On The Air with Thomas Jacobson Channeling 'Dr. Peebles' in Los Angeles 1980s

 

During the years from 1980 to 1995 when Thomas Jacobson was trance channeling 'Dr. Peebles,' he was a recurring guest on the "Open Mind" radio show hosted by Bill Jenkins on mainstream AM talk radio station KABC.  Don and Linda Pendleton interviewed Bill Jenkins while writing their case study To Dance with Angels (1990).  The three paragraphs that follow are the Pendletons' introductory statements to this portion of the book.

As of the time of this writing, Dr. Peebles via Thomas Jacobson has had considerable exposure on the nation's airwaves, both radio and television, primarily in talkshow formats as a guest.  Needless to say, Thomas was usually presented with no great seriousness, often as an object of humorous curiosity and for entertainment value.  But we were fortunate in tracking down the first broadcaster to bring this phenomenon to the attention of the public, more fortunate in obtaining a personal interview with Bill Jenkins, the irrepressible host of KABC (Los Angeles) TalkRadio's "Open Mind" show.

The transplanted Texan is tall and lean, bronzed and handsome, a veteran broadcaster who has experienced all the usual excuses to become cynical and hardened to the human situation yet retains a boyish enthusiasm and an undiminished zest for life.  The product of a fundamentalist upbringing, he first told us about his reluctance to become identified with a weekly radio show devoted to a serious investigation of the paranormal and the occult, then he related his first meeting with Thomas Jacobson.

Thomas had been brought to his attention by a friend, and he'd set up an interview at the studio to determine if Thomas might a suitable guest on "Open Mind," a three-hour phone-in talk show aired live each Saturday evening.  Bill had been busy screening some confidential material that had been supplied by another prospective guest—a man in North Carolina—which proved to be so fascinating that he'd forgotten about the appointment with Thomas.

Thomas Jacobson 

Bill Jenkins

The following passage is the portion of chapter 8 "On The Air" presenting the firsthand account of Bill Jenkins about his interaction with Thomas Jacobson and the transcendental communicator who regularly spoke through him, 'Dr. Peebles.'  Two other popular 1980s Los Angeles talkshow hosts are mentioned: London-born Michael Jackson (birth year 1934) and psychiatrist/author Dr. David Viscott (1938-1996).  The latter is a subject of the second part of this article.  The "North Carolina material" mentioned is a collection of audio recordings from Dr. George Meek in the field of what is now known as 'Instrumental Transcommunication" (1, 2).

So this is all amazing to me and I'm just trying to determine in my mind if I want to put this [North Carolina material] on the air, you see, to this large audience—they would think that Bill has gone really off his coot because . . . well, see, you may not always believe what the guest has to say but you can't just sit there and take potshots at him—at his academe, his research, his whatever.

What I mean is, how in the hell am I going to sit here and tell Edgar Mitchell that you didn't communicate mentally with somebody down at Cape Canaveral from space—I mean, give me a break!  You know, if the audience wanted to do that, that's their prerogative, they can do that.  I can't.

So that was all really kind of heavy on my mind.  It was the first time I'd gone through [the material from North Carolina].  I hadn't talked to anybody about it.  I had secreted myself back in one of the studios.  I didn't want anybody to hear this information because it was very confidential.  I didn't know what it was all about anyway.

Well, I'd gone out to get a cup of coffee—and there was [my friend] and Thomas.  I had forgotten that I had made an appointment for them to be there at eleven o'clock. That's when Michael [Jackson] gets out of Studio D and goes over to Studio C.  The idea was that we would then go into Studio D and Thomas would go into trance; you know, to show me [what he does].

So anyway we met outside and went through the usual tentative introduction sort of thing then immediately into the studio.  We sit down and chat just a minute about innocuous things, then Thomas goes into trance; you know, mumbles this little prayer or whatever—and I am thinking what the hell?—then out comes this booming, almost comical, voice that almost blows me out of the studio—I mean, you've met Thomas, such a calm, quiet man—but then boom!—here's this . . . whatever.

He goes through this short metaphysical, uh, whatever that he goes through in introducing himself, this little preamble, then he gets right on my case.

He says—and I'm sitting there with eyes like saucers, I guess—he says, [mimicking] "Bill, I want you to know that we've been encouraging you from the other side."  Like, "We've been working with you for a long time, and you're doing a marvelous job.  There are a lot of us here (in the damned studio!) and there are some off-earth ones [here] too."

I say, "Some what?"

He says, "Off-earth ones."

"What's off-earth ones?"

"Why do you think you're so interested in the flying saucers?  You think you did that because of your Texas boyhood?"

[Bill had previously worked on a documentary movie about UFOs.]

I admitted that I'd often wondered about that, and he said, "Let me tell you something about that Spiricom device [the North Carolina material] you've been working with, and George Mueller."

I am thinking oh wow! because I encountered that material just fifteen minutes earlier and—well, he told me all about Mueller and what a [character] he was—he was this, that, and the other thing, then he tells me, "Oh, by the way, they've lost contact with him for a while.  He says he's moved to another vibratory level, which is one way to put it.  And he's just having some instruction there."

