Case Profile: Trance Medium Arthur Ford and 'Control Spirit' 'Fletcher'

Arthur Ford (1897-1971)

 

Arthur Ford was a trance medium through whom spoke the 'control spirit' known as 'Fletcher.'  This article presents excerpts from Arthur Ford's autobiographical account of how he became a psychic medium and began working with his "permanent assistant on the unseen plane."  Today the popular jargon for such a transcendental communicator is 'channeled entity.'  Channeling cases profiled in articles at this blog have included Maurice Barbanell/'Silver Birch,' Ray Brown/'Paul,' Thomas Jacobson/'Dr. Peebles,' JZ Knight/'Ramtha,' and Jach Pursel/'Lazaris.'  There have also been articles about trance mediums or channelers known for more than one recurring 'control'/'guide'/'entity' having spoken through them: Eileen Garrett, Mark Probert and Kevin Ryerson are three of these.  Obviously, a multitude of people in 2018 still know nothing about 'trance mediumship'/'channeling.'  I've noticed that there are individuals who haven't bothered to read the books available about the cases yet nonetheless consider it acceptable to assume that some manner of hoax is a suitable explanation.  These denialists are making a tremendous mistake as thus they may not be able to achieve the expanded spiritual understanding that otherwise would have been possible during this Earth lifetime; and neither can all of those with whom they interact in turn be enlightened by them.

Quoted passages in this article are from Nothing So Strange (1958).  The two incidents that may be the most famous of Arthur's career involved transcendental communication manifesting Harry Houdini and Reverend James A. Pike's son after each made the transition to the ascended realm of human existence, as mentioned in the preceding article.  Anyone who has been misinformed or assumes that either contact was 'fake' hasn't taken to heart the testimonials of Arthur Ford.  The ninth chapter of the book "Tried and Tested" presents the names of some psychic researchers and authors who investigated Arthur's mediumship and the information offered by Fletcher.  During author Upton Sinclair's sittings, he was accompanied by Harvard University Department of Psychology Professor William McDougall, who later simply declared: "Through Arthur Ford I have witnessed genuine supernormal mental phenomena."  
 

The pains to which a sound researcher will go to check the smallest details never fail to impress me.  Fletcher gave the first names of both McDougall's mother and father, describing both and giving messages from them.  The following day, meticulous McDougall raised the question as to whether, since I had had two days' notice of the sitting, I might not have looked up his forebears in the encyclopedia.  Whereupon Sinclair, out-carefulling McDougall, went to the library to check, but could not locate the first names of McDougall's parents.  Who's Who in America gave the initials while the British Who's Who had nothing.  Sinclair examined every edition of Who's Who back to 1913 and then asked two reference librarians in Los Angeles and Pasadena to search, which they did, through encyclopedias, magazine articles, and books.  They found no mention of McDougall's parents' first names.  Moreover, their names were uncommon names, a fact which gave Sinclair some satisfaction.  As it did me!
 

When Sinclair published his book Mental Radio he had enormous pleasure in Albert Einstein's written comment, "In no case should the psychologically interested pass over this book without heed."  Sinclair felt that his meticulous methodology and his insistence upon letting his facts make their own point had paid off.  

Other psychic researchers mentioned in this chapter are violinist Florizel von Reuter, who published an account of some of his experiences with Arthur in Psychical Experiences of a Musician (1928), and Dr. Walter Franklin Prince, author of The Case of Patience Worth (1927).
 

Nothing So Strange begins with a description of how Arthur Ford first learned about his psychic abilities as a young officer stationed at Camp Grant during World War I.  He found himself repeatedly waking from a sound night's sleep "with the roster of the names of those who had died of influenza in the night plain before my eyes."  At that time in his life, he knew nothing about precognition, clairvoyance or that "the mind had an extrasensory reach."'  The dreams altered as the roster presented names not of flu victims but of men killed at the front.  When he informed the Protestant chaplain about the strange experiences, the recommendation given was for him to pray that God would take away these silly dreams.
 

My most startling experience came the morning of the false armistice.  I wakened with an acute feeling of depression, a deep misery not in keeping with my nature.  When the announcement of peace came and people responded with hysterical joy, I knew the report was false.

The morning of the real Armistice was marked by my first flash of clairvoyant knowledge which had personal significance.  As I opened my eyes I was startled to see the face of my brother George who was located at a southern army camp.  He was smiling but I found that during the night he had came down with a severe case of influenza, soon augmented by complications from which he later died.

When given the choice of going to Russia or returning to school, Arthur resumed his studies at Transylvania University at Lexington, Kentucky.  It was the fall of 1919 and a psychology class taught by Professor Elmer Snoddy would prove influential.

Like a good many other persons who find they have some psychic projection, I was very willing to experiment but did not know how to begin.  Neither did Professor Snoddy.  We tried table-tipping and got some apparently responsible personalities from what was commonly called "the other side."  Sometimes I was able to come up with clairvoyant knowledge but of no great moment.  Blindfolded I was sometimes able to tell what he was thinking.  It did not occur to us to try hypnotism, although Snoddy had read some of the excellent European literature on the subject.

Arthur researched psychic phenomena and mentioned: ". . . when we heard of a good fortuneteller, we went.  A gypsy picked me out of a crowd and told me I had 'the gift.'"

In the summer of 1921 I made a trip to New York to see the work of the American Society for Psychical Research.  One of the first persons I met was Miss Gertrude Tubby, then secretary of the organization.  She not only knew the men currently prominent but she made the history of the Society's work come alive for me . . .
 

That trip to New York provided a foundation for my future study.  I became a member of the American Society and from then on got all of its publications.  Miss Tubby also sent me many books she felt would be of interest.

During his junior year he was a substitute minister for a church near Louisville.  He learned from a deacon that a small group in the church was sitting once a week, experimenting at table-tipping and Arthur began participating in the secret meetings.

