Metaphysical Articles: Interesting Articles, Links and Other Media: This 1956 Magazine Gives Proof of Channeling and Affirms Ray Palmer's Pivotal UFOs / Flying Saucers Understanding

January 1956 Issue No. 13 / editor Raymond A. Palmer / trance channeler Mark Probert and his wife Irene

The observational report that is presented verbatim and in the entirety herein was published in what now may be recognized as a pivotal issue of the magazines edited by Ray Palmer, about whom many contemporary commentators have an incomplete and presumptive understanding (to say the least). Some of Palmer's statements are included in this article and will make his intellect comprehensible for readers interested in subjects such as UFOlogy and trance channeling.

Something Beyond Top Secret is magazine editor Ray Palmer's enormous contribution to the annals of UFOs / UAP / flying saucers / contactees. Palmer has been ignored, minimalized or overlooked by people who are either ignorant or desire to suppress information about these subjects when data doesn't conform with 'military thinking' and commercial mystification orientations. Any collection of facts won't necessarily bring oneself knowledge or wisdom; contemplating the meaning of facts with an open mind is what brings knowledge and wisdom. A few notes about Ray Palmer's accomplishments are presented with the following paragraphs.

• The first issue of Fate magazine in 1948 features the cover report "The Truth about Flying Saucers" by Kenneth Arnold regarding his sighting of "Nine, bright, saucer-like objects flying at 'incredible' speed at 10,000 feet altitude" in 1947. (article)

• The first issue of Mystic Magazine (Nov. 1953) includes "I Traveled In A Flying Saucer" by Orfeo Matthew Angelucci (as told to Paul M. Vest) with two follow-up articles by the duo published in 1954. Palmer commented: ". . . we can only say that whatever happened to him, he is telling the truth about it as it happened to him." Palmer went on to publish Orfeo's case study book The Secret of the Saucers (1955). (article)

• In 1957 Palmer published Flying Saucer Pilgrimage by Bryant and Helen Reeve. Something stated in the book is that "The Reeves insist that saucers and outer-space phenomena cannot be understood by three-dimensional thinking, but can be explained and understood as thought is expanded to metaphysical or cosmic levels." (article)

•Also during the 1950s, Palmer featured in Mystic Magazine a long succession of trance-channeled oration transcripts of 'The Inner Circle' through Mark Probert. Palmer also published a reprint edition of the channeled book OAHSPE (1882) by J. B. Newbrough (1828-1891). Excerpts of the book were presented in Mystic Magazine Issue No. 8 with the headline "THE MOST AMAZING BOOK IN THE WORLD."

FBI files as PDF images concerning Ray Palmer may be read online (1, 2) as examples of how pervasive mainstream news and information has been regulated by minions working in government hierarchies who themselves may never have had access to the gamut of information profiled in articles at this blog. One letter from these files is shown below.

Today just as in 1956, most contemporary people haven't extensively researched 'channeling' / transcendental communication chronologies and are indoctrinated to believe that if this category of psychic phenomena is 'real' than it should be common knowledge. Nonetheless, something that can be comprehended is that the authenticity of channeling should be common knowledge throughout human society. The reasons for evidentiary data being suppressed are involved with a regulated news and information media where commercial and bureaucratic values dominate and are imposed by hierarchies of people whom each fail to accept personal responsibility for one's personal actions.

Mark Probert (1907-1969) was the chosen trance medium (or 'channel') for the group of 17 'controls / communicators' who referred to themselves as "We of the Inner Circle" (this number including his wife Irene following her passing over to the ascended realm of life). As with many other of his contemporary channelers such as Edgar Cayce and Jane Roberts, Probert's case is extensively documented and many transcripts of channeling sessions may be read online. The reason authentic transcendental communication case chronologies are suppressed is the uniformity among messages expressing the importance of peaceful coexistence and metaphysical understanding between people of all paperwork principalities with one another — a perspective that minions functioning in a military-industrial complex regard to be something untenable within the power hierarchy most familiar to them.

The fact that someone is employed in a materialistic bureaucracy can never alter according to—what communicators have expressed with the term 'Universal Law'—whether an action is accomplishing something moral or immoral. During my elder years and now feeling the frustration of having witnessed for many years the seemingly passive reactions of readers to learning about the evidence presented in 750+ articles at this blog, this blogger has shared a few comments in X.com posts encouraging people to consider the importance of accepting personal responsibility for one's actions as each decision that one makes is contributing to the circumstances of one's eternal life or — How will you feel upon making the transition to the 'other side' when you realize Whose ['omnipresent Spirit' / 'All That Is' / 'The Only One'] Was and Is truly 'the right ass to kiss,' which should have been recognized all along.

