Three Mark Probert and 'The Inner Circle' Magazine Reports from 1949 - Early 1970s

Mark and Irene Probert

1972 SEARCH Magazine cover photo

 

 

Mark Probert (1907-1969) was the chosen trance medium (or 'channel') for the group of 16 'controls/communicators' who referred to themselves as "We of the Inner Circle."  As with many other prominent channelers such as Edgar Cayce and Jane Roberts, this case is extensively documented and many transcripts of channeling sessions may be read online.  The two national US magazine articles quoted in the entirety in this blog post are from 1949 and 1972.  A third article is also quoted verbatim: "Portrait of a Medium" by Col. Arthur J. Burks.  This memorial article about Mark Probert was found as a clipping in a hardbound edition of The Magic Bag with a 1963 copyright.  The title of the publication is identified as COSMOS in the article.  On the other sides of the two vintage 8"x10.5" pages, there is the first page of an article about "English music medium Rosemary Brown" and a gay rights-oriented article.  The three articles in this blog post are being presented for comparison with previous articles published at this Metaphysical Articles blog about channeler Mark Probert and the scientist who was able to long utilize Probert's rare psychic ability for noncommercial research purposes, Meade Layne (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16).  Their main objective was always the advancement of human knowledge.

 

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First Magazine Article Source: FATE magazine May 1949 Volume 2, No. 1 

 

 

Is it possible for the mysterious entities

 known as "discarnate" to enter and control

 the body of a living man?  Meade Layne, a

recognized authority on the subject, says

yes, and presents Mark Probert as  proof 

of his claim.  The evidence is quite impressive.

 

 

Mark Probert

Mark Probert, considered by his associates one of the greatest mediums of modern times, lives at San Diego, California.  During the past two years his seances have been attended by outstanding authorities, doctors, psychologists and investigators of psychic phenomena.  The genuineness of his mediumship, and the authenticity of the phenomena of his seances have never been successfully questioned.  In his seances, he allows his body and mind to be usurped completely  by "outside intelligences," and returns to it completely unaware of what has occurred during his "absence."  He is also an artist.  One of his paintings was painted while in one of his weird trances, and depicts his "guru."

Meade Layne

 
N. Meade Layne, M.A., was formerly an instructor at the University of Southern California, at the University of Oregon, and at the University of Arizona.  He was Department Head at Wesleyan (Illinois) and Southern College, Florida.  He is at present publisher of Round Robin, the journal of Borderland Sciences Research Associates.  He is an investigator of psychic phenomena and has been active in this type of work for many years.  The result of his publications are published under his own imprint, Meade Layne Publications, at . . . (1949 address) . . . Of his work he says: "I merely want to know, and I don't try to force my views on others."

 

 

MARK PROBERT,
BAFFLING SAN DIEGO MEDIUM

A man is murdered.  The murder performs his deed while no one is looking.  He is careful not to leave any evidence that could point directly to him.  He comes and goes without being seen by anyone.  When picked up and questioned he doesn't confess.  He is brought to trial, convicted, and eventually executed for the crime — still without confessing.

 

That has happened many times.  The conviction is obtained by a "preponderance of evidence."  A jury decides that that preponderance of evidence is strong enough for them to order the taking of the man's life.

 

According to Meade Layne, of San Diego, a similar preponderance of evidence indicates that the man sitting at the table is under the control of a discarnate entity who claims to be the spirit of a Chinese philosopher and teacher of Confucius, Lao Tze.

 

Mark Probert in one of his trances.  Painting is that of his guru, or teacher.

It was not taken by infra-red film in a darkened seance room; it was taken under the glare of spotlights for FATE magazine, even as Lao Tze "controlled" the body of medium Mark Probert.  It is interesting to compare the facial expression in this photo of Mark Probert under the control of Lao Tze with the photo taken under normal conditions.  [This photo above is identified with the medium's name.]  Yet, the picture  of Mark Probert under the control of Lao Tze is not advanced as proof that he was.  It was taken at the request of the editors of FATE to accompany this article for its "news value," and not in any attempt to "prove" anything.  

In most attempts to prove that spirit phenomena are genuine, an attempt had been made to produce some phenomenon that cannot be "explained" by natural means.  Houdini's efforts [he waged a campaign against mediums while claiming to be exposing 'false' ones] were directed from two different angles — the duplication of the phenomenon, and the uncovering and exposure of fraud right on the scene whenever possible.