It was during these sessions that I was first hypnotized.  On several occasions I did approximate trance but none of us knew what to do with the trance state once it was achieved.

Arthur was ordained as a minister in 1922 upon being called to a county seat church at Barbourville in Kentucky.  A year later, he met a distinguished Quaker that resulted with Arthur leaving the church and becoming a lecturer on psychical matters on the New England circuit.  His marriage during this period was unsuccessful: "I was definitely more interested in intellectual concerns than in my home."

While headquartered in New York, Miss Tubby helped him to meet researchers and sit with mediums of repute.  Arthur became acquainted with some Spiritualist groups.
 

By that time I had found out that according to the definition adopted by the National Spiritualist Association of America, spiritualism is "the science, philosophy and religion of continuous life, based upon the demonstrated fact of communication, by means of mediumship, with those who live in the Spirit World."  Young and fresh from a pastorate in a denomination known for its empirical approach to religion, it then seemed to me a very sad thing that people should have to found a special church to feel at ease in speaking frankly and confidently of the basic concept of immortality.

As I watched other mediums I naturally caught on to something of their methods.  I found that when awake I could bring myself into a half-hypnotized state in which I could stand before an audience and describe unseen presences and often pick up their messages.  Spiritualist groups began to ask me to speak for them and to do this open clairvoyance.  I knew that I needed more training but in lieu of training I practiced on the audiences.

 
Arthur became friends with businessman and ASPR member Francis R. Fast, who was also interested in psychic investigation and eventually looked after Arthur's financial affairs for him.  He recalled about this relationship:

We formed a class in spiritual unfoldment, not too accurate a term, for it was our psychic abilities which were being unfolded rather than our spiritual powers.  It was here with this group that I learned to relax the body, a much rarer art than the average person supposes.  I also learned the beginning of a method of concentration.

Arthur also became a friend and follower of Swami Paramhansa Yogananda, who had come to America in the fall of 1920 for a meeting sponsored by the American Unitarian Association in Boston.  Yogananda helped Arthur learn how to "slip into a self-induced trance in place of having to be hypnotized."  Another friendship with a celebrated person of the epoch was begun immediately upon his arrival in England.  He met Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on the night the famous author was giving a lecture at Grotrian Hall and Doyle asked him to give a public demonstration of his clairvoyant gift.  His success was reported in the London Express the following day.

Arthur Ford continued developing his psychic abilities after accepting an invitation to lecture at the First Spiritualist Church in New York City at Carnegie Hall on Sunday evenings.

Soon the result was a fairly consistent ability to stand before an audience, half block out the people before me, feel as if I were about to go into trance but not lose consciousness, and then let discarnate personalities either appear before me or impress me with a description of themselves while at the same time I heard, wordlessly, the messages they wished to convey.

Whenever I threw my critical mind into a skeptical mood, telling myself, "This man couldn't be named Gregory Klegory Tegory," and tried to substitute something which sounded more sensible, then I misfired.  But when I went ahead and reported what I heard or saw, the result was usually a response from someone in the audience.
  

I remember the day I realized that my own psychic powers no longer seemed strange.  If I had been looking for an analogy I suppose I would have said that now I felt like a horse with its blinders off.  I was less hedged in.  The universe had widened.  Most of all, life made more sense, for apparently death did not put an end to man's strivings nor to his concern for his loved ones.

Arthur did an increasing amount of platform work and he wrote that in 1924 "a partner came into my life and Fletcher became my right-hand man."  The following passages are from the fifth chapter of Nothing So Strange.  It is necessary to remind readers that the perspective of Fletcher articulated by Arthur Ford is derived from his own impressions and postulations in conjunction with what he has been told by other people as he usually had no personal recollection of what happened during trance mediumship sessions.  Fletcher could be humorous at times.  Arthur remembered about a dinner party for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: "After the dinner there was a seance and one comment of Fletcher's amused the sitters for years afterward: 'Tell my medium to give me more room,' he complained.  'Last night on that platform — did he expect me to be among the daffodils on the table?  I was on his left and he crowded me.'"

Fletcher

One day in 1924 when I was in trance an invisible personality announced himself as Fletcher and said that henceforth he would be my permanent assistant on the unseen plane.  Just that simply our partnership began.  Fletcher said he was able to work efficiently with me because he had the right energy pitch or frequency for establishing and maintaining contact.  It was years before I had anything like a consistent notion of what he was talking about, but I was delighted that I was to have a dependable colleague who would appear whenever I went into trance and act as interlocutor between the invisible and visible visitors who came to talk together through my intermediacy.  Such a partner is commonly called a "control."  Of course it was not I whom Fletcher spoke directly; he announced himself to a friend of mine who was having the sitting — "Tell Ford that I am to be his control and that I go by the name of Fletcher."  At the next sitting my friend asked him, for me, who he was and for what personal reason he had attached himself to me in this helpful manner.  Fletcher then explained that he was one of the French Canadian boys who had lived across the river from my home in For Pierce.  He wished to use his middle name, Fletcher, he said, in order to save his family possible embarrassment because they were Roman Catholics and had certain ideas of the hereafter which did not exactly fit with what he had found.  They might even be disturbed, he said, to know that he had not found heaven to be inhabited exclusively be persons of his own faith; indeed, he himself had at first been very much surprised.  He said further that after the family left Fort Pierce he had grown up in Canada, had enlisted in the World War and had been killed in action.  He named his company and the place of his death; also he gave the address of his family.

I wrote to the family, asking after various members, including this boy, but not mentioning of course that I had heard from him directly.  One of the boys answered telling me of his brother's death, corroborating Fletcher's statement as to time and place.  So I accepted Fletcher at his (invisible) face value.  At times, however, I do see him and always as a young man.  Sometimes when I am giving a public demonstration and am not actually in trance, his face appears vividly before me.