Those who assume 'channeling' as constituting an aspect of life that is impossible are represented in Mystic Magazine Issue No. 13 by the following paragraphs in two letters to the editor sent by readers.

Excerpt from Fred H. Watts letter

. . . some of the [magazine] departments just do not interest me — the Mark Probert "Inner Circle" thing. Perhaps my limited intelligence prohibits my acceptance or rejection of this treatment and, thereby, leaves me disinterested.

Excerpt from Paul J. Peckonis letter

The Inner Circle is in my opinion as phony as a three dollar bill. I have re-read this feature four times and was amazed and delighted to note the mental dexterity of Mr. Probert and his "controls" in being able to speak on numerous subjects in a fine manner of double talk without saying anything at all conclusive or to the point. It also appears to me that when approaching a point where the "control" may be "boxed in" with having to give a direct answer the "control" finds it necessary to "leave." . . .

Blogger's Response: This point is refuted by the contents of many articles at this blog profiling the Mark Probert case chronology. (A list of evidentiary articles about the Mark Probert channeling case chronology is included in the article "This Is A Journalist's Proof of Mark Probert's Trance Mediumship Channeling".) As previously mentioned — One author who has written about shamanic lore and traditions throughout the world is Piers Vitebsky, whose books include The Shaman (1995). In this book Vitebsky observed that "there are astonishing similarities, which are not easy to explain, between shamanic ideas and practices as far apart as the Arctic, Amazonia and Borneo, even though these societies have probably never had any contact with each other." (article)

The first letter in this issue receives a reply from 'Rap' (Palmer's initials used as a nickname) that perhaps would enable people who've been critical of subjects selected acquire a fuller understanding of his mentality and motivations. The letter and reply are quoted in the entirety, as follows.

Mrs. Ruth C. Yerks Letter (from Germany)

Dear Mr. Palmer:

In both FATE and MYSTIC you advertise the tale of The Secret of the Saucers by Orfeo Angelucci. [case profile article] The book says it has the secret of the saucers, that they come from outer space, and the entities guiding them are on a higher plane than we people of Earth.

But in the October issue of MYSTIC you are presenting the Shaver Mystery. Mr. Shaver says the saucers come from underground, from the land of the dero and tero.

What I specifically want to known is why you push the sale of two books whose claims are exactly opposite?

Being a great rationalizer, I can pretty well predict your answer. You will probably say: "Now look here, there are all kinds of saucers. Shaver's saucers come from down under, and Mr. Angelucci's come from up yonder."

Now, am I confused! What does Palmer really say?

Palmer's Reply to This Letter

Well, you're wrong. I won't say what you predict. I say Angelucci and Shaver are both correct, and that they DO NOT conflict. There are NOT two kinds of saucers. What Shaver reports and what Angelucci reports are THEIR personal observations of the SAME THING. It is because Ray Palmer feels he knows what that same thing is, that he says BOTH apparently conflicting views are right. I hope to demonstrate, before I am through, exactly what I think. But just to say it flatly will result in nothing but a flat dismissal. Like if I said both were made of green cheese. You'd quit reading then and there — and that's what the truth would sound like! NOBODY has yet stated the actual truth. The whole truth. I won't say yet either, because I feel that somebody else knows the whole truth, and if they reveal it, it will serve as proof that I am right. In no other way can I prove I am right. And I MAY BE WRONG.

What I want is to have you stick with me until these things begin to click in place automatically. I want you to say: "By jiminy, he was right, both ways!"—Rap.

Blogger's Response: As previously mentioned in a 2024 article regarding Arthur Shuttlewood's experiences — As with the other documented contactee case chronologies profiled at this blog (Truman Bethurum, Orfeo Angelucci, Daniel W. Fry), the involvement of an omnipresent organizing Universal Source Consciousness cannot be excluded from achieving a reasonable understanding of the Nature made observable through the gamut of aspects and phenomena detailed as having been revealed.

Anyone who fears this essential truth regarding an omnipresent spiritual Oneness with each individual organism / entity / unit being a component need first comprehend that this Oneness is one's own innate Divine "I AM Presence." (article)

Those with an understanding of 'paranormal initiation/s' will respect Ray Palmer as instrumental to preserving a vast array of UFOlogy, metaphysical, cosmological and transcendental communication evidence. In this issue of Mystic Magazine, one reader's letter consists of a succession of varied metaphysical observations about the world and the following is Palmer's comment.

You have defined rationalization PERFECTLY. All these proofs you mention are steps in the process known as rationalization. They "prove" it to you, but not to me. Proof is something that convinces us all.—Rap.

