RADIO INTERVIEW — TAPE #788
Q: Mark Russell Bell
K: Kris Zebrowski, co-producer of “Cybercity Radio” Internet show
J: Jack Landman, host of “Cybercity Radio”
A: “Cybercity Radio” taped announcer
(X): (unattributed sounds occasionally noted)
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: AFTER SENDING EMAIL WITH THE SUBJECT HEADING “AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEW [NEWS RELEASE ABOUT MYSELF]” NINE MONTHS PREVIOUSLY TO JACK LANDMAN, HE SENT ME AN EMAIL STATING “I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE YOU ON MY PROGRAM SOME SATURDAY NIGHT. WOULD YOU BE INTERESTED?” I WAS THEN BOOKED FOR THE COMING WEEKEND FOR THE SHOW BROADCAST OUT OF SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS. HERE IS THE ANNOUNCEMENT SENT TO THE SHOW’S MAILING LIST.)
To: List Member <markrussellbell@earthlink.net>Subject: Cybercity Tonight – Live Mars Landing and Mark Russell Bell’s Talking PoltergeistsDate: Jan 3, 2004 11:33 AM
Cybercitizens,
Tonight’s the night for the deployment to the surface of Mars for the NASA JPL Spiritrover. We’ll be staying on a few minutes later than usual to cover the scheduledlanding at 10:35 PM Central Time. Steve Kates, Dr. Sky, will be joinng us for theevent. Some scienstists have taken to calling Mars the “Death Planet”for robotic probes, but we’ve got our fingers crossed that Spirit can make a safelanding, even though the last six minutes of flight are a hellish proposition.Our featured guest tonight is Mark Russell Bell, (see his photo at our web site– www.cybercityradio.com). Mark has worked in the Hollywood film industry many years.While working for Paramount, Mark researched ‘talking poltergeists’ throughout history,including the Bell Witch of 19th Century Tennessee for an unpublished book. He thentraveled to rural Oklahoma to interview a contemporary family experiencing the talkingpoltergeist phenomena. He published his journals and interview transcripts in early1997 to provide a documentary-style case study, Testament. A free Internet editionof the book is available at https://testament.org along with a follow up book NewTestament, published exclusively on the Internet.
Initial interviews at the website feature Centrahoma’s Bell/Mc Wethy family relatingtheir interaction with a variety of spirit voices, including aliens. Among the eventsexperienced by Mark in Oklahoma were materialization of coins and other objects,spirit laughter and groaning, and insect phenomena. Upon returning to Los Angeles,he was shocked as the phenomena continued and escalated. The synchronicity of eventsindicated that the Superconscious Mind of the universe was interacting with himwithin the perimeter of his belief system as well as communicating with him throughthe subconscious minds of other people, enabling Mark to understand what spiritscommunicating through ‘sleeping prophet’ Edgar Cayce had once described as “TheOneness of All Force.”
Whatever else you do, don’t miss a minute of tonight’s Cybercity.
Happy New Year,Jack and KrisJack Landman’s Cybercity RadioScience, Mysteries, Movies and MusicLive Every Saturday 6PM-10PM CentralWorldwide Internet Broadcasthttp://www.cybercityradio.com
Cybercitizens,
Tonight’s the night for the deployment to the surface of Mars for the NASA JPL Spiritrover. We’ll be staying on a few minutes later than usual to cover the scheduledlanding at 10:35 PM Central Time. Steve Kates, Dr. Sky, will be joinng us for theevent. Some scienstists have taken to calling Mars the “Death Planet”for robotic probes, but we’ve got our fingers crossed that Spirit can make a safelanding, even though the last six minutes of flight are a hellish proposition.Our featured guest tonight is Mark Russell Bell, (see his photo at our web site– www.cybercityradio.com). Mark has worked in the Hollywood film industry many years.While working for Paramount, Mark researched ‘talking poltergeists’ throughout history,including the Bell Witch of 19th Century Tennessee for an unpublished book. He thentraveled to rural Oklahoma to interview a contemporary family experiencing the talkingpoltergeist phenomena. He published his journals and interview transcripts in early1997 to provide a documentary-style case study, Testament. A free Internet editionof the book is available at https://testament.org along with a follow up book NewTestament, published exclusively on the Internet.
Initial interviews at the website feature Centrahoma’s Bell/Mc Wethy family relatingtheir interaction with a variety of spirit voices, including aliens. Among the eventsexperienced by Mark in Oklahoma were materialization of coins and other objects,spirit laughter and groaning, and insect phenomena. Upon returning to Los Angeles,he was shocked as the phenomena continued and escalated. The synchronicity of eventsindicated that the Superconscious Mind of the universe was interacting with himwithin the perimeter of his belief system as well as communicating with him throughthe subconscious minds of other people, enabling Mark to understand what spiritscommunicating through ‘sleeping prophet’ Edgar Cayce had once described as “TheOneness of All Force.”
Whatever else you do, don’t miss a minute of tonight’s Cybercity.
Happy New Year,Jack and KrisJack Landman’s Cybercity RadioScience, Mysteries, Movies and MusicLive Every Saturday 6PM-10PM CentralWorldwide Internet Broadcasthttp://www.cybercityradio.com
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: I RECEIVED A CALL FROM KRIS AFTER 4:30 P.M. ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON AS SCHEDULED. AS ALWAYS IN THESE TRANSCRIPTS, SPIRIT MESSAGES/ELECTRONIC VOICE PHENOME NA APPEAR CAPITALIZED WITHIN QUOTATION MARKS AND PARENTHESES. AN ARCHIVE EDITION OF THE INTERVIEW CAN BE HEARD WITHOUT CHARGE AT HTTP://WWW.CYBERCITYRADIO.COM/ARCHIVES.HTM.)
Q: Hello?
K: Hi. Is this Mark Russell Bell?
Q: Yes, it is.
K: Hi, this is Kris calling from “Cybercity.” How are you doing?
Q: I’m doing very well.
K: I was calling because we had you scheduled to appear on the air at about this time.
Q: Right.
K: Okay. Let me go ahead and get you set up here and (X) we’ll be on with you in just a couple minutes. And let me just say in — (coughs) oh excuse me.
Q: Okay.
K: Let me just say in advance that Jack and I are both really looking forward to this. It’s — I’ve — I looked a little bit at your website a couple days ago and it’s pretty interesting looking so (X) we’re both looking forward to this.
Q: Yeah, and I can help put it in perspective I guess.
K: (small laugh) Okay. (X) Alright, well hold on and we will be on with you very shortly.
Q: Okay. Thank you. (X)
. . . And didn’t have to taste How can I ignore? This is sex without touching I’m going to explore I’m only into this to Enjoy Enjoy Enjoy Enjoy
(“Enjoy” performed by Bjork)
Never was a cornflake girl Thought that was a good solution Hanging with the raisin girls She’s gone to the other side Giving us the old heave ho Things are getting kind of gross And I go at sleepy time This is not really this this this is not really happening hey You bet your life it is You bet your life it is . . .
(“Cornflake Girl” performed by Tori Amos)
J: We are returning to you right now. Of course, we never left. We left you with wonderful music to fill the void. I’m Jack Landman. You’re listening to “Cybercity.” Big show tonight. First of the new year. We’ve got the Mars rover covered for you. More on that later. Now we’re going to join our new guest — a new guest to us. His first visit to “Cybercity” — Mark Russell Bell; his website testament dot org. If you visit, you’re going to see that Test — Testament is referred to by Mark as “a new consciousness bible”: “Testament is a non-fiction book with a question and answer interview/journal format. Subjects include poltergeists, aliens, bigfoot, synchronicity, angels, prophecies, reincarnation, psychic abilities, the Oneness of all spirit, ‘Pop’ culture, Christ Consciousness, and events pertaining to what is sometimes referred to as the second coming. This book illuminates how God is proving love so we should do no less. Now is the time for each of us to make a stand and dedicate ourselves to expressing greater compassion for our entire human and animal family. If we are to evolve as a species, we must (X) begin giving back to the world as much as we take and stop ignoring the destruction of Earth’s eco-system.” And that is the intro you’ll find on the website in testament dot org. And now with great pleasure I welcome Mark. Mark, how are you?
Q: Very good, Jack.
J: Thank you for joining us tonight. We’re very glad to have you and we’re very anxious to find out the things that interest you and the things that you write about. And — and learn what your thinking is on these things. I wonder if I could ask you if — just to make kind of an — an opening statement to me and our listening audience regarding what all this is, what makes you tick and, you know, where you’re coming from so people can begin to get some bearings here.
Q: And I tried to include that in — in the — in the bio that you sent out earlier.
J: And you did a — you did a great job and I circulated that by Email —
Q: Um-huh.
J: — to many of our listeners but I bet we have some listeners out there who haven’t heard that yet.
Q: So basically what happened in my case is I had experienced some unusual events as a child that may or may not have had something to do with me being interested in the unexplained all throughout my life. And eventually there were signs that I (X) didn’t really know how to interpret and they (X) began to culminate after I was working at Paramount Pictures.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And I was researching talking poltergeists in my spare time, not quite sure of where this was all leading. (X) I guess you might say that my trip to the mountain, which is the logo of Paramount —
J: Um-huh.
Q: — resulted in an expanded consciousness that happened to me when I went to interview a family experiencing a talking poltergeist.
J: Now a talking poltergeist as compared to a poltergeist — wh(at) — what — what are we dealing with here? I mean it sounds obvious. It’s when you hear voices, (“I”) it sounds like you must mean. But is there a greater distinction than that?
Q: I use those terms because of the historical context. The family themselves thought that there were more alien symptoms than spiritual ones.
J: Um-huh.
Q: They were hearing different voices of different spirits, including aliens. And it was a (“LL”) bizarre gamut of events. Now I —
J: . . . (“I”) Just to —
Q: Yeah?
J: — just to get our bearings here. So you heard about this family in Oklahoma, correct?
Q: This was right after finishing my manuscript, which was a history of talking poltergeists.
J: Um-huh.
Q: So —
J: And so the record out — is out there for one to look at — includes I suppose many occurrences of talking poltergeists? Enough to actually call this a category of the paranormal?
Q: Well (“THE”) the best documented case is probably the Bell Witch case (X X) — the early 19th Century.
J: Um-huh.
Q: Another interesting case that was widely known at least in England at one point involving a talking mongoose — at least that’s what the poltergeist said that They were —
J: Um-huh.
Q: And the family saw the mongoose a couple — on a couple occasions. But it’s a — it was a very convoluted story and it was published as a book by Harry Price and R. S. Lambert entitled The Haunting of Cashen’s Gap.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And this was another very well documented case. Another case that I thought was pretty well documented — I obtained over (from) the Harv(ard) — the Harvard University Library. And that was called A Faithful Record of the Miraculous Case of Mary Jobson. This was an 1839 case.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And there were considerable religious overtones because there were different voices that were being recreated like in the Bell Witch case. And at one point the spirits called themselves “ALPHA AND OMEGA,” “THE LORD THEY GOD” — not ‘thy God’ but ‘T — H — E — Y God.’
[2020 UPDATE: THIS IS ONE OF SEVERAL INTERVIEWS WHEN I INCORRECTLY QUOTED "THEY GOD." ACTUALLY THE TEXT OF THE BOOK ABOUT MARY JOBSON READS "THY GOD." MY PRONOUNCEMENT OF "THEY GOD" IS DUE TO FINDING THE WORDS IN MY COMPUTER FILE ALTERED FROM 'THY' TO 'THEY' ON AT LEAST ONE OCCASION.]
