Bel-Marduk, An Automatic Writing Session and My Interview with Marie

My Unexpected Path of Spiritual Discovery (Article 16)

My friend Marie became one of the interview participants for my case study book Testament (2007 edition link)

After considering the blatant symbolic and phenomenal aspects of my life (such as) —

   

✓ Outside my Los Angeles home the two mysterious burning bush incidents on the side of the hill above the Angelus Temple and Echo Park Lake.

✓ the two recent occasions of dreamstate visionary experiences, one showing parallels with what during earlier centuries were known as a 'rapture of Christ.'

✓ hearing a disembodied voice call my name as a child and recently as I was going to sleep having heard a devout man's voice say "Father, I have waited so long."

✓ while working as a movie studio publicity writer for Paramount Pictures, the company logo was the symbol of 'the mountain' while many movies I helped publicize had metaphysical themes.

✓ the nail that materialized and bounced off me in the poltergeist house where the haunting presence nicknamed 'Michael' had shown attributes of being unrestricted in relation to human limitations of space and time.

✓ During the poltergeist investigation in Oklahoma, a scarab beetle had produced knocking sounds by throwing itself against by motel door repeatedly.  After returning to L.A., another Egyptian symbol was found in a pyramid shape that was part of a company logo on a red shirt that had been given to me at a time when I was witnessing a series of anomalous events involving transcendental communication.

✓ having the author pen name of 'Bell' bestowed upon me by a disembodied voice heard by my friend Marie.  I had previously researched two 'talking poltergeist' cases involving American families with the Bell surname.

✓ other recent manifestations of transcendental communication and anomalous phenomena continuing to occur in proximity to myself.

  

— I had to consider the meaning of all that had occurred to me.  Readers who've read the preceding seven articles will comprehend how I found myself accepting the simplest and most logical interpretation.

Evidently the 'Holy Ghost' of the Bible found parallels with phenomenal events usually categorized as 'paranormal' or 'anomalous phenomena,' particularly the historical documented 'talking poltergeist' cases.  (I would later also learn about Direct Voice phenomena entailing disembodied speech as one aspect of Spiritualist mediumship.)

Somehow I was a reincarnation of the biblical Jesus appearing at the time of the soon dawning new millennium.

Considering my predicament, I decided that the apparent confusion concerning how to interpret the meaning of the divine status of Jesus of Nazareth might be traceable back to the Holy Bible passage "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us . . ."  (John 1:14)  Beginning to write a documentary-style case study of the beginning of my personal 'paranormal initiation,' I decided to use the title that I previously had in mind for my recently completed nonfiction book manuscript about historical 'talking poltergeist' cases.  That manuscript was registered with the U.S. Copyright Office on May 18, 1995 with the title Testament.

Following my Oklahoma research expedition and discerning the Christian symbolism in my life, I began considering if there were parallels between people in my life and other biblical figures.  Vocalizing these thoughts was an escalation in my behavior pattern and a transcendental influence became known.  Associating my longtime friend Marie with the Virgin Mary involved spontaneous inspiration.  Marie for years had consistently been the sweet, enthusiastic and optimistic presence in my life.

Already familiar with biblical belief quandaries, among the books in my bookcase that I promptly investigated to see what elucidating historical records there could be found about the life of Jesus of Nazareth was The Wars of Gods and Men (1985) by Zecharia Sitchin.
 

The Wars of Gods and Men (1985)

After the name Jesus in the index of the book was specified a single page.  I turned to that page and found the paragraph mentioning Jesus.

. . . When Stephen Langdon included an English translation in his 1923 volume on the Mesopotamian New Year Mystery Texts, he titled the text The Death and Resurrection of Bel-Marduk and highlighted its parallels to the New Testament tale of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Bel-Marduk?  The parallel with my new Mark Russell Bell pen name was so striking that I had to consider if perhaps I was the reincarnation of Bel-Marduk.  I read further.

