Mark Probert And The Inner Circle

"Two books presenting transcripts of transcendental communication through trance medium/channeler Mark Probert (1907-1969) are The Magic Bag" (first printed in 1949, expanded and revised in future editions with a Part 2 published in 1952) subtitled "A Manuscript Received Clairaudiently Through the Mediumship of Mark Probert"; and "The Coming of The Guardians" (first published in 1954 and also later expanded) compiled by Meade Layne, National Director of The Borderland Sciences Research Associates (BSRA). Bryant and Helen Reeve in their book "Flying Saucer Pilgrimage" (1957) presented profiles of both Probert and Layne, as featured in previous blog articles (1 and 2).I was able to obtain a copy of the second printing (1953) of "The Magic Bag", an 86-page BSRA publication; and also a copy of the 249-page version with a 1963 copyright (shown above) published by The Inner Circle Kethra E'Da Foundation, Inc. Both associations were located in San Diego, California. The preceding blog article presented the autobiographical article from the 1963 edition, "Speaking Of Myself" by Mark Probert.In the 1953 edition, Probert commented about his trance mediumship: "Some of the people who communicate through me are said to be very eloquent and learned, and I wish I could hear them for myself... The talk is mostly philosophical and scientific, and since I never had more than a sixth grade grammar school education, it is quite beyond my own normal knowledge and vocabulary." Although the short article "The Control Lao-Tse Explains The Title Of This Book" is different in the two editions of "The Magic Bag", in each the explanation is given: "The bag is consciousness - and in this bag there is all." The revisions are evidently due to the complexity of selecting spoken words that readers find comprehensible. A more extensive compilation of selected Mark Probert trance session transcripts featuring almost entirely the commentary of E Yada di Shi-ite (pronounced 'she-he'tee) is "Yada Speaks or The 500,000 Year Old Wisdom of E Yada di Shi-ite" (1979) introduced, edited and transcribed by Ralph G. Warren. The sessions were held between 1948 and 1968.The original Preface of "The Magic Bag" channeled from The Maharajah Natcha instructs:It is indispensable for you to know that all that is written within these pages cannot be and must not be put forth as indisputable facts to be taken as ultimate truths, but merely as aspects of the truth as seen from our particular standpoint. All of us subscribe to the doctrine of constant variability, and if we so confess our beliefs, we must adhere to them at all times.In respect to all writings as these, much must be expressed in allegory. The phenomena of life does not at any time lend itself to unchangeable facts. It does not take any great amount of intelligence to see that if one set of observed facts is changeable, then that change must of necessity come about through the change of other facts. We abhor dogma in others, so let us pray that we ourselves do not fall into its binding meshes.The transcripts preserved of the Mark Probert 'Controls' show that they are highly comparable in many aspects to those of such channelers as Eileen Garrett (Uvani and Abdul Latif) and JZ Knight (Ramtha). A 1950 "Note Concerning The Mark Probert Mediumship" by Meade Layne offers the appraisal:... the Controls specifically disclaim any pretense to omniscience ("You will get nothing but opinion on all the planes"), and are very cautious and reserved in making predictions, saying in effect, "We have more means of information than you do, and can see a little further and more clearly, but are always subject to error from unforeseen decisions on your plane, and other natural limitations."Layne further commented -The seeker for the sensational doubtless would be disappointed by the average seance session; we simply sit and talk quietly on any subjects we wish, and presently Mark "goes to sleep" - that is, goes into deep trance and some Control begins to talk through him. Very often the Control begins by picking up some topic or remark which he has just overheard in our conversation. Question and answer and general discussion may continue for two or three hours. Three or four or more Controls may take over, occasionally six or seven in an evening.... it should be clearly understood that the manuscript of this book was not received in that way, with the medium in trance. The manuscript was dictated to Mark through his gift of clairaudience. If or when a communicator (not "control" in this case) wants to say something, he begins to talk, and the words rise up in Mark's mind, occasionally sounding like an audible voice. And these communicators are no respecters of places: Mark may be riding on a bus, or walking on the street, or eating in a restaurant - the invisible one begins to talk just the same. Mark can resist the voice if he likes, and it will presently cease. But he has learned to carry pencil and writing pad with him, and if conditions at all permit, he gladly takes down what the communicator has to say.Layne explained, "On the whole, we have presented the communications in the sequence in which they were given."The 1950 Dedication by Martin Lattimore Lingford concludes after appreciation is expressed concerning the support of the work made possible by the interest of Irene Probert, the medium's wife who "permitted us to proceed in our development of her husband over a period of nearly four years, and this without our once giving her even an inkling of what we were doing or that 'we' actually existed"; Dr. Meade Layne, "the 'doctor' who brought us into physical birth from the dark womb of our medium's brain"; and Harriet P. Foster, whose "material rewards have been far short of what they could have been had she set aside this work and enter fields that would have proven far more lucrative."And to our "mouthpiece," our material channel to the physical world, Mark Probert - "The Boy" - and, alas, at time the "doubting Thomas," whose great