10/21/22: OUTSIDE THE BOX W/ MARY BETHUNE

Throughout the ages, there are those who have claimed to be able to communicate with the dearly departed by using crystal balls or performing seances. As technology has advanced, many people are aware of EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) which records, analyzes, and interprets aberrant sounds. There are other ways to contact the dead through the use of electronic devices – one such method is called ITC (Instrumental Trans Communication). Spirit or ghost boxes are utilized primarily by paranormal investigators but phones, radios, and older televisions can also be used as frequency portals into the etheric realm.  Tonight on Ground Zero, Clyde Lewis talks with paranormal investigator, Mary Bethune about OUTSIDE THE BOX.

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10/21/22: OUTSIDE THE BOX W/ MARY BETHUNE

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People in nearly every culture have long believed that communication with the dead is possible, and throughout the ages, many people have claimed to be able to speak with the dearly departed. Ghosts and spirit communication often show up in classic literature, including mythology, the Bible, and Shakespeare’s plays.

In Victorian England, it was fashionable in many circles to conduct séances; Ouija boards, three-legged tables, candles, and other accouterments were used to try to contact the dead.

When the influenza pandemic hit the U.S. between 1918 and 1920, Americans wanted answers. Their questions weren’t limited to what caused the pandemic or might prevent the next one. They struggled with more eternal concerns, such as what happens to us after we die and whether it’s possible to communicate with dead loved ones.

The flu pandemic wasn’t alone in spurring this search for meaning. World War I, which ended in November 1918, had racked up a worldwide death toll of 20 million soldiers and civilians, according to one estimate. And if that wasn’t sufficiently staggering, influenza had taken at least 50 million lives. In both cases, most victims were young — between 20 and 40, in the case of the flu — and left behind parents, spouses, sweethearts and children.

Not surprisingly, spiritualism, which promised a window into the afterlife, saw a sudden resurgence in the United States, Great Britain, France, and elsewhere. A February 1920 headline in the New York Sun said it all: “Riddle of the Life Hereafter Draws World’s Attention.”

The two most prominent proponents of spiritualism were British: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sir Oliver Lodge. Doyle was, of course, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Lodge was a respected physicist known for his work with radio waves.

In automatic writing, the spirit supposedly guided the medium’s hand to write out messages. In table tilting, participants typically sat around a séance table while the medium recited the alphabet. When the medium arrived at the letter the spirit had in mind, the table would tilt, turn, levitate or make some other inexplicable move. Still, other mediums went into trances and allowed the dead to speak directly through them.

In his messages, Raymond offered a comforting version of the great beyond, complete with flowers, trees, dogs, cats, and birds. He repeatedly assured his parents that he was happy. He told them he’d reconnected with his late grandfather plus a brother and sister who died in infancy and made many new friends. He reported that soldiers who’d lost an arm in battle found it magically restored, although those who were “blown to pieces” took a bit longer to become whole.

While Lodge and Doyle appear to have been sincere in their beliefs, they inadvertently gave a boost to scam artists who saw money to be made from grieving families and the simply curious.

Thomas Edison actually had an interest in contacting the dead — but he believed that he could use technology to somehow find a frequency where the dead could speak.

Nicola Tesla of course also had the same vision; in fact, many of the special ghost boxes that paranormal researchers have used are part of this frequency scrying that both Edison and Tesla envisioned.

General Electric also talks about Edison’s devices on its website and how the spirit machine was a national sensation after World War I.

On the website it says:

In 1920, Americans were still reeling from the horrific casualties of World War I. Meanwhile, spiritualism, Ouija boards, and the slew of new technological inventions from men like Thomas Edison were capturing the national zeitgeist. All these converged when Edison told American Magazine that he was working on a device known as a “spirit phone” — in other words, a phone that would let the living communicate with the dead.

The result was a national craze. Most of the major newspapers and magazines in the country leapt to cover this astounding new “invention.” And the magazine that broke the story received over 600 letters to the editor from people obsessed with the device.

These letters range from offers of help with the design to claims that such a machine already existed — and at least one gentleman wrote to ask how he could place a call once he reached the afterlife since he expected to die shortly.

