RADIO INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT TAPE #604 (RECORDED DECEMBER 4, 1999) Q: Mark Russell Bell K: Ken Dashow, host of "The Edge of Reality" syndicated weekly radio show (spirit messages/EVP 'electronic voice phenomena' are in parentheses)
************************************************* K: Welcome one and all. Welcome to "The Edge of Reality," the show that each weekend takes you into the world of the weird, the bizarre and the downright spooky. That's our job. I hope it's a wonderful holiday season so far. A happy Hanukkah to all of our Jewish listeners as the festival of lights begins. That's what it's always been about the Winter Solstice, a festival of lights. It was always mankind's way of saying, "Hhh, make it as dark as you want. We've got fire. We'll stay in the caves. We'll be okay." Every culture celebrates the darkest days, the shortest days of the year with controlled light. Makes sense to me. You spend it any way you want. When it's dark, we light candles and lights. It's the way it should be. So . . . (BEEP) . . . hopefully if your credit cards aren't actually smoking yet, if there's any of the raised bumps left on them at all. Pull up a chair. Get some coffee. If you're driving, take it easy and join us tonight. This hour Mark Russell Bell is our guest. He's the author of a book, TESTAMENT. I got an Email that says: "Ken, My name is Mark Russell Bell. I offer proof of reincarnation. My book TESTAMENT is a non-fiction book with a journal/Q&A format that provides evidence we all lived previous lives. The book includes interviews with others who share similar experiences to mine and the proof I present includes finding my exact likeness during a visit to a local antique store." Okay. I'm game. I've got time. I bet Mark does too. A quick break and then we'll find out about what TESTAMENT has in store and proof of reincarnation. I don't know. I always believed it's possible but nobody's ever proven it to me yet. Maybe you. And you're welcome to join in on the discussion. Have you lived before? (gives number) is the number. (gives number) Past lives on "The Edge of Reality" this hour. (commercials) K: Welcome back to "The Edge of Reality." I was intrigued by this Email. I am intrigued as we speak. Mark Russell Bell is our guest author of this huge, huge testament called TESTAMENT. Mark, welcome to the show. Q: Good evening, Ken. K: Great to have you on board. I'm intrigued by what sent you down this path of wondering about the paranormal in the first place. In your biography, it says that when you were in elementary school that several unexplained occurrences happened to you as a child. Q: Right. Well first the word 'paranormal' gives me pause because we really don't know what normal is, to begin with. In fact, you mentioned Hanukkah and, of course, Hanukkah can be traced back to an event where some sanctified oil burned not for one day as it was supposed to but for eight days. So where does the paranormal activity stop? What happened to me ("IN") during my childhood was that when I was five or six I recently sat down with my mother and I really decided to pin down the date (1961). I heard a disembodied voice calling my name. We were living in Pasadena on Altadena Drive and that was only the first of several unusual events. There was a vaccine or a TB test or something like that and I had a delayed shock and this was in the early 60s. I was around between the ages of seven and ten. And after having this vaccine, I passed out. So, of course, at the time they said that this was a delayed shock reaction. ("BUT") My first memory was something very unusual. It was "The aliens have come back." And, of course, aliens and UFOs weren't as prominent in the culture back then as they are now. I do remember seeing one of those episodes of the old "Superman" series with aliens but that was really about all that I can remember. And so that happened. And then I also had I developed this panic disorder after passing out. Whenever I saw blood or became uncomfortable I was so worried that I was going to pass out that I hyperventilated and passed out. So I also had some sleep paralysis events. ("N") I think the major event happened then when I was twelve or thirteen. And I have a twin brother named Michael and there was a LIFE magazine or LOOK magazine that had an article on the paranormal. So I thought I would imitate it and hold a seance for my brother with my Ouija Board and a candle and a glow-in-the-dark scull from Disneyland. So all I did was say, "I call upon the spirits of the dead" and all of a sudden the roof ("OF THE") of the apartment building next door blew off and came down upon our