This definition of the word 'proof' raises a question in relation to interactions or experiences categorized as involving so-called 'paranormal' occurrences: Can any evidence be considered as constituting 'convincing proof' for everyone? This blogger's UFOlogy article and two trending X.com posts promoting the information are an example of this quandary. The current X statistics for the posts are indicated below.

Article Links: 1, 2

Something previously mentioned is — Considering how severely has declined the amount of daily search engine clicks to attract new readers at this blog, I'm currently using X.com (formerly Twitter) as a way of informing people about what may be learned at this blog.

A 2023 blog article reports — Search engine algorithm changes first became obvious in the spring of 2022 during and then following a succession of new factual UFOlogy blog articles. As I've always stated, I consider myself a journalist first when it comes to choosing what is the most important and enlightening subject for each successive Metaphysical Articles blog post (with myself taking into consideration all that has been reported in all the preceding posts). The downturn seemed unprecedented as I've previously regarded UFOlogy articles as being of great interest to readers at the present time with there having been manifold news reports about this subject albeit with government and military bureaucratic public relations agendas in relation to supposed national security issues.

Readers who’ve developed their metaphysical knowledge may perhaps appreciate what is expressed in these passages written by Ray Palmer in the Editorial for this edition of Mystic Magazine —

In all the years we have been publishing magazines, we have felt one thing very strongly, and with the greatest of regret — and that is the conviction that hardly anybody thinks! We feel that it is a fact that the major proportion of the people who buy magazines (or books, or any other medium of communication for that matter), buy them solely for amusement, and will positively resent being asked to think and even retaliate for being disturbed by a serious thought by determining not to buy the magazine again, and telling the editor so! Anything that suggests another possibility might exist other than what they have been taught (and now know by rote) is called "outrageous nonsense," "fakery," "hogwash" and finally we are asked how we can present such stuff with a straight face! In plain words, if you think differently, if only in a speculative manner, you are assumed to be aware that you are perpetrating a fraud, because you wear a "straight face."

What is one to think when he makes a statement, and he is answered by "how can you say that with a straight face?"

Perhaps we should call the thing that blankets thinking in the majority of human beings the "straight face." For fear that we will appear to be fools, and to reveal our "lack" of knowledge or mental "ability," we put on a wooden mask that hides our features so that no one will know what we are thinking, or actually, that we are not thinking at all. We freeze our features into straight lines, severe, inflexible, stony, uncompromising. We place our brain in a mold, fill it with concrete, and completely solidify it into "motionless knowledge." Then, armed with this battering ram, we go about beating "soft heads" to a pulp with the sheer weight of our blind acceptance of the status quo.

"Smile when you say that, pardner!" isn't so funny at all when you realize that the majority of the people to whom you reveal your thoughts insist that you reassure them you are "only kidding," by wearing an expression calculated to reassure them you are only kidding.

Just recently, in the news, we have seen some examples of straight faces that failed to slip at the proper moment. We refer to the clerical gentlemen who were tried and convicted of thinking when all they were expected to do was to parrot. Any deviation was branded heresy, and promptly squelched. Nobody set out to prove, logically, by thinking processes, where they erred — they only condemned, and forbade. No more of that!, they said. Under penalty of the worst kind.

Well, in one way we agree. Those gentlemen who disagree with anything should not be a part of it. And if they really were thinkers, no matter how erroneous, at least they would have the honor and integrity to get out of the organization they were so grossly offending. We don't feel that wiping off their "straight face" is an honorable thing to do. Anyway, let it be known that when your editor says something in MYSTIC he does not have his tongue in his cheek, he does not have a straight face, he does not intend to mislead you, he is not playing a joke on you, and he is not kidding!

Nor does this disqualify us from being "the devil's advocate" and taking the opposite stand for the purposes of argument. Even in that we are sincere. Nor does it prevent us from taking a neutral stand, if such a thing can be called a "stand." When we don't know the answer to a question, we're going to come right out and day we don't know the answer.

The man who can make the H-bomb, has knowledge, but is he learned or foolish? Is he a genius or an idiot?

We can forgive an intelligent man for ignorance, but how can we forgive a learned man for being stupid?