J: Um-huh.
Q: “THE SON OF GOD” and at one point “THE VIRGIN MARY” put in an appearance. This — these were disembodied voices. And also other people’s voices were recreated who were known to the witnesses.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And the same thing had happened in the — in the Bell Witch case. One of the things that had really impressed me was when I was researching the Bell Witch. I had read about one of the family members being called ‘Pots’ by the haunting Entity.
J: Called what again?
Q: The nickname ‘Pots’ as in pots and pans.
J: P — O — T — S — uh-huh. Okay.
Q: And then when I was researching — reading about the Gef the talking mongoose case, I read that the mongoose usually called Mr. Irving ‘Jim’ or ‘Pots.’ And there was that same nickname again and I thought, “Well this is an interesting turn of events.”
J: Right. What an —
Q: So —
J: — an odd thing that is.
Q: Yeah be — because they were both pretty obscure cases. I’m — I wouldn’t think that the English writers would’ve known about the Bell Witch or they might’ve written more about it. And the same thing — of course, with the Bell Witch. It predated.
J: When you finished your research — at the point you finished you were unaware of the Oklahoma family. Is that correct? Or at what point, I should say, (X) did you become aware of them?
Q: Well what happened first is I had first been — researched other nonfiction cases involving the unexplained to some extent. There was the Julia Pastrana case — who was a famous ‘freak’ you might call her during the P.T. Barnum days.
J: Um-huh.
Q: She seemed to be a hybrid Mexican peasant woman and bigfoot who became a singing and dancing star throughout the world. And I’d also researched the last formal trial for witchcraft in France involving a young girl who had religious ecstasies. And, anyway, so after these I was looking for something else in the field because I had done a screenplay on the Bell Witch (I meant Julia Pastrana) and a novelization and they were pretty short. So I was looking for maybe another one and I would publish them together or something and that’s how I found out about the Bell Witch. I just noticed it (a book) at the bookstore over in Glendale. And at first I thought, “Well this is awfully — ” — (“I”) read a few pages and I thought, “This is pretty wacky.” But then I was thinking, (“WELL”) you know, this is just so wacky it seems hard to imagine that anyone could really make this up. So I took it home and then I sent away for the original manuscript from the New York Library.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And — (“AN”) I began researching other talking cases and that’s what led me (X) to the Mary Jobson case. There were — there was another famous case that there’s less information known about but in Pavia, Italy in the late 17th Century there was a — a case of a lovesick poltergeist. This was recorded by Ludovico Maria Sinistrari and there were famous cases like the William Morse case, which was a poltergeist case. (“BUT”) On a few occasions (“THE”) the haunting Presence did speak. In th(is) — in this case, the only comments on record were “REVENGE. SWEET IS REVENGE” and “ALAS ME KNOCK NO MORE.”
J: Um-huh.
Q: Oh actually that was — that was the William Morse in Massachusetts. In the John Mumpesson case, which was the Drummer of Tedworth the only time that you hear anything was when (“THE K”) the Entity was saying, “A WITCH, A WITCH, A WITCH . . .”
J: Um-huh.
Q: And that was repeating. And now that was published by Joseph Glanville if anyone wants to refer to the original source —
J: Um-huh.
Q: — which was originally published in 1681.
J: So we have this body of literature that supports this concept of talking poltergeists and something somewhere along the line gets you interested in a present living family in Oklahoma.
Q: Right. Well I — I thought this was a good opportunity for me to witness a contemporary version of the “talking poltergeist.” In fact, I do have the Fortean Times magazine article that first caught my attention at the website — early on the website. Because I wanted to provide a documentary style account of my — of what happened to me.
J: Um-huh. (“AND”) So you heard about them through the Fortean Times —
Q: Right — article.
J: — magazine. Article. (X) And —
Q: The family didn’t have a phone so I wrote them and asked them to call me collect. And I heard from Maxine, the mother of the family. And I have that initial conversation early (X) in Testament when I spoke to her. And in that initial conversation where I’m discussing the other case and parallels — and then she happened to remark that they had Bell ancestry her(self) — themselves because she had remarried but her previous name was — was Bell. So some of her daughters also had the Bell surname.
J: Interesting. Now let me get you to clarify something. You said that they didn’t have a telephone. Now that’s pretty unusual.
Q: They are — they were very poor — (“THEY DON’T”) didn’t have a lot of money and it was a large family. Maxine’s husband Bill had been sick. On and off, they had had phones but —
J: I see.
Q: — at that time they did not have a phone.
J: I see — as a financial matter.
Q: Right.
J: Uh-huh.
Q: In fact — in fact, I have a picture of their — their house at the website. And it’s — it’s — it’s a (“NO”) — it’s nothing fancy, by all means.
J: Um-huh.
Q: But when I went out there and I turned on my tape recorder and did my interviews, not knowing what I was in for, the first thing that occurred — one of the first things that occurred was — there was this (“AA”) — this noise. Sort of like — it sounded like — like an alien trans (“MITTED”) — transmission of a signal of something (“TH[AT] WOULD”) was bouncing around the room like from corner to corner in the room.
J: And this is while you were there?
Q: Yeah. This was whi(le) (or “Y”) — this was one of the first things that caught my attention.
J: Uh-huh. (“AND I THOUGHT”)
Q: You know — and they were describing it as “it sounds like a cat.” Like meowing. It sort of sounded like (imitates sound) — you know it was —
J: It had an — an electronic quality I guess.
Q: Yeah. It was — (“I[T]”) it had a metal(lic) — it was — it d(oes) — it sounded like what I would say an alien transmission would sound like. Especially —
J: And you actually recorded it? You recorded it and got it on tape?
Q: At one point. (“IT”) (This time) I did not hear the transmission sound. There was sort of like a meow that was hearable. Because they said it sounds like a cat.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And you can hear that on the tape yet it’s not — it’s nothing (X) close to what I had witnessed in person.
J: Um-huh. The reason I — I — I queried you on that because sometime — I’ve heard of incidents where people heard things but the tapes they had rolling had no sound whatsoever on them and I just wondered if it as that type of experience.
Q: Oh well — well these tapes — there were some things that I heard when the tape recorder was going that was not on the tape and then — then there were things that I didn’t hear at the time that turned out to be on the tape which included voices of some of my friends.
J: Um-huh!?
Q: This is be(fore) — I didn’t really know what EVP was at the time so when I published the book I just listed them as spirit messages.
J: And EVP — would you say what that acronym is?
Q: Electronic Voice Phenomena.
J: Uh-huh. Now — now what was it when you talked to her — I mean when you finally had a chance (“DID”) — they called you collect. What was it they told you that made you willing to go out to Oklahoma and spend three days with them?
Q: I think it was the fact that they had Bell ancestry because the famous Bell Witch case — it was (“LI”) — it struck me as being like a — a dynasty of poltergeists.
J: Now your last name is Bell.
Q: However, it wasn’t at the time and there’s a story behind that too.
J: Interesting.
Q: That — the name was actually channeled to me through a friend who had never had any kind of experience in this area — at least at the time that she didn’t realize. She certainly had never heard any disembodied voices before.
J: Um-huh.
Q: But my friend Marie, who (“EINI”) I spoke to her after getting back and — well, first of all, the phenomena — when I came back to here — to L.A., the phenomena was escalating. (“IT”) I — I thought I was just going to interview a family with a poltergeist but when I came back I was still experiencing the same things, if — (“AA”) and they were increased. I mean the events were much more — more larger. For example, when I was there, they kept saying, “Well watch your change because Michael” — that was what they called the Entity, sort of a nickname. They also would call individual spirits different names.
J: So — so the family referred to him — the Entity as Michael?
Q: Right. Apparently He would have long conversations with people. However, others — people that they called were, like, ‘Rachel’ and there was sort of a large alien character that they called ‘Leader.’ And then there was one that they named ‘E.T.’ who they mentioned “always cried when he watched the ‘E.T.’ movie” with them.
J: Uh-huh.
Q: I mean lots of — these bizarre, bizarre stories. (“THERE WERE”) There were also anecdotes about Michael–who they thought really was more an alien than a spirit even though He also appeared to be the spirit of a little boy who had been — had his head cut off by his mother. I mean there were all these different — you — you didn’t quite know what was going on because this was a rural family who were trying to make sense of hearing all these different voices and almost create their interpretation of what they were hearing.
J: Now one other thing I’d like you to clarify is that you said when you returned from Oklahoma to Los Angeles you continued to experience the phenomena. Correct?
Q: That’s right.
J: And — and what it could it be anywhere — driving in your car or was it in your home? (“OR”) Any — any pattern there at all?
Q: Well at first — as my consciousness has expanded, I’ve come to find new interpretations.
J: Um-huh.
Q: At the time, like for example, I remember there was one time when a penny was there when my brother and his friend James were visiting me. And I called James’ attention to it and he said, “Well maybe you threw it there.” And then — and I actually — in that case I’d actually — I’d — I’d heard (“LIKE A”) a ‘swoosh’ and it had hit my — my foot before going onto the floor. So I knew (“IT”) it had happened — it had happened so — and then a dime had appeared a few minutes later, which he knew had not been there. One of the more — so I — I was trying to add — (“A[D]”) add all these things up but maybe I’m getting a little ahead of myself because I should talk a little bit more about my Oklahoma experience.
J: Yeah — yeah, let’s do. Let’s (“SO”) — because you spent three days there and I — I take it you — you heard more than the cat’s meow.
Q: That’s right. Well at one point Twyla, who everyone thought had been the focal point or the ‘agent’ of the poltergeist, so to speak, even though there were many events where she wasn’t there; however, she did fit the chronology. (X) She was a young girl. There were a few things that didn’t match with previous poltergeist cases. (X) For example, she’d already given birth to two children and usually these were teenagers.
J: Um-huh.
Q: So there were — (X) it didn’t quite — none of it quite fit but there was such a gamut of things happening there that they didn’t — (X) the family didn’t really know what — what to think. In fact, they were filmed for a special that did air on TV called “Ghosts, Spirits — ” no: “Ghosts, Mediums, Psychics: Put To The Test” —
J: Um-huh.
Q: — which did air that — (“THE”) the summer and it was also on “20/20” too, I understand.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: I SHOULD HAVE SAID THAT THE SPECIAL AIRED IN NOVEMBER, 1995 AND “20/20″ AIRED IN THE SUMMER OF 1996.)
J: Uh-huh.
Q: And — but they cut out everything in — like the alien anecdotes. They just pretty much focused on (“THE POL”) the usual poltergeist-type features.
J: Um-huh.
Q: For example, there was one — one incident that they showed on film where Twyla got up from a chair and the chair moved at the same time which they had noticed at the time but later when they were watching the film they noticed this.
J: Twyla is which person? (“SHE’S”)
Q: She was the daug(hter) — the daughter — Maxine’s daughter who seemed to have the most phenomena.
J: Um-huh. So you have Maxine, who’s the mother.
Q: Right.
J: And you have Twyla —
Q: Yeah. (“X”)
J: — who’s one of the — how many children?
Q: I think there were four. There were three sisters.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And I know at lea(st) — and one brother but since she had remarried it’s a bit hard to sort it all out.
J: I see. I see. When you were there how many people were typically (X) at the house?