But, as the text relates, Marduk or Bel (“The Lord”) did not die; he was indeed incarcerated inside The Mountain as in a tomb; but he was entombed alive.

I then read the information prior to the mention of Jesus.

The record of Marduk’s entombment, alive, within the Great Pyramid has been preserved on clay tablets found in the ruins of Ashur and Nineveh, the ancient Assyrian capitals.  The Ashur text suggests that it had served as a script for a New Year’s mystery play in Babylon that reenacted the god’s suffering and reprieve.  But neither the original Babylonian version, nor the Sumerian historical text on which the script was based, have so far been found.

Heinrich Zimmern, who transcribed and translated the Ashur text from clay tablets in the Berlin Museum, created quite a stir in theological circles when he announced its interpretation 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.

I skimmed through the mentions of Marduk throughout the book yet the details seemed vague and it was unclear how much of what Sitchin related was his own interpretation.  The Earth Chronicles is described on the inside front cover:

The Earth Chronicles series is based on the premise that mythology is not fanciful but the repository of ancient memories; that the Bible ought to be read literally as a historic/scientific document; and that ancient civilizations—older and greater than assumed—were the product of knowledge brought to Earth by the Anunnaki, “Those Who from Heaven to Earth Came.”

I would study Sitchin’s work occasionally.  He correlated the histroical records of Bel-Marduk, ‘Bel’ signifying “The Lord,” with Egypt’s Amun-Ra/Amen-Ra.

And what of the rescued Prisoner of the pyramid?

Mesopotamian texts relate that he went into exile; in Egypt Ra acquired the epithet Amen, “The Hidden One.”

After reading about Bel-Marduk and Amen-Ra/Amun-Ra, my conclusion became that if I was the reincarnation of someone, it was probably this Bel-Marduk.

I could only wonder what more could be discovered.  When I saw an ad for what I understood to be a ‘New Age Convention’ to take place at the LAX Airport Hilton, I decided to attend.  On the morning of Saturday, October 7, after clearing out some of my unused clothing and other possessions with a Goodwill donation, I drove to the airport Hilton at the western end of the city to attend my first “Whole Life Expo.”  I brought with me photocopies of the cryptograms traced from the mirror of the house in Centrahoma as I expected the expo might provide an opportunity to meet someone who could be able to make sense of them and perhaps confirm what the family had mentioned to me.

Making my way through the exhibit halls, I perused an eclectic variety of displays along with a diverse group of psychic readers making themselves available for consultation.  When I noticed a booth where an automatic writer’s services were available to answer a single question for a nominal amount, I decided to conduct an experiment. 

When it was my turn for a consultation, I asked a question that she paraphrased on the sheet of paper in front of her as “How does his angel—Michael—fit into this?”

The automatic writing that followed brought the message in large quickly scrawled letters allocating the last two words to a second page:
 

The importance here for him is not to resolve who Michael is — it is to resolve who Mark is and what he intends to do with that information

I found this to be a compelling answer and took a business card for the channeler whose name was Barbara.

When I overheard an exhibitor who sounded knowledgeable about a range of esoteric subjects, I showed him the photocopies of the cryptograms and asked him how he might interpret them.

The diagram that included a ‘+’ and a line that seemed to indicate the number ‘1’ seemed to him as indicating completion while the diagram dated February 1993 he interpreted as representing raised arms to signify rejoicing.  He didn’t offer an appraisal of the cryptogram dated from May of ‘93 yet the fourth resembling some type of foreign syntax seemed to him as resembling the Dead Sea Scrolls.

