By Catherine King
[You can see some of King and du Bois' Spirit Photography archive on the sidebar.]
[And be sure to come back in a day or two for Spirit Photography by King and du Bois, a posting with over 140 of our images.]
I lay off the spirit photography from time to time, for various reasons --sometimes the weight of this world alone is almost too much to bear. Sometimes the images I upload disturb my sense of reality to the extent that I just have to put them on a shelf temporarily if I am to function in a normal manner. Sometimes my hands and heart are all wrapped up in the here and now.
But a few months ago, something urged me to pick up the camera again and follow it into the Great Unknown. Listening to my inner voice, I could hear the word "Spiritualism" resonating like a ringing bell. So I started getting back into paranormal photography.
From my recent captures, I put together Updated Spook Tree, and Housefull Of Phantoms. There's also DEPART! --my plea for deliverance-- as well as the digital net art -- Windows Are the Eyes of the Soul and What Is It About Doorways?
Never before have I really searched for explanations for the haunting imagery. Once I was able to accept our photographs as evidence of the paranormal, I didn't speculate much further. I had come to feel that, as I stated in Photography by Catherine King: Meet My Collaborators,
. . . other people's metaphysics were, and are, of no use to me . . . I have to wrestle with my own findings, according to my personal tradition . . . Questions and issues of our mortality and immortality must be worked out mano a mano . . .
I come from a long tradition of free-thinkers and solitaires. And I have trust issues. Also, I know firsthand what imposters a lot of academics are. And "wise people," and "spiritual masters." So when it came to the paranormal, I never asked questions of other people. I just did my own work and drew my own conclusions from direct observation.
But now I felt as though I was being directed to do more than snap the shutter and assemble photo montages. It seemed I should embark on a posting about these light anomalies. And so, in the spirit of research, for the first time in a very long while, I started to visit paranormal sites on the Internet.
I reasoned with myself: A few sites have some interesting scientific theories about the energy sources of orbs and their electromagnetic qualities. After all, the orbs were really there in actuality, so they had to have some physical qualities, now and then, as they visited from other dimensions.
I began by looking up "paranormal lights." Almost immediately I found this wonderfull passage:
The death of a stray dog named Libby Lou changed the course of my life. My sister Ellen had found Libby wandering about, deserted and hungry, in 1987. Ellen adopted the waif and they spent thirteen years adoring each other. Libby's only goal was to please, and she never caused an ounce of trouble. She seemed to understand every word and obeyed any command.
It was the first paragraph on page one from How to Photograph the Paranormal(2005) by Leonore Sweet, Ph.D. Dr. Sweet's words reached out and wrenched my animal-loving heartstrings.
The author echoed some of my innermost feelings and personal experiences on her website:
[There are] unknown forces at work on this planet . . . there is much we cannot see . . . My glimpses to the mysterious have been mostly through the lens of a camera -- a visual bridge created by technology. The camera enables us to see what only psychics could see before, but no one could prove.
I had to get this book!
So I sent away for the hard-to-find volume and eagerly awaited its arrival for a couple of weeks. As soon as it got here I dove into it like a Phoenician into a swimming pool in August. What a shock! The water might as well have been electrified. Instead of being hyper-sensitive, I discovered that Dr. Sweet was actually insultingly callous. I never would have guessed that those tender sentiments and touching observations were written by a barbaric phony.
You see, Dr. Sweet exemplifes what Jerome and I, and contemporary academics, call "the dispositions." The dispositions are a mindset and a philosophical framework that delights in the deconstruction of meaning. Jerome especially has written extensively about the dispositions. He describes the terrible neutrality of this barbaric philosophy, which dismisses the concepts of evolution and progress --morally and ethically as well as technologically.
In Rebarbarization in the Academy, Part 1, he writes about "a disturbing heartlessless now becoming obvious in the faculties and student bodies of many American universities." He found they had a lot in common with sociopaths, and quoted from Roger Depue's book on society's most violent predators, about
their common operating principles, something that I call the Anti-Commandments, [one of which is]
That which you love is what I most seek to destroy.
Which would include, Jerome wrote,
Inalienable Individual Rights. The United States. Private Property. Mutual Respect. Capitalism. The Military. Political & Economic Equality for Women. Secure Borders. The US Constitution. The Declaration of Independence. Freedom of Religion. The Rule of Law. Education. Academic Freedom. Technology. Freedom. Liberty. Happiness. Life.