— From the General Electric History, Edison’s forgotten ‘Invention’: A Phone That Calls the Dead.

It needs to be addressed that Edison, by this time, had already invented the phonograph which was an invention that could play back the voices of the dead. Radios were also able to play the voices of dead souls for the living’s enjoyment so the logical next step was to contact the dead using several of the ideas that he had patented.

Now computers can play the voices of dead people as well. It was a concept that would now be taken for granted. However, back in the 1920s, people hearing the voices of the dead played for them on a box and a rolled tube was phenomenal.

Ever since stumbling upon some old grimoires, I have been obsessed over a lot of the writings that alchemists of the 1600s have written. Apparently, in those dark times, there were friars, priests, and even magicians that would converse with one another over many paranormal topics.

I have been reading the exchanges and letters that discussed the problems of human plague, the act of vampirism, Satanic Bloodletting, and even the behavior of werewolves. In recording the deeper truths for later generations, the ancient sages and seers adopted the use of metaphor or figures of speech. It is apparent that within these texts, there are these alchemical definitions that are given to a lot of these subjects and I am realizing that Hollywood and most fiction have taken liberties with some very serious conditions of the human mind that were once attributed to the work of the devil.

In the era of the alchemists, the dangers of satanic entrapment were very real.

As someone with an interest in folklore and the paranormal, I want to say that you would not believe just how much traditional and cultural beliefs have been altered by the internet, movies, and television. It is also unfortunate that the most popular paranormal beliefs today are primarily shaped by Hollywood.

The great teachers of past ages wrote letters to each other, and composed their books, passing them from hand to hand. Those who were initiated could understand what they read; to them, it was intelligible and clear, but to the man who had not been received within “secret schools”, the teachings were merely speculative philosophy, or perhaps meaningless babble.

These wisdom teachings have come down in direct succession from sage to sage, ever since the Mysteries were first instituted among men.

The sages and magicians were very wise and most certainly encountered their fair share of individuals that fell victim to voluntary satanic entrapment.

One wise sage would say that when the demon knocks thrice on the door where you live — you must address and identify the demon and send him on his way because he will bargain and coerce you into giving up blood and soul. In the 17th century, there was a practice that was also being used for divination called enoptromancy. It was the practice of personal divination using the candle and the mirror. The candle would give light to the mirror and the mirror could be compared to a screen, where images in the shadows would appear and give information to the one who was seeking answers.

The technique would be similar to gazing into a crystal ball where the reflecting light would create images that would be interpreted as portents and warnings of things to come.

Today, it could be said that modern items can be used for divination, and staring at the screen of a computer or even a smartphone obviously has the same effect. Now, mind you, if you were to tell someone that staring into their phone, or spending too much time on a computer can be seen as a form of voluntary or progressive entrapment they would probably laugh at you.

But this is what they call a Black Mirror.

There is a TV series of the same name.

The name “Black Mirror” refers to a blank video screen.

We have come a long way from Tesla and Edison and their ideas to use electronic devices to scry the frequencies to talk with the dead. It is time to put down the Black mirror and think outside of the box.

While many people are aware of EVP and how it can be recorded on your cell phone or a micro recorder — there are ways to contact the dead by using electronic devices.

It is an advanced method called ITC.

ITC which stands for Instrumental Trans-Communication is very intriguing because it is a way to use electronic devices to communicate with the dead.

Mark Macy once appeared on Ground Zero to talk about phone calls from the dead. He proposed that it was possible to communicate with the dead using telephones, radios, and televisions.

It is with the same technologies that spirit boxes or portals have been built.

On September 7th, 1897 Edison patented his spirit communication machine with the US patent office. There are many websites that suggest that Edison’s vision of communicating with the dead was all an urban legend and yet there were ads that were placed in the Saturday Evening Post advertising a marvelous contraption that, allegedly, could communicate with the dead.

At the turn of the 21st century, there were prototypes that used Edison’s and Tesla’s Ideas.

The Electric Ouija Machine and the Psycho-phone seemed to be a combination of several technologies that, when used with powerful transmitting devices, would open a portal in the ether which would make it possible for the dead to speak with the living.

