Last weekend's Wall Street Journal contained an article on "Ghostly Photography" or "Spectral Art."This is the idea that, although unseen by the naked eye, cameras have captured images of ghosts or other spirits (and yes, there are many different kinds of spirits).The digital article is behind a subscriber wall, but I snapped an image of the hard copy (call me old-fashioned, but I still prefer my newspaper to be on paper).Click the thumbnail for a larger image and read the article for yourself. 

Color me Skeptical

Color me a skeptic when it comes to capturing spirits with film or digital cameras. Yes, the guy who tries to provide a worldview that makes sense of the spirits and other things seers see is skeptical when it comes to spirit photography.But if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle saw no trickery, why should I?In Beyond the Cosmic Veil, Thomas Fusco writes,

Spirit photography and EVP are the last two audible and visible phenomena on our list of paranormal elements. These too are translocations, since they are also non-physical defections of physical light waves and/or air molecules that are recorded on electro-mechanical devices instead of our senses.That cameras and recorders often record things that go undetected by human observers ( Doug's note: except seers) makes these phenomena quite perplexing.  This is especially true with EVP, where disembodied voices are frequently recorded on the media that are not heard by the person with the recorder. At one time, it was suspected that these phenomena escaped notice by impositing themselves directly onto the film or magnetic tape. But the advent of digital cameras and recorders make this unlikely, since whatever produces these recordings would then have to "know" how to convert analog waves to the digital languages of ones and zeroes before placing them directly onto the device's memory. It's also been found that the highest quality optics and microphones produce the best results.  Keep in mind too that there are plenty of instances where observers actually do see and hear the evidence that gets recorded on their equipment ( Doug's note: ha!). It's therefore logical to conclude that the recorded sights and sounds reach the media in the form of normal physical waves collected through the customary lens or microphone.The most likely explanation then is that there is some quality to these phenomena that recording devices are more adept at capturing than the senses. Take for example a transparent apparition that is virtually invisible to the naked eye, and yet is sufficiently illuminated by the brief, intensely bright camera flash to be captured on film.[ref]Thomas Fusco, Behind the Cosmic Veil (New Vision Press, 2011), 107-108).[/ref]

What do you think? Can cameras record spiritual things that most of us can't see?What about seers? Any of the seers who visit these pages ever take a picture of something that they see in the spirit, and it's captured? One seer took a video and sent it to me of spiritual firelight in the woods that he saw and the camera picked it up. Well then, color me perplexed.  Seeing isn't always believing, right?What about pictures in which seers see spirits but others do not?What say you?

Paradigm Shift Goes Mainstream

As predicted in Cris Putnam's Supernatural Worldview, I find it very interesting how mainstream reports of paranormal are becoming. The Wall Street Journal??  Have you noticed?See pages 259 to 350 in his The Supernatural Worldview book for one of the best analyses of ghosts, spirits, hauntings, and similar phenomena.