apartment building. So that was my first and last seance. K: Alright, that'll wake you up. Q: Yeah. K: That's an alarm clock warning. Q: So then I guess we can flash forward to late 1989 when I was working over at Paramount Pictures, of course known for the famous mountain logo. And this was my (first) job really in the corporate world and K: You did publicity for films for Paramount. Q: Right. Over a hundred Paramount films and a lot of them had paranormal subjects such as "Ghost," "The Butcher's Wife," the "Star Trek" films. But then again everything's paranormal in some ways so K: You know, I was thinking about what you said before. How do you define 'paranormal'? Well anything that isn't explainable by the physics that we now know is paranormal. For instance, like oil that should burn for six hours that burns for more than that is paranormal. Hearing, as you said, a disembodied voice. A voice has to emanate from something physical. If you don't see where it's emanating from, but you hear it, then it's paranormal. Q: The harder question is, "What is normal?" K: Like I said, normal is something that is easily explainable from physical manifestation. I you know, if you defy the laws of gravity, it's paranormal. ("BUT IF") Q: In outer space there is no gravity so I mean, you know, it's just a matter of where you are. K: . . . There are different rules I think that apply. Again, I'm not saying the thing that intrigued me is you know, about your Email when you talk about in TESTAMENT when you say that you have proof Q: I have ("PRO") right. K: of reincarnation. Living before. And that's a heck of a word to use. That's a powerful word. Q: Well I have I have basically it's anecdotal as well as physical since I do have the physical medallion. In fact, the photograph I don't know if you saw it there in the book but it's of that Egyptian medallion in the color photo section. K: Yes. Q: And I do have these photos on the website too so if any of the listeners want to visit it, it's at testament K: You know, that's a great idea because there are a lot of cool, crazy some look ridiculous, some are really kind of wild and wooly. Mark, what is the website? Q: testament.org and (http://testament.org) K: www.testament? Q: You don't need www but either way you get there so K: Right. testament dot O R G. Q: And so just click on TESTAMENT the book cover twice and you'll be at the index and there's a photos and captions section and that's where all the photos (are) you'll see. And as well as other thing(s). The whole book actually is there under "Special Internet Edition." I wanted K: Really? Q: Yeah, I wanted to be sure that it wasn't spirituality for sale as you see in so many new consciousness books. So ("THERE") for those who don't have the Internet, you can still order it from the bookstore or whatever. ("BUT") I did want to make sure all the information was available on the Internet for everyone. K: Great. I think that's a great idea. That's a nice way of doing it. Q: But when you talked about 'paranormal' when I experienced this series of events, it really made me question just about everything that I had been taught in school because I don't know if you saw a special back in 1995 called "Ghosts, Mediums, Psychics: Put To The Test" K: No. Were you were involved with that, wasn't it? Q: Well I was somewhat I wasn't really involved in it but the family that was depicted in the special I became involved with and, basically, they were my subjects for approximately the first 300 pages of the book. Because when I went to interview them no, I was working at (for) Paramount at the time. And there were many bizarre events surrounding my going out to meet them. ("I") Basically I finished ("A") a book that chronicled talking poltergeists throughout history so I learned all this about previous cases. I guess the best known poltergeists that talked are the Bell Witch case I don't know if you're familiar with these. ("THERE") There was the Cashen's Gap case on the Isle of Man involving a so-called talking mongoose that Harry Price wrote about. And then I guess the other one that ("IS THE") is the most chronicled is the Mary Jobson case which occurred in 1839. And in all these cases, basically, what happened is there was this talking presence and both in the Bell Witch case as well as the case I went out and investigated in Oklahoma, this Spirit was manifesting as an amassing of different spirits and different entities. The family, in fact, thought that they had aliens living with them. And when I was there I did hear some what I thought were alien transmission sounds. But there were some spirit phenomena. There were pennies materializing, a