We soon had a fine working partnership.  When I wish to go into trance I lie down on a couch or lean back in a comfortable chair and breathe slowly and rhythmically until I feel an in-drawing of energy at the solar plexus.  Then I focus my attention on Fletcher's face as I have come to know it, until gradually I feel as if his face presses into my own at which instant there is a sense of shock somewhat as if I were passing out.  Then I lose consciousness, appearing to be asleep.  My body is in a state of sleep and when I waken at the end of a session I feel as if I had had a good nap.

 

As soon as I am in trance, Fletcher announces his arrival to the sitters in the room by saying "hello" in a slight French Canadian accent.  Obviously it is my speaking equipment he is using, and for the most part my vocabulary.  Sometimes he uses words given him by discarnates but the fact that he catches an impressive does not mean he can pronounce it correctly.  Sometimes he spells out a specialized word as it is apparently being spelled to him; at other times he attempts two or three pronunciations until he seems to get an inner nod of approval that he has said the word correctly.

During the first moments of the trance Fletcher appears to size up the sitters.  He may comment upon their geographic derivation.  "You come from my part of the country."  "I see you've just flown in from the west coast."  "You seem to be quite a traveler."  Or he may say, "You're a chemist."  "You spend a lot of time at an easel."  "Another preacher tonight."  Or perhaps, "The worried man in the corner."  "The woman with a pencil."  He has even been known to correct the spelling of a sitter on the opposite side of the room from the sleeping medium.  He may ask the first names of the sitters and perhaps add, "The middle initial is X; that's an odd one."

The names of the invisibles are sometimes difficult for Fletcher to get, as for any control.  He may feel around saying Harry, Henry, finally coming out with, "No, he shakes his head; ah, it is Harrall."  On one occasion when a discarnate medical man was asked by a sitter to pick out the individual in the room who needed medical aid, the invisible physician immediately indicated the patient but had to feel around for her first name.  "Her name is — let me see — it is Summer, the fields are fresh and green, everything is  in full bloom — oh, yes, her name is June."  On another occasion when Fletcher was trying to get across the identity of a woman on the unseen side but could not seem to catch her name, he remarked, "They're showing me a book . . . it's a book of poetry . . . by Longfellow.  It's about my part of the country.  Acadia!  Oh, the name is Evangeline."

Sometimes amusing dislocations happen.  For instance, a rather saintly minister, discarnate, was reported by Fletcher as saying that a current family situation was a blankety blank shame.  After the sitting the horrified daughter protested that her father had never in his life used profanity.  When he was really angry, she said, he sometimes used the word tarnation and then they all got out of his way.  This kind of dislocation is apparently a part of the problem of translating emotional impact into words.

Who in the unseen worlds comes to the seances?  First of all, the loved ones of the sitter.  Most persons who come to a medium have someone they care for who has died, with whom they wish to make contact.  If that individual is interested and available he is probably waiting at the threshold and may be the first person Fletcher describes and introduces.  Usually the invisible relative or friend wants first to identify himself, and often does so by calling the sitter by a nickname or referring to other members of the family by traits known only to the family; or he mentions key incidents in the past, incidents often known only to the sitter and the one communicating.  The wealth of evidence brought through may be considerable.  And among the best of the evidential is often some trivia which the sitter has forgotten and brushes aside as inaccurate.  I have found that it never pays to refuse any data; just make notes and wait.  Later the items under suspicion may prove the most valuable evidence of continuing consciousness.

For instance, one night in the winter of 1955 I attended a dinner party in Rye, New York.  There were a dozen guests, among them the guest of honor, Dr. William T. Bidwell, of Greenville, South Carolina.  After dinner we sat in the library.  I was seated alone on one of the davenports and being full of good food, I was drowsy and fell into a clairvoyant but not unconscious state.  I recall that a guest from New Jersey discovered that he and a guest from Connecticut had a common friend and someone made the usual remark about the smallness of the world.

Then I spoke up, "There is a man here who gives his name as Adams and he says how right you are.  He says his old home is only a couple of blocks from Dr. Bidwell's home in Greenville and that he knew the Browns in China."  (I am borrowing the name Brown.)  Dr. Bidwell said he never heard of this man Adams; Mr. and Mrs. Brown said they never heard of him either.  Someone chided me, remarking that even a medium couldn't always be right.  But a few minutes later Mr. Brown walked over to the bookcase and took down an issue of Who's Who.  There was the name Walter Alexander Adams; the permanent address was Greenville, about two blocks from Dr. Bidwell's home; the man Adams had been first vice-consul both in Nanking and Tsingtao when the Browns lived there in the early twenties.  They could not have helped but know him in that small foreign community.

Most discarnates intent upon reaching their loved ones still living on earth want more than anything to establish the fact that they are not dead; next they usually want to send their love, to manifest the emotional bond which keeps them in contact with those they care for.  Hence most messages are personal, concrete, more or less trivial.  That is, the average invisible does not make philosophical pronouncements or divulge epochal scientific knowledge, and for the best of reasons; he would not speak in those terms if he were meeting his family face to face.  He evidences much the same interests he had on earth, with one exception.

The exception which creeps into a high percentage of the messages is the fact that the invisibles want their earth friends to know that their plane of consciousness, their situation as "dead" persons, is nothing like the stereotype of heaven.  Only a few bother to be coherent about what their state is like, but then very few sitters ask consistent questions.  The only people vaguer than the dead are the living.  It never ceases to amaze me that so few ministers, who spend their lives comforting the dying and consoling the bereaved, who speak eloquently about Easter and promise salvation in terms of eternal life, should have so little intelligent curiosity about the nature of death and the afterlife.  Most of them do not even have a tentative hypothesis.  Nor does the average person who comes for a sitting.

Apparently discarnate friends, sensing the general ignorance and lack of interest, do not try to enlighten the incurious in the short hour or so afforded by mediumistic communication.  And how could they when the whole subject of the nature of consciousness is involved?  However, a discarnate will sometimes do his best to inform a sitter that the communication between them could be direct.  Sometimes the message is heeded and the living person will put some effort into developing his own pick-up in the form of clairaudience, automatic writing or trance.  After all, there are thousands who know this direct communication one way and another.