 

But in the case of Mark Probert there is no secret apparatus, no "phenomena," of the type that Houdini could use his genius as a magician to duplicate.  "Yet," says Mr. Layne, "the preponderance of evidence over the past three years is so great that if I were the defense lawyer and you were a juror, required to listen to all the evidence and weigh it carefully, no matter how long it took for that evidence to be presented, I would not even require you to be unprejudiced at the start."

Some of the evidence consists of plaster casts of hands that dematerialized, leaving hollows that could not have permitted a solid object to be withdrawn, "voices" through trumpets, miraculous finding of two objects by the medium, "bringing back" of departed loved ones, and fortune-telling that comes true.

Why, then, isn't this evidence advanced boldly to prove that Mark is a genuine medium — ballyhooed over the country so that Mark can make a fortune?

To answer that question, we advance the words of Mr. Layne: "We are not interested in 'proving' the genuineness of Mark's mediumship pr the necessary concomitant — survival after death.  We believe that belief in survival is up to the individual, and if any individual wants to believe that when we die that's the absolute end of us, and that all mediumship is fake, it is his right and we have no interest in attempting to change him.

"In Mark's mediumship we are primarily interested in the growing mass of statements of the communicators on science, philosophy, metaphysics, history, and whatever they can tell us of their own surroundings.  To anyone who wishes to examine this mass of material we have gathered during the past two or three years we suggest that he consider it primarily for its intrinsic worth on the same basis as he would if the statements were asserted to be merely those of Mark himself — or of anyone else."

What does Mark Probert himself say of his mediumship?  He says, "Honestly, sometimes I don't know.  There are times when I think that it's something subconscious—in all of us—created as an antidote to the fear of death."

Mr. Layne, publisher of Round Robin, which is a bi-monthly journal devoted to the subjects of borderland sciences and phenomena, attends and more or less officiates at each of the Mark Probert seances.  He is a competent, careful, and scrupulously honest observer.  One need read only a few issues of Round Robin to become convinced of this.  Mr. Layne's editorial comments on articles appearing in that publication show a keen analytical mind.

In the three years that Mr. Layne has published Round Robin there has gravitated about him a group of highly competent students, including Max Freedom Long, the greatest living authority on Huna — the religion and magic of the people of the Hawaiian Islands, the well-known writer Vincent H. Gaddis, Dr. Philip Haley and others.  Recently this natural association of people has crystallized into what is called BSRA, Borderland Science Research Associates, with headquarters at the Meade Layne Publications . . . (1949 address) . . . California.  Round Robin has become the official publication of this group, but without altering its general character and policy of the past three years.

The BSRA aims are the careful study of all current unexplained phenomena and well-authenticated phenomena of the past in the light of logical analysis and discussion.  The formation of BSRA provided a mechanism for others to join in this work, either as mere observers who subscribe to the official journal to read and keep informed, or as competent students and investigators who have themselves something of value to contribute to its pages.  There are at present less than a thousand in this group.  They are a select group of quietly serious, intelligent students of the borderland sciences.

 

And, Mr. Layne says, perhaps the most serious, intelligent and capable of these BSR Associates are the "communicators" who take possession [a superstitious term for what today is often called 'channeling'] of the Body of Mark Probert, the medium, and listen quietly to and join in discussions of such phenomena as the "flying saucers" and the Macomb ghost-fires which observers claimed started before their eyes, unexplainably, but which were "explained" eventually by the "confession" of a 13-year-old girl that she started them with matches.  [Often otherwise 'unexplained'  incidents are 'explained away' by emotionally disturbed individuals — see Mysterious Fires and Lights (1967) by Vincent H. Gaddis.)]

Besides Lao Tze, who was in possession of Mark's body at the time the picture shown in this article was taken, there is Lingford who died in New York forty years ago; Ali Ben Casi; Professor Luntz; the Tibetans, Lo Sun Yat and Rama Ka Lao; the astronomer Ramond Natalli and many others.  They gather even before the seance is to start.

 

When the seance is to begin there is no darkening of the room and joining of hands.  Mark Probert sits at a table and engages those present in conversation, seeming unconcerned over what is to come.  He is barely over five feet tall and a few pounds over a hundred in weight, yet, as he sits there, observers completely forget that he is small.  Full of good humor and delighting in good jokes, he dominates the room, talking on any subject that comes to mind, or subtly leading his guests into conversation.