curiosity was and still is his most saving grace, and who - despite his many hours of grave doubt and perplexity as to what actually was happening to him, kept right on lending himself to our efforts. Do we love him? Yes - but no more than we love all of God's creations. The work he is now doing is to aid himself to repay a debt made in a former life, and in our doing this, we are at the same time undoing some of the wrongs each one of us committed upon our fellowmen in our past lives,And now - Let us give glory to the living God - Our Divine Self. "THE INNER CIRCLE" by Marin Lattimore Lingford Dictated at San Diego, California June 28, 1950The life of Mark Probert is generally not as well-known among metaphysical readers as that of the other 'channelers' whose work is described in recent blog articles. The Inner Circle communications include unorthodox perspectives of the Christian Bible and life of Jesus. The chapters "Creation" channeled in 1948 from Yada Di Shi'ite and in 1949 from The Maharajah Natcha concerning the "High Archangels of the Lower Etheric" and "Over-Lords of the High Etheric" is metaphorically challenging to fathom. Yada's chapter encompasses statements about "the Black Void, Great Cosmic Mind" and "the God." There is also a description of comets, as follows.Your comets run into the hundreds of thousands and are the generators and sowers of cosmic pollen, breaking down and creating and scattering new and virile energy throughout the vast void. Despite their tremendous size, most of them are (of) relatively light structure. Were they of heavy and solidified matter like the Earth or other planets, their great speed would create such friction to be brought to bear upon them as to burn them up or explode them before they had traveled a thousand miles from their point of origin. The work of these "cosmic bees" is vast in scope, for they not only take planetary debris and convert it back into usable energy, but they rush so close to the suns as to sometimes pass right through the corona and steal great quantities of heat energy to supply other bodies whose position is too remote from any of the suns to get direct heating.Here is a comment featured in the chapter "Earth's Age and The Etherians" channeled from Professor Alfred Luntz:Trance, normal sleep and so-called death all are a merging of the personality of the individual with the Universal Force, or Cosmic Mind - the states being relative. All forms of life have their being in this great sea of Intelligence.Here is an excerpt from the chapter "Time, Space Consciousness" channeled from Arakashi.Consciousness is not a quality or quantity locked up in the head or heads of people and things. It is a motion of matter, and extends into eternal "space," as you have been taught to think of that term, and is perhaps a hundred million times denser than any separate substance known to you at present.... this thing which we call "space-time" is not in its true nature an objective over-all element, but a very subjective personified activity that is projected from the self in compact, extremely minute impulses.The chapter "The Nature of Germs" channeled from Michael Faraday concludes with the statement "Man is in reality a beautiful light-wave caught in the dark chasm of a chemical body!" The chapter begins:As all things in and of the physical world are made up of an endless variety of chemical compositions, one kind of substance differing from another only by its pattern of atomic arrangement and rate of motion of the particles within that pattern field, is it not possible that the so-called germ, or germs that beset all life that enters into and animates this chemical world are simply another chemical with an X-field of motion? The chapter "The Origin and Nature of Matter" channeled from Ramon Natalli (only in the 1953 edition) includes a comment about the "Bell Witch Case" that is noteworthy because the communicator is apparently unfamiliar with the entire scope of the Bell Witch case. Once again, the reader is reminded that the communicators are offering personal perspectives and conjecture about the complex interrelationship between the Earth side of consciousness with what Natalli called "our side of consciousness.""The Bell Witch case comment is also found in The Coming of the Guardians", wherein the selection of transcripts of the 'Control' communicators from The Inner Circle featured in the book commence with a 1947 discourse from Charles Lingford (identified as Martin Lattimore Lingford in "The Magic Bag"). The first passages express the admittedly imperfect knowledge of the 'Controls.'When will you people learn that there are worlds within worlds - that the etheric worlds interpenetrate with your plane and with each other? I know I should not be sticking my neck out by talking so much about these saucers, as you call them, at least until I have investigated more fully. But they are not craft constructed on your planet, nor is it necessary to assume that they come from any other planet. It seems impossible to get it through your heads, that objects can pass from an etheric to another level of matter and will then appear to materialize there. Then they disappear by dematerialization, returning to an etheric condition. This is a perfect analogue to the materializations witnessed in the seance room, which many of your learned men bear witness to. Not only do human forms materialize, but solid objects appear 'miraculously,' and often these are brought from long distances. You call them apports, but an apport is dematerialized so that only the etheric pattern remains, and then the original atoms are reassembled in the pattern or mould and you have a materialized object. Well, these 'saucers' that puzzle you so much come out of an etheric world also, and can return to it. The purpose of these visitors is simply to compel your attention, to wake you up.Other 'Control' communicators who spoke through Probert include Thomas Carlyle, Ali Ben Casi, Dr. Sukuto Nikkioi, Sister Theresa Vandenberg, Kay Ting and Lo Sun Yat.