It seems logical assuming man to be intelligent that even after he has invented an atom bomb on paper, he will not build it. It is undeniably true that man can build a bomb that can destroy him utterly. Yet, we see those same men today going ahead with the building of such a bomb. Why? WHY? It is a question impossible to answer, unless Mr. Shaver is right, that our intelligence has been damaged, is not functioning correctly, is polarized so that right seems wrong and wrong seems right. The processes of thinking lead to the conclusion that the bomb can destroy the earth, so the end result of that thinking is the decision to build it! Exactly what Mr. Shaver wants to prove — that somehow, some way, our thinking is polarized, and tends to reverse itself in logic. Every step of our thinking is correct, but the final answer is wrong! Some hellish mirror is held up before our brain, and its waves (if they are waves) come out reversed.

Mystic Magazine No. 13 inside front cover art offers "an example of a mandala as painted by Hannes Bok."

As previously mentioned in blog articles — 'channeled entities' have offered instruction about the dual positive / good and negative / bad polarities. 'Dr. Peebles' through William Rainen is quoted: "this consciousness of the eternal God is of negative and positive polarity." 'Silver Birch' said through Maurice Barbanell: "Good and evil are opposite sides of the same coin. So are love and hate, light and dark, storm and peace. This is a polarity." 'Ramtha' speaking through JZ Knight has said: ". . . if you are looking for knowledge, you must transcend the limited specter of social consciousness" and "If there is evil then there is good. Evil cannot exist without the polarity of good." (Soulmates 1987 First Printing) Contactee Arthur Shuttlewood reported about instruction given to him by people from Aenstria: "There is a continual warring between positive and negative forces, I was told. On principles of polarity, just as there is good and evil at work on Earth, so there are forces of Darkness and Light among [some potentially encountered] UFO-denizens."

(article)

The Reeves interviewed Orfeo Angelucci in Los Angeles. He, Truman Bethurum and Daniel Fry each resided in the Los Angeles area during a period of their lives.

These are some of the statements of space-beings in the book by Orfeo Angelucci that are quoted by Bryant and Helen Reeve in Flying Saucer Pilgrimage.

Every person upon Earth and its adjoining planes of manifestation are definitely arrayed upon either the positive side of progression toward good, or on the negative side of regression toward greater evil.

Nearly all three-dimensional beings have no concept of, nor could they possibly understand, extra-dimensional beings.

Our disks, or saucers as Earthmen term them, are in your space-time frame as harbingers of mankind's coming resurrection from the living death.

(Compare this with a statement about "the living dead" by 'Yada' through Mark Probert quoted in the preceding article: "There are really no dead except those who are not awake. You see, many people, great masses, all of the human race in fact, go around with their eyes open. It appears they are awake, they are not. They are only aware of their little outside dream, hoping it will be as they emotionally expect it to be. They are not awake. These are the living dead. All of us have come up from that state . . .")

The Reeves also report about interviewing Daniel Fry and this is an excerpt from their book.

The major earth difficulty, as set forth in Alan's Message is that our physical science has developed so much faster than our social science and our religious science that we are dangerously out of balance. By developing mutual understanding and helpfulness between peoples everywhere, we must strengthen our social and religious foundations sufficiently and develop them faster in order to support our scientific progress, or our entire civilization will soon collapse.

This is the Reeve's concluding observations after Truman Bethurum and his wife visited their home in Detroit during his lecture tour.

Many details are set forth in his written account, and to us these details are worthy of intense study by any sincere researcher. Taken alone these details might appear to be too fantastic to merit serious attention, but in terms of the coordinating work of our research they are, in our opinion, of outstanding value as a contribution to our human knowledge of this vast subject. The details are not out of line with the larger picture of space-craft, space-people and space-phenomena which gradually unfolded to our astonished eyes as our saucer pilgrimage proceeded.

Bryant and Helen Reeve shared this observation in the chapter of their book about Orfeo Angelucci.

It seems to us that Angelucci's experiences and his forthright and honest revelation of them belong not to the multitude of unawakened humans who invariably classify everything beyond the range of the five physical senses as either buncombe or heresy. Rather they belong primarily to those with a certain natural or acquired capacity for understanding them. The saucer enthusiast who is still in that mental state where he absolutely insists that the saucers be served down to him, flat on the ground, and brim full of material sauce will doubtless find little that is either appetizing or palatable in Angelucci's saucer experiences. After all, if one's viewpoint is "flat on the ground," that fact alone prohibits one from being able to follow saucers into the higher realms of life and consciousness from which many of them, but not all of them do come.

Angelucci's story of his experiences offers to the reader an opportunity to study the problem which the space-people themselves evidently face in trying to reveal their own true nature to the men of earth. Even with a spiritually advanced individual like Angelucci, they had a problem in revealing themselves to him without his slipping into doubts, fears, and even worrying about his own sanity . . . Modern psychologists might be interested in studying Angelucci's efforts to convey to others the knowledge he has received from the space-beings and the ridicule and scorn which not only he but his wife and children have to face. Those who complain that the space-people are not doing all they should in revealing themselves should study these things.