nail bounced off my head and I have all these different interviews in the book, of course. K: Was anybody else there when these things were happening? Q: Well for the family this is just their normal life. I mean they were so accustomed to it. It was a family with three daughters and one son. The son had moved out and one of the daughters had moved out. Actually two of the daughters had moved out and there was one still living there. But, (or "BUT") for example, Brenda Bell their name is Bell too which was one of the reasons that it caught my attention because, of course, in the Bell Witch case, that was the family Bell as well. K: Mark, I want you to take a quick break with us. Q: Okay. K: (And when we) come back, I want to talk about the coin that you found that has your likeness in the antique store. We're talking with Mark Russell Bell. He's sure he's lived before and has always been sensitive to these weird things. I'm Ken Dashow. You're listening to "The Edge of Reality" on the Talk America radio network. Stick around. (commercials) K: Ken Dashow back with you on "The Edge of Reality." For everybody interested in past lives, coming up in a couple of weeks will be our old friend Dr. Bruce Goldberg will be joining us about his reincarnation stories. Mark, we go back and forth Dr. Bruce and I have been on the show for years and years. (He) has interviewed so many children who he talks about who supposedly can talk a foreign language where they have no recollection or idea of what they're saying and can say specific words or can point to a map and give specific descriptions of things that happened that they have no way of knowing about. That always catches my attention. You know, that always kind of gets me. I tried to be regressed with regressive hypnosis on the air. Nothing. Couldn't find anything. Nothing doing. Q: Well hypnosis really is just being very, very relaxed. K: Right. Q: I went to see a hypnotherapist and I never really entered a trance myself. But in my case I really don't have memories from a previous life. It's just the outside Spirit leading me to the evidence of my past existence and I understand that this happens to other people as well. And, again, it goes back to these hauntings and these talking poltergeists throughout history because, in fact, in Oklahoma they were calling him Michael. That was sort of their nickname for this amassing of spirits. And then, of course, you have the MESSAGES FROM MICHAEL books and and I realized after this experience that Edgar Cayce was channeling the same Entity and Madame Blavatsky's famous Mahatmas' also was this apparent Entity. So really all of these this phenomena was interlinked and so, of course, the Angel Mighael in the Bible, of course, was "the Angel who spoke to Moses in the Mount." And so I guess this God of our world materializes in certain people's life as a metaphorical manifestation. And, of course, I was working at Paramount so that sort of gives it a little new meaning. And ("SO") in terms of my name ("THE") the Bell name was actually channeled to me through a friend who had never had any kind of channeling experience before. I had been talking to her about if I should have a pseudonym for the book or not. And ("APPA") she was crossing Sunset Boulevard and she heard "MARK RUSSELL BELL" and then she saw a Pacific (Bell) telephone book on the sidewalk where it should not have been. So I ended up taking that name because it ("WE AA" "IS") is fairly relevant. And so this Angel Mighael was leading me to buy certain famous antiques historical antiques. ("SUCH AS A") A version of the Declaration of Independence and then I found this Egyptian medallion that had my exact likeness. And that morning my horoscope had said "gifts of love." So I ended up buying that and one other item which looks sort of like the Holy Grail. It was a little Grail cup which I thought was curious. ("AND THEN") So when I got home I looked up Holy Grail in my encyclopedia my COLUMBIA VIKING DESK ENCYCLOPEDIA and, sure enough, the description matched almost exactly. ("IT SAID") Not quite a candy dish and not quite a goblet and this is exactly what the item looked like. So, again, I don't know if it's a metaphorical basis or what but the Spirit certainly was manifesting ("THE WW") in my life the way it had in others' and I was getting a strong religious message. And, of course, I realized my career in Hollywood had been just disgraceful because here I was getting all this money for all these very superficial fantasy movies which really was keeping were keeping people from really doing good works and cleaning up the planet and helping others. So I really wanted to give a spiritual