Besides family and friends, specialists of various kinds show up in response to specific requests for specific aid.  But the specialists appear to be acquaintances of the interrogator or some discarnate friend of the interrogator's friend!  They do not just appear uninvited because a sitter legal aid, say, or psychological counseling.  Invisible promoters of causes sometimes arrive to give counsel to earth friends who are interested in the same cause; editors pop in on the seance of a writer, but usually because of some former contact, direct or by way of a mutual acquaintance, living or discarnate.

Fletcher does not seem to move aimlessly back and forth between the visible and invisible worlds.  In terms of place, he does not seem to move at all, and is always insisting that the universe is one and that the invisibles are not in another place but only in another state of consciousness.  Or, as a discarnate husband recently remarked to a grieving wife when she was bewailing having been left alone, "I haven't gone anywhere."

Now it is one thing to state that Fletcher exists as a personality separate from my own personality and to describe his ostensible method of acting as a go-between, and it is something quite different to explain how he operates.  This is a question I am often asked — the process which enables a discarnate personality to impress a "living" mind.

The customary explanation is that the mind of the entranced medium becomes passive and the mind of the discarnate who acts as control then takes possession of the body mechanism of the medium; using the medium's speaking apparatus but his own mental equipment, the control reports what he "sees" and "hears" among other discarnates and is also able to comment upon things going on in the room.  Thus, in trance I would be said to be mentally quiescent, blacked out, while Fletcher in some way takes over the physical mechanism which controls my hearing and speaking.  This explanation sounds reasonable enough, in broad terms, if one does not press for particulars.

 
Whatever the intricacies of our relationship, Fletcher has become as much a part of my daily life as any of my contemporary friends.  I am not dependent upon the trance state for glimpsing his face and knowing that he is at hand.  I know him objectively as a personality and the partnership that we effect in trance has made him something of an authority to hundreds of others.  People are constantly thanking him—as indeed they should, for without him my effectiveness as a psychic would be greatly limited—and I always feel satisfaction in a tribute to my partner.

 

Included in Nothing So Strange are mentions of people and events associated with the Spiritualism Movement and with various other forms of paranormal phenomena.  Some of the communicators from the Other Side through Fletcher are quoted.  In Chapter 10 "The People Who Come," the following quotations are found in relation to sittings attended by Dr. Sherwood Eddy, a client and "treasured friend" of Arthur Ford. 

'George Russell' (Irish poet): "I have tried to keep all the windows of my life open on all sides.  We have things and places here but nothing enchains us."

A Chinese admiral about Chiang Kai-shek: "He still reads your Bible but he is a kind of Old Testament Christian."

'Havelock Ellis': "I am still occupied here with the subject of sex and war."

A man named 'Campbell': "It is literally true that you are encompassed by a great cloud of witnesses.  The future of the Protestant faith is in the hands of people who can blend mysticism with the social gospel which together make up the whole program of Christianity . . ."

'Joshi' of Bombay (speaking to Sherwood Eddy): "The last time you visited with Ghandhidje I was there.  In fact I was within hearing distance when Gandhi was shot.  Gandhi is still influencing people.  You see, he radiates his influence in the same way that Christ and Buddha and Ramakrishna and all the great teachers radiate their personality; I can't explain it, but it is a matter of degree."

A former editor of the Bombay Times: ". . . In this new age the veil is becoming very thin between the seen and unseen aspects of the universe.  The artificial barriers of race, creed and national boundaries will be no more; they are already gone, in essence, if people could but see.  The United Nations is pointing in the right direction.  These developments take time.  Remember that it took three hundred years before the Christian church made a noticeable impact, and a hundred years before the Constitution of the United States was accepted.  In faith, give the United Nations time."

 

No human being can live a life free of upsetting and challenging events.  Arthur Ford's introspective commentary about his own difficulties in Nothing So Strange affirms that conditions arising from adversities can expand one's awareness of the nature of God.  It was after Beatrice Houdini's affirmation of having received the pre-arranged message from her late husband through Arthur Ford's mediumship that the resultant publicity and "the increased work which ensued" left Arthur wanting to take time to recuperate.  He decided to visit his mother and stepfather, traveling with his sister and her secretary.  Two weeks later, the three of them were returning to New York by car when a tobacco truck rammed their vehicle and the two women were killed.

 

I was thrown from the car and when I regained consciousness I found that I was in Baker Sanatraium in Lumberton, North Carolina, suffering from an injured back, several crushed ribs, facial lacerations, and internal injuries.  I was put in a plaster cast and the outlook for my recovery seemed dim.

During his convalescence, he became "the unwitting victim of morphine addiction."  This was discovered when his mother became concerned about the length of his hospital stay and brought him to her home.  Upon realizing his predicament, Arthur opted for "the more drastic method of ending the use of morphine preemptorily" (completely and abruptly) and then "The final blow came in the form of blindness" leaving him able to discern "only vague perceptions of forms."

Eventually Arthur relinquished his lifelong conviction of avoiding alcoholic beverages when his doctor suggested that this could be a way of breaking his tension.  He drank more than a bottle of Scotch and passed out.
 

Awakening, I found that I not only felt better, more normal, but my sight had fully returned.  I was relaxed and calm. I went off to Florida for a good rest.

This turn of events during the following 20 years would leave Arthur with an alcohol dependence with detrimental effects becoming more pronounced.  Between 1928 and 1938 he lectured in various parts of the world in addition to traveling for private sittings and "sometimes because my own curiosity led me forth."  He visited Germany, Sweden, Denmark, India, Egypt, Australia and New Zealand.  Sailing on an ocean liner to Honolulu, he met Valerie McKeown, an Englishwoman who had been an active member of the Society of Psychical Research in Sydney, and eventually they married in Los Angeles.
 