Q: Well there was Brenda Bell, her sis(ter) — Twyla’s sister, Brenda Bell. And there was Kim, another sister. And, let’s see, Maxine and Bill came in from (X) I guess he was (“AA”) at a — (X) a clinic or something because he — he came in. (X) It just so happened that when I was there they were having a funeral for Carlton Bell.
J: Hmm.
Q: And which was ironic because one of the main things that happened in the original Bell Witch case was the funeral for John Bell who they had said that the poltergeist had murdered.
J: Hmm.
Q: So, anyway, it was — there were all these unusual parallels and (“TH”) that’s why (X) when I decided just to present my interviews verbatim to let people draw their own conclusions, there was really no way of saying, “Well what’s the most important part of my experiences there?” Because when I came back I realized some of the things that might not have seemed important were probably the most important.
J: Um-huh.
Q: For example, at one point they were — and I could also see parallels with other poltergeist cases too.
J: Um-huh.
Q: When I went home (X) after the first day of interviews, (“THERE”) I felt a knocking at my door.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: I SHOULD HAVE SAID THIS HAPPENED AFTER THE SECOND DAY OF INTERVIEWS.)
(“OR”)
Q: On the wall and I didn’t quite know what it — what it was but I had known in famous poltergeist cases there was always this knocking so I investigated.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And in this case it turned out to be this large beetle (“LI”) that looked like a scarab throwing itself against my door for a rather long time.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And then the second night (first night) (“WW WW I[T]”) I called my twin brother here in L.A. and he was asleep I think when — when he answered the phone. And as I was talking to him just to give him a report, he said his bed started shaking —
J: Um-huh.
Q: — which obviously he’d never (X) experienced anything like that before. (X) Of course, the next day I told — I told the family. I said, “He said his bed was shaking. Is that possible?”
J: Um-huh.
Q: Well since then a lot of more very bizarre things have happened. Now when — when I was there, I was — I was going to mention this before but I forgot. They were always saying, “Watch your spare change. He’ll take your money. (X “HE’LL”) Watch your money. He’ll take like a five dollar bill or twenty dollar bill.”
J: Um-huh.
Q: And so then when I came back to L.A., one of the things Marie told me before I e(ven) — had even told her some of these smaller incidents, she said that under very strange circumstances her bank account had been cleared out. And nobody else had her card and she was almost hysterical about it.
J: Um-huh.
Q: Eventually she did meet with the bank and they agreed to put in the money. They couldn’t really — they never offered any kind of explanation.
J: Hmm.
Q: But I was — I mean this was the kind of thing that I was experiencing. Plus after that — I’m trying to think what — I had like a ‘men in black’ experience which was bizarre.
J: Um-huh. You mean you were visited by people that fit —
Q: Well —
J: — the men in black sort of look and style? (“WW” “II”)
Q: The — I mean the epitome, so to speak. I mean what happened is when you — when you experience something like this, you think, “Well this is so important — people have to know about this.” I mean I was trying to tell people at Par — Paramount. (“I”) I told them, “I’m sorry, I — I can’t work on any more press kits. I have to deal with this. I mean this Spirit (X “COULD”) could destroy our world in an — in an instant.”
J: Um-huh. (X)
Q: I mean I really — this is far more important than doing the — the next press kit or captions for whatever.
J: Uh-huh.
Q: So —
J: Of course, you had to earn a living and feed yourself, correct?
Q: Well I had a lot of money saved up.
J: Ahh, I see. So you — you had this opportunity that you could devote your time to this?
Q: There was no question. I mean (X) well first of all, I mean I was aware that the Entity was almost my collaborator on the book because first of all the family had told me that the Entity had destroyed other people’s (X) tapes in the house.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And they said, “Boy, he seems to like you, Mark.”
J: You mean audio tapes? Is that what you (mean)?
Q: Right.
J: Uh-huh.
Q: Audio tape.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And I — also I had another — some other experiences myself which I’d always explained away (“YOU KNOW”) before going to Oklahoma. For example, when I came back I felt like someone grab my leg when I was in bed at night. And before I — (“I”) — I remember experiencing that before and I just thought, “Oh well, I had a muscle contortion or something.” But then when I came back I thought, “Oh my gosh. So that’s what that is.”
J: Um-huh.
Q: And — anyway, and plus —
J: Well let me jump in here, Mark. We’re — we’re due for a break —
Q: Okay.
J: — right at the moment. And — and you’ve given us an awful lot to sort of digest as an opening segment here.
Q: Right.
J: And so we’ll — we’ll get our musical break in and sort of come back and — and sort of figure out how to attack all this information you have that just seems to be coming from so many different directions. And get more and more our bearings closed in on what started, as you’ve heard folks, as an interest on Mark’s part in the subject talking poltergeists. And then the (“AA”) awareness of a family in Oklahoma, which he visited for three days which seems to have set off many, many other phenomena so we’re going to come back and we’re going to visit with Mark Russell Bell in greater detail and sort all this out so all of us can make up our minds about it. And we’ll direct you to his website, of course, so you can read these things firsthand yourself and, believe me, I’ve looked. They’re unedited. It’s a great way to take a look here at what Mark’s talking about. We’ll be right back with more “Cybercity.” (music begins)
A: You’re listening to “Cybercity Radio” with Jack Landman.
K: Hey, Mark.
Q: Yeah?
K: Hey, this is Kris. Just want to let you know that this break is about five minutes or so, so if you want to run and grab something to drink or anything like that, you’ve got a little bit of time to do that.
Q: Oh good. (“OKAY”)
K: And we’ll be right back on with you, okay?
Q: Okay, thank you.
K: Alright. Thanks. (music continues / change of tape side)
Thrown like a star in my vast sleep I’m opening my eyes to take a peep To find that I was by the sea Gazing with tranquility ‘Twas then when the hurdy gurdy man Came singing songs of love Then when the hurdy gurdy man Came singing songs of love Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy gurdy he sang Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy gurdy he sang Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy gurdy he sang Histories of ages past Unenlightened shadows cast Down through all eternity The crying of humanity ‘Tis then when the hurdy gurdy man Comes singing songs of love Then when the hurdy gurdy man Comes singing songs of love Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy gurdy he sang Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy hurdy gurd Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy gurdy he sang . . .
(“Hurdy Gurdy Man” performed by Donovan)
J: This is “Cybercity.” I’m Jack Landman. Thanks for joining us here on January 3rd, first show of the year 2004. We’re keeping tabs on the Mars rover deployment. The craft is called — one that will be roving the planet is called the Spirit or Spirit appropriately considering what we’re talking about here tonight with Mark Russell Bell who’s our guest at this moment. Mark is a — is a former or perhaps still employee of Paramount Pictures in Hollywood, USA and because of his own personal interest became very interested in the subject talking poltergeists which ultimately led him to a very unusual and interesting family in Oklahoma with — which with whom he spent three days. And we’re just sorting out all these things and events that have — that did happen to Mark or that he witnessed and experienced later when he went back to L.A. from Oklahoma. Mark, I know the skeptics out there in our audience (“R”) are going to be thinking like this. They’re going to say, “Well listen to that guy. He — he was talking about something — a — a noise he heard and it turned out to be a beetle, a mundane explanation. He — he thought — he — he’s now describing something grabbing his leg but that very well may have been a cramp he had. And so, you know, what really makes me believe as a skeptic out there that this guy has anything special to tell us?” How do you respond to that?
Q: Well that’s why I presented the case in a documentary style —
J: Um-huh. (“NO”)
Q: Everything that happens — (“F[O]R) later on for example, there’d be — I’d realize that the Fortean Times magazine where the article appeared had an Egyptian theme (on the cover) and, by the way, I should state that the current news release at the website in the New Testament side pretty much gives everyone a complete picture. (“BU[T]”) What I — what I guess I should do to try to help people to put together the pieces of the puzzle that I was presented with, is just mention (X X) a few quick data in — in summary of some of my experiences and then I’ll share with you how it helped me to make a leap in consciousness, so to speak.
J: Alright. And — and while you’re doing that, let me also tell our listeners — remind them that they can contact us and ask Mark a question directly by telephone: (gives number). That’s (gives number). Or you can send us an Email right now — jack@cybercityradio.com and you can go to AOL instant messenger and look for a buddy named cybercityradio. So many ways you can contact us if you’d like to throw in a question or a comment. Please continue, Mark.
Q: Okay, well now at Paramount, I — and I no longer work there, by the way.
J: Um-huh.
Q: I am definitely not meant to work in a corporate environment. We can go into the brainwashing of movies and television shows and all that but I think I’ll just stay to the story at hand and let people —
J: Yeah, I’ll — I’ll make a note on that and maybe before we’re done we can hit that topic.
Q: So, anyway, at Paramount (“I EN”) I worked on such films as “Ghost,” several “Star Trek” films, “Dead Again,” which was about reincarnation, “Scrooged,” “The Butcher’s Wife,” “We’re No Angels,” a reissue of “The Ten Commandments.” Those are some of the paranormal-themed films. I also worked on more mainstream films like “Fatal Attraction,” “Braveheart,” “Forrest Gump,” “The Godfather, Part III,” “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”
J: Um-huh. And your — your job was to help prepare —
Q: I —
J: — the media kits. Is that correct?
Q: I was the staff writer (“IN THE”) in the publicity department.
J: I see.
Q: And anyone who’s worked as a publicist in Hollywood–or Hollyweird in my case–knows that there’s much more creativity usually in the marketing than there is in the movies themselves.
J: Right.
Q: I mean movies really are much more hype than anything else.
J: Sure. (“BUT”)
Q: Some of the other things that I was experiencing in these years leading up to my trip to Oklahoma was I had experienced burning bushes outside my condo on two different occasions, (X) and there was one night in bed when — when I was a child I — I had heard once when I was (X) like five years old a disembodied voice calling my name. And I remembered this when I was (“IN”) after interviewing the family because Brenda Bell once said that she had heard someone calling her name. And when I was transcribing the interview (X) I remembered when I was — when I was a little boy, there was that one odd time when I woke up and I heard someone whispering my name and calling my name. And my brother was asleep and my mom was asleep. And I went all through the apartment and I never did find the source. So —
J: And again our — our skeptics would say, “Well he must have actually been having a dream. (X) It just — he got it confused with reality.”
Q: However, this is a very frequent occurrence. I can’t tell you how many people have told me that they experienced that same circumstance.
J: Of — of the something calling their name?
Q: Right. And — and, of course, it is rather a cliche scene in movies all the time. Now when you (X) consider movies — of course, there is creativity (X) in terms of all — you know, all the nov(els) — fiction, poems. I mean everything involves creativity so it’s interesting with the themed films that I had worked on. I sort of like to call myself ‘a (X) carpenter in the Hollywood dream factory' because that’s really what Hollywood is. Unfortunately, it’s — it’s becoming more and more commercialized every year when you look at what gets made. Especially the big budget movies that get — gets made.
J: Sure.