message after my experience because ("TH") the materialism and commercialism of our culture just didn't mean anything after this ("BIG") Love I felt after the experience. So, anyway, I have this medallion. I think it's an Italian knock-off because there was a period there ("WH") in the '30s ("WHEN") they did take Egyptian relics and mass produce them. And I did a continuation of the book on the Internet called NEW TESTAMENT and I put another Egyptian relic on the cover of that which shows an apparent reptilian human being so that'll get people's attention hopefully. K: An interesting idea. Our guest is Mark Russell Bell lived before. Spirit messages. That kind of stuff. It's interesting (throughout the) entire book are transcripts that he has done with supposedly EVPs or Electronic Voice Phenomena. Spirit messages, if you will, on the tapes of the interviews. When we come back, I want to find out who he thinks was talking on those tapes. Was it intentional, accidental; why he believes they actually were messages and not just normal radio leakage which happens in this business all the time. All that plus Dan Aykroyd and "Psi Factor" coming up on "The Edge of Reality" after this. (commercials; "Psi Factor" promo) K: Okay, Danny. So the mummy is killing everybody it sees, huh? That's .. . . ooookay. I think Dan's been watching them movies a little bit too much. Mark Russell Bell is our guest author of this book TESTAMENT, transcriptions of conversations that he's had. Mark, what are these conversations that took place? Who did you interview and why? Q: Well I had first heard about this family living with a talking poltergeist in Oklahoma. And after having done a book on the history of talking poltergeists I thought this was a wonderful opportunity for me to see a contemporary version. Of course, I didn't realize what I was getting into fully but so that was just pretty much a normal interview. I'd wanted to get as much as information as I could. Not only for my book but, perhaps, for a movie spin-off, etc. In fact, the Entity had even said that somebody from Paramount Pictures would be coming. And Twyla even started crying a little bit, you know, when I told her I worked for Paramount. K: Oh wow. Q: I know. So it was K: (small laugh) Q: yeah. ("N") You know. And so, again, you have ("SOME") the symbolism, I guess the nail hitting me on the head and all that. So when I came back from Oklahoma I decided I would go ahead and keep interviewing people because there was still pennies materializing around me and various things happening. For example, I once had the idea to go the library and research my genealogy. And my key wouldn't fit into the lock as it normally did so I gave up and went to the library and I found this old book. It was entitled HISTORICAL MEMOIRS OF THE FIRST RACE OF ANCESTRY WHENCE THE HOUSE OF RUSELL HAD ITS ORIGIN. And I basically found this lineage of the first race. This book was written in 1833 by J. H. Wiffen and it traced the Russell family back to Hugh Bertrand who was born in 1021 A.D.; who was the Lord of Barneville and Le Rozel. And then it traced him even further back to, I guess, the original king who I'd never heard of before. Someone by the name of Olaf the Sharp-Eyed. So this book that I found was a fascinating bit of lost history. It talked about fire-breathing dragons and it was really quite an interesting book in itself. But, of course, with all the I'd also had burning bushes so I was preoccupied with solving the mystery, of course, of not only the Bell synchronicity but all of this spiritual symbolism in my life. So, of course, I began researching Jesus, thinking, "Well what if I was the reincarnation of Jesus?" ("SO") The main thing I learned was that apparently Jesus himself never called himself the Christ and it was rather the Holy Ghost or this amassing of spirits this Force that had Christed him as it had other individuals throughout history. So in one book by are you familiar with Zecharia Sitchin? K: No. Q: Okay. There was a book by Zecharia Sitchin called THE WARS OF GOD AND MEN. So I looked up Jesus and on page 224 there was the mentioning of not only Jesus but a Mesopotamian new year Mystery text entitled THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF BEL-MARDUK. So this was presented as sort of an earlier Christ story. So I've been reading a lot of Zecharia Sitchin over the years. ("IN HI[S]") In his most recent book, he also talked about the connection between Bel-Marduk and Ra, which is Ra-Ta is sort of an honorary name. It means Sun-Earth.' So he basically connected Bel-Marduk to Amen-Ra or Ra-Ta. He basically said ("THE") Bel-Marduk's story was a precursor