take that place. Matthew 6:26 tells us that “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (NIV).
We know that there is a spiritual language that affects us. When we pray in tongues or groan in the Spirit, we are operating on a spiritual level because the Holy Spirit ‘Himself makes intercession for us with groaning which cannot be uttered.’ (Romans 8:26).
So I think that we bear fruit of whoever is influencing us. If that influence it is not from Jesus, it is from Satan. Therefore that content of back masking in songs with satanic influence will naturally go against Jesus and the Gospel.
What if the writer and the musicians have committed their lives to Jesus Christ? Should there be any unintentional backward masking on their music? If there is, then should it not glorify Jesus?
Well, I do not think God needs to do anything in reverse or backwards, but I asked the Lord to show me from my Christian music collection a song which I could find some evidence of Unintentional Backward Masking.
I found something in the song called “Spirit of the Sovereign Lord”. In it there is a reading from Isaiah 61. It is in this reading that I found the example. Andy Park sings this and the song is from the Winds of Worship album.
CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SONG PLAYED FORWARD [file name: 13_I61F.mp3]
CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SONG PLAYED BACKWARD [file name: 14_I61B.mp3]
Listen for “Our God has risen and in the end He will go to receive God’s people”
I still do not think God needs to do anything in reverse or backwards, but I have no explanation for why this is there. The only thing that I can think of that even comes close is that we bear fruit of whoever is influencing us or whatever we are plugged into.
Again I say that my aim is only to share what the Lord has done in my life. I hope this was as enlightening for you as it was for me. I am still learning about this and I’ll keep updating as and when I find out more.
If you have comments or questions please contact me. If you had personal experience with this or if you have a revelation from the Word that I could learn from, I’d like to hear from you. Thanks for taking the time to read this.
2 Corinthians 2:11 . . . “in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.” (NIV)
God bless
John Kodiyil