Q: Now I (X) also had worked as a talent agent. My first job had been as (X) Mickey Rooney’s assistant inside an agency. And I was — I did that for seven years and there were interesting connections with some of the clients at that time. Our agency clients in addition to Mickey included Gene Barry, who was in “War of the Worlds,” Martha Raye, John Carradine, who I remember booking in “Peggy Sue Got Married,” Abe Vigoda, Yvonne De Carlo. We had some — some of the clients were in really difficult times because we specialized in the older stars. There was James Drury, who was in the cast of “Forbidden Planet,” Russ Tamblyn, Johnny Whitaker, Penny Singleton, Mamie Van Doren. Now later (“THE”) the lady who I was working with, Ruth Webb, and her new associate, Sherry Spillane, would be encouraged to specialize in the infamous. And for a short while they would represent people like Joey Buttafuoco, Tonya Harding, John Wayne Bobbitt, Divine Brown. And I deal with that in — in the book because I show how people — in this case, someone had given them the idea to specialize in this area and (“TH[E]”) — and in — my case too I document how people give me various ideas while working on the book. Because I think the key thing that happened in Oklahoma was I was hearing anecdotes about Leader, who was this invisible alien who at one point (X X) put his arms around the little girl or something happened between them. And they said the aliens were from Saturn. And when I came back I went to a slide show and it’s hard to convey. (“BUT”) My friend Charlotte, for example, was talking about, “The man in the Hawaiian shirt was our tour leader.” She was showing slides from her vacation and then my friend Patty said, “My new car is a Saturn.” And then the light bulb on the projector burned out. And I was getting — I was basically — I felt as if I was being taught that (“THE”) the Superconscious Mind was giving thoughts to people around me. For example, my twin brother once said — I was talking about (X) reincarnation. And he is the most materialistic — (X) he has — he handles — he’s still in publicity —
J: Um-huh.
Q: — and public relations. He handles the Golden Globes and he handles a lot of high profile Hollywood accounts. And he’s the most materialistic person you can think of, even though we are identical twins. So those people who think that twins are — have the same soul can use us as a touchstone. However, he was once telling me, “Well if you play your cards right, this time you won’t have to have another reincarnation.” And I said, “Michael, did you hear what you just said?” And he — and I repeated it back to him. (“AND”) And he — he couldn’t believe that he had said that even.
J: Um-huh.
Q: So — and plus there’s all (X) — a(ll) ki(nds) — I mean I’m just talking — (“UH IN[G]” “THE”) skimming the surface, almost like an — the tip of an iceberg because I remember once expressing hostility and felt like an unseen Presence pushing me down against a car. I mean it was constant. Constant things were happening.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And so, anyway, I began — I had this realization that this Superconsciousness was channeling thoughts to people around me and communicating to me through their subconscious minds. And then I had all this symbolism in my life, which sort of culminated when I was talking to my friend Marie about if I should have a pseudonym for the book. And the next day she was crossing Sunset Boulevard and she heard someone say, “Mark Russell Bell.” And then she looked down and saw a Bell telephone book. (“SO”) She ran to a phone and called me. (“O[B]”) Obviously, that was the answer.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And so I interview Marie. She did have some other uncanny experiences — of course, that was probably the most uncanny one. And I was — when I realized that people were — when this — this Superconsciousness was talking to me through people’s subconscious minds, I would do things like I would call my friend Fiona, who already was a psychic reader at a psychic bookstore, and as I was talking to her she said a magnet flew off her refrigerator. So then I called my mom and I said, “Michael, give me a sign that You’re there” because I picked up that same nickname that the family had used.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And she said — (“WW”) my mom’s another very skeptical person, by the way —
J: Um-huh.
Q: And she said, “Oh well there’s nothing happening. (X) Wait a moment, there’s a wasp acting strangely.” Now wasps had been part of the account in — in the house. I must say I’ve had a lot of different unusual (X) experiences with insects. And so that’s, again, what led me to my realization that this was a Superconsciousness that was interacting with me.
J: Um-huh.
Q: I’m trying to think what would be — for example, my TV set would go on and off in those days after I came back from Oklahoma. Once, a — a part of a “Topper” movie was on where they had oranges. There was a commercial that said, “Love is the only religion.”
J: Um-huh.
Q: There was a Rose Parade float I remember that had an environmental theme. Because the Entity would not let me watch TV. (“WHENE”) Whenever I would (X) turn it on, it would go off a few minutes later. But then it culminated once I realized — I soon realized I was not meant to watch television. (“THAT”) The Spirit wanted me to work on the book.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And the — the main thing that happened was before I had reached this conclusion, I was taking a break from my book and I turned on — I think it was “The Real World” on MTV which had the roommates living in London and at that precise time, (“THE ROOM”) one of the roommates was complaining that their telephone service wasn’t working. And this reminded me in the Bell Witch case how the famous ‘Bell Witch’ had recreated two different sermons verbatim in the voices of the ministers even though they had happened at the same time. This was back (“IN” “NO I[N]”) — around 1820 or so.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And then when I was interviewing Twyla in Oklahoma, she was telling me in an anecdote about hearing a conversation played back before she actually saw it happen. I mean she didn’t realize it at the time. (“WHEN IT”) When she first heard it she thought her sister was conversing in the other room. But then later she heard (“THE”) the exact same conversation (X) so she was telling me (X) it was like the house played it back. (X) So, anyway, I was adding up all these different events and I realized that this Superconsciousness had power over space and time. And I remember once (“I”) I was going to move to Santa Monica and I was frustrated because I couldn’t sell my beautiful condo. (“NITWIT”) It was very inexpensive. It was less than $100 thousand because it was in Echo Park right over Echo Park Lake across from the Angelus Temple. And I was frustrated because nobody would want this beautiful view. And it was because we had a foreclosure in the upper unit and it hurt the — the value of the house. So I was angry with Mighael, thinking, no, ‘How can You do this to me?’ And anyway I — I saw a bumper sticker that said “I KNOW JACK SHIT.” (“I”) You know, that’s what it (“I MEAN IT”) — so I began realizing that I was getting messages in many different ways.
J: Um-huh.
Q: Including bumper stickers. And I was starting (“TO A[D]”) to add everything up and —
J: Well — well let — let’s do this.
Q: Yeah?
J: Let — let’s ask our skeptics —
Q: Okay.
J: — that are listening to suspend disbelief and — and just bear with us here because you obviously have numerous singular incidents that you can refer to.
Q: That’s right.
J: And — and so we’ll — we’ll just say, “Skeptics, you just cool your jets for a minute. And let us go on here and — and learn a little bit more about especially what happened in Oklahoma. I mean you stayed there three days. Was there pretty much (X) events almost day to day or moment to moment? How did you —
Q: Well one of the most — well first of all, I’ve done a lot of interviews over the years as a publicist.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And I had some strange (X) events when I was doing interviews in Hollywood, I might add. I remember one time when I was interviewing David Zucker. (“I”) I decided to have a backup tape recorder because I had (“AA”) a problem with my — one of my interviews where a tape recorder didn’t work. Anyway, it was malfunctioning for no reason. But — so I — I — and one time I was working on “Clueless” and I couldn’t transfer information from a disk to the computer at Paramount even though I — and then finally I retyped it in a computer in the photo department over there. And (X) — and then I still couldn’t change — take it from a different disk and put it into another computer at the time. I mean they didn’t have everything all connected to, (X) you know, one system at the time. Like everything — everything now is all —
J: Um-huh.
Q: — on a server. (“AND TH”) They didn’t have that back then.
J: Um-huh.
Q: But — so I was — these were the (X) types of things (X) that I was adding up. (X) And (X) I guess it all — (X “I”) I guess the people would want to say, “Well why did this happen to you?”
J: Um-huh.
Q: And I guess that gets back to — what happened is — and that’s what I was thinking too, “Why did this happen to me?” So I was thinking, “With all the religious symbolism: the burning bushes, the mountain (logo) at Paramount, I’d had a nail bounce off my head in the house in Oklahoma. I was thinking, “Well what if I am the reincarnation of Jesus Christ?” So I started researching Jesus. And I tried healing people and that didn’t work I was relieved to find out.
J: Um-huh.
Q: But then what happened is I found — I was going through my library and I came upon the book — I was just going through the indexes of various books and I found Zecharia Sitchin’s book The Wars of Gods and Men. And in the index there it had Jesus. (“AND THEN”) Then it said go to page 224. So I went there and then the text that involved Jesus was referring to a new — (“WHAT”) what they were calling a ‘New Year Mystery Text’ entitled The Death and Resurrection of Bel-Marduk: “and highlighted its parallels to the New Testament tale of the death and resurrection of Jesus.”
J: Um-huh.
Q: So I thought, “Oh, well I’m not the reincarnation of Jesus. I’m the reincarnation of Bel-Marduk.” And — and then I had more information in this area. Of course, Mr. Sitchin (“HA[S]”) presents a lot of his comparative work and some of his material he does talk about ties — (X) Amun-Ra and Bel-Marduk. And — and then later on (X) when I — after moving to Santa Monica, I brought home — I went to The Bodhi Tree and found these books of Edgar Cayce channelings. They just said ‘Number 47.’ I guess they were like a — like a ma(gazine) — a monthly — a compendium of transcripts of old interviews. (X)
J: Um-huh.
Q: And there was a power failure that night when I had them so I ended up reading about Ra-Ta by flashlight. And I realized (“THERE WAS”) so many things that I realized that — that this also was — was me, this — this Ra-Ta character. And as I try to —
J: Now — now when you say it was you and you say you realized it was you, you know those are big bold statements, especially again to our skeptics out there who are keeping score. What made you make such incredible leaps of decision-making? I mean how could you even be — (“REPE”) begin to be sure these things were you?
Q: Well (or “WELL”) — and no one else has really seen a parallel between Bel-Marduk, (X) Amun-Ra and Ra-Ta. In fact, Edgar Cayce himself thought that he was Ra-Ta. I have not read all of the transcripts and I haven’t reached an ultimate conclusion in this area — I mean it’s possible that Ra-Ta (“IS”) is a symbolic title. However, when I was reading the chronicle of Ra-Ta in this particular book I just had this realization — (“TH”) the subconscious realization that this had to be me; plus, with the power shortage to effect. And since that time — for example, it talked about Ra-Ta making a fool of himself because the — the powers that be at the time gave him a wife and said, “You’re meant to have a wife.” And apparently that destroyed his credibility as a priest. Well (“WITH”) — in my case after coming back from Oklahoma and working on the book, I felt I had to make money. So I had to take a job. So I ended up working for a short stint at Rogers and Cowen. And one of my experiences there was I almost got impaled on a large pipe once when I was going up the stairs. (X) So I was getting sort of a message that I’m making a big mistake. Anyway, I met a — a book publicist named Tany Soussana there. And it was — well first of all she looked exactly like Diane Keaton. And I just felt — we just felt like we had known each other for a long time and we went out to dinner at Dive! Restaurant. And she wanted — she said (“RIGH[T]”) straight out loud (X X) that she wanted to begin a romantic relationship with me. And I was telling her (“THAT”) basically this all had to deal with past lives. And meanwhile the Entity Mighael was — the french fries were landing on the table in front of us. I must say it is a — it is a very loving communication (X) usually that — that (“THE”) — that is expressed here.
J: Um-huh.
Q: Any — anyway, it turns out that Tany apparently is the reincarnation of Inanna who again was not supposed to be Marduk’s wife; apparently, she was his rival or (X) — I — I sort of think that maybe he might have remarried and she became his — his second wife or something because there definitely was this connection. Anyway, she left Rogers and Cowen eventually and I thought I would help her in her new company by working on some of her accounts. And then I realized that some of her accounts had to deal with the various things that I was (“IN”) — I — I — (X “WAS”) disagreeing with, like the cult of celebrity and raising money for charity where God only knows where the money really ends up. And I just — some of — some of the clients (“I”) I did feel a rapport with but the Beanie Babies I was just horrified by. I mean some of the accounts were just horrifying.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And I realized, “Well here I am. I’m in business with — with Tany and it’s like a marriage. I mean I’m making the same mistake over again.” So basically in my case by being aware of what happened to me in my previous life I was able to avoid some of the mistakes. So in — in this case what happened is we broke off our relationship after there was a client named Gene Egidio who was a healer from Russia. (“AND I”) And he was trying to sell his story to the movies. Anyway, I sent him an Email telling him not to sell — not to sell out and, anyway, it was — she felt I was going behind her back and talking to her clients and he almost fired her apparently.