Our marriage was happy. It marked the end of my wandering if not of my traveling.  Valerie had two young daughters, so I soon felt like a family man.  We had an ostentatious but most comfortable home in Los Angeles.  Valerie enjoyed entertaining and had a gift for it.  I helped to organize the Los Angeles Institute for Psychical Research . . .
  

During those twenty years when I was meeting tension with alcohol, I continued to travel over the world.  Much of my best work was done during this time.  I was merely a social drinker or thought I was.  I failed to note that there were an increasing number of times when for days I could not work.

Arthur began making trips to the hospital due to ailments induced or complicated by his alcoholism.  He sometimes canceled lectures and at other times went on the platform only half sober.  One morning he wakened in Florida without any memory of leaving his home in California.  After agreeing to a divorce with Valerie, he understood his responsibility for what happened: "The personality of the alcoholic changes; he becomes selfish, undependable.  Then there is simultaneous physical deterioration."

In 1949 while in a Florida hospital after suffering "a complete physical breakdown," he experienced a "psychic vision" that was one of a succession of events resulting with him "remaking" his life.
 

Having studied yoga and having read widely in occultism and metaphysics, I knew all the theories but had never applied their more demanding aspects to myself.  Now I understood that I had better use whatever I knew for my own healing.
 

Soon I was attending meetings where other recovered drunks met in a fellowship that is like no other fellowship on earth.  These people understood each other. In the firsthand stories of degradation and restoration I began to take in what was meant by the grace of God.   I could not explain what had happened to me but like the blind man by the gate who had his sight restored by Jesus, I knew whereas I had been blind, now I could see.   There was much gratitude and humility in the group.  And always, of course, new people who needed help.
 

From the information that has come to me through the years from as many discarnates as I have acquaintances on this earth, I deduce one fact that seems to me more significant than any other — except the basic fact that life does go on.  That is, that the quality of life after death is determined by the quality of life before death.  [MRB: Obviously the intended meaning here is in relation to the quality of one's spiritual perceptions.]
 
Slowly it also came to me, in the days of my own reconstruction, that the important thing about my life on this earth was that it was possible to have a present quality beyond anything I had imagined.   It was now that I lived in an unobstructed universe; it was now that my thoughts outspanned communication in words; it was now that I could call upon the resources of invisible as well as visible friends.  The abundant life began to take on form and meaning.

Transcending the Prevailing Journalism about Paranormal Topics

"Haunted Hollywood!" Parade magazine article images

  

Considering the mainstream news media and paranormal subjects along with contemporary people's orientations to entertainment media and self-actualization that may seem largely indiscriminate to one who contemplates metaphysical aspects of society, an example of the typical banality is last weekend's Parade article about "Haunted Hollywood!"
 
What would be a reasonable perspective of 'Hollywood' when one considers the evolution of mankind in relation to the Universal Source/Creator?  Hugo Münsterberg observed in his 1916 book about the early days of cinema The Photoplay; A Psychological Study:

 

But the richest source of the unique satisfaction in the photoplay is probably that esthetic feeling which is significant for the new art and which we have understood from its psychological conditions.  The massive outer world has lost its weight, it has been freed from space, time, and causality, and it has been clothed in the forms of our own consciousness.  The mind has triumphed over matter and the pictures roll on with the ease of musical tones.  It is a superb enjoyment which no other art can furnish us.  No wonder that temples for the new goddess are built in every little hamlet.

It didn't take long for people to become accustomed to movies and acquire a mundane orientation to the film industry along with all the new media technologies that have followed.  Whatever the medium that is the source for the recording of video and audio, something to consider is what is affixing the image and sound to each source.

The "Haunted Hollywood!" article includes the statement: "The master magician and escape artist Harry Houdini vowed to his wife, Bess, before he died—on Halloween in 1926—that he would try to contact her from beyond the grave.  That was apparently never successful."  The artifact shown below is left unmentioned.

 

The letter was followed five years later by a retraction by Beatrice.  The retraction is more revealing about the state of society and denialism than it is about the nature of Beatrice's 1929 experience with the "correct message."  The trance medium Arthur Ford wrote about the events surrounding the receiving of the message in his autobiography Nothing So Strange (1958).  The book leaves no doubt that he is a dependable information source, just as are hundreds of other 'paranormal' authors who've shared the details of their own psychic gifts in autobiographical books and interviews.  People from the ascended realm speaking through channels has become more common since this incident; nonetheless, Beatrice continued to participate in seances without appreciating the blessing already received.  A previous blog article provides a brief summary of the events involving the Harry Houdini message from the Other Side to Beatrice —

When Harry Houdini made his transition from Earth life to the ascended realm in 1926, clairaudient and trance medium Arthur Ford (1897-1971) communicated a code message from him to his widow, Beatrice.  An account of what happened is provided in Ford's 1958 autobiography Nothing So Strange written in collaboration with Margueritte Harmon Bro.

Ford related that when Houdini died after dedicating his life for many years to exposing mediums as fakes, he left behind a widely publicized message that if there was survival after death he would contact his wife with a code message that only she could decipher.  Ford was a medium who would go into a trance to allow his 'control' Fletcher to serve as "interlocutor between the invisible and visible visitors who came to talk together through my intermediacy."

On February 8, 1928, Fletcher communicated a message from Houdini's mother offering the cord word "forgive" and declaring that Beatrice Houdini would declare it to be the true message that had been long awaited. Houdini's widow confirmed that he had waited in vain to hear this message communicated from his mother by a medium during his lifetime.

Beginning in November 1928, the spelling out of Harry Houdini's message to his wife came through during portions of eight sittings of Ford with, on one occasion, five explanatory words being given in French.  After the final code word was delivered, Fletcher said that Houdini instructed that the ten-word code message be taken to his wife.  The first word in the code was the name "ROSABELLE."