 

Let Meade Layne tell what happens next: "Suddenly, almost without warning, he is no longer Mark, the host.  There is a sigh from deep within the slight frame — and from a universe that lies within and around us, but which science has not yet touched, some Being settles into place and takes control of his body.  That sigh is as of a cold wind on a mountain crag with ice and snow and the loneliness of the wildernesses of the Earth.  It is the cold breath of outer space whispering outside the window easements of a warm room, in which people sit comfortably, safe from harm.

 

"Then, with the smooth quietness of an ocean liner coming into port, the face changes.  It is more than a contortion of the muscles.  It is a change of personality — the outward expression of a different soul.  It may be Lingford, Lao Tse, or some other spirit that once lived in an Earth body on its own — and died.  It may be a spirit that has never before re-entered a living body on our plane or the spirit of someone who died recently.  But it is there, unassuming, unmiraculous, but there.

 

"It may remain mute, unable to control the muscles that make speech, or again it may speak in some strange language.  If so, it is soon told by its 'other side' associates to take its departure.  But if it is such a control as Lingford or Lao Tze, he will speak in English, answering questions, talking, often for 30 or 40 minutes at a time.  And then, either abruptly or with a courteous farewell, the spirit departs.  There is a moment of deep quiet — and Mark is back, unmistakably there.  So completely different was his body under control that it seems a surprise that it is actually he again.

 

"Quiet and lack of disturbance in the room are always helpful.  Sudden noises, the noisy entrance of a newcomer, can disrupt the seance, causing the spirit in possession to lose its grip, bringing Mark back too suddenly for his own welfare.  Though darkness is never necessary there are usually no glaring lights, and if the seance is held during the day, shades are usually drawn sufficiently to keep out the direct glare of sunlight.

 

"Therefore, to take a picture of Mark under the control of Lao Tze was actually a remarkable feat.  Glaring lights and people moving about would often—and with most mediums—destroy all chances of success.  Yet the old philosopher, Lao Tze, was not disturbed, but showed great curiosity about the whole procedure and was deeply interested — surprised at the simpleness of the operation of taking a photograph.  He had waited 2,500 years, he said, to have his photograph taken—but added that he had gotten along very well without it, for all that—and that he would be much interested in seeing the print when it was completed.

 

"It is a very remarkable picture.  In itself it proves nothing.  Together with the preponderance of evidence we have gathered it is perhaps one of the most remarkable photographs ever taken."

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Second Magazine Article Source: SEARCH Magazine January 1972 Issue No. 101

 

 

UNUSUAL ORGANIZATIONS

 

SEARCH presents the story of 'The Inner Circle' 

Kethra E'Da Foundation. 

[Ketha E'Da means 'Teachers of Light' in the ancient language of the 'Yuga' civilization of 'channeled entity' 'Yada di Shi'ite.']

Mark Probert in later years.

The Extraordinary MARK PROBERT

By R.G. Warren

 

 

The bright afternoon sun streaming in the windows of a room in San Diego, California, seemed glaring, sharply indifferent to the eerie events in progress.  Although the small gathering of about twenty-five people lounged comfortably in their chairs while a slight-built little man seated at a card table spoke to them in a soft voice, there was a feeling of subdued excitement in the air.  Suddenly the soft voice trembled slightly and said, ". . . and now I'm beginning to feel . . ."  The voice trailed off.  The little audience stirred briefly and sat wide-eyed, expectantly immobile with rapt attention.  The speaker at the card table breathed heavily for a few minutes, his head drooping forward as if nodding sleepily.  Slowly he lifted his head as a strange, new personality seemed to possess his entire body, chuckled reassuringly and spoke English with a Chinese accent.

 

"I am Yada di Shi'ite.  I lived 500,000 years ago in the Himalayan mountains in a civilization called Yuga, meaning vast body.  My city was Kaoti, meaning city of temples.  I was a Kata or priest of the temples until I became a Yada or spirit light of the order of Shi'ite.  The Shi'ite order exists today.  There were 180 million in my civilization, not monkeys.  Yuga was destroyed by a terrible earthquake which killed 80 million people.  My body was crushed by a wall of the temple — squashing me like a fly.  But I took my body with me . . ."