J: Um-huh.
Q: Anyway, so I was glad (X) this was a nice ending to our relationship — (“SO I”) stopped that pattern. (“N”) I’ve since basically learned through the hard way — I decided to temp for a while and I learned not to work in a corporate setting —
J: Um-huh.
Q: — that basically the Superconscious Mind was communicating with me based on my belief system. In my case, I interpreted (X) pennies as a positive message and then dimes and quarters I thought, “Well they might be a bad sign. And bobby pins.”
J: Um-huh.
Q: And so this is just how the Spirit began communicating with me. When I would — (“LIKE I”) for example, I remember starting a new temp job where the agency person had told me that this was a nice company — (“THAT”) it didn’t — it wasn’t an insurance agency but it helped people to find (“THE”), yeah, the right companies, etc. Well anyway it was a total lie. It was — it was an insurance company, basically. And I got a quarter on my way in to work that morning as sort of a message.
J: And where did the — how did the quarter show up? (“I NEED”)
Q: It was just — it was just beside my car when I went to the garage.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And this is still happening. (“I” “I”) Like yesterday I went to get my car (X) from a garage because I was having transmission problems and there was a penny on the desk and then a gentleman in the room took off his shoe and took out a dime and said “This has been in my shoe all day” (“WHILE”) while I was there. And I still (“DON’T” “I”) cannot — (“IT’S DONE”) don’t know how to really interpret it in this case.
J: (small laugh) Well Mark, let me — let me get in here. We need to get a break in right now.
Q: Okay.
J: And we will come back and continue. And we’ll see if we can get further into sorting out all these multiple things that Mark experiences and what their significance is. Is the significance just to Mark or can we all take something from it? We’ll be right back with more “Cybercity.” (music)
A: Visit Cybercity Radio on the Web at www dot cybercityradio dot com. (music continues)
K: Hey, Mark?
Q: Yeah?
K: Hey, it’s Chris again. Just want to let you know this — this break is also about five minutes so you’ve —
Q: Okay.
K: — got a little time to stretch or anything like that.
Q: Okay. And do you know how much longer the interview will go?
K: How much longer are you planning on — (music) — probably about another 20 minutes.
Q: Okay.
K: Is that okay?
Q: Yeah.
K: Okay. Alright. We’ll be back on with you very shortly.
Q: Alright. (music continues)
Q: Hello?
K: Hi. Is this Mark Russell Bell?
Q: Yes, it is.
K: Hi, this is Kris calling from “Cybercity.” How are you doing?
Q: I’m doing very well.
K: I was calling because we had you scheduled to appear on the air at about this time.
Q: Right.
K: Okay. Let me go ahead and get you set up here and (X) we’ll be on with you in just a couple minutes. And let me just say in — (coughs) oh excuse me.
Q: Okay.
K: Let me just say in advance that Jack and I are both really looking forward to this. It’s — I’ve — I looked a little bit at your website a couple days ago and it’s pretty interesting looking so (X) we’re both looking forward to this.
Q: Yeah, and I can help put it in perspective I guess.
K: (small laugh) Okay. (X) Alright, well hold on and we will be on with you very shortly.
Q: Okay. Thank you. (X)
. . . And didn’t have to taste How can I ignore? This is sex without touching I’m going to explore I’m only into this to Enjoy Enjoy Enjoy Enjoy
(“Enjoy” performed by Bjork)
Never was a cornflake girl Thought that was a good solution Hanging with the raisin girls She’s gone to the other side Giving us the old heave ho Things are getting kind of gross And I go at sleepy time This is not really this this this is not really happening hey You bet your life it is You bet your life it is . . .
(“Cornflake Girl” performed by Tori Amos)
J: We are returning to you right now. Of course, we never left. We left you with wonderful music to fill the void. I’m Jack Landman. You’re listening to “Cybercity.” Big show tonight. First of the new year. We’ve got the Mars rover covered for you. More on that later. Now we’re going to join our new guest — a new guest to us. His first visit to “Cybercity” — Mark Russell Bell; his website testament dot org. If you visit, you’re going to see that Test — Testament is referred to by Mark as “a new consciousness bible”: “Testament is a non-fiction book with a question and answer interview/journal format. Subjects include poltergeists, aliens, bigfoot, synchronicity, angels, prophecies, reincarnation, psychic abilities, the Oneness of all spirit, ‘Pop’ culture, Christ Consciousness, and events pertaining to what is sometimes referred to as the second coming. This book illuminates how God is proving love so we should do no less. Now is the time for each of us to make a stand and dedicate ourselves to expressing greater compassion for our entire human and animal family. If we are to evolve as a species, we must (X) begin giving back to the world as much as we take and stop ignoring the destruction of Earth’s eco-system.” And that is the intro you’ll find on the website in testament dot org. And now with great pleasure I welcome Mark. Mark, how are you?
Q: Very good, Jack.
J: Thank you for joining us tonight. We’re very glad to have you and we’re very anxious to find out the things that interest you and the things that you write about. And — and learn what your thinking is on these things. I wonder if I could ask you if — just to make kind of an — an opening statement to me and our listening audience regarding what all this is, what makes you tick and, you know, where you’re coming from so people can begin to get some bearings here.
Q: And I tried to include that in — in the — in the bio that you sent out earlier.
J: And you did a — you did a great job and I circulated that by Email —
Q: Um-huh.
J: — to many of our listeners but I bet we have some listeners out there who haven’t heard that yet.
Q: So basically what happened in my case is I had experienced some unusual events as a child that may or may not have had something to do with me being interested in the unexplained all throughout my life. And eventually there were signs that I (X) didn’t really know how to interpret and they (X) began to culminate after I was working at Paramount Pictures.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And I was researching talking poltergeists in my spare time, not quite sure of where this was all leading. (X) I guess you might say that my trip to the mountain, which is the logo of Paramount —
J: Um-huh.
Q: — resulted in an expanded consciousness that happened to me when I went to interview a family experiencing a talking poltergeist.
J: Now a talking poltergeist as compared to a poltergeist — wh(at) — what — what are we dealing with here? I mean it sounds obvious. It’s when you hear voices, (“I”) it sounds like you must mean. But is there a greater distinction than that?
Q: I use those terms because of the historical context. The family themselves thought that there were more alien symptoms than spiritual ones.
J: Um-huh.
Q: They were hearing different voices of different spirits, including aliens. And it was a (“LL”) bizarre gamut of events. Now I —
J: . . . (“I”) Just to —
Q: Yeah?
J: — just to get our bearings here. So you heard about this family in Oklahoma, correct?
Q: This was right after finishing my manuscript, which was a history of talking poltergeists.
J: Um-huh.
Q: So —
J: And so the record out — is out there for one to look at — includes I suppose many occurrences of talking poltergeists? Enough to actually call this a category of the paranormal?
Q: Well (“THE”) the best documented case is probably the Bell Witch case (X X) — the early 19th Century.
J: Um-huh.
Q: Another interesting case that was widely known at least in England at one point involving a talking mongoose — at least that’s what the poltergeist said that They were —
J: Um-huh.
Q: And the family saw the mongoose a couple — on a couple occasions. But it’s a — it was a very convoluted story and it was published as a book by Harry Price and R. S. Lambert entitled The Haunting of Cashen’s Gap.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And this was another very well documented case. Another case that I thought was pretty well documented — I obtained over (from) the Harv(ard) — the Harvard University Library. And that was called A Faithful Record of the Miraculous Case of Mary Jobson. This was an 1839 case.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And there were considerable religious overtones because there were different voices that were being recreated like in the Bell Witch case. And at one point the spirits called themselves “ALPHA AND OMEGA,” “THE LORD THEY GOD” — not ‘thy God’ but ‘T — H — E — Y God.’
[2020 UPDATE: THIS IS ONE OF SEVERAL INTERVIEWS WHEN I INCORRECTLY QUOTED "THEY GOD." ACTUALLY THE TEXT OF THE BOOK ABOUT MARY JOBSON READS "THY GOD." MY PRONOUNCEMENT OF "THEY GOD" IS DUE TO FINDING THE WORDS IN MY COMPUTER FILE ALTERED FROM 'THY' TO 'THEY' ON AT LEAST ONE OCCASION.]
J: Um-huh.
Q: “THE SON OF GOD” and at one point “THE VIRGIN MARY” put in an appearance. This — these were disembodied voices. And also other people’s voices were recreated who were known to the witnesses.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And the same thing had happened in the — in the Bell Witch case. One of the things that had really impressed me was when I was researching the Bell Witch. I had read about one of the family members being called ‘Pots’ by the haunting Entity.
J: Called what again?
Q: The nickname ‘Pots’ as in pots and pans.
J: P — O — T — S — uh-huh. Okay.
Q: And then when I was researching — reading about the Gef the talking mongoose case, I read that the mongoose usually called Mr. Irving ‘Jim’ or ‘Pots.’ And there was that same nickname again and I thought, “Well this is an interesting turn of events.”
J: Right. What an —
Q: So —
J: — an odd thing that is.
Q: Yeah be — because they were both pretty obscure cases. I’m — I wouldn’t think that the English writers would’ve known about the Bell Witch or they might’ve written more about it. And the same thing — of course, with the Bell Witch. It predated.
J: When you finished your research — at the point you finished you were unaware of the Oklahoma family. Is that correct? Or at what point, I should say, (X) did you become aware of them?
Q: Well what happened first is I had first been — researched other nonfiction cases involving the unexplained to some extent. There was the Julia Pastrana case — who was a famous ‘freak’ you might call her during the P.T. Barnum days.
J: Um-huh.
Q: She seemed to be a hybrid Mexican peasant woman and bigfoot who became a singing and dancing star throughout the world. And I’d also researched the last formal trial for witchcraft in France involving a young girl who had religious ecstasies. And, anyway, so after these I was looking for something else in the field because I had done a screenplay on the Bell Witch (I meant Julia Pastrana) and a novelization and they were pretty short. So I was looking for maybe another one and I would publish them together or something and that’s how I found out about the Bell Witch. I just noticed it (a book) at the bookstore over in Glendale. And at first I thought, “Well this is awfully — ” — (“I”) read a few pages and I thought, “This is pretty wacky.” But then I was thinking, (“WELL”) you know, this is just so wacky it seems hard to imagine that anyone could really make this up. So I took it home and then I sent away for the original manuscript from the New York Library.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And — (“AN”) I began researching other talking cases and that’s what led me (X) to the Mary Jobson case. There were — there was another famous case that there’s less information known about but in Pavia, Italy in the late 17th Century there was a — a case of a lovesick poltergeist. This was recorded by Ludovico Maria Sinistrari and there were famous cases like the William Morse case, which was a poltergeist case. (“BUT”) On a few occasions (“THE”) the haunting Presence did speak. In th(is) — in this case, the only comments on record were “REVENGE. SWEET IS REVENGE” and “ALAS ME KNOCK NO MORE.”