of the New Testament tale of the death, entombment and resurrection of Jesus. Sentenced to exile, Ra/Marduk became Amen-Ra, the unseen god, and scholars seriously debated at the turn of the century whether his story was a prototype of the story of Christ. So I guess that was one of the ("MO") the pivotal moment in terms of K: Let me take you back to the poltergeist. Q: Yeah? K: With the family. You know when you say that things fall or whatever materializing. Every sort of ghost person I've talked to always said that when they're trying to make their presence known that the idea is that there's something bad has happened and they're just trying to communicate their frustration that they're they're not whatever happened on this Earth is not complete. The journey was not complete or done and that it needs to they're trying to get to the living to try to make known of their plight, whether it's a murder or a so or a loved one that they disconnected with that was an unresolved issue; that that it never meant to hurt the living. It's just a question of getting attention. I want to talk to you about that when we come back. Mark Russell Bell is our guest. This is "The Edge of Reality." Happy holidays, one and all. You're listening to the Talk America Radio Network. Back after this. (commercials) K: We're talking with Mark Russell Bell and his book TESTAMENT. Hey Mark, getting back to these transcriptions you made and you say there are alien voices that now were these the voices that Q: No, I didn't say that they were alien voices, I said spirit voices. K: Okay. Spirit voices. Q: Spirit messages. K: Okay so the spirit voices where did they come from and how does a spirit voice get recorded on electromagnetic tape? Q: Well this was something that took me by surprise, of course. At first when I noticed them, it was my listening to my tapes from Oklahoma. And there were voices that were just like normal voices but they were saying things that no one had said at the time and the tone was different and the voices were different. And K: Were you using brand new tape? Q: Oh yes. Yes. And ("SO") but that's nothing I mean so since then I K: Well actually that's not nothing. I mean Q: Well no K: if you have . . . Q: But that's in comparison to what was to come later. K: . . . recorded on tape. I mean that's pretty impressive. How do you think ("WE[LL] SEE") a spirit that has no actual voice box how did it make the impressions on the tapes? Q: Well what happens is there's a preponderance of spirit messages, I'm convinced, on all recorded materials because before this experience I didn't dream anything was possible. But then when I really started listening very, very carefully to even my old interviews with Paramount directors and producers and what- have-you, I would begin hearing small words. Usually it's just one or two words. In some cases, it's a line or so. Some of them are very robotic and I've had all these various experiences listening to these voices and also unattributed sounds. I saw in an article of FORTEAN TIMES, they traced back Electronic Voice Phenomena to 1963 and a gentleman by the name of Friedrich Jurgenson who was basically a Swedish bird watcher using an early portable tape recorder and he found garbled fragments of speech stretched or compressed as he described it. K: Also, can I ask you? Q: Yeah? K: Are you familiar with the technical audio sort of abnormalities of crosstalk . . . Q: Oh sure. Oh of course. K: Now I can attest--and I'm sure we've all experienced it--that there are times you can have your stereo on with nothing coming through. If you have say it was on the CD setting or the phono setting if you turn the volume up, a lot of times you can hear words and Q: Well maybe at the end of the show I'll be glad to play one for you. K: Can you play one over the phone? Q: Yeah, I have a tape here. It'll take me a moment to fit it into the machine. K: Oh I would love to hear that. Q: But let's save that for the end because K: Absolutely. But I would lo(ve) please. Don't we're not leaving without doing this . . . ("YEAH") Q: Because this because well I'll give you a little bit of background for this one tape. Basically, I was a caller on to the "Coast to Coast A.M." show. ("AND") It was the evening that ("SOME") some cousins of mine were on basically and so I could hear myself talking in the background because the show is delayed. And then on recorded on the tape there was a very there was a word at the end of the tape basically the talk show host hung up on me. It was a long story. But there was a word that I did not say because in the background you can hear me say my name twice. And in between saying my