Testament is a nonfiction case study presented in a Q&A format as interviews and journals document events usually equated with the 'supernatural' or 'miraculous.'
The book evolved after the author researched 'talking poltergeists' throughout history, including America's Bell Witch and the U.K.'s Mary Jobson and Isle of Man cases. In 1995 he interviewed a contemporary family dealing with the phenomena, Centrahoma's Bell/Mc Wethy family. Initial interviews feature them discussing their interaction with a variety of disembodied voices - central among them the enigmatic presence known as 'Michael.'
Among the events experienced by the author in Oklahoma were materialization of coins and other objects, spirit laughter and groaning, and insect phenomena. Upon returning to his native Los Angeles, the phenomena continued and escalated. He stopped working as a publicity writer for Paramount Pictures as he began transcribing the tapes.
Bell remarks, ''In the Bell Witch case, there was an incident where the haunting Entity repeated two different ministers' sermons in their own voices after they'd spoken in different locations at the same time earlier that day. In Centrahoma, Twyla Eller told me about an incident where she overheard her sister and a friend talk about a flat tire. Later, Twyla witnessed the same conversation when it actually occurred so she said it was as if their house had recorded it before it happened. I thought of these occurrences following my return to L.A. My TV set started going off whenever I began to watch it. Upon turning on one documentary program, at that precise moment someone was complaining that their telephone service had stopped working and then my TV set went off.''
Photographs document spirits and apparitions, bushes that went up in flames behind Bell's condo, and a Bigfoot. Bell has discussed his experiences during dozens of radio interviews - most recently on ''Now That's Weird'' (London) and ''Speaking of Strange'' (North Carolina).
Bell comments, ''My experiences and research showed that all living things are continuously interacting with an intermediary Superconsciousness or Spiritual Force that may be recognized through circumstances often described as coincidences and synchronicity, intuition and telepathy, prophetic dreams and visions, mediumship and trance channeling, as well as events sometimes associated with hauntings, 'talking poltergeist' phenomena and 'electronic voice phenomena.'''
About the Author
After researching 'talking poltergeists,' the author learned about a contemporary Oklahoma family experiencing the phenomena when he read a Fortean Times magazine article (included as the book's preface). His unexpurgated interview with the family is featured in Testament. The family was seen on television in the November 1995 ABC special ''Ghosts, Mediums, Psychics: Put To The Test'' and the footage also aired in the summer of 1996 on ''20/20.'' Among the authentic phenomena filmed for the special was a dining room chair moved by an unseen presence.
Bell was a child when he first experienced several unexplained occurrences that may have contributed to his interest in the paranormal.
In a 2008 interview, Bell said, ''My earliest influences were schoolteachers who helped to cultivate my interest in a wide variety of subjects. I remember becoming aware that writing was easy for me during a creative writing assignment in the fifth grade. Winning national writing awards in high school enabled me to study cinema at the University of Southern California. While I was a student at USC, I remember attending an advance screening of 'Star Wars' in 1977.''
He worked as a talent agent before becoming staff writer in the publicity department of Paramount Pictures and contributing to the campaigns for such films as ''Braveheart,'' ''Fatal Attraction,'' ''Forrest Gump,'' ''Ghost,'' ''The Godfather, Part III,'' ''Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,'' and the ''Star Trek'' series. Freelance writing assignments included feature articles about European film directors for The Hollywood Reporter.