J: Um-huh.
Q: Oh actually that was — that was the William Morse in Massachusetts. In the John Mumpesson case, which was the Drummer of Tedworth the only time that you hear anything was when (“THE K”) the Entity was saying, “A WITCH, A WITCH, A WITCH . . .”
J: Um-huh.
Q: And that was repeating. And now that was published by Joseph Glanville if anyone wants to refer to the original source —
J: Um-huh.
Q: — which was originally published in 1681.
J: So we have this body of literature that supports this concept of talking poltergeists and something somewhere along the line gets you interested in a present living family in Oklahoma.
Q: Right. Well I — I thought this was a good opportunity for me to witness a contemporary version of the “talking poltergeist.” In fact, I do have the Fortean Times magazine article that first caught my attention at the website — early on the website. Because I wanted to provide a documentary style account of my — of what happened to me.
J: Um-huh. (“AND”) So you heard about them through the Fortean Times —
Q: Right — article.
J: — magazine. Article. (X) And —
Q: The family didn’t have a phone so I wrote them and asked them to call me collect. And I heard from Maxine, the mother of the family. And I have that initial conversation early (X) in Testament when I spoke to her. And in that initial conversation where I’m discussing the other case and parallels — and then she happened to remark that they had Bell ancestry her(self) — themselves because she had remarried but her previous name was — was Bell. So some of her daughters also had the Bell surname.
J: Interesting. Now let me get you to clarify something. You said that they didn’t have a telephone. Now that’s pretty unusual.
Q: They are — they were very poor — (“THEY DON’T”) didn’t have a lot of money and it was a large family. Maxine’s husband Bill had been sick. On and off, they had had phones but —
J: I see.
Q: — at that time they did not have a phone.
J: I see — as a financial matter.
Q: Right.
J: Uh-huh.
Q: In fact — in fact, I have a picture of their — their house at the website. And it’s — it’s — it’s a (“NO”) — it’s nothing fancy, by all means.
J: Um-huh.
Q: But when I went out there and I turned on my tape recorder and did my interviews, not knowing what I was in for, the first thing that occurred — one of the first things that occurred was — there was this (“AA”) — this noise. Sort of like — it sounded like — like an alien trans (“MITTED”) — transmission of a signal of something (“TH[AT] WOULD”) was bouncing around the room like from corner to corner in the room.
J: And this is while you were there?
Q: Yeah. This was whi(le) (or “Y”) — this was one of the first things that caught my attention.
J: Uh-huh. (“AND I THOUGHT”)
Q: You know — and they were describing it as “it sounds like a cat.” Like meowing. It sort of sounded like (imitates sound) — you know it was —
J: It had an — an electronic quality I guess.
Q: Yeah. It was — (“I[T]”) it had a metal(lic) — it was — it d(oes) — it sounded like what I would say an alien transmission would sound like. Especially —
J: And you actually recorded it? You recorded it and got it on tape?
Q: At one point. (“IT”) (This time) I did not hear the transmission sound. There was sort of like a meow that was hearable. Because they said it sounds like a cat.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And you can hear that on the tape yet it’s not — it’s nothing (X) close to what I had witnessed in person.
J: Um-huh. The reason I — I — I queried you on that because sometime — I’ve heard of incidents where people heard things but the tapes they had rolling had no sound whatsoever on them and I just wondered if it as that type of experience.
Q: Oh well — well these tapes — there were some things that I heard when the tape recorder was going that was not on the tape and then — then there were things that I didn’t hear at the time that turned out to be on the tape which included voices of some of my friends.
J: Um-huh!?
Q: This is be(fore) — I didn’t really know what EVP was at the time so when I published the book I just listed them as spirit messages.
J: And EVP — would you say what that acronym is?
Q: Electronic Voice Phenomena.
J: Uh-huh. Now — now what was it when you talked to her — I mean when you finally had a chance (“DID”) — they called you collect. What was it they told you that made you willing to go out to Oklahoma and spend three days with them?
Q: I think it was the fact that they had Bell ancestry because the famous Bell Witch case — it was (“LI”) — it struck me as being like a — a dynasty of poltergeists.
J: Now your last name is Bell.
Q: However, it wasn’t at the time and there’s a story behind that too.
J: Interesting.
Q: That — the name was actually channeled to me through a friend who had never had any kind of experience in this area — at least at the time that she didn’t realize. She certainly had never heard any disembodied voices before.
J: Um-huh.
Q: But my friend Marie, who (“EINI”) I spoke to her after getting back and — well, first of all, the phenomena — when I came back to here — to L.A., the phenomena was escalating. (“IT”) I — I thought I was just going to interview a family with a poltergeist but when I came back I was still experiencing the same things, if — (“AA”) and they were increased. I mean the events were much more — more larger. For example, when I was there, they kept saying, “Well watch your change because Michael” — that was what they called the Entity, sort of a nickname. They also would call individual spirits different names.
J: So — so the family referred to him — the Entity as Michael?
Q: Right. Apparently He would have long conversations with people. However, others — people that they called were, like, ‘Rachel’ and there was sort of a large alien character that they called ‘Leader.’ And then there was one that they named ‘E.T.’ who they mentioned “always cried when he watched the ‘E.T.’ movie” with them.
J: Uh-huh.
Q: I mean lots of — these bizarre, bizarre stories. (“THERE WERE”) There were also anecdotes about Michael–who they thought really was more an alien than a spirit even though He also appeared to be the spirit of a little boy who had been — had his head cut off by his mother. I mean there were all these different — you — you didn’t quite know what was going on because this was a rural family who were trying to make sense of hearing all these different voices and almost create their interpretation of what they were hearing.
J: Now one other thing I’d like you to clarify is that you said when you returned from Oklahoma to Los Angeles you continued to experience the phenomena. Correct?
Q: That’s right.
J: And — and what it could it be anywhere — driving in your car or was it in your home? (“OR”) Any — any pattern there at all?
Q: Well at first — as my consciousness has expanded, I’ve come to find new interpretations.
J: Um-huh.
Q: At the time, like for example, I remember there was one time when a penny was there when my brother and his friend James were visiting me. And I called James’ attention to it and he said, “Well maybe you threw it there.” And then — and I actually — in that case I’d actually — I’d — I’d heard (“LIKE A”) a ‘swoosh’ and it had hit my — my foot before going onto the floor. So I knew (“IT”) it had happened — it had happened so — and then a dime had appeared a few minutes later, which he knew had not been there. One of the more — so I — I was trying to add — (“A[D]”) add all these things up but maybe I’m getting a little ahead of myself because I should talk a little bit more about my Oklahoma experience.
J: Yeah — yeah, let’s do. Let’s (“SO”) — because you spent three days there and I — I take it you — you heard more than the cat’s meow.
Q: That’s right. Well at one point Twyla, who everyone thought had been the focal point or the ‘agent’ of the poltergeist, so to speak, even though there were many events where she wasn’t there; however, she did fit the chronology. (X) She was a young girl. There were a few things that didn’t match with previous poltergeist cases. (X) For example, she’d already given birth to two children and usually these were teenagers.
J: Um-huh.
Q: So there were — (X) it didn’t quite — none of it quite fit but there was such a gamut of things happening there that they didn’t — (X) the family didn’t really know what — what to think. In fact, they were filmed for a special that did air on TV called “Ghosts, Spirits — ” no: “Ghosts, Mediums, Psychics: Put To The Test” —
J: Um-huh.
Q: — which did air that — (“THE”) the summer and it was also on “20/20” too, I understand.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: I SHOULD HAVE SAID THAT THE SPECIAL AIRED IN NOVEMBER, 1995 AND “20/20″ AIRED IN THE SUMMER OF 1996.)
J: Uh-huh.
Q: And — but they cut out everything in — like the alien anecdotes. They just pretty much focused on (“THE POL”) the usual poltergeist-type features.
J: Um-huh.
Q: For example, there was one — one incident that they showed on film where Twyla got up from a chair and the chair moved at the same time which they had noticed at the time but later when they were watching the film they noticed this.
J: Twyla is which person? (“SHE’S”)
Q: She was the daug(hter) — the daughter — Maxine’s daughter who seemed to have the most phenomena.
J: Um-huh. So you have Maxine, who’s the mother.
Q: Right.
J: And you have Twyla —
Q: Yeah. (“X”)
J: — who’s one of the — how many children?
Q: I think there were four. There were three sisters.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And I know at lea(st) — and one brother but since she had remarried it’s a bit hard to sort it all out.
J: I see. I see. When you were there how many people were typically (X) at the house?
Q: Well there was Brenda Bell, her sis(ter) — Twyla’s sister, Brenda Bell. And there was Kim, another sister. And, let’s see, Maxine and Bill came in from (X) I guess he was (“AA”) at a — (X) a clinic or something because he — he came in. (X) It just so happened that when I was there they were having a funeral for Carlton Bell.
J: Hmm.
Q: And which was ironic because one of the main things that happened in the original Bell Witch case was the funeral for John Bell who they had said that the poltergeist had murdered.
J: Hmm.
Q: So, anyway, it was — there were all these unusual parallels and (“TH”) that’s why (X) when I decided just to present my interviews verbatim to let people draw their own conclusions, there was really no way of saying, “Well what’s the most important part of my experiences there?” Because when I came back I realized some of the things that might not have seemed important were probably the most important.
J: Um-huh.
Q: For example, at one point they were — and I could also see parallels with other poltergeist cases too.
J: Um-huh.
Q: When I went home (X) after the first day of interviews, (“THERE”) I felt a knocking at my door.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: I SHOULD HAVE SAID THIS HAPPENED AFTER THE SECOND DAY OF INTERVIEWS.)
(“OR”)
Q: On the wall and I didn’t quite know what it — what it was but I had known in famous poltergeist cases there was always this knocking so I investigated.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And in this case it turned out to be this large beetle (“LI”) that looked like a scarab throwing itself against my door for a rather long time.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And then the second night (first night) (“WW WW I[T]”) I called my twin brother here in L.A. and he was asleep I think when — when he answered the phone. And as I was talking to him just to give him a report, he said his bed started shaking —
J: Um-huh.
Q: — which obviously he’d never (X) experienced anything like that before. (X) Of course, the next day I told — I told the family. I said, “He said his bed was shaking. Is that possible?”
J: Um-huh.
Q: Well since then a lot of more very bizarre things have happened. Now when — when I was there, I was — I was going to mention this before but I forgot. They were always saying, “Watch your spare change. He’ll take your money. (X “HE’LL”) Watch your money. He’ll take like a five dollar bill or twenty dollar bill.”
J: Um-huh.
Q: And so then when I came back to L.A., one of the things Marie told me before I e(ven) — had even told her some of these smaller incidents, she said that under very strange circumstances her bank account had been cleared out. And nobody else had her card and she was almost hysterical about it.
J: Um-huh.
Q: Eventually she did meet with the bank and they agreed to put in the money. They couldn’t really — they never offered any kind of explanation.
J: Hmm.
Q: But I was — I mean this was the kind of thing that I was experiencing. Plus after that — I’m trying to think what — I had like a ‘men in black’ experience which was bizarre.
J: Um-huh. You mean you were visited by people that fit —
Q: Well —
J: — the men in black sort of look and style? (“WW” “II”)
Q: The — I mean the epitome, so to speak. I mean what happened is when you — when you experience something like this, you think, “Well this is so important — people have to know about this.” I mean I was trying to tell people at Par — Paramount. (“I”) I told them, “I’m sorry, I — I can’t work on any more press kits. I have to deal with this. I mean this Spirit (X “COULD”) could destroy our world in an — in an instant.”