As I made my way through the exhibits, I noticed an individual from up north who seemed to have made discoveries similar to mine.  I didn’t learn what exactly had happened to him but his reddish complexion was something that startled me as I couldn’t remember ever seeing anyone before with such a pronounced flush.  At one point he mentioned, “Oh, those Gods — they’ve taken away my sex drive.”  This was something I’d briefly noticed about myself just following the interim at CPC Alhambra yet in my case I wondered if this probably had to do with the medication that had been briefly given me against my specific demands.  The expo made it apparent that people were exploring all manner of esoteric subjects as the new millennium approached.  Among the brochures that I collected at the expo was information about a local hypnotherapist although I had reservations about the process of hypnotherapy as I understood the results could be highly subjective.

I contacted the Ancient Biblical Research Center and was permitted to fax over the cryptogram that looked like a phrase in some foreign language.  A staff member named Mike called back and left a message on my answering machine that the Dead Sea Scrolls were in Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew and what I sent was none of those but it looked Arabic.  I called him back to ask him about some of the other things I’d heard at the expo.  I was told that most of the Dead Sea Scrolls predated Jesus.  I went on to tell Mike about the pre-Christian mysterium about Bel-Marduk offering a parallel with Jesus. 

I also spoke on the phone to Maxine.  I gave her an update, mentioning my visit to the Expo and the possible interpretations for two of the cryptograms: “So those are very positive messages.  Remember that beetle I saw?”

“Yeah,” Maxine said.

“An Egyptian word for it is scarab.  It is the symbol for resurrection and immortality.  There are so many parallels that can be drawn from everything that has happened.  I even see a correlation with some lyrics in a song by The Beatles: “And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.”  What do you think about that?

“Sounds good, doesn’t it?” she replied.

“There’s a little bit of Michael in each of us, you know?”

After a hiatus, I decided to continue recording telephone conversations that related to my research in conjunction with the planned book.  The next call was from my family history specialist, Carol, who told me, “We didn’t find any Bells in your family.”

She found my response surprising: “Actually, now I think the connection may involve reincarnation.  Of somebody previously named Bel.  I know it sounds really weird but I think in a previous life I was named Bel.”

“That is kind of unusual.”  She laughed.  We spoke briefly about the possibility of my brother and me having a sibling because in the material provided by Uncle Bob there were three numbers below my father’s name.

The next development concerned the cryptogram that looked Arabic.  I’d met Aida once when I dropped by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association offices and my brother—at the time a public relations representative for the group with Aida as the current president—reminded me that she wrote for publications in Egypt and could probably provide the information I wanted.  

After I provided her with a copy of the phrase, Aida called me and told me that by holding the phrase in front of a mirror the word ‘zeaama’ could be read.  It meant leadership but she added, “Well, that’s not the way Arabic is written.  This was written letter by letter.  You may want to have somebody look at it who knows Hebrew.”

Some of the interesting experiences I was sharing with the people in my life motivated me to decide to continue recording my 'audio journal' and keep track of ongoing developments by interviewing friends, relatives and other people as the opportunities came along.   

I found it convenient to park in the Century City Shopping Center for my psychotherapy sessions because the cost seemed exorbitant for parking in Judith’s building.  When I passed by the window of the Martin Lawrence Galleries, I saw a painting that captivated me.  Bright-colored oils depicted a man’s encounter with a symbolic representation of evil as there intervened a spiritual being whose wings indicated an angel.  The man was in danger of stepping into a circular opening in the ground ahead of him.

On October 26 was my scheduled appointment with the automatic writer I’d met at the Whole Life Expo.  I didn’t really know anything about Barbara beyond the channeled message she’d written spontaneously in my presence.  I’d made the appointment for 11 a.m. in the Santa Ana office of what turned out to be her insurance services company.  I’d prepared an opening statement and list of possible questions in advance.

click on pages for a larger image

last three pages of automatic writing session (October 26, 1995)

I wanted to attempt soliciting information from the highest spiritual authority so I began the session in a very precise way.  “First — thank you, God, for your love and patience with me.  I love You.  It is something more profound and invigorating than I ever could express in words.  There is nothing that I have or experience that isn’t a gift of love from You.  You may answer yes or no or as You wish on the following questions.”  I understood a Superconscious Force was what allowed all phenomena construed as ‘paranormal’ to manifest. 