But he goes on to say, "But actually they're going to regain contact with him through a trance medium in Colorado."
  
Then he starts telling me about my family, about Brandy—the dog—and all of this other stuff.  I mean, he went into all kinds of stuff.
  
Well, you must know what this was doing to me.  I had agreed to see the guy just out of courtesy, and now here he's . . . I mean . . . well, okay, I had invited Dr. David Viscott [who also does a show from KABC] to come down.  He did.  Right away Dr. Peebles says, "Oh, hi, David.  You know we've been coming to you right along with that book you've been writing on spiritual psychology, and . . ."
  
Well, now David's eyes are this big, his mouth is open, and he is speechless—and if you know David, you know how unlikely that is.  He has never mentioned this new book to anybody, not ever—you know, he's already got all of these best sellers kicking around and—but he's sitting there wide-eyed and speechless.

 

Dr. Peebles is saying, "You know, David, you ought to really go ahead and use some of that stuff on your show.  We know you're concerned about what your peers will say and the religionists but . . . Would you have any questions now?"
 
But David is sitting there stunned and speechless—I swear to God, David Viscott speechless—he actually had paralysis of the throat, he didn't ask Dr. Peebles anything.
 
So he just says, "Well, all right, good-bye, God bless you all," and Thomas breaks the trance.
 
Now, in that first session, he told me about the research I was doing, about the "channeling" I was doing—and that was the first time I could put a name to it, to my craziness—he used the names of my family, my dogs, he intimated a problem that my wife and I were having, he told me about a problem my kids had been having.  As I look back now, I didn't know they were having that kind of problem at the time and he didn't exactly call it that, so I didn't tumble to it, but I know that was what he referred to.  He told me about everything that was going on at the radio station—which is a real soap opera all the time, believe me—and how the show had developed because of the influence they [Spirit] had been giving me—that they were trying to work very closely with me but I wasn't listening too well and all that, and on and on.
 
So need I say that obviously Dr. Peebles went on the air the next possible air date.  Which, sadly, was about three months later.  That was the first slot I had open, the first time I could get him on the air. He was an enormous success.  You know, I was a little worried at first—I mean, this is weird stuff, really, and we are talking wide audience, but God, he was an instant smash.
  
On that first show some of the promotion people were there, and you know we had the lights kind of low and you stay away from Thomas while he's in trance.  But at a news break they turned up the lights a little but so they could take some pictures—and Dr. Peebles got right on their case: "Don't you change the environment around here!  Turn it back down!  I'm really concerned about my channel, he's trying to stomp back in here anyway as it is."
 
Said, "We just wanted to take some pictures."
 
He says, "No flashbulbs!"  Says, "Bill, you've got to tell these people this is something special going on."
 
I said, "Well, I really really think so."
 
I'd been listening carefully to the reaction of the people on the phone lines while we were on the air.  You could hear them go, "aahhh aahhh" [sharp intake of breath] and you knew that he was hitting it right on the head.
 
It was interesting the way he does it, because he talks at many levels at the same time.  If he is talking to someone else, I'm hearing one thing but you the person is hearing another.  I remember we had a party over here [at Bill's home].  It was all the KABC people.  Would you believe it was Christmastime and this house had eight-five or ninety people in it?  It was raining outside, so it was all inside, and it was getting a little tight.
  
[Thomas went into trance and produced Dr. Peebles, who wowed the guests with direct interchanges.]
 
Another friend of mine asked Dr. Peebles a question that night about their friend Nefertiti.  Nefertiti was a dear friend of theirs and they had lost contact.  So Dr. Peebles went through a whole dissertation on Nefertiti's character and the whole thing, and that they would never see Nefertiti again, that she'd gone off to do some other things that she wanted to do, and the whole stuff.
 
Now, I knew that Nefertiti was their cat, which they'd lost some time before that.
 
So I said afterward to these friends, "Well you know he can't bat a thousand."
 
They said, "Oh, no, he was right on target with everything he said."
  
His appearance on "Open Mind"—and there were many, I think maybe nine or ten—all of his appearances, that's when we had the most telephone calls to this station—you know, the busy signals—well, "Open Mind" always had the highest level of that, the busy signals.  The line was always full.  But Dr. Peebles aroused that audience more than any of the other guests, ever.  So in that respect he was something else.
 
People want to run him for president.  They love 'im. You know, you just—you just fall in love with this guy.  I always felt sorry because I tried to devote a lot of time to Thomas as well—and Thomas is a very interesting and engaging guy and he improved, by the way, over the years, as himself, as he was learning to handle himself on the air, in his own processes—he became very engaging himself, in time. But during the first few appearance he was awed by it.  Well, you know you've got this thing running around in your head, Dr. Peebles and . . .
 
But Dr. Peebles, you know, what a character, he just wouldn't put up with anything.  Like during the news breaks and some of those long waits, he would sometimes leave.  He'd say, "I don't want to put up with this, watching you all go pee."  He says, "I'll just be floating around; I'll be back," and he would just go off and leave Thomas sitting there.
  