 

This simple but astounding story was reported many times in 23 years with a wealth of detail.  Fifteen teachers beside the Yada spoke through this remarkable man.  There are more than 2,000 two-track and four-track seven inch tapes of these lectures.  Each lecture is from two to three hours long.  These contain a clear, rational cosmology and a science-philosophy that is so revolutionary in its unorthodox perfection that it seems destined to profoundly affect the foundations of entrenched thought.  This cosmology so brilliantly yokes science to philosophy that many professional men in psychiatry, psychology, physics, astronomy and related professions have been fascinated by the haunting logic.

 

The entranced little man through whom the Yada spoke was the late Mark Probert; born in Bayonne, New Jersey, February 5, 1907, and died in San Diego, California, February 22, 1969.  His passing was unnoticed in the public press but thousands of national and international devotees felt deeply the loss of this very human, kindly personality who has astounded and shocked great numbers of people.  The extremely ancient language of Yu which Yada spoke for about ten minutes before reverting to English became an item of great interest to professors of ancient languages at the University of Southern California.  One of these was Hans von Colbert, Professor of Ancient and Modern Asiatic Languages.  They elected to listen for about forty-five minutes to the highly questionable source, but became so enchanted that they listened and talked for five hours and begged for more time.  Professor Colbert spoke Hindustani, and Chinese dialects with Yada and discussed Inca and Maya writings.  He understood the root words in the Yu language.  Yada told him that the Yu language is the mother tongue or universal language.

 

Mark himself did not cultivate nor welcome his strange gift as it was often a worry and a burden for him.  But from childhood the evidence of something unusual in his depth of perception gradually became a pressing urge that grew stronger and more insistent as the years passed.  His marriage to his wife, Irene, in Yuma, Arizona, on July 4, 1942, was the event that ushered in the most phenomenal aspect of the latent forces burgeoning within him which now seemed to clamor for expression.  His new wife promptly informed him that he not only talked in his sleep, but talked in foreign languages.  

 

Mark and Irene Probert

 

 

After seeking help from a psychiatrist who ridiculed the idea, they met a man by the name of Meade Layne, PhD, who had an excellent academic background.  He had been a professor at the University of Southern California and several other universities, and had been a department head at Wesleyan, Illinois, and at Southern College, Florida.  Quite apart from his academic training, he had considerable interest and knowledge in the fields of metaphysical and occult laws.  He casually suggested that Mark might be a trance medium.  Mark detested the word "medium" and once started to write a book entitled Medium Rare to disavow the hated label.  [The last statement is an example of overstatement.]  But let Mark tell this part of the story.

"I spent two hours with Mr. Layne, in which time he quizzed me on a number of things including the state of my physical and emotional health.  Then he asked me if I had ever had any experience with psychic phenomena.  I told him I had and related a number of them to him.  He listened with what I thought was a great deal of patience and then said that my talking in foreign languages in my sleep seemed to indicate that discarnate beings might be taking control of me during sleep.  He had me sit at a small table and placed Irene on my right.  I was told I might become entranced.  The idea of suddenly losing consciousness was little unnerving and I was about to express myself when I was struck with a wave of dizziness that nearly rolled me off my chair; the one and only dizzy spell I ever had.  Then the spell passed, followed by what I can only call elation.  But what tremendous elation it was!  Undulating waves of chills ran up my body from ankles to solar plexus to head.  But they were not cold chills but rather the kind one gets when listening to exceptionally beautiful music or while observing an unusual sunset or sunrise.  How long I stayed in this state of ecstasy I do not know, but when it left me and I was awake again, Mr. Layne and Irene told me I had been in what seemed to be a deep state of trance for approximately forty-five minutes and that a voice, quite unlike my own, had introduced itself by the name of Martin Lattimore Lingford.

 

Martin Lattimore Lingford, a former American actor, came through Mark in the first test sitting.

 

 

He said that he had been a showman in New York some forty years ago.  He emphasized that they had spent many years conditioning my brain and body so they could use me to communicate through with the least possible harm to my physical and mental self.  It was a few years later that they decided to dictate a book to me clairaudiently.  They called the book, The Magic Bag.  The meaning of this title is fully explained in the book.  Then one night in 1947, five of my teachers suddenly appeared to me in the living room of my apartment.  That I was "seeing" them clairvoyantly did not lessen any sense of fright, and had they not somehow taken hold of me mentally, I would have bolted out my front door and perhaps without opening it!  Anyway, they quieted me down by assuring me that they were some of the members of the Inner Circle and I had no reason to fear them.  They then said that their only purpose in showing themselves to me was to have me paint portraits of them.  I made pencil sketches of the five and they left saying they would return as time permitted to have me finish the portraits in oils.  Some of these portraits have been photographed and incorporated in The Magic Bag, along with some other that I painted at a later date.  (NOTE: Mark was an artist of considerable talent.)  In order to publish and disseminate the teachings of the Inner Circle, we formed an organization called "Kethra E'Da Foundation."  The organization was founded July 6, 1956, and is a non-profit educational foundation." 