J: Um-huh. (X)
Q: I mean I really — this is far more important than doing the — the next press kit or captions for whatever.
J: Uh-huh.
Q: So —
J: Of course, you had to earn a living and feed yourself, correct?
Q: Well I had a lot of money saved up.
J: Ahh, I see. So you — you had this opportunity that you could devote your time to this?
Q: There was no question. I mean (X) well first of all, I mean I was aware that the Entity was almost my collaborator on the book because first of all the family had told me that the Entity had destroyed other people’s (X) tapes in the house.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And they said, “Boy, he seems to like you, Mark.”
J: You mean audio tapes? Is that what you (mean)?
Q: Right.
J: Uh-huh.
Q: Audio tape.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And I — also I had another — some other experiences myself which I’d always explained away (“YOU KNOW”) before going to Oklahoma. For example, when I came back I felt like someone grab my leg when I was in bed at night. And before I — (“I”) — I remember experiencing that before and I just thought, “Oh well, I had a muscle contortion or something.” But then when I came back I thought, “Oh my gosh. So that’s what that is.”
J: Um-huh.
Q: And — anyway, and plus —
J: Well let me jump in here, Mark. We’re — we’re due for a break —
Q: Okay.
J: — right at the moment. And — and you’ve given us an awful lot to sort of digest as an opening segment here.
Q: Right.
J: And so we’ll — we’ll get our musical break in and sort of come back and — and sort of figure out how to attack all this information you have that just seems to be coming from so many different directions. And get more and more our bearings closed in on what started, as you’ve heard folks, as an interest on Mark’s part in the subject talking poltergeists. And then the (“AA”) awareness of a family in Oklahoma, which he visited for three days which seems to have set off many, many other phenomena so we’re going to come back and we’re going to visit with Mark Russell Bell in greater detail and sort all this out so all of us can make up our minds about it. And we’ll direct you to his website, of course, so you can read these things firsthand yourself and, believe me, I’ve looked. They’re unedited. It’s a great way to take a look here at what Mark’s talking about. We’ll be right back with more “Cybercity.” (music begins)
A: You’re listening to “Cybercity Radio” with Jack Landman.
K: Hey, Mark.
Q: Yeah?
K: Hey, this is Kris. Just want to let you know that this break is about five minutes or so, so if you want to run and grab something to drink or anything like that, you’ve got a little bit of time to do that.
Q: Oh good. (“OKAY”)
K: And we’ll be right back on with you, okay?
Q: Okay, thank you.
K: Alright. Thanks. (music continues / change of tape side)
Thrown like a star in my vast sleep I’m opening my eyes to take a peep To find that I was by the sea Gazing with tranquility ‘Twas then when the hurdy gurdy man Came singing songs of love Then when the hurdy gurdy man Came singing songs of love Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy gurdy he sang Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy gurdy he sang Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy gurdy he sang Histories of ages past Unenlightened shadows cast Down through all eternity The crying of humanity ‘Tis then when the hurdy gurdy man Comes singing songs of love Then when the hurdy gurdy man Comes singing songs of love Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy gurdy he sang Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy hurdy gurd Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy gurdy he sang . . .
(“Hurdy Gurdy Man” performed by Donovan)
J: This is “Cybercity.” I’m Jack Landman. Thanks for joining us here on January 3rd, first show of the year 2004. We’re keeping tabs on the Mars rover deployment. The craft is called — one that will be roving the planet is called the Spirit or Spirit appropriately considering what we’re talking about here tonight with Mark Russell Bell who’s our guest at this moment. Mark is a — is a former or perhaps still employee of Paramount Pictures in Hollywood, USA and because of his own personal interest became very interested in the subject talking poltergeists which ultimately led him to a very unusual and interesting family in Oklahoma with — which with whom he spent three days. And we’re just sorting out all these things and events that have — that did happen to Mark or that he witnessed and experienced later when he went back to L.A. from Oklahoma. Mark, I know the skeptics out there in our audience (“R”) are going to be thinking like this. They’re going to say, “Well listen to that guy. He — he was talking about something — a — a noise he heard and it turned out to be a beetle, a mundane explanation. He — he thought — he — he’s now describing something grabbing his leg but that very well may have been a cramp he had. And so, you know, what really makes me believe as a skeptic out there that this guy has anything special to tell us?” How do you respond to that?
Q: Well that’s why I presented the case in a documentary style —
J: Um-huh. (“NO”)
Q: Everything that happens — (“F[O]R) later on for example, there’d be — I’d realize that the Fortean Times magazine where the article appeared had an Egyptian theme (on the cover) and, by the way, I should state that the current news release at the website in the New Testament side pretty much gives everyone a complete picture. (“BU[T]”) What I — what I guess I should do to try to help people to put together the pieces of the puzzle that I was presented with, is just mention (X X) a few quick data in — in summary of some of my experiences and then I’ll share with you how it helped me to make a leap in consciousness, so to speak.
J: Alright. And — and while you’re doing that, let me also tell our listeners — remind them that they can contact us and ask Mark a question directly by telephone: (gives number). That’s (gives number). Or you can send us an Email right now — jack@cybercityradio.com and you can go to AOL instant messenger and look for a buddy named cybercityradio. So many ways you can contact us if you’d like to throw in a question or a comment. Please continue, Mark.
Q: Okay, well now at Paramount, I — and I no longer work there, by the way.
J: Um-huh.
Q: I am definitely not meant to work in a corporate environment. We can go into the brainwashing of movies and television shows and all that but I think I’ll just stay to the story at hand and let people —
J: Yeah, I’ll — I’ll make a note on that and maybe before we’re done we can hit that topic.
Q: So, anyway, at Paramount (“I EN”) I worked on such films as “Ghost,” several “Star Trek” films, “Dead Again,” which was about reincarnation, “Scrooged,” “The Butcher’s Wife,” “We’re No Angels,” a reissue of “The Ten Commandments.” Those are some of the paranormal-themed films. I also worked on more mainstream films like “Fatal Attraction,” “Braveheart,” “Forrest Gump,” “The Godfather, Part III,” “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”
J: Um-huh. And your — your job was to help prepare —
Q: I —
J: — the media kits. Is that correct?
Q: I was the staff writer (“IN THE”) in the publicity department.
J: I see.
Q: And anyone who’s worked as a publicist in Hollywood–or Hollyweird in my case–knows that there’s much more creativity usually in the marketing than there is in the movies themselves.
J: Right.
Q: I mean movies really are much more hype than anything else.
J: Sure. (“BUT”)
Q: Some of the other things that I was experiencing in these years leading up to my trip to Oklahoma was I had experienced burning bushes outside my condo on two different occasions, (X) and there was one night in bed when — when I was a child I — I had heard once when I was (X) like five years old a disembodied voice calling my name. And I remembered this when I was (“IN”) after interviewing the family because Brenda Bell once said that she had heard someone calling her name. And when I was transcribing the interview (X) I remembered when I was — when I was a little boy, there was that one odd time when I woke up and I heard someone whispering my name and calling my name. And my brother was asleep and my mom was asleep. And I went all through the apartment and I never did find the source. So —
J: And again our — our skeptics would say, “Well he must have actually been having a dream. (X) It just — he got it confused with reality.”
Q: However, this is a very frequent occurrence. I can’t tell you how many people have told me that they experienced that same circumstance.
J: Of — of the something calling their name?
Q: Right. And — and, of course, it is rather a cliche scene in movies all the time. Now when you (X) consider movies — of course, there is creativity (X) in terms of all — you know, all the nov(els) — fiction, poems. I mean everything involves creativity so it’s interesting with the themed films that I had worked on. I sort of like to call myself ‘a (X) carpenter in the Hollywood dream factory' because that’s really what Hollywood is. Unfortunately, it’s — it’s becoming more and more commercialized every year when you look at what gets made. Especially the big budget movies that get — gets made.
J: Sure.
Q: Now I (X) also had worked as a talent agent. My first job had been as (X) Mickey Rooney’s assistant inside an agency. And I was — I did that for seven years and there were interesting connections with some of the clients at that time. Our agency clients in addition to Mickey included Gene Barry, who was in “War of the Worlds,” Martha Raye, John Carradine, who I remember booking in “Peggy Sue Got Married,” Abe Vigoda, Yvonne De Carlo. We had some — some of the clients were in really difficult times because we specialized in the older stars. There was James Drury, who was in the cast of “Forbidden Planet,” Russ Tamblyn, Johnny Whitaker, Penny Singleton, Mamie Van Doren. Now later (“THE”) the lady who I was working with, Ruth Webb, and her new associate, Sherry Spillane, would be encouraged to specialize in the infamous. And for a short while they would represent people like Joey Buttafuoco, Tonya Harding, John Wayne Bobbitt, Divine Brown. And I deal with that in — in the book because I show how people — in this case, someone had given them the idea to specialize in this area and (“TH[E]”) — and in — my case too I document how people give me various ideas while working on the book. Because I think the key thing that happened in Oklahoma was I was hearing anecdotes about Leader, who was this invisible alien who at one point (X X) put his arms around the little girl or something happened between them. And they said the aliens were from Saturn. And when I came back I went to a slide show and it’s hard to convey. (“BUT”) My friend Charlotte, for example, was talking about, “The man in the Hawaiian shirt was our tour leader.” She was showing slides from her vacation and then my friend Patty said, “My new car is a Saturn.” And then the light bulb on the projector burned out. And I was getting — I was basically — I felt as if I was being taught that (“THE”) the Superconscious Mind was giving thoughts to people around me. For example, my twin brother once said — I was talking about (X) reincarnation. And he is the most materialistic — (X) he has — he handles — he’s still in publicity —
J: Um-huh.
Q: — and public relations. He handles the Golden Globes and he handles a lot of high profile Hollywood accounts. And he’s the most materialistic person you can think of, even though we are identical twins. So those people who think that twins are — have the same soul can use us as a touchstone. However, he was once telling me, “Well if you play your cards right, this time you won’t have to have another reincarnation.” And I said, “Michael, did you hear what you just said?” And he — and I repeated it back to him. (“AND”) And he — he couldn’t believe that he had said that even.
J: Um-huh.
Q: So — and plus there’s all (X) — a(ll) ki(nds) — I mean I’m just talking — (“UH IN[G]” “THE”) skimming the surface, almost like an — the tip of an iceberg because I remember once expressing hostility and felt like an unseen Presence pushing me down against a car. I mean it was constant. Constant things were happening.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And so, anyway, I began — I had this realization that this Superconsciousness was channeling thoughts to people around me and communicating to me through their subconscious minds. And then I had all this symbolism in my life, which sort of culminated when I was talking to my friend Marie about if I should have a pseudonym for the book. And the next day she was crossing Sunset Boulevard and she heard someone say, “Mark Russell Bell.” And then she looked down and saw a Bell telephone book. (“SO”) She ran to a phone and called me. (“O[B]”) Obviously, that was the answer.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And so I interview Marie. She did have some other uncanny experiences — of course, that was probably the most uncanny one. And I was — when I realized that people were — when this — this Superconsciousness was talking to me through people’s subconscious minds, I would do things like I would call my friend Fiona, who already was a psychic reader at a psychic bookstore, and as I was talking to her she said a magnet flew off her refrigerator. So then I called my mom and I said, “Michael, give me a sign that You’re there” because I picked up that same nickname that the family had used.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And she said — (“WW”) my mom’s another very skeptical person, by the way —
J: Um-huh.