At Fletcher’s request, the message was signed by each person present.  Fletcher commented that Houdini stated, "I know that she will be happy, because neither of us believed it would be possible."  Houdini requested through Fletcher that upon receiving the message Beatrice set a time to sit with "this instrument" (Ford) so that Houdini could repeat the message via Fletcher and receive a supplement code from her — "and the two together will spell a word which sums it all up, and that word will be the message which he wants to send back."

When Beatrice was contacted the following day, she read the report and said it was right.  Beatrice arranged a sitting with Ford that occurred one day later.  Ford went into trance and Fletcher relayed Houdini's conversation with his wife, referring to her as 'Bess.'  The code was explained and the message that Houdini wanted to send back to his wife was revealed to be "ROSABELLE BELIEVE!"
 

In conclusion Fletcher repeated Houdini's final words.  "He says, 'Tell the whole world that Harry Houdini still lives and will prove it a thousand times and more.'  He is pretty excited.  He says, I was perfectly honest and sincere in trying to disprove survival, though I resorted to tricks to prove my point for the simple reason that I did not believe communication was true, but I did no more than seemed justifiable.  I am now sincere in sending this through in my desire to undo.  Tell all those who lost faith because of my mistake to lay hold again of hope, and to live with the knowledge that life is continuous.  That is my message to the world, through my wife and through this instrument."

Ford explained that the code had been a handy device employed in Houdini's instructions to his wife during their stage act.  No one except Houdini and herself knew the cipher, or the key, and its application.
 

From the moment that Mrs. Houdini pronounced the message genuine there began a flood of attack ranging from the ludicrous to the vicious.  Mrs. Houdini's veracity was questioned; she was accused of giving the code to someone who then gave it to me—as if there could be any comfort for her in securing a message she already knew from a source she did not believe existed.  She was also scored for selling out her own husband who had so widely publicized his conviction that all mediums were fakes.  Consistently she avowed the genuineness of the messages and defended having made them public.  "It was what he wanted me to do, and I am doing it."

I was likewise accused of fraud, of course, and was once also approached by an ingenious blackmailer.  Then a man impersonating me fabricated a newspaper story, which only one tabloid printed, after which he confessed his hoax under promise of immunity from criminal prosecution.  Three individuals brought charges to the United Spiritualist League of New York City that I had been in cahoots with Mrs. Houdini and the press.  The president of the board of trustees of the First Spiritualist Church redeemed my character, Mrs. Houdini stood her ground, and the respectable press was meticulously fair.

Martin Ebon reported in True Experiences in Communicating with the Dead (1968) about a 1967 Arthur Ford seance that was seen on television from Toronto and "created a worldwide sensation."  Reverend James A. Pike was seen engaged in a dialogue with his son, who had committed suicide in 1966 at age 22.  Ford's control Fletcher related the son's conversation along with messages from others who had made the transition from Earth life.  Ebon wrote that Pike concluded: "Everything matched up.  All the long-forgotten facts and details matched up . . . I feel the whole thing is sufficient for an affirmation that there is continuity with people who have passed on."

Insufferably, the Parade commentary about Houdini was followed by an advertisement for a current magazine publication entitled Haunted Hollywood: Tinseltown's Greatest Ghost Stories available for $12.99.

When I was first considering what projects to do for my writing career as a teenager, one magazine that was considered to offer excellent articles was The New Yorker.  How times have changed.  Compare the magazine's article from last year's Halloween season: "The Photographer Who Claimed to Capture Abraham Lincoln's Ghost" with my article "The Phenomenal Photograph of Mary Todd Lincoln".

"The Phenomenal Photograph of Mary Todd Lincoln" (article link)

  

Psychic abilities among other aspects of case studies encompassing 'unexplained phenomena' such as 'synchronicity' make comprehensible the nonlocality of human interconnectedness.  I've previously commented about Hollywood and the paranormal in relation to people today developing their spiritual and metaphysical awareness:

While fictional works are not suitable to provide an introduction to these subjects, it is interesting to note that occasionally Hollywood movies have offered some semblance of ascended masters — perhaps most obviously with the ascended Jedi in the original "Star Wars" trilogy.  As all creative works are made in accordance with humanity's shared 'subconscious' or 'Superconscious' mind, there can be interesting facets of synchronicity.

Although Metaphysical aspects of life are overlooked or trivially considered throughout the mainstream news media; people’s interest in metaphysical subjects is reflected in the popularity of storylines of fictional narrative movies, novels and TV shows. 

'Ascended masters' are one type of categorization for chronicled experiences involving 'visitors from the ascended realm.'  Continuing to be available at this blog without any commercial influences are other educational blog articles about phenomena associated with so-called 'hauntings' and 'ghosts'—the focus of the Parade article that is representative of the way the mainstream media exploits this subject—that include:

"My Search for the Ghost of Flight 401 by Elizabeth Fuller"

"Greenbrier Ghost"

"'Gef': A Modern Sphinx as an Esoteric Lesson about Oneness"

"'Ghost Adventures': 'Bell Witch Cave'"

"Leslie Flint's Life as a Direct Voice Medium"

"Supernormal Phenomena: Distinguishing Serious Research from Commercial Exploitation"

"The Wheel of Eternity: The Purpose Fulfilled"

"Self-Realization in the Aquarian Age - 'The Inner Circle' Through Mark Probert Q&A 1955"

Considering the mentality of people not accustomed to contemplating metaphysical aspects of life in relation to 'paranormal phenomena,' this blogger having mentioned "unusual derivations" of entertainment media in relation to a 'Twilight Zone' TV series-inspired pop music video was an indication of the selection of some of the subjects planned for this blog in 2018.  As a child I watched the TV shows "The Twilight Zone," "The Outer Limits" and "One Step Beyond" — programs presenting rudimentary orientations to developing a perspective of anomalous phenomena in relation to philosophical perspectives relating to 'nonlocality' and scientific studies associated with the quantum mechanics realm of physics.  As I became older, there were documentary TV shows about ‘unexplained phenomena’ such as “Unsolved Mysteries,” “Sightings” and “The Extraordinary.”  My unexpected path of spiritual discovery is a topic of the preceeding blog article "My Paranormal Initiation".  When it comes to investigating books, perspectives, entities and cases involving so-called 'paranormal' or 'unexplained phenomena,' a novice reader must learn to differentiate the commercially sensational with the metaphysically relevant and persevere with the research to develop one's understanding because—quoting a proverb channeled in one documented case—"For as far as you shall look, that is as near as you shall come."