My first question was: “Am I correct in my belief about who is the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary?”

Barbara promptly began scrawling the answer:

This soul enters at various times.  It is more an energy than only one person — so she takes different forms at different times.

My second question asked for clarification of the first response: “Is my friend, Marie, the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary at this time?”  Again Barbara began writing quickly.

      

She has aspects of her as her guides are very close to the energy — so she is touched and influenced greatly by it in her life.

An especially important question that I wanted answered was “Do I need a literary agent?”

This would be a good idea for him to have — to guide him thru the maze so he is not taken advantage  of — his work is important to us and we want it produced in the clearest possible fashion.  The wrong publisher may alter it and then change the intent and dilute the message.

That seemed very well expressed and I found it interesting to see that “us” and “we” were the pronouns used.  (I would go on to find that my guide wouldn't allow commerciality to be involved in my writing career.)  I also addressed the recent correlation discovered in the book by Zecharia Sitchin.  I phrased the question in such a way that I hoped would provoke some manner of unambiguous and comprehensible response: “I am asking You to clarify the relationship of Bel-Marduk with Jesus Christ.  Is the latter the reincarnation of the former — who died on the cross — or is the biblical story an allegorical retelling of historical events?”

The story of Christ does have some physical basis but is really more story.  The intent of it is to show souls what they should strive toward — it is so unfortunate that they waste so much energy fighting over trivial details like whether Christ lived or not and miss the real point which is this is how to live in love.  These are guidelines for life presented in a story form to make them as understandable as possible for all.

Although the response entailed nothing about reincarnation, I estimated that it was an appropriate answer.  I decided to pose a direct and unambiguous follow-up question to again address the matter of reincarnation by asking, “Am I the reincarnation of Bel-Marduk?”

He has much strong energy and is well on his path.  He is greatly influenced by this energy and very receptive to it.  He has an open mind and is willing to allow himself to be a channel for the energy.

Again, reincarnation wasn’t addressed directly in the response and the emphasis was again on energy, a mysterious word in this context.  Most of the remaining questions during the session inspired responses that seemed vague or were of a common sense nature.  In response to the question “Does any unique aspect of the individual survive physical death?,”  The reply was: “Of course — this is where some of us come from . . .” 

At one point, I mentioned an occurrence from my previous evening’s APLA hotline training.  After forming groups to compile lists of slang terminology to share with the entire class, William from my group was reading off the terms he had written down.   There was one word—“wolfing”—that nobody in our group had said.  I could only surmise that, perhaps, 'Michael' had contributed it and only William had heard him, perhaps clairaudiently.  I asked about this in the channeling session and the response attributed the word to “a jokester friend of yours who had passed on wanting to let you know he was around.”   This proved again inconclusive because when I asked “Which one was it?,” no specific name was offered that would’ve provided confirmatory evidence.  A complete transcript of the automatic writing session may be read in the Appendix section of Testament.  (2007 edition link)  I would go on to extensively research the annals of transcendental communication and case profiles may be read in articles at this blog.  Inconclusive details were included in the unredacted account in Testament as the entire path was to be chronicled with what could be understood and concluded from the entire gamut of experiences and research becoming apparent over time.  One transcendental communicator would be found to have explained in one transcript about the phenomena: "It should be understood that each distinct intelligence, or human spirit, retains its own special intellectual integrity after death as before.  All are entitled to their own opinions and the expression of the same, if they express themselves at all . . . You make a very great mistake, oftentimes, in supposing the departed spirit to be possessed of an almost infinite amount of knowledge regarding all subjects. You forget that they are still human, bounded about by the conditions of human life.  They are not infinite.  They are finite still.  And though their clairvoyance is largely unfolded in spirit-life, yet it does not extend to infinity.  It only reaches a very small degree into the future.  It does not perceive all the past, neither does it all the future.  It can take cognizance of events as they come within its sphere of action, but no farther.  Now, then, consider the friends who come to you from the other life as human, fallible, and entitled, each one, to their own opinions.  You gave them that liberty while they were in the mortal form, and if you are wise and just you will give them no less now."  (article)