But I think one of the most dazzling displays of the paranormal happened right on the air one night.  The space shuttle was in flight.  One of its missions was to deploy two different communications satellites, the Westar VI and the Palapa B-2.  They had put up the Westar VI and they had lost it.  It was gone.  They couldn't find it anywhere.  I mean, all of these sophisticated earth-tracking stations, the thing wasn't there.  It was gone.
  
So during—I think it was the ten o'clock news break, as is usual I just toured back and went through the wire room—a routine to make sure that somebody hadn't shot Reagan again or whatever—and here was this bulletin that had just cleared the wire.  They'd found the Westar VI but it had just been completely destroyed—you know, just in a thousand pieces, there in space, just total space junk.  And NASA was at a loss.  They couldn't figure out what'd happened to it; it was a total mystery.
 
So we came back on the air, and the first question—I didn't even tell Thomas that I had this bulletin—this caller said, "You know, Dr. Peebles, we've just lost one of our communications satellites that the shuttle crew deployed.  What happened there?"
 
He said, "Just a moment"—the way he does, you know, where the hell does he go?—he goes somewhere to get the answers and he's usually back in a few seconds.
  
This time he came back and said, "You know, this is going to be really strange because some of the off-earth ones are tinkering with that satellite right now, so don't worry, it will be back."
 
Well, I'm looking at this bulletin that it's destroyed; right?
  
But he's still saying, "They'll find it.  And not only that, they're going to send off another one and they're going to lose it too.  And the off-earth ones are going to tinker with it and then they'll bring it back—and if your scientists are smart, they'll look and see what's going on there because they'll get a lot of information from what the off-earth ones have been doing with them when they get them back in another flight or two."
 
So I—very diffidently—read the bulletin.  On the air.
  
So he says, "Ah! Well! Believe AP or believe Dr. Peebles, we don't care.  We love you anyway."
 
I said, "Well, what bout it?  Are we to believe AP or should we believe you, Dr. Peebles?"
 
He says, "I'm just telling you what I've got here.  But, Bill, Dr. Peebles can make mistakes too.  But I don't think so, not on this one."
 
So the next morning I'm driving to work and they had launched the Palapa B-2.  I said, "Ohhh, they're gonna lose it."
 
And sure enough by the time I got to work, been there about an hour, bulletin came in, they had lost the Palapa B-2 as well.  Now they're both gone.
 
A day later they found them both.
 
They're both up there; they've got 'em tracked!
 
Two shuttle missions later they retrieved them.  Woo!  Let me get—let me read you a letter I received: "Dear Bill, I feel like I know you after listening to you on 'Open Mind' for so long.  My favorite was Dr. Peebles.  I taped your session with him after the spacecraft blew up.  I've worked at Hughes for eighteen years and I helped design and test Westar VI and the Palapa B-2.  So I was very interested when they were recovered.  I'm sending you a copy of an internal letter we got, December 7, 1984.  Sure like to meet you" and etcetera.
  
The letter, the memo, to Hughes employees communications group, from an associate manager of the Commercial Systems Division: "We recognize that there is an intense interest in the two recovered spacecraft.  Unfortunately, however our recovery contract with the owners of the spacecraft severely limit our freedom to display the spacecraft or to discuss their condition.  Accordingly, I ask your cooperation in observing the following conditions during the time the spacecraft are in our custody: there is to be no access to the spacecraft by anyone who is not an employee of Hughes, and there is to be no access to the spacecraft by Hughes employees who are not directly involved in the performance of the recovery services.  In addition, all requests for information about the recovery or the condition of the spacecraft should be referred to the S&G public relations' etcetera."
 
But there it was, on the air, one of the most dazzling displays [of clairvoyance].  I'm looking at the AP bulletin that they blew up and, "Well, you can believe AP or you can believe Dr. Peebles.  I don't care.  I love you anyway."
  
Beneath a banner headline, the Los Angeles Times on February 4, 1984, reported that the Westar VI communications satellite deployed by Challenger was feared lost.  A follow-up story on February 5 voiced the official fear that the satellite had blown up and disintegrated into space junk.   "One theory is that it exploded as the onboard rocket was ignited."
 
Another Times story on February 7 reported: "A second communications satellite launched from the space shuttle Challenger sputtered and failed to reach its orbit Monday, stunning space officials with the third major setback of the mission.
 
"The satellite, called Palapa-B2 and owned by the government of Indonesia, spiraled up from the shuttle early Monday in what appeared to be a perfect launch, but then flamed out prematurely."
 
A story carried in the February 9 edition said that an investigating team was moving to impound parts of solid-fuel rocket propulsion systems from around the nation in an effort to determine what caused the two commercial satellites deployed by Challenger to sputter and go astray moments after being launched from the space shuttle.
 
A story in Aviation Week & Space Technology in its edition of February 13, 1984, reported that NASA was studying plans to recover the two useless satellites by the space shuttle during the next year.
  
Aside from a mention that the two satellites had been recovered later that year, we have found no further information on the Westar VI and the Palapa B-2.
 
But we'd already decided to believe Dr. Peebles.

This topic is continued in Part 2 of this article.