  
Sister Theresa Vandenberg, a former nun in Sacred Heart Convent, Brooklyn, New York.  /  Rama Ka Lo, a former Arabian.  /  Kay Ting, a former Tibetan.

 

 

The teachings that came through Mark delved into almost every branch of human thought.  To give a few examples: Flying were verified as actual space beings, not coming from outer planets but from the depths of space itself.  They do not cross space as we did in going to the moon, but emerge from it.  The teachers say we will have to learn this emergence before we can safely bring a physical man back from Mars or Venus.  [The next statements seemingly are hastily drawn conclusions or express misunderstandings of Inner Circle orations by the author of this article.]  Other life does not exist in our solar system but does exist outside, such as the milky way and beyond.  The space people are the guardians of the earth and have infiltrated every major government.  They are in supreme control.  Because of great natural cataclysms that may erupt, they may have to take us off the earth and transplant us on other planets.  They say this has been done many times with millions of people in the past.  Tales are told of tunnels honeycombing the earth and of pyramids buried under tons of ice at the poles.  Religion, they say, is man's creation and is of the earth and the astral frequencies only.  It is something we must grow out of and away from as we come out of our hypnotic, conditioned spell of superstition.  They see man as asleep and dreaming, caught up in the chemical fury of the matter world, a king of great power that has forgotten his royal blood.  They want to give mastery back to man, and listening to the tapes, one begins to wonder.  Many, many books could be written and not cover all the subjects.  The subjects are being studied by laymen and professionals.

Eventually there began a long series of various communications which opened and prepared the channel for the more profound teachings of the Inner Circle, the sixteen teachers led ['led' is one of many unsubstantiated word usages by the author of this article] by Yada Di Shi'ite.  The most frequent and outstanding lecturers [this determination reflects only the viewpoint of the author of this article] besides Yada are:  Professor Alfred Luntz, 1812-1893; clergyman for the High Episcopal Church of England, Raymond Natalli, 1598-1652; astronomer and friend of the famous Galileo in Rome, Italy.  Lao-Tse, 550-600 B.C.; the well-known sage of China.  The Maharaja Natcha Tramalake, 1848-1915; of Dacca, Bengal Province, India.  Each of these teachers has a distinctly individual personality and method of delivery.  The British Luntz is unmistakable with a clipped Oxford accent. 

 

According to Mark's teachers we entered the Aquarian age in 1945 and it is significant that in that year the lectures of the Inner Circle began.  The Aquarian age is said to be the age of pronounced emphasis on the advancement of mind.  For the first three years these lectures were semi-private but at least one scientist was always invited to participate.  Then Mark and Irene were told to open the lectures to large groups and suddenly people began to call asking to attend.  These local groups in San Diego continued for another three years.  Finally they were instructed to travel to reach a wider audience, and except for periodic rest and local meetings in San Diego, they were almost constantly presenting their lectures from coast to coast.  Questions were encouraged from the audience as long as they were not of a personal nature.  Questions of a scientific-philosophy-life posture were welcomed and were not to be confused with "churchianity" but were answered in a manner that yoked Biblical-scientific application without pious sentimentality.

 

Mark and his wife Irene were not spiritualists and professed no "ism," not even Probertism.  The work was not permitted to drift in the direction of any "ism."  The teachers were seeking to teach life which is more profound than any "ism."  Life was the goal, not religion.  Life can be made a religion but we cannot make a religion life.  Whatever life religion has in it, we, as individuals, put it there.  Truth and beauty are the expressions of life and consciousness; religion is the mere history of this expression and not a final dogma.  LIFE spills beyond the boundaries of crystallized creed.