name twice on the broadcast was this strange word ("TH[AT]") really isn't a word that I'm familiar with but it was just sort of different syllables. ("AT ONE") K: That is that what we're going to hear when you play us the tape? Q: Yeah. ("YEAH") Here, I'll go ahead and do it now real quick. K: Okay, great. Please. We'll wait. Q: Okay and while I'm putting it in I'll just say the most one of the most startling (unrecorded portion of show; commercials) K: Ken Dashow back with you on "The Edge of Reality." We're talking with Mark Russell Bell. So Mark what do you do from here? How do you go around is this your quest now in life is trying to make people aware of this sort of spirit world and spirit guide? Q: Well that's what I'm trying to do, of course. Reading my book proves itself as you go along. For example, genealogically there are interesting parallels. My relatives include Alfred Hitchcock and Ken Russell. Did you ever see the movie "Rebecca"? K: Yes, I did. Q: So thematically that and "Tommy" are similar to my own situation. Basically, Spirit through the Angel Mighael has led me to write sort of a contemporary bible and I'm finding it very difficult to tell people about it because, of course, there are a lot of nuts out there making messianic claims. And, of course, that's something I would never call myself. K: That -- (or "THAT" "CL") Q: The -- 'the Messiah.' K: That -- that's good . . . Q: Of course, my attorney's name is Jonathan Handel but that's the closest I come. K: (laughs) Q: I see the Messiah as the Angel Mighael, this Spiritual Force that's the Channel between our world and God. K: So (or "SO") do you think that spirits are trying to reach out to all of us or you in particular? Q: I think it's they're trying to reach out to everyone and that's why if you look at the predominant cases of the so-called paranormal; the Edgar Cayce case, Madame Blavatsky, Cashen's Gap, even the recent Dr. Raymond A. Moody book ("IN") in which he talks about a Dr. George Ritchie's encounter with the presence of the Son of God. If you look at all these different cases, you can see ("UM") the Oneness of Spirit trying to communicate (with) us through our own beliefs ("OF SU") our superstitious beliefs of demons and ghosts and aliens and what-have-you and it's really quite fascinating if you have an open mind. K: Do you think that these are angels or these are simply spirits who are have not passed on to the next . . . Q: Well you have to remember that there has to be an organizing Force in terms of a Channel that allows a certain spirit to come forward at any one time and people just have not been givin(g) thought to what is the Channel Who is the One Who's selecting what spirit comes when. And that's really one thing that I've been shown is that Spirit (or "SPIRIT") materializes around certain people like Sai Baba and, of course, people think, "Oh Sai Baba is doing it through the power of his mind." And no, it's Spirit, the Oneness of Spirit is materializing around certain individuals to create metaphors for others. And that's what happened in my case. K: So Q: Apparently I've done it twice now. K: if people feel that they're, yo(u kn)ow, "I hear voices. I hear" that sort of thing. And that's always I mean that's a form of madness. It's a form of . . . it's a form of a mental abnormality. Do you think that there are times when that is just that is the spirit world trying to communicate? Q: Well we have all these channelers now who are making big bucks and K: Yeah but . . . Q: what are they doing? Isn't that what some people would call that schizophrenia. K: Right. But I assume and I think rightfully so that just about all of them are phonies. Q: Well who is who can know? That's one thing that I'm very puzzled by. How do you know who the phonies are and who aren't? K: Well I'll give you a quick example of someone who I've had on the show many times who is a, you know is a medium who says he, you know, can talk with the spirit world: John Edward, who always says if somebody says they can do this, make them prove it to you. Have them they have to do something for you Q: Oh definitely. I agree. K: . . . specific and if they can't do that, don't give them any money; that at least you feel that they've at least shown you something for their work. But I wish you a happy holiday. I wish you good luck with the book TESTAMENT. Mark Russell Bell. Thanks for your time. Continued good luck and thanks for joining us here on "The Edge of Reality." Q: Thank you. K: We'll see you soon. I'm Ken Dashow. Dr. Michio Kaku with us this evening. We're just getting going. (TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT http://testament.org)