Some other blog articles about Hollywood and Pop Culture include "Excerpts from the Philo T. Farnsworth Biography by Elma Farnsworth" and "Leaving The Mountain: Information Conflicting with Perceived Consensus Beliefs Engenders Expectation of Disapproval". 

 

My Paranormal Initiation

 My spiritual path and 'paranormal initiation' included two occasions when I witnessed bushes inexplicably go up in flames on the hillside outside my condo in 1994.  This photo showing me with one of the two clumps of burned bushes is from a sequence of photos taken in the vicinity of my home in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.  I was 39 years old when this photo was taken in 1996.  During this period, I was transcribing interviews and audio journals recorded on microcassettes for a case study book published in January 1997.  (photographer: Timothy Fielding)
  

Our individual perceptions of life are influenced by one's self-awareness and health, career and financial circumstances, relationships with other people, the news media, Pop culture, and what each of us has learned about 'reality.'  This past week I had the idea that my own case of paranormal initiation should again be the subject for a blog article and immediately there were noticeable some curious synchronicities affirming the thought.  This article is intended to inform readers about some aspects of what happened during the summer of 1995 when I experienced the expansion of my consciousness about the nature of life. 

The annals of transcendental communication chronicle diverse anomalous phenomena that has been experienced by people worldwide throughout the ages.  A predominant lesson is the reality of spiritual Oneness — there is a shared aspect of our subconscious and superconscious minds beyond the individuality of each personality (oneself) as a singular consciousness 'unit.'  One's relationship and interaction with one's 'guides' are orchestrated by 'God' and the omnipresent 'Christ' Force.  Articles at this blog have chronicled many paranormal cases offering transcendental communication transcripts instructing that our relationships with our 'guides' outlast any single lifetime or 'incarnation.'  Each of us has a unique perspective of life and we each have a divine 'spark' of the Universal Source/Creator Whom has never ceased gifting humanity with phenomenal manifestations among chosen experiencers or 'channels' to provide data with the potential of expanding the metaphysical understanding of all.

In addition to blog articles, my precise circumstances are chronicled in the documentary-style case study Testament (1997) and a follow-up book of interview and journal transcripts that may be read at testament.org.  Based on my documented experiences, my strange life path seems to make me an ideal person to understand the choices made and manifested by all manner of 'chosen ones,' such as so-called 'psychics,' 'channelers,' 'mediums' and 'contactees.'  I've read numerous case study books and observed dozens if not hundreds of channeling videos featuring such channelers as Ray Brown, JZ Knight, Jach Pursel, and Kevin Ryerson; and I have no difficulty at all understanding the perspectives of such contemporary 'paranormal people' as Rubens Faria, 'John of God,' Ryuho Okawa, Paul Selig, etc.

An example of incidents that puzzled me prior to the life-changing events that commenced in 1995 are the times when I would awaken from being asleep upon feeling what seemed like someone having grabbed my leg.  At that time, I'd assumed it was some manner of singular recurring muscle spasm; however, when this happened to me after I came back from researching a 'talking poltergeist' case in rural Oklahoma where the predominant manifesting entity was known as 'Michael,' the 'grab' happened again and was immediately recognizable as one of the ways 'Michael' had been participating in my life before I'd even learned about the Oklahoma case.  Many cases of transcendental communication have in common the affirmation of the importance of having the knowledge of spiritual 'Oneness' with each human being on Earth having intermediary 'spirit guides' or 'guardian angels.'

In my case, my guides seem to interact with me in the ways deemed appropriate to my particular purpose in life.  Beyond the daily displays of synchronistic messages and symbols, there are occasional physical manifestations such as a tap on one leg to indicate 'Yes' or on the other to indicate 'No' (or to indicate some vague warning that usually makes me rethink what I'm doing and change some aspect of my current plans).  The 'Yes'/'No' indications seldom happen when I would like some question answered so I've always known that I have no control about when this phenomenon occurs.  On even rarer occasions, the word "No" is somehow able to be voiced through my gastrointestinal fluids.  All of these conditions have inspired considerable contemplation for me over the past 23 years.

Above is a photo of the Echo Park condominium complex on Clinton Street where I was living when my spiritual awakening occurred following the trip to Oklahoma.  Below is a view from the other side of the lake showing the location of the two clumps of burnt bushes.  My condo was the fourth from left, second and third floors.  I was astounded when the hillside was cleared the week after these photos were taken.  I moved to a Santa Monica beachfront highrise apartment in September 1996.  Throughout the media, one sees how often journalists seem to favor reporting about only the familiar subjects to which they are accustomed.  Over the years, the American presidency has been the dominant focus of media news coverage while attention to metaphysical topics has dwindled and coverage of paranormal phenomena is usually oriented to superstitions or skepticism. 

 

I’m not gifted as a psychic medium continuously hearing clairvoyant messages and/or seeing clairvoyant images; however, following my return from my trip to Oklahoma and recognizing the Angelic guidance in my life, I discovered while listening to my research interview tape recordings there were 'spirit messages' that hadn't been audible when the conversations occurred.  I would later learn that there have been many researchers of this phenomena known as 'EVP.'  When for comparison I listened to some of my old interview tape recordings made during my professional career and continued to hear instances of EVP, I began to realize the vast extent of this phenomena as an aspect of the omnipresent external and physically internal Force involved with all of humanity.