 

There were those who accused Mark of being in a very lucrative "racket" to get rich.  Let such accusers take note that Mark was often in straightened circumstances and had no funds to pay his final hospital bill or funeral expenses.  As was so many other of his financial needs, these were all donated by those who were grateful for the expansion of awareness into the cosmic and mundane everyday mysteries of existence.

 

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[Metaphysical Articles blog note: Following this article by R.G. Warren, these paragraphs appeared inside an article box to conclude the final page.]

 

Those of us who have been in a position to have attended these lectures for several years, are appreciative of the fact that this has been a rare opportunity for us to learn many things about the cosmos, its formation, the laws of Nature, etc. 

 

We are trying to expand the distribution of this knowledge through the sale of tape-recorded lectures, transcripts of lectures, the establishment of study centers, etc.

 

Anyone interested in starting such a study group, write to The Kethra E'Da Foundation . . . (1972 California address) . . . for further information.

 

These tapes may also be obtained from Mrs. Anita Ganschow . . . (1972 address in Virginia) . . . and from The Mark Probert Memorial Foundation . . . (1972 Palo Alto, California address).

 

O. O. Reynolds

 

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Third Magazine Article Source: original detached two pages that had been clipped from an edition of a periodical entitled COSMOS

 

 

PORTRAIT OF A MEDIUM

by Col. Arthur J. Burks

Estimated period of publication: early 1970s 

 

I can, in imagination of course, hear Mark Probert  laughing.  He stoops in his spiritual bodies, reads the title and laughs again.  Then, in imagination of course, I can hear him say, "It took the big bruiser long enough to get the idea, didn't it?"

 

There are differences of opinion as to the physical size of Mark Probert.  One said he weighed all of fifty pounds, another said ninety.  I think he weighed a bit more than that, but whatever his weight of his size, he was a giant, and I'll wager his size increased when, on February 22, 1969, he made his transition.  He did not like it here.  For years he had not liked it, not since the death of his wife, Irene.  However, he stayed on the job, minding his duty and, whatever that job is now, he is doing it.  He "went over standing up," I am sure, because he had been carefully preparing for The Journey.  Every person should make plans, including his bequests, but not everybody is so meticulous, or says so little about it.  Mark simply acted, and his every act was for real.  In pain much of the time, sick much of the time, he could always laugh and have fun, and bring the other fellow into it.  Not just an individual, for Mark was gregarious and usually there were many around him, as far as I knew him.

Mark was not one of the Little People, as such, but in many ways he was a gnome, in appearance and size.  I can just imagine how he expanded into the giant he really was, and is, when he stepped into his Long Home.

Let me make something clear.  I am not "bringing Mark through."  I am no medium.  I do not quote him, I just feel for him.  In California, a few weeks after his transition, I walked the rooms that Mark had walked in materially anyway, and I was depressed.  I was, maybe, but I did not have the idea that Mark was trying to influence me.  Nevertheless, the feeling was "Mark."

I knew that Probert had left one book, The Magic Bag, which I had read.  It contains the names of his spiritual "circle," one of which made the greatest impression on me because I heard him several times: Yada, who had not been in the flesh for half a million years, but who knew so much about the current scene.  Yada jeered at much of it.  So did Mark, but he was so careful not to miss any of it.  He poked fun at himself, not at others, unless he loved them enough to insult them, since he identified himself with the scene.  I think any real gnome should be able to do this.  The fact that he could, to my mind, proves the status of Mark Probert among the gnomes.

Mark had another book in preparation, Medium Rare, that he did not finish.  He did not regard himself as a medium and was wary of the word.  He insisted that he was a telegnostic.  You will find it in the dictionary, so Mark probably was not the first to use it.

Besides The Magic Bag, Mark left a priceless heritage to the world; approximately fifteen hundred reels of recorded tape containing lectures of all lengths, from one to three hours.  They carry the voice of Yada, and others of The Circle, but mostly Yada, lecturing in trance through the cigarette-coarsened voice of Mark Probert.  He smoked, Mark I mean, in chain fashion.  Nothing goody-goody about Mark.  He did not have to sanctimoniously "purify" himself in order to let Yada through.  I think Yada just waved the smoke away with his spirit hands and came on through it to be one with Mark, hoarseness and all.

My hope has been, since I knew of these fifteen hundred tapes, that nobody have the temerity  to add sound effects or "edit" the original words.  From my own experience with "readings," I know that the layman can edit out the pearls and jewels without being aware of it.

