Pissed-off Toff brings you photographs, taken by himself and shown here for the first time, of what even sceptical physicists think can only be manifestations of the spirit world.
As my countless followers know, I have become increasingly grumpy. And who can blame me, what with the Brexit shambles, the idiotic ‘climate change emergency’, the on-going transgender nonsense, all this ‘diversity’ lunacy … and that’s just for starters. It’s enough to send anyone mad.
So it was good to get out of London last weekend, for the first time in months, and to stay in a large Arts & Crafts house in the Gloucestershire countryside with a view to take the breath away. My host was a well-known socialite, as colourful as he is generous, and my hostess the glamourous film-director scion of an ancient family whose seat is a moated castle near Oxford. Everything tickerty-boo, I reflected, as we opened a bottle of cold Chablis on the Friday evening.
Conversation-wise, however, I found myself out of my depth. I have no knowledge of the latest film d’auteur release; I don’t have a clue about who said what to whom at the last Venice biennale; and when the talk turned to ‘Elton’ and ‘Bryan’ and ‘George’ (not Elton John and Bryan Ferry and George Clooney) … well then, I was well and truly outgunned, and retreated through the hall, lined with huge portraits of my Stuart ancestors, and into the drawing room with its floor-to-ceiling Mortlake tapesteries, there to play the grand piano in an attempt to establish my cultural credibility among these habitués of the new Hollywood aristocracy. A reasonably successful rendition of one of my favourite Bach preludes helped, perhaps, to raise my stock a little.
But there was more to the weekend than upmarket bohemian chitchat … because my hostess has a serious – even professional – interest in parallel realities which, absorbed as we are by our trivial daily concerns, we mainly ignore or dismiss. Reincarnation, the non-linear nature of time, the reality of the human soul and of good and evil … it’s all grist to her mill, and we can expect another award-winning film to come of it sooner or later.
And again, it was a relief to stop fretting over politics and to consider bigger, more mysterious matters. Here, surprisingly, I had something to contribute. A few times in my life I have had experience of ghosts; just once I have experienced the presence of pure evil (it was an intolerable suffocating weight that crushed me one night as I lay in bed, entirely awake and sober as the proverbial judge; a physical presence that was utterly and terrifyingly real); and, by chance, I have photographed spirits from another world.
I should probably sell these images to a newspaper. But if they want them and others besides, they can contact me via the present blog for this material (which, let me emphasise, belongs to me and is strictly copyright). In the meantime, here are the pictures, and here is how they came to be taken …
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It was in Italy that I met the girl who I suppose is the love of my life. It still breaks my heart to think of her. We were on a press trip, being treated like royalty with all expenses paid, as is the way with these things, and great fun it was too. From our hotel base in Naples, we went one day to an underground water-cistern the size of a large cathedral, with doughty pillars and broad aisles to match. It once held several million gallons of fresh water for the Roman fleet anchored below on the nearby coast. This vast cistern is now quite empty of water, and you can walk round it, tapping on the walls which are lined with the same tough substance as in a fives court, the surface as smooth and pristine now as it was two thousand years ago.
We then went to an amphitheatre which has the best-preserved undergound complex of any such structure in the entire Ancient Roman world. It was straight out of Gladiator, and the arched ceilings were so fresh that you could even see the imprint of the grain of the wooden boards on which the concrete had set. Thence to the Lake of Averno, where we had lunch in an olive grove and where the girl who enslaved me danced to music performed by a local Apollo.
This lake fills the crater of an extinct volcano, and nearby is one of the mythical entrances to the Underworld. Led by a local guide who unlocked the metal gate at its mouth, we walked a few yards down a long black tunnel cut out of the soft volcanic rock. A line of lighted candles stretched into the darkness, and a one-headed Cerberus lay dozing nearby.
The place intrigued me so much that while the guide’s back was turned I slipped off alone down the tunnel, and using my mobile phone as a torch, I went deeper and deeper into the bowels of the earth. To my surprise, it did not feel cold or hostile, but strangely friendly. Keen not to get left behind and locked in, I soon returned to the group as they emerged into the daylight. Not, however, before taking a few photographs with my digital camera.
Inspecting these images later, I was surprised to see a number of pale-coloured orbs. What could they be? Dust on the lens of the camera, or droplets of water, perhaps? No. The camera was brand new and spotless. It was a mystery. Only when I returned to London, downloaded the images and blew them up to many times their original size, did the almost incredible explanation dawn on me.
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I had, without realising it, taken photographs of spirits. You can do the googling yourself, and you will come to the same conclusion that everyone else has come to … namely, that there would seem to be no other possible explanation.
You do not see the orbs when you are in their presence. They are invisible to the human eye. However, whereas traditional celluloid film does not register them, digital cameras do; most notably at weddings, where they are to be seen floating above the heads of some of those present. Sceptical physicists have mulled over this phenomenon at