True to her type, Sweet is trying to overlay the postmodern philosophical framework onto the Spirit World. I'm going to comment about this fallacious ploy, because she has revelled in it in her spiritual photography book. Keep in mind that she wrote How to Photograph the Paranormal as her doctoral dissertation.
I'm not claiming to be any kind of expert on the Spirit World. But there are ways of relating to the Other World which I intuit with certainty. One of my problems with Sweet and her postmodern stance is the lack of feeling. I lose my cool about the dispositions. I get my feelings hurt --badly.
These people start out by stabbing you in the back; then it's "There! Now how do you feel?"
When you respond "I feel like I'm dying!" they reply, "That's funny, I don't feel a thing."
But, you know, as painfull as it is, I'm just going to keep baring my feelings and wearing my Humanity like a badge of honor. How different I am from those who buy into the dispositions! I'm proud that I'm not one of them. Dr. Sweet, though, is a perfect illustration of the perverseness that results when one refuses to stand for what's right, condemn that which is wrong, or make hard choices.
In my world the prime directives are caring, effort, and meaning. Everyday life on Earth and its substance are what ghosts and spirits are all about. Feeling, meaning, and caring are powerfull forces in the Spirit World. Ghosts get attached. They get hung up. They have a yearning that even Death itself cannot quench.
But Sweet has filled her book with enraging minimizations of these powerfull forces. Read what she has written and remember that these are not the words of a Fifteenth Century Buddhist monk, but rather the regurgitations of a clueless and very spoiled Twentifirst Century American woman:
Paradoxically, only when our surroundings no longer matter to us, it is then that we gain the power to change them by purely mental means . . . As long as one believes this world is real and not just a figment of the collective imagination, one cannot consciously change anything merely through the power of thought. Attachment to the things of this world keeps us bound to it and incapable of experiencing spiritual enlightenment.
When I read Sweet's gloating declaration:
To discriminate against anyone in any way is against my nature.
it reminded me of something a local yoga teacher asserted:
I disdain nothing.
which in turn echoes what another local yoga teacher, Andrea Griego, advised way back in January 2004, in the now-defunct shade magazine:
Whenever you place a judgment on anything, you have blocked your creative flow.
The reason these statements match like bookends is because their authors are both members of the New Barbarian tribe. I was compelled to respond in a now off-line post, "The Importance of Making Judgements:"
As I read those words, it was like salt being rubbed into my psychological wounds. It resonated with the painfull issues I’m currently struggling to work out in my Writing Life, and even my stance with culture and society.
I went on to ask: Is the cultivation of critical judgment such a bad thing? . . . Has anyone besides me wondered how so many college graduates can conveniently forget Bloom’s Taxonomy . . . ? Synthesis is the highest order of thinking, which requires judgment, which people right and left today are trying to eradicate, as though Judgment were a plague, and not one of the very qualities that distinguishes us as homo sapiens sapiens. And what about what we college graduates learned in science courses about the marvel of the human brain, and all the wonderful, intriguing glimpses into its psychology? So many willingly turn away from all that Knowlege, and its implications, so that they can close their eyes and regress into an amniotic state of judgmentlessness . . .
Being well-educated today does not mean having an examined life. Having done college from 1990-1995 (the last two years in graduate school), I have first-hand experience with "the dispositions." I know how these people think. Or rather, I have seen how exerting the least amount of mental effort fills them with a glowing sense of self-satisfaction.
All alone on the academic sidelines, I would seethe with very politically-incorrect rage while the others, especially the psychology students, would smugly assert with absolute assurance that "Everybody's just doing the best they can." It was as if I were the only one living in a world of random violence, sadism, passive aggression and intentional cruelty!
Sweet began her graduate program in Esoteric Studies in 2000 at American Pacific University. She was looking to
find answers to questions such as why we are here, what comes after death, and what at any given point is the "right" thing to do.
Apparently, advanced degree notwithstanding, she is unable to see the hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty in finding the "right" thing to be totally relative.
The world is as you think it is! Reality is relative to the observer. . . . Truth can be defined as a function of belief.