In 1995, the Beatles used this technology to reunite. The song Free as a Bird is actually a song that featured the ghostly voice of John Lennon appearing with the other three Beatles.  Lennon had once said that spiritualism should interest everyone.  He often attended séances and had premonitions of his death.

Paul McCartney confessed that during the recording of the song Free as a Bird, John’s ghost was in the studio.  McCartney stated that during the recording session they intentionally put a reversed message in the song. In the final moments, there was gibberish and then they heard the words “I’m John Lennon” — the words when reversed say  “Turned Out Nice Again.”

McCartney had said that it was unintentional. The phrase “Turned out nice again” at the end of the song is a reference to George Formby, a musical hall entertainer who played the ukulele and is represented in the closing scenes of the video. “Turned out nice again” was Formby’s catchphrase. The connection here is that George Harrison played the ukulele and was a member of the George Formby Appreciation Society.

McCartney took it as a good sign and a white noise message that John was trying to speak to the Beatles and approve their reunion.

Could it be that with ITC the Beatles contacted John Lennon and that his ghost appears in the song?

In the book of Numbers, we read of how Moses would speak to God using The Ark of the Covenant.  The voice of God or an entity from beyond would speak above the head of Moses just between the two terminals that were made of gold and shaped like cherubim.

Now, in commentary by biblical scholars, we read that the voice of a person was heard in the tabernacle speaking to Moses from the Ark of the testimony. Therefore it can be surmised that the Ark was used to communicate with God or with spirits that were not in the room. The Mercy seat as mentioned in the bible and located in the Ark was also known as “The oracle.”

The oracle seemed to be a stone or, from what I can determine, a magnetized stone.  There were gold plates that were positively and negatively charged in order to produce a great deal of electrical power.  The power was so great that it killed Uzzah, a character in the bible that attempted to steal it. He touched the Ark and it killed him instantly.

It is proposed that a powerful charge was used to create a resonant frequency to communicate. The book of Samuel even states that Samuel and Eli would speak to the Ark and communicate with beings.  All those who officiated near the Ark had to wear protective clothing and head coverings to prevent their hair from falling out and their skin from getting boils. Sometimes there was a great cloud that formed over the Ark and Moses was instructed not to go near the Ark when it had this cloud near it.

The power to speak with discarnate beings has been spoken of in all histories and texts for centuries. Magicians, preachers, popes, and prophets all claim to have been influenced by spirits. Some claim the ability of automatic writing and scrying. These abilities are said to be gifts. However, if these spirit channels could be opened up using powerful technology, wouldn’t it be worth our while to at least give it a try and see if we can get the same spirits to speak with us?

In 1949, Marcello Bacci of Italy began recording voices. He was using an old tube radio. Bacci had claimed that these voices were strange voices from the dead.

People would come to Bacci’s home to talk with their departed relatives. A few years later, two Italian priests called Father Ernetti and Father Gemelli were trying to record a Gregorian chant on their magneto-phone, but the machine malfunctioned. Father Gemelli looked up and wished his Father were alive to help him. Surprisingly his father’s voice answered from the magneto-phone, “Of course, I shall help you. I’m always with you.”

Whether real or fake, the messages conveyed from the great beyond have changed dramatically over time. A century ago, mediums “in touch with the spirit” during séances would write pages and pages of “automatic writing,” the psychic’s hands allegedly guided by ghosts to convey lengthy handwritten messages.

Curiously, ghosts seem to have lost their will or ability to write since that time — and maybe it is all because they can manipulate what can be seen as advanced technology that was created to talk with the dead in the first place.

SHOW GUEST: MARY BETHUNE

Mary Bethune has been for the last 14 years a local paranormal investigator, original founder, case manager, and co-lead leader for the Olympic Peninsula Paranormal Society. She is an avid Instrumental Transcommunication Researcher and Practitioner, specializing in the Ghost Box and Direct Voice Radio communication.

From a young age, Mary has had prophetic dreams and has seen and heard spirits. She is an Afterlife researcher, hoping to teach and help everyone realize that life goes on after death. She is actively involved with the spirit contact team at the North American station and was trained by Rochelle Wright MS, LMHC, CDP in Repair and Reattachment Grief Therapy, which opens up communication with those on the other side.

Written by Ron Patton