Previous blog article involving Ray Anthony Palmer (1910-1977) include "Ray Palmer's Flying Saucer and Metaphysical Questions Answered By 'The Inner Circle' Through Mark Probert 1954" and "Self-Realization in the Aquarian Age — 'The Inner Circle' Through Mark Probert 1955".

These photos are portraits of Mark Probert (1907-1969), the trance medium (or 'channeler') through whom a total of 17 'controls' / 'personalities' of 'The Inner Circle' spoke during intervals. After sharing psychic 'transcendental communication' gifts for decades, Mark ultimately could only have accepted the staggering fact that most contemporary people simply are culturally programmed to only accept familiar social consciousness orientations about what is or isn't presumed possible to experience within assumed 'status quo' 'reality.' One facet of the paintings and photos showing the control communicators is how Mark's wife after passing over to the afterlife became the final personality to speak through him as a representative of the ascended realm of life. (article)

Meade Layne was the man instrumental in the implementation of Probert's trance mediumship for a scientific orientation and it was he who was conducting the experimental session when the communicators of The Inner Circle first introduced themselves.

Meade Layne (1882-1961)

National Director of the Borderland Sciences Research Associates in San Diego, California, Layne wrote a letter to Chicago physicist Roger Graham in Oct. 1946. Graham wrote science fiction for Ray Palmer and was a researcher of flying saucers during the early days of UFOlogy. The letter presented his perspective concerning the philosophy of his organization and he offered these comments about his professional career.

A few words about myself, since you have given me considerable insight into your ways of thought. I am not a scientist or mathematician. I have a Doctorate in philosophy, though the thesis for the degree was actually done in comparative literature. I taught in various colleges and universities, also in high schools for several years. So I'm only an academician who has strayed into borderland sciences and psychic research. My occult background is in what is called modern esoteric Qabalism — which is no child's play, I assure you. I found it more valuable than anything else I ever studied. Academic distinctions don't amount to a damn to anybody who has even begun to grow up — I mean UP, except as a means of livelihood — in teaching. You may have a dozen degrees, for all I know; if you have, you'll undoubtedly agree with me. They don't necessarily indicate even a good I.Q., and often spell pedantry and intolerance. Enough of that stuff; I only want to say that my mental outlook is colored by this background and is of a feebly philosophic sort.

These three books and a BSRA booklet are four of the publications documenting the Mark Probert channeling case chronology.

In the January 1956 issue of Mystic Magazine, a female writer named Traver Bornholz contributed the article "I Investigated Mark Probert." The entire eight-page article is presented verbatim with the quoted paragraphs that follow. One of the many aspects of this report for the reader to give one's attention is how the channeled entity is reported to have reacted upon being challenged by a disbeliever. In this transcript Irene made mention of there being "seventeen members of The Inner Circle now" with this being a total with an additional member than the previously mentioned amount of 16, as stated by the communicators themselves according to extant session transcripts.

Many readers of Mystic have asked for the prosaic story of Mark Probert, to provide a background for their thinking concerning the Inner Circle. We present that story here.

Having read of Mark Probert in Meade Layne's Round Robin [journal], I was eager to see him. So when I heard he was to hold a meeting in Grant's Pass, Oregon, I filled my car with spiritualist friends and headed down to hear him, anticipating another three hour siege in a stuffy dark room listening to quavering voices from a world where everyone attended lectures and concerts in marble halls in the company with their relatives and old friends, who had suddenly become cultured through the mysterious process of death.

As I had been told that the meeting was to be held in a house a mile and a half from town at the end of a long lane, I prepared myself for a farm house. I had my recorder in the trunk, not because I thought myself expert enough to operate it in total blackness, but simply because it was my latest and my most prized acquisition. You can imagine my surprise when I discovered the house at the end of the long to be a comfortable, modern home in the midst of a charming garden on the bank of the scenic Rogue River.

Lugging my Revere, which always leaves me with one arm slightly longer than the other, I made my way to the nearest door and found myself in a delightfully gleaming kitchen. There were people all over the place; very presentable, intelligent looking people of all ages, one of whom shuttled me through the crowd to our hostess, of whom I asked to use my recorder.

"You'll have to ask Mark," she beamed. "But I'm sure it will be quite all right."

Mark . . . where was Mark? I finally discovered him in a group on the river bank. Mark Probert, a small, wiry, tweedy sort of man, who should have been smoking a pipe and wasn't.