This is a perfect and pathetic example of the finely-honed thinking apparatus that a college degree will get you nowadays, courtesy of Leonore Sweet, Ph.D.:
It appears to me that whatever we believe becomes our truth . . . Only if we consider the (paranormal) lights as products of thought can existence of so many beliefs be justified and acceptable, and only then will we realize there is no need to persuade others that their beliefs are wrong, for everything is right in the world that they have constructed for themselves. Instead of hating them for differences in belief we could perhaps learn to love them unconditionally . . . If you think I am wrong, I agree. In your world I am wrong. In mine I am right. Do you see the beauty of this? It's taking the high road and never needing to become angry or controlling or judgmental. It gives us the freedom to allow others to be as they are and believe anything they desire.
Read with great skepticism the gibberish of a Ph.D. with the conviction of her beliefs, and be concerned, very concerned about the state of higher education in our wonderfull land of the free-thinkers:
My newfound belief that one creates one's own reality works for me. It's an easy explanation for practically everything. You certainly don't have to agree with me. I may change my mind tomorrow, anyway.
More "wisdom" from Dr. Know-It-All:
It's not hard to think of examples where belief creates truth. If a person truly believes their prayers will be answered (consciously or unconsciously-- I'm not sure which), their prayers will be answered.
Here is one of her Laws of Personal Universes:
Anything you believe you can do is possible in your personal universe. . . . If you honestly believe you can move a mountain, then it will move.
We have all known the frustration of scientists declaring that such and such is so, based upon the results of this or that experiment, only to have other experiments, carried out by different scientists, completely contradict those results. No one knows for certain what is good to eat anymore, with study after study nullifying previous studies [referring to double-blind studies] . . . In my mind, these influences make the majority of scientific experimental results totally meaningless. I feel that if I honestly believe a food is good for me, it will be good for me. (Fudge for dinner, anyone?) When this theory does not seem to work, I blame the discrepancy on what my higher self, unconscious, and conscious mind truly believe.
She had to go to grad school to learn that "wishing will make it so," and "it's all good." But, just "good," and not superior to anything else.
I like to think of myself as one vital cell of the universe, and I cannot judge any of the other cells because their role is not my role . . .
. . . As I reviewed my photographs, I realized that the idea of thought-forms created by our unconscious minds and the collective unconscious is the one explanation that makes everyone right.
Why does everyone have to be right? Even the Evil Islamists. Even the Evil Islamists who circumcise females and take multiple wives by force and then do anything they want to the females under the cover of their stinking Sharia. The Evil Islamists who just want to practice Taqiyya and commit Jihad, seek the Caliphate and make the Umma real. Who hate life and believe that they alone are pure and should take over the world by a releasing a flood of blood.
Attachment to the things of this world keeps us bound to it and incapable of experiencing spiritual enlightenment.
I cannot count the times I cried out to the powers that be for answers, for the truth, for enlightenment, and especially for a sign.
Hey, I had a blinding moment of enlightenment myself, and I can tell you exactly when it happened down to the minute. It was at 9:59 a.m. EST, September 11, 2001. When the first tower fell. I wrote not long after:
And all multi-culti moral relativity came crashing down to Ground Zero as next I saw in a blinding flash that America is truly the greatest nation in the history of the planet and the only hyper-power because so many smart and brave Americans have earned US that status.
Some readers who witnessed the 9/11 Islamist terrorist attacks as they happened will also remember the sudden, sickening realization when the second plane hit that this was no accident but the first attack of an orchestrated, but undeclared war. It had been the most stunningly beautiful blue morning and we had believed we were all living together in a relatively peaceful, tolerant, multi-culti world!
Sweet talks all around 9/11, but never acknowledges it. At The Tears of Things, however, That Day lives on. As we witnessed in Three Flags: Introducing the House of Not For Sale:
Jerome and I vowed that we never would forget. Never. Never. Never. Never. Never.
Democracy was being threatened by the dark shadow of the Islamist Umma. And Sweet would put these sons of bitches on equal footing with us. Lord, how we don't need the likes of her on our side! But our best and brightest are shedding their blood to defend her right to be a clueless and very spoiled Twentifirst Century American woman, because that's the American Way. A Way she never acknowledges or appreciates, though she goes on and on about the glorious primitive cultures of the past which were and are apparently far above criticism. Such naiviete! But it's inexcusable and certainly not charming five years into The War on Terror.