Three days after my automatic writing session, I’d arranged an interview with my friend Marie.  The interview took place on October 29, 1995 in my Echo Park condo.  Marie’s variety of work experience included being an extra for movies and TV shows.  At the end of August I was surprised to learn that she’d been selected to play a prostitute in a film that would eventually be titled “Last Man Standing,” something that brought to mind the phrase figuring in the popular culture during the period ‘Madonna/Whore Complex’ expressing a variety of philosophical interpretations.  (full interview transcript / 2007 edition link)

I started out the interview by having Marie recount the experience of having all the money in her checking account disappear around the time of my trip to Oklahoma.  The bank never provided an explanation to Marie but her money was replaced after she filled out the necessary paperwork.  I was finding it difficult to discuss Michael because there seemed some aspect of Him that was my personal ‘Guide’ as an individual manifestation of the Life Force/organizing Oneness.

“Well, Michael is awfully shy,” I told Marie.  “Several times he’s tapped me on the leg while I’m in bed at night to remind me he’s around . . . I think he has a problem showing affection.  I mean, He uses physics as an excuse when He feels like it.  I mean, at least that seventeenth century Pavia townswoman, Hieronyma, felt herself being kissed once in a while and she was already married . . . ”    

I told Marie about the talking poltergeist case from Italy related in Demoniality by Lodovico Maria Sinistrari.  The book was written in the years prior to the Franciscan theologian’s death in 1701 although not published until 1875.  The haunting presence was assumed by the author to be an ‘Incubus’ demon.  (article)  Channeler Rolf Telano wrote about superstitious fears in an article during the 1950s: "If a fear is permitted to become too widespread, or too intense, then the fearful ones may, by the unconscious use of the laws of thought, create the very thing which they fear."  (source: The Coming of the Guardians Third Edition 1957 compiled by Meade Layne)  Rolf Telano mentioned about the unseen communicators: ". . . they disclaim any ability to truly foretell events in the usual and mystical sense of the word.  What they do is to take as many facts as they can obtain, analyze them in the light of history and experience, and project them forward to discover what is the most probable sequence of events."  (This correlates with other documented channeling cases.)

I informed Marie that as Hieronyma continued to resist the Incubus, he took away many of her prized possessions and then was said to have repeatedly struck and bruised her.  Sometimes her child would be snatched away yet without being harmed.  And “Sometimes he would upset all the furniture, or smash to pieces saucepans, plates, and other earthenware utensils which, in a twink, he restored incontinently to their former whole state.”  A wall of large flagstones was built around the couple’s bed and later disappeared.  Then, on St. Stephen’s day, at a dinner for some of the husband’s military friends, the table and food disappeared and when the table again materialized an abundant variety of food and wine of exquisite flavor was provided.  When those gathered were finished eating, the table again disappeared and reappeared with the original food.  Sinistrari concluded his description of events with the observation that the Incubus persevered in his temptation of Hieronyma for a number of years.

Among the diverse phenomena reported and attributed to the ‘Incubus’ was an event on Michaelmas Day: as Hieronyma reached her parish church of Saint Michael, she was left naked as “her clothes and ornaments fell to the ground, and disappeared in a gust of wind . . .”

One incident recorded about the Pavia case I didn’t mention to Marie was that the ‘Incubus’ “took away from her a silver cross filled with sacred Relics . . . then, although it could not be found that the locks had been tampered with or opened, he purloined her rings and other gold and silver ornaments and jewelry from the casket wherein they were stored.”  Nonetheless, Marie herself was soon relating an incident involving a ring that disappeared while she had been dancing with a friend named Michael.