At first glance it occurred to me to wonder how so much activity could be stilled long enough for him to go into a trance without a quick tap on the head. This was no out of this world character exuding ectoplasm at every pore, but a man with a broad sense of humor, a disarming naturalness, and the inquisitiveness of a small boy.

I liked him. It was no great accomplishment, as it would take a great deal of concentration and will power to dislike Mark Probert.

Here was no mysterious mystic, but simply a man who was doing something he had to do, just as I have to write, and others have to plant things and watch them grow.

He told us he had done many, many other things in his life, such as dancing, singing, painting and riding horses, but now he was doing what he seemed to have been born to do, and that most of the time it was a thankless, unrewarding job, but that he had to do it.

My tape recorder? But of course, if I could find room to hook it up. There were five others.

The large, cheerful, comfortably furnished living room was filled with sunlit summer breezes. About twenty-five men and women, and two little boys settled themselves expectantly. Mark sat down at a card table with six microphones on, or near it, and Mrs. Probert, or Irene as everyone called her, took her place in a comfortable lounging chair next to him.

I sat looking at six very interesting portraits on the wall and waited for the windows to be closed and the blinds drawn. Much to my surprise this never did happen, and I later learned the reason to be Mark's teachers' refusal to come through in the dark. It was very broad daylight, and there certainly were wires, but not concealed, as they were all attached to our tape recorders.

After our hostess had checked her guest list and made certain that everyone had arrived, Irene Probert proceeded to give the following introduction, which I have taken directly from my tape.

"I first met and married Mark when we were both working in the audiovisual department of the public school system in San Diego, and it was about a month after our marriage that Mark started talking in foreign languages in his sleep. Having been a teacher in Citizenship I could tell that he spoke in foreign languages though I was unable to translate what he was saying. When I told him about his talking, he just laughed and said, 'I'm just gibbering. I can't speak any foreign languages.'

"During the war we went to work in one of the war plants. After working there about five months the noise proved too much for Mark, as he was a sensitive though unaware of it. One morning, when he was in drop hammer, the band saw started up suddenly and he went crazy and started running. He had a nervous breakdown, and was taken to the hospital. They called me, and the doctor advised me to take Mark to our family physician. As we had no family physician I thought the most logical person would be a neurologist.

"As part of Mark's case history I related his talking in foreign languages in his sleep, to which he said, 'Oh, you just imagined that.' So I replied, 'Well doctor you just imagine we haven't been here, because I don't intend to pay you.' And with that we left. And, you know, that taught me a lesson. I'd been seeking someone who could give me an explanation of this phenomena, and if a so-called scientifically minded man would give me such an asinine answer, it might be better to keep quiet about it, lest we both be put in psycho [ward].

"Not knowing what to do I just took Mark home, and he continued talking night after night. Every night or early morning, he'd talk or sometimes sing in foreign languages, and then one morning he sang 'Ave Maria' in Italian, and announced, 'I'm Enrico Caruso!' Then one morning someone came through with the 'Strawberry Roan' in Spanish, and I said, 'Oh, the "Strawberry Roan,"' and he said, 'Red Horse.' Those were the only two English words I'd heard spoken by Mark in his sleep in all three years.

"About this time Mark spoke of these goings on to a watchmaker friend of his, who had known him long enough to be quite sure that he couldn't be pretending this knowledge of foreign tongues. It was this friend of Mark's who brought us into contact with a customer of his, a Mr. Meade Layne. After talking it over with us, Mr. Layne said to Mark, 'I think you're a trance medium and just don't know it, so if you don't object I'll come over Sunday, and we'll try some experiments.'

"When he arrived on the appointed Sunday, he turned out all the lights, which we discovered later was quite unnecessary and wholly against the laws of the teachers. Mark sat there for a while, and said he felt as if he was losing his equilibrium, but then he snapped out of it, and it was as though a tremendous thrill went through his body such as we often experience when listening to beautiful music. Then he went out, and was out about forty-five minutes.

"During this time a man came through who spoke English, an American who had once been an actor in New York. He told us that he was drawn to Mark because of their common interests and experience in the theatrical world."

Mark interrupted Irene here and said, "Yes, on the stage, in vaudeville as a hoofer."

Irene then continued, "Yes, this man who called himself Mortimer Lingford, said he used to sign and dance as Mark had professionally. He is still one of the members of what we have come to refer to as Mark's Inner Circle.

"After this we held meetings every Sunday for Meade Layne and one or two others whom he would invite. All of these meetings from the very beginning were based on discussion of scientific and philosophical subjects, as the teachers have never cared to discuss people's personal problems such as how they should spend their money or whom they should marry and that sort of thing.

