Spirit Spheres

[Thomas Knierim]

My wife and I recently met an old friend whom my wife knows from Boston university. This friend made a pilgrimage tour to Northern India earlier this year. She went with a group of monks and lay people to visit the old Buddhist heritage places, such as Boghgaya, Kushinagar, etc. Such pilgrimages are quite popular in Thailand and they are usually offered in combination with a meditation retreat led by the accompanying monks. Okay, nothing unusual so far.

The unusual thing is this: she claimed that there were "spirits" in those places which surrounded the monks and lay people and that she had photos of them. She explained that she (as well as most other people) could not see those spirits, but that they showed up on camera if the light was dark enough (i.e. in dark rooms, halls, or at night time). She also said that some of the monks were capable of seeing these spirits directly. The monks explained to her that these were "devata" who were listening to the prayers of the people.

It got really interesting when she showed us the photos on her laptop. In addition to the usual pilgrimage sight-seeing photos, there were about 40-60 photos which contained "spirit spheres". These were scenes at temples, prayer halls, congregations, where you could see one or more semi-translucent spheres at seemingly arbitrary locations in space. On most photos, these spheres appear white, but an internal structure and different colours become visible on some close-up photos. Their appearance is difficult to describe. A bit like a spherical hologram. They seem to have a diameter of 30-60 cm, although that is very hard to tell.

As an IT professional, I do of course know that it wouldn't be too difficult to create such an effect on a digital image using Photoshop. However, I have no reason to believe that these images were manipulated. First of all, this friend is a sincere person. Second, she is neither an IT person , nor a graphics artist. Third, there are lots and lots of these photos in varying quality. Fourth, it doesn't seem to be an optical effect, as camera and lens are working normally. Fifth, she told us that other people with digital cameras were able to take similar photos.

I have no scientific explanation for this phenomenon. What do you make of it?

Cheers, Thomas

[spiritual_emergency]

I have seen similar pictures before although like you, I've not been certain what to make of them.


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[oboe2damax]

Would it be possible to post one of these conspicuous photos?

This phenomenon reminds me of something I saw on an info-tainment piece on american 'news'. I'm not going to pretend to connect this with the spiritual context of your friend's experience, but it involved imagery that appeared in photos and film, but not to plain sight. The entities in question looked like strange flying light-rod creatures that fluttered through the air vai cilia like apendages. I'm not sure why they appeared in some places and not others, but the general conclusion pointed to a inadequate image capturing process (forgive my language, I do not have the vocabulary of a photographer) that stretched the image of fast moving bugs gleaming in sunlight. The key point that made people skeptical was how they could only be seen on film or in photos. If spirits exist, it's hard to believe that a camera would have better luck seeing them than humans do. Although it seems like the photography factor has been taken under consideration already... <_<

[common man]

a mystery

[spiritual_emergency]

http://www.prairieghosts.com/lingh1.gif

The pic above seems to be typical of the kind of "ball" that is seen -- that was taken in the Lincoln Theater (http://www.prairieghosts.com/lingh.html). The home page for that site has some interesting pics that display actual movement...

http://www.prairieghosts.com/orb1.jpg

Some pictures show hundreds of orbs, like this one...

http://www.crystalinks.com/horseorbs.jpg [Source (http://www.crystalinks.com/photorbs.html)

Here's another site with more information: Photographing the paranormal (http://www.photographingtheparanormal.com/)

This site tries to explain the presence of orbs using some basic science: Mystery of Orbs Solved (http://www.seattlechatclub.org/Orbs.html)


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[schrodinger]

She explained that she (as well as most other people) could not see those spirits, but that they showed up on camera if the light was dark enough (i.e. in dark rooms, halls, or at night time). --Thomas--



While your friend may not have intentionally caused these images to appear in her photos, it is very possible that she created them unintentionally. The key issue here, to me, is that these photos were taken in dim lighting. That implies a flash was used. Unless your friend is an experienced photographer, with a working knowledge of F-stops and manual shutter speeds, it is very likely that she uses her camera in auto flash mode, meaning the flash will fire automatically in any scene with dim lighting. This often produces unwanted effects such as halos or reflections of the initial flash firing, which will show up as balls of light. If she happens to also be using a daylight filter on the lens, the halo effect is much more pronounced when using flash. In any case, I have not seen the photos or the camera, and I do not know if she uses auto flash or has a daylight filter, so everything I write is pure speculation. However, I would rather speculate on the side of explainable technological effects than on the side of paranormal phenomena. Just one more opinion, for what it’s worth.

[Michael]

It is hard to explain such phenomena, particularly where a camera is involved.

I believe you have to be there.

Some 30 years ago my wife and I visited the Pomidou Centre in Paris. Among th exhibits was an installation art piece which occupied an entire room, more a hall than a room.

The piece consisted of stalls, created by cement blocks. The stalls, numbering some 30, were about 6 feet deep and 2 1/2 feet wide. The cement blocks that constituited the walls were assymetricallystaggered, getting lower the further away they were from the back wall.

On the retaining wall of each stall was a map of a city, a different map for each stall.

To view each stall one knelt on a small prayer cushion at the entrance to the stall. In front of you on the wall was the map and in front of you on the floor was a small playback tape which you could press to listen to a monologue. The monologues that I heard were all of a Buddhist nature, but contextualised in a modern urban POV.

My wife is a very practical women, with no time for abstracts, the obstruce or the esoteric.

I was kneeling in a stall on one side of the hall when my wife called me over to a stall on the other side.

She asked me to kneel in the stall and asked me to observe anything unusual. Skeptically I knelt. I noticed nothing unusual until I felt what can only be described as an abstract pressure, gently, but slowly and surely pushing me from right to left. I allowed myself to go with the pressure until I was on the point of losing my balance. I righted myself and the pressure resumed.

My wife had experienced the same thing.

Not only can I not explain it, but I don't know the name of the artist involved. If anyone out there has an idea on this I would like to here from them.

[Taeguk]

Hi! :)

That is quite an interesting account your friend gave, Thomas!

I can't say I've ever had an experience with spirits or devas or anything of the sort myself.

However, I once had the honor of hearing a Dharma Talk given by a Tibetan lama from the Vajrayana tradition. She mentioned that the lamas who had instructed her claimed, on occasion, that they had been joined by "spirits and devas". Apparently these these beings also wished to come to receive instructions on the Dharma. These spirits were invisible to her and the other students, although the lamas seemed able to sense their presence. She also claimed that she herself had felt the presence of such beings on several occasions after being ordained as a lama.

Several months ago I also talked to a young woman from Taiwan, who is a practicing (lay) Buddhist of the Ch'an school. During the course of conversation she mentioned that in Taiwan it is apparently not uncommon for followers of the Eightfold Path to encounter spirits during meditation. If such an encounter occurs, apparently it is deemed respectful to chant the scriptures, since these spirits apparently wish to hear to the teachings of the Buddha.

Take these accounts however you will, although it is interesting to note that the lama I heard is an American citizen, born and educated in the West with a Ph.D in psychology. Not that these credentials prove anything, but I do find it interesting that this seems to be an experience shared by many Buddhists.

I also find it interesting that Buddhist devas aren't really "gods" or even "angels", but simply beings existing on other planes. Unless I'm mistaken it's believed that Maitreya, the "Buddha of the Future", is presently incarnated in the world of devas, giving them the benefit of his teachings. Eventually, he will be incarnated as a human being, on our plane.