After Marie recounted her experience when she heard “Mark Russell Bell” after I’d spoken to her on the phone about the possibility of using a pseudonym, we soon began considering some of the symbolic and metaphorical aspects in some of her entertainment industry work.  I found it interesting that one of the lingerie outfits for her new prostitute role incorporated marabou stork feathers.  “What are some of the other appearances you’ve made over the years?  I remember there was that sitcom with a Halloween theme.”

“‘Empty Nest.’”  Marie explained: “It was a Halloween party and the character’s name was Edith Fenton and she won a Halloween (costume) contest.  She had a strapless black velvet gown and jewelry and gloves.  The joke was that she won as the girl with the invisible man.  They had this glove on my arm that represented her escort.”

I said, “And now you know who that was, don’t you?”

“I guess.”  We both laughed.  “I never thought of it at the time.  I just thought it was a comical mystery character.”

I recalled during the ‘80s after meeting Marie at the talent agency I was watching the new version of “The Twilight Zone” one evening (probably when a client was on) and there was a scene featuring an elevator.  The elevator doors opened and I saw Marie inside the elevator and then the doors closed again.  It was funny at the time — “Marie’s in the Twilight Zone.”  I said, “And you’ve worked for Paramount movies in various capacities.  Was one of them ‘The Addams Family’?”

“I did some stunt photo double work for the first one.  I was tied up in vines and pulled into the house.  And then for ‘Adams Family Values’ I was one of the members of the Addams family at Fester’s wedding.  I worked as a dancer in an episode of ‘Saved By The Bell . . .’”

I spent a portion of the interview telling Marie some details about the Mary Jobson case because as a teenager Marie once became so ill that she found herself paralyzed and even had been administered last rites before making a miraculous recovery.  Marie also described working at the West Los Angeles nightclub Gazzari’s after the death of owner Bill Gazzari and seeing him at the club one final time.

Marie and I had in common an interest in Pop culture.  I had met her while working at the talent agency yet there wasn't much time for movies or concerts during that period because of my long commute from Pasadena to the Hollywood Hills each day in addition to the requisite time demands involving client meetings, movies, plays, TV show tapings, etc.  During a later conversation with Marie, she mentioned something that had a lasting impact on me in relation to my contemplation about the art form of 'the movies.'  She was talking about actors yet obviously there are wider implications.  She said: "Their lives are revealed through their movies."

In 1996 Marie invited me to go with her to an actors guild screening of “Michael” starring John Travolta in the angelic title role and this became the last movie I saw before making the decision to stop devoting any time to watching movies and TV shows as entertainment.
 

*

After the blog article/chapter of last Sunday including my commentary about my 'men in black' experience, days later I noticed several headlines at The Drudge Report about a new TV series entitled "Messiah" with a CIA twist: "'MESSIAH' review: 'HOMELAND' -- with divine twist . . ." (The Guardian) / "What Is His Mission?" (The Wall Street Journal) / "Jordan calls for NETFLIX to ban 'anti-Islamic' series . . ." (Deadline)  Other news websites have also presented articles about the show first airing on January 1: (including) BBC, CNN, Cosmopolitan, Daily Mail, Entertainment Weekly, Irish Central, Jerusalem Post, Newsweek, New York Post, The Republic, etc.  I read an article about the TV series that reported Netflix publicists had tweeted the tagline “Who do you think he is?” alongside a trailer for the series in early December.

Concerning recent decades when there has been carefully dispensed lessons expressing transcendental communicators' perspectives of metaphysical aspects of life such as Christ Consciousness, how sad it is that this entire extensively documented field of human nature (as documented in hundreds of articles at this blog) has been overlooked for so long throughout the mainstream media due to apparent ignorance.  The present time is always a favorable moment to remind people of the essential lesson of personal salvation through the development of spiritual understanding. 

 

Many aspects of my life are like everyone else's.  This Testament photo shows Marie and myself attending a U2 concert at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1997.