"After three years of this, the teachers announced that we were ready to hold open meetings and I thought of the first three years when I had been unable to get one person to listen to or believe in Mark, and wondered how we were supposed to find enough interested people for such a meeting. But, they just started calling up and asking to come, and we went on three more years holding small open meetings in our home.

"Next the teachers announced that we were to start traveling. You know, just like that! Just as if we had the means to travel. But before we knew it people began writing to us who had read about Mark in Round Robin, and first thing we knew we were making trips out of the city, and ever since then we've been branching out more and more.

"Two years ago Mark was writing a letter to one of his brothers in New York and I was downtown. Suddenly Mark looked up. Six of his teachers were standing right there in the room. It just about frightened poor Mark to death. He jumped up, upset his chair, barked his shin [hurt himself] and bolted for the door, but they said, 'Wait, come back here. We are just some members of your Inner Circle who want you to paint us.'

"Mark sat down and sketched them, and from time to time they reappeared until he now has these six pictures completed. There are seventeen members of The Inner Circle now and Mark has other portraits he is still working on." [One blog article is "Portraits and Profiles of The Inner Circle 'Teachers of Light'".]

At this point Irene proceeded to introduce us to the portraits I had noticed on the wall.

Pointing to the gentleman in the English clothes she said, "Professor Alfred Luntz about 1812 to 1893, a minister for the High Episcopal Church in England and one time professor at Oxford University." Arakashi was introduced as having been with Mark since his birth, a holy man who lived and died in the Punjab district of India in the 13th century before Christ. Ramond Natalli was presented as a one-time member of the Royal House of Astronomy in Rome at the time of Galileo, Maharaja Natcha Tramalaki as having been born in 1848 in Dacca, Bengal Province and who died in 1915 confessing that he had found no answer to life that gave him peace of mind. Next Lao-Tse or Laeo-Tzu, a central figure in Taoism. Then at last she told us about the portrait that my eyes had never quite been able to get away from . . . that of E Yada di Shi'ite.

Mrs. Probert explained that he had revealed that he had been born in the city of Kaoti in a civilization called Yuga or Yu, a civilization consisting of 180 million people a half million years ago, in the Himalayan Mountains. When he first comes through Mark he always speaks in his own language, and then proceeds in English. Once again I quote Mrs. Probert from my tape.

"We had an opportunity to go before a professor of ancient and modern languages at UCLA. He said we could have forty-five minutes of his time, as he was getting ready to go on a vacation, but after he had heard Yada he became so interested he kept us five hours and wanted to know if Mark would stay longer if he would pay him.

"According to Yada, Mark and his Inner Circle got together before his incarnation into this life and agreed that they should help him teach what he had failed to teach in 1313 in China because of vested interests."

By the time this introduction was ended Mark began acting somewhat nervous upon which he explained to us that we were not to be alarmed if he grimaced or looked as if he were in pain, as he really was not, but was feeling only a sense of growing exaltation. Then after a couple of very deep sighs, a slight sucking sound followed by a complete transformation of personality into a somewhat oriental aspect, whereupon Yada came through bowing and greeting us in his own language.

The meeting started promptly at two, and we sat until six with one ten-minute intermission. The last speaker was Professor Luntz who offered to go on with his discussion, if we cared to stay. Personally, I would have been quite willing to listen four more hours, but many were out of town visitors, who felt they should start home before dark.

E Yada di Shi'ite, first to come in, had spoken with us about two hours, after which we took a short intermission. I managed to have a smoke in the garden with Mark during which I was completely satisfied that being in trance for two hours had neither discomfited nor depleted him in any way. He was the same man I had talked to earlier in the afternoon until he suddenly made a grimace, put his hand to his abdomen and announced that he must get back to his post as the teachers were ready to return.

We all settled back in our seats and Sister Theresa came through. Being somewhat puzzled by her modern diction I inquired if she was St. Theresa, the Little Flower of Jesus.

"Oh, heaven help me, no," she answered in an awed voice. "I was just a common ordinary nun, a sister in Brooklyn."

There was nothing particularly profound in what she had to say, but she charmed us all with her sweet humbleness and delightful humor. She told us that she was 79 or 80 before she began to question the infallibility of Catholicism and explore other religions and philosophies, and was 84 when she died. The whole tone of her talk was that of a sweet old lady, who still had some regrets over the experiences she had missed during her earthly existence.

She was followed by Professor Luntz.

With this introduction to Mark Probert's Inner Circle I invited him and his wife Irene to include Eugene [city] in his Northern lecture tour and be my house guest. He agreed, and when the day came, I went down to meet him. It was a rainy night.