As became usual when I listened to tapes, EVP utterances were continuously noticeable and consisted of diverse vocal characteristics and cadences.  I often used the foot pedal of my transcribing machine to replay the sections of tape with EVP.  While transcribing the tapes, I found that in addition to 'spirit messages' there were a wide range of unattributed sounds.  After years of transcribing work, I recognized that there were few limits to how recorded spirit utterances can be characterized.  Some are so clear that they can sound like an ordinary human voice while others can consist of parts of words or sound like fragmentary jargon — perhaps a phrase lacking at least one syllable.  The messages are usually of momentary duration.

Listening to the ‘spirit messages’ including word fragments interspersed with the interview commentary, I noticed there were many occasions when what sounded like a word attributed as a spirit message would be followed with one of the interview participants saying the same word, myself included.  As I gained experience transcribing the audio tape recordings, my comprehension expanded concerning the implications, breadth and complexity of EVP (and Instrumental Transcommunication or 'ITC').

While working on the Testament manuscript, along with the array of spirit vocalizations on the tapes were a myriad unattributed sounds.  I began keeping a glossary of symbols used in the transcript.  When it eventually came time to publish the documentary-style collection of interviews and journals that I thought would be the best way of bringing forth my astonishing experiences, I was concerned that prospective readers could be discouraged from purchasing the book due to the inclusion of the spirit messages and unattributed sound symbols yet I felt that this was the only way to provide an accurate transcript.  Once when I began deleting some of the EVP words from the transcript, there was the spirit message "DON'T CHANGE IT."  I now refer to the paperback first edition of Testament as 'the hieroglyphic edition' as I decided not to include the symbols in the free Internet edition of the book. 

One of the first things that happened back in the summer of 1995 was for the Angel/Guides to wean me away from the pastime of watching television and movies.  When I turned on the TV it would soon go off.  I understood that 'Michael' didn't want me watching television although there were times when it would come on just long enough to present a 'message' and then go off again.

One aspect of my case is discovering my birth surname as deriving from the House of Russell (1, 2) associated with 'the first race of ancestry.'  As previously mentioned — In my case, the lore of ancient Sumer and Egypt has always interested me.  In the 1980s I read books by Zecharia Sitchin, who presented his analysis of what could be learned from artifacts of ancient civilizations.  In 1995 when my 'Mark Russell Bell' pseudonym was channeled to me through a surprised friend, soon thereafter I again considered some of Sitchen's information about the individual who is today known as 'Bel-Marduk.'  Clay tablets about Bel-Marduk found in the ruins of Ashur and Ninevah had been transcribed and translated by Heinrich Zimmern.  Sitchin wrote in The Wars of Gods and Men (1985) about "Marduk or Bel ('The Lord') . . . [being] confined in The Mountain . . ."  I noticed parallels with events in my own life as I had been employed by Paramount Pictures—the corporate entertainment company with the Mountain logo—prior to realizing the necessity of becoming a metaphysical author.  The possibility of having lived a previous life as Bel-Marduk seemed to be confirmed when I found an Egyptian-style antique pendant presenting a profile view of someone who looked just like me.  This was the only time in my life when anything like this had ever happened to me.  The likeness presented a profile view of a face very similar to what I remember seeing in the mirror every day throughout my younger years.

This photo of me was taken by my twin brother Mike during a London vacation when I was in my 20s.  The inset image is of the item sold to me as a "round silver pin" that I discovered at a Sunset Boulevard antique store near my home in Echo Park.

Sitchin also reported that Heinrich Zimmern "created quite a stir in theological circles" when he announced his interpretation of the Ashur text at a lecture in September 1921. "The reason was that he interpreted it as a pre-Christian Mysterium dealing with the death and resurrection of a god, and thus an earlier Christ tale."

As chronicled in Testament, I found myself faced with making sense of the 'talking poltergeist' cases that I had studied for a planned book.  The incident of a nail materializing and bouncing off my head during my Oklahoma expedition later became one of the symbolic aspects of my life that resulted with my discovering what I call 'the Michael Pattern' and 'the Bell Pattern.' 

While bringing to publication the case study Testament, I realized the events I'd experienced made me a symbolic 'everyman' to convey the message of how every person should become a 'Christed One' (or spiritually aware) and personally responsible for one's decisions in life.  Such messages are also conveyed in some of the blog articles about channeling cases.  I've previously commented: “Readers will find that the experiences documented in my book correlate with many of the messages of so-called ‘channeled’ transcendental communication.   I found myself called upon to become an embodiment of some of these teachings.”

In retrospect, it might be seen as fortunate that the print version of my book Testament wasn't a bestseller upon publication in 1997; as I then might not ever have had the time to learn about the diverse cases of paranormal phenomena and transcendental communication that have been reported in articles of this blog.  The free Internet edition of the book became available later the same year.

Blog articles for readers interested in examples of paranormal initiations include:

"Case Study: Uri by Andrija Puharich"

"'Gef': A Modern Sphinx as an Esoteric Lesson about Oneness"

"Anomalous Phenomena: A Forrest J Ackerman Pattern"

"A Flying Saucer Contactee's Poetic Phase"

"'Poltergeist' Phenomena: Parallels, Patterns, Puzzles"

"Tapping the Force: Leslie Flint Recordings and Links"

"Five Videos for People Who Don't Yet Know about Authentic 'Channeling'"

"Expanded Consciousness Is Possible for Everyone"

"TV Contact with the Other Side Documentary Now Available on You Tube"

Blog articles about my own path of spiritual discovery include:

"Some Reflections about Channeling and the Creative Process"

"Adventures in Synchronicity"

"Remembering Mickey Rooney"

"Zecariah Sitchin and Bel-Marduk"

"Other Incidents of My Unusual Spiritual Awakening"

"My News Release: 'Paranormal Case Study 20th Anniversary — Testament by Mark Russell Bell'"

"Of Prophecies and Patterns"