Mark, I think, looks at that last paragraph and says, "The kid is no medium, and he's slow, but he gets there eventually!"  And Yada jeers and coughs a little in recent memory.

Over a quarter of a century ago, Mark began to talk in his sleep and his wife, Irene, being careful not to wake him, listened attentively.  He did not exactly "speak in tongues," but what he said smacked of several languages and nobody understood it.  It rather puzzled his wife.  "Puzzled?" I can imagine, with a writer's imagination, Mark's participation.  "It's a good idea, if you talk in your sleep and your wife is listening, so talk in foreign languages."

Eventually,  experts who studied this sleep-speech business, decided the wife, and perhaps the world, had a medium on their hands; pardon, Mark, had a telegnostic on their hands!  It proved to be the telegnostic case and the Proberts, during the next twenty five years, carried the shades of Yada and "The Circle" around the nation.  The "shade" would lead off with something in a foreign tongue, then switch to English of a sort.  After all, how could Yada, "dead" these five hundred thousand years (more impressive than "half a million years") speak English?  Ask him, and he would jeer.  One of the reasons he chose Mark was because Mark could unscramble his ancient language, whatever it was, so that it came out English.  Mark, therefore, was what the science fictioneer would call a "scrambler" or maybe an unscrambler.  However, there were some words that must have been identifyingly "Yada."

 

— "Snacks" for snakes.  "Saint Patrick drove the snacks out of Ireland?" queries Yada.  "There were never any snakes in Ireland!"

 

— "Babbies" for babies.  "Women don't nurse their babbies any more," said Yada, "because with what would they do it?"

 

Mark was a "bellman" before he was a telegnostic.  He preferred "bellman" to "bellhop," but "bellman or bellhop, Mark knew.  That made Mark and Yada quite a combination.  Recently, I heard, or let us say I heard, that some authority had definitely [?] established that Yada was somehow the "higher self" of Mark Probert, or even Mark himself in an ancient incarnation.  Yada jeers.  Mark blows smoke in the face of authority as, just maybe, they peer at these words.  It suddenly occurs to me that, if they are in cahoots and writing these words, how does COSMOS collect for the space they are grabbing, and when did I become the spooky "penman"?  There is another Yada word: "spuck" for spook.

 

"The difference between you and me," I have actually heard Yada say to a large audience, "is that you still have you skin (skeen).  I was skinned a half million years ago."

 

He goes on to tell of a nation of eighty million people, "somewhere in what we call the Himalayas," which vanished overnight in a cataclysmic earthquake.  There were a few survivors and you can read the details, if I remember, from Probert's The Magic Bag.  Certainly there is a vast amount of it in those fifteen hundred trance-lecture recordings, copies of which are being sought to help the blind — and everybody else.

 

"Good!" one senses the Mark reaction.  "Everybody is blind, but these first ones are for the blind blind."

 

Is Mark, now that he is able to get around so fast he can be everywhere at once, actually hammering at your reporter like this: "Tell al those people who are in the game, to get the lead out.  Get those tapes around.  Get money for 'em so we can get more tapes around.  Sure, go ahead and make transcriptions for people who cannot afford tape-recorders.  And collect, so more transcriptions can be made for people who don't have tape-recorders.  Am I being mercenary?  Jeers!  I need no food, water or shelter here, even skin.  So go ahead and fight over who gets the money, the royalties, just so that someone, anyone who wishes, can hear what Yada has said, but says no more, through anybody yet selected, because he's already said it.  Does Yada approve?  Why not?  He doesn't need money, either.  In fact, he thinks that it's a good idea.  We're taking our stuff everywhere, I hope.  Use your influence, use your money, get the stuff out.  Ring bells for the invisible, inaudible, bellman.  If any bills accumulate, send them to me and I'll make them disappear!  As for that book, Medium Rare, I did not get it finished.  It wasn't so good, anyway.  Maybe I needed a ghost writer!  I'll search among the spucks.  A large selection is available."

 

So Mark, the erstwhile bellman, is capable of getting around anywhere, to anybody.  He has the advantage of being able to duck it if anybody throws anything.  So be nice to Mark if he shows up, paraphrasing the somewhat Greater One, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If you open unto me, I will enter in and sup with you."

 

Mark would not presume to emulate that Great One.  If, next time your doorbell rings, it has an arrestingly different sound, it could be Mark who stands and knocks.  So pay attention, please, when the bellman "bells."

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