Q: And she said, “Oh well there’s nothing happening. (X) Wait a moment, there’s a wasp acting strangely.” Now wasps had been part of the account in — in the house. I must say I’ve had a lot of different unusual (X) experiences with insects. And so that’s, again, what led me to my realization that this was a Superconsciousness that was interacting with me.
J: Um-huh.
Q: I’m trying to think what would be — for example, my TV set would go on and off in those days after I came back from Oklahoma. Once, a — a part of a “Topper” movie was on where they had oranges. There was a commercial that said, “Love is the only religion.”
J: Um-huh.
Q: There was a Rose Parade float I remember that had an environmental theme. Because the Entity would not let me watch TV. (“WHENE”) Whenever I would (X) turn it on, it would go off a few minutes later. But then it culminated once I realized — I soon realized I was not meant to watch television. (“THAT”) The Spirit wanted me to work on the book.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And the — the main thing that happened was before I had reached this conclusion, I was taking a break from my book and I turned on — I think it was “The Real World” on MTV which had the roommates living in London and at that precise time, (“THE ROOM”) one of the roommates was complaining that their telephone service wasn’t working. And this reminded me in the Bell Witch case how the famous ‘Bell Witch’ had recreated two different sermons verbatim in the voices of the ministers even though they had happened at the same time. This was back (“IN” “NO I[N]”) — around 1820 or so.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And then when I was interviewing Twyla in Oklahoma, she was telling me in an anecdote about hearing a conversation played back before she actually saw it happen. I mean she didn’t realize it at the time. (“WHEN IT”) When she first heard it she thought her sister was conversing in the other room. But then later she heard (“THE”) the exact same conversation (X) so she was telling me (X) it was like the house played it back. (X) So, anyway, I was adding up all these different events and I realized that this Superconsciousness had power over space and time. And I remember once (“I”) I was going to move to Santa Monica and I was frustrated because I couldn’t sell my beautiful condo. (“NITWIT”) It was very inexpensive. It was less than $100 thousand because it was in Echo Park right over Echo Park Lake across from the Angelus Temple. And I was frustrated because nobody would want this beautiful view. And it was because we had a foreclosure in the upper unit and it hurt the — the value of the house. So I was angry with Mighael, thinking, no, ‘How can You do this to me?’ And anyway I — I saw a bumper sticker that said “I KNOW JACK SHIT.” (“I”) You know, that’s what it (“I MEAN IT”) — so I began realizing that I was getting messages in many different ways.
J: Um-huh.
Q: Including bumper stickers. And I was starting (“TO A[D]”) to add everything up and —
J: Well — well let — let’s do this.
Q: Yeah?
J: Let — let’s ask our skeptics —
Q: Okay.
J: — that are listening to suspend disbelief and — and just bear with us here because you obviously have numerous singular incidents that you can refer to.
Q: That’s right.
J: And — and so we’ll — we’ll just say, “Skeptics, you just cool your jets for a minute. And let us go on here and — and learn a little bit more about especially what happened in Oklahoma. I mean you stayed there three days. Was there pretty much (X) events almost day to day or moment to moment? How did you —
Q: Well one of the most — well first of all, I’ve done a lot of interviews over the years as a publicist.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And I had some strange (X) events when I was doing interviews in Hollywood, I might add. I remember one time when I was interviewing David Zucker. (“I”) I decided to have a backup tape recorder because I had (“AA”) a problem with my — one of my interviews where a tape recorder didn’t work. Anyway, it was malfunctioning for no reason. But — so I — I — and one time I was working on “Clueless” and I couldn’t transfer information from a disk to the computer at Paramount even though I — and then finally I retyped it in a computer in the photo department over there. And (X) — and then I still couldn’t change — take it from a different disk and put it into another computer at the time. I mean they didn’t have everything all connected to, (X) you know, one system at the time. Like everything — everything now is all —
J: Um-huh.
Q: — on a server. (“AND TH”) They didn’t have that back then.
J: Um-huh.
Q: But — so I was — these were the (X) types of things (X) that I was adding up. (X) And (X) I guess it all — (X “I”) I guess the people would want to say, “Well why did this happen to you?”
J: Um-huh.
Q: And I guess that gets back to — what happened is — and that’s what I was thinking too, “Why did this happen to me?” So I was thinking, “With all the religious symbolism: the burning bushes, the mountain (logo) at Paramount, I’d had a nail bounce off my head in the house in Oklahoma. I was thinking, “Well what if I am the reincarnation of Jesus Christ?” So I started researching Jesus. And I tried healing people and that didn’t work I was relieved to find out.
J: Um-huh.
Q: But then what happened is I found — I was going through my library and I came upon the book — I was just going through the indexes of various books and I found Zecharia Sitchin’s book The Wars of Gods and Men. And in the index there it had Jesus. (“AND THEN”) Then it said go to page 224. So I went there and then the text that involved Jesus was referring to a new — (“WHAT”) what they were calling a ‘New Year Mystery Text’ entitled The Death and Resurrection of Bel-Marduk: “and highlighted its parallels to the New Testament tale of the death and resurrection of Jesus.”
J: Um-huh.
Q: So I thought, “Oh, well I’m not the reincarnation of Jesus. I’m the reincarnation of Bel-Marduk.” And — and then I had more information in this area. Of course, Mr. Sitchin (“HA[S]”) presents a lot of his comparative work and some of his material he does talk about ties — (X) Amun-Ra and Bel-Marduk. And — and then later on (X) when I — after moving to Santa Monica, I brought home — I went to The Bodhi Tree and found these books of Edgar Cayce channelings. They just said ‘Number 47.’ I guess they were like a — like a ma(gazine) — a monthly — a compendium of transcripts of old interviews. (X)
J: Um-huh.
Q: And there was a power failure that night when I had them so I ended up reading about Ra-Ta by flashlight. And I realized (“THERE WAS”) so many things that I realized that — that this also was — was me, this — this Ra-Ta character. And as I try to —
J: Now — now when you say it was you and you say you realized it was you, you know those are big bold statements, especially again to our skeptics out there who are keeping score. What made you make such incredible leaps of decision-making? I mean how could you even be — (“REPE”) begin to be sure these things were you?
Q: Well (or “WELL”) — and no one else has really seen a parallel between Bel-Marduk, (X) Amun-Ra and Ra-Ta. In fact, Edgar Cayce himself thought that he was Ra-Ta. I have not read all of the transcripts and I haven’t reached an ultimate conclusion in this area — I mean it’s possible that Ra-Ta (“IS”) is a symbolic title. However, when I was reading the chronicle of Ra-Ta in this particular book I just had this realization — (“TH”) the subconscious realization that this had to be me; plus, with the power shortage to effect. And since that time — for example, it talked about Ra-Ta making a fool of himself because the — the powers that be at the time gave him a wife and said, “You’re meant to have a wife.” And apparently that destroyed his credibility as a priest. Well (“WITH”) — in my case after coming back from Oklahoma and working on the book, I felt I had to make money. So I had to take a job. So I ended up working for a short stint at Rogers and Cowen. And one of my experiences there was I almost got impaled on a large pipe once when I was going up the stairs. (X) So I was getting sort of a message that I’m making a big mistake. Anyway, I met a — a book publicist named Tany Soussana there. And it was — well first of all she looked exactly like Diane Keaton. And I just felt — we just felt like we had known each other for a long time and we went out to dinner at Dive! Restaurant. And she wanted — she said (“RIGH[T]”) straight out loud (X X) that she wanted to begin a romantic relationship with me. And I was telling her (“THAT”) basically this all had to deal with past lives. And meanwhile the Entity Mighael was — the french fries were landing on the table in front of us. I must say it is a — it is a very loving communication (X) usually that — that (“THE”) — that is expressed here.
J: Um-huh.
Q: Any — anyway, it turns out that Tany apparently is the reincarnation of Inanna who again was not supposed to be Marduk’s wife; apparently, she was his rival or (X) — I — I sort of think that maybe he might have remarried and she became his — his second wife or something because there definitely was this connection. Anyway, she left Rogers and Cowen eventually and I thought I would help her in her new company by working on some of her accounts. And then I realized that some of her accounts had to deal with the various things that I was (“IN”) — I — I — (X “WAS”) disagreeing with, like the cult of celebrity and raising money for charity where God only knows where the money really ends up. And I just — some of — some of the clients (“I”) I did feel a rapport with but the Beanie Babies I was just horrified by. I mean some of the accounts were just horrifying.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And I realized, “Well here I am. I’m in business with — with Tany and it’s like a marriage. I mean I’m making the same mistake over again.” So basically in my case by being aware of what happened to me in my previous life I was able to avoid some of the mistakes. So in — in this case what happened is we broke off our relationship after there was a client named Gene Egidio who was a healer from Russia. (“AND I”) And he was trying to sell his story to the movies. Anyway, I sent him an Email telling him not to sell — not to sell out and, anyway, it was — she felt I was going behind her back and talking to her clients and he almost fired her apparently.
J: Um-huh.
Q: Anyway, so I was glad (X) this was a nice ending to our relationship — (“SO I”) stopped that pattern. (“N”) I’ve since basically learned through the hard way — I decided to temp for a while and I learned not to work in a corporate setting —
J: Um-huh.
Q: — that basically the Superconscious Mind was communicating with me based on my belief system. In my case, I interpreted (X) pennies as a positive message and then dimes and quarters I thought, “Well they might be a bad sign. And bobby pins.”
J: Um-huh.
Q: And so this is just how the Spirit began communicating with me. When I would — (“LIKE I”) for example, I remember starting a new temp job where the agency person had told me that this was a nice company — (“THAT”) it didn’t — it wasn’t an insurance agency but it helped people to find (“THE”), yeah, the right companies, etc. Well anyway it was a total lie. It was — it was an insurance company, basically. And I got a quarter on my way in to work that morning as sort of a message.
J: And where did the — how did the quarter show up? (“I NEED”)
Q: It was just — it was just beside my car when I went to the garage.
J: Um-huh.
Q: And this is still happening. (“I” “I”) Like yesterday I went to get my car (X) from a garage because I was having transmission problems and there was a penny on the desk and then a gentleman in the room took off his shoe and took out a dime and said “This has been in my shoe all day” (“WHILE”) while I was there. And I still (“DON’T” “I”) cannot — (“IT’S DONE”) don’t know how to really interpret it in this case.
J: (small laugh) Well Mark, let me — let me get in here. We need to get a break in right now.
Q: Okay.
J: And we will come back and continue. And we’ll see if we can get further into sorting out all these multiple things that Mark experiences and what their significance is. Is the significance just to Mark or can we all take something from it? We’ll be right back with more “Cybercity.” (music)
A: Visit Cybercity Radio on the Web at www dot cybercityradio dot com. (music continues)
K: Hey, Mark?
Q: Yeah?
K: Hey, it’s Chris again. Just want to let you know this — this break is also about five minutes so you’ve —
Q: Okay.
K: — got a little time to stretch or anything like that.
Q: Okay. And do you know how much longer the interview will go?
K: How much longer are you planning on — (music) — probably about another 20 minutes.
Q: Okay.
K: Is that okay?
Q: Yeah.
K: Okay. Alright. We’ll be back on with you very shortly.
Q: Alright. (music continues)
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