The train pulled in and disgorged its passengers. I got out in the rain and ran hither and thither, but could see no sign of Mark. Remembering the two lectures and some fifty people I had booked for him on my say so, I put down my head and hurried up the tracks into the night to where the chair car passengers alight. There at last I came upon the Proberts, Mark looking like a sparrow which had been pushed out of its nest into a puddle.

By the time I got them and their baggage into the car he was coughing uncontrollably and we had to stop at a drugstore for Kleenex and Ben Gay. Even after a hot bath and a cup of tea before a roaring fire, he didn't look fit to lecture the following night.

My husband and teenage son and daughters liked the Proberts immediately, and we all felt like old friends by the time we went to bed.

I want to say right here, that anyone contemplating entertaining the Proberts couldn't ask for more congenial house guests. Whether it's coffee in the kitchen or dinner in style with one's salad forks and butter knives on display, it's all the same to these two people who prefer a simple diet and interesting conversation to the most elaborate fare. And believe me, there's no end to interesting conversation when Mark and Irene are around.

There's only one rule which must be followed assiduously, and that is dinner must be over a good full hour before the meeting or the teachers may have trouble coming through, or fail to come through altogether. To put it explicitly, they say that Mark burps them out of his aura. I find this very interesting as digestive upsets in some degree seem to be a factor with many mediums at such times.

Our first evening's meeting was attended by a group of sympathetic listeners, all of whom had some background in occultism. Some of them were strangers who had come in response to the announcement I had placed in the newspaper, but we all visited like lifetime acquaintances during our short intermission which followed two hours with Yada.

The air of that intermission resembled a cocktail party more than a seance, as we talked over our tomato juice so animatedly, as if stimulated by something far more potent than the words of a man from 500,000 years in the past.

Returning to the living room we completed the evening with a two-hour visit with Professor Luntz, which was highly entertaining as well as informative.

The following night was entirely different as the audience was made up wholly of skeptics with little or no background in the occult. I had persuaded two professors from the University of Oregon to join us, two from the psychology department and one from anthropology. They were very polite and very quiet, and left early because of previous commitments for the evening. As they took their leave I told them that they could have a closed session with Mark at the University if they or any of their colleagues were interested. They evidently were not, as I never heard from them again, yet psychologists are reputed to be interested in the workings of the human mind!

One very didactic young woman monopolized the next portion of the evening by arguing, or trying to argue with Yada to the irritation of many of the listeners. Yada's reaction to the heckling was very interesting, inasmuch as he evinced no irritation or impatience whatever but only the patience and compassionate gentleness one might have toward a child. Some of us regretted that she left before we had a chance to observe how Professor Luntz might have reacted to her. Her remarks upon leaving was that she thought it regrettable that Mark Probert should pretend to speak for other people as he talked quite interestingly.

A young university student took up where she left off, but asked many interesting questions concerning science and religion which brought out a stimulating discussion with Professor Luntz and Yada.

Never having witnessed anything of the kind before, most of this night's audience left shaking their heads and wondering why Mark Probert saw fit to impersonate others, when he could be such an able lecturer on his own. As for Yada, a man who claimed to have lived 500,000 years ago . . . well that was preposterous.

None of them had stopped to consider the fact that Mark was still suffering from a severe cold, and had been seized with an uncontrollable flit of coughing just prior to the lecture, and that once the teachers came in he had talked for four hours without so much as clearing his throat. Even a lecturer on a conventional platform usually has a pitcher of water nearby, and for a two-hour lecture at the most.

Insomuch as children and animals are supposed to be sharper at judging one's true nature than adults, I found it very interesting that my children took to Mark the way they did. As a matter of fact, my thirteen-year-old daughter became very fond of him and listened to both lectures. She likened Mark to Peter Pan insomuch as he would never grow old. She has never quite forgiven me for not wakening her to go to the station with us at 5:30 the morning of his departure.

The first question on everyone's lips nowadays is: "Does it pay?" From my observations I'd say, definitely no!

Any medium, who can bring through discarnate parents, who have even forgotten their children's names, gets three dollars per person, and Mark charges the same or five dollars a couple. The Proberts do not travel all the time, and when they are home their charge is much less and their audience is usually confined to the few people who can crowd into their small living room.

Personally, I agree with my daughter that Mark Probert is about as mercenary and practical as Peter Pan, and could never manage without his Wendy. Irene is practical insomuch as she maintains a staunch belief in the teachers' ability to keep them fed, housed and presentably clothed as long as she and Mark devote their lives to giving forth the teachings.