In the beginning of her book --the epigraph, in fact-- she quotes a famous postmodern guru, Deepak Chopra, M.D.:
Many things 'out there' don't exist for us, not because they are unreal, but because we have not shaped the brain to perceive them."
Another thing I can never forget is where Deepak Chopra was standing when the shit hit the fan -- in the defining moment of Western Civilization, when most of us realized for the first time that our very existence, way of life and everything precious was in deadly peril.
On 9/12, as I recall, Chopra emerged -- to plug his latest book. His self-promoting words embedded into my traumatic memories -- telling us and selling us how, in our time of anguish, we were going to need his book more than ever.
Sweet continues:
In my mind, the gist of the Mysteries is that intent, emotion, and especially love create everything. Each person creates his own personal universe with his directed thoughts. If this is true, then untold damage is being done though unchecked negative thoughts because nearly everyone is unaware of their power.
I wish the nineteen Saudis had checked their negative thoughts before they brought us down with box cutters. And yes, I would say that most of us Americans were blissfully unaware that nineteen Saudi losers could be so powerfull. Some of us are much sadder but wiser now.
Everything here, it seems, is created in the same way --by individual and collective thoughts of the universe, fueled by intent and emotion.
I learned more than how wrong it is to love everyone on September 11, 2001. I saw how stupid kumbaya is and what intent can and cannot do. Again from Three Flags: Introducing the House of Not For Sale:
As I sat beside Jerome, listening, watching, crying, cutting, and pinning, I tried to set the world in order again with every stitch. But the accumulation of all my intent amounted to nothing before the determined violence of the Islamist terrorist devils. The bullets could not be unshot. The planes could not be unflown.
Sweet and I are definitely not on the same page. Here's what she learned at one of her precious New Age seminars the very next month:
[Seminar leader] Braden explains that all the forces in the web of creation can be spoken to through human emotions. Compassion, gratitude, and love can affect the world around us and transcend the suffering of humankind. Emotions access all the vibrations of the universe through harmonics. In other words, we are all connected through our intentions and emotions. Amazingly, thoughts with intent and emotion are the creative forces of the universe.
Most heartless of all the new barbarians' behavior is their refusal to defend the victimized:
Victimhood has finally overstayed its welcome in today's world . . . You can only change your universe if you understand you are in complete control of it and are not a victim of your circumstances. Your thoughts, beliefs, and emotions are the cause of everything that "happens to" you in your universe.
Easy to be hard, easy to be cold . . . Sweet again:
Before and during the hunt [for paranormal orbs], send positive, loving thoughts and good feelings towards the Orbs and Company. I honestly love them, whoever or whatever they may be.
Give me a break. What is Love to this New Barbarian who wants to deconstruct victimization? That's the same as Blaming the Victim. The same as Denying the Holocaust. Love the orbs? She has more compassion for the dead than for the living. But that's not much. For Death is as meaningless as Life to Sweet.
Photographing the dog Libby Lou's death, was just the beginning for Sweet. It encouraged her to go for the fait accompli of capturing a human spirit at the moment of death. When her own father became terminally ill, she saw the opportunity to score the big one and brought her camera to his deathbed in order to document his passing -- like it was the cherry on top of her dissertation.
Other people's pain provides the substance for her particular hobby. The more trauma and suffering, the better, for her purposes. She recommends visiting funerals and funeral parlors to others like herself (yes, "ghost-hunting" is a group activity for these ghouls). "Look for evidence of. . . homicides, suicides . . ."
The people I know who can photograph light anomalies are either very young or they are those who are at least somewhat aware of the lack of substance in everyday life on Earth.
Aarrgghh! Don't believe her! She sure doesn't know me, and I can photograph light anomalies all the livelong day! She's so thick, blind and mean! Everyday life on Earth is all about substance, not the lack of it. The mysterious, intrinsic suffering in life is real, and it's not for naught. It's all so urgently important.
We need clarity of principles, as Tony Blair, our faithfull ally in the War on Terror, says. These New Barbarians have made a religion out of being noncommital. But there is much that is worth dying for. The ongoing battle between Good and Evil is not some quaint archaic notion. We've all heard the truth before, though we may have thought ourselves above and beyond it:
The Devil's oldest trick is convincing you that he doesn't exist.
Posted by Jerome at August 8, 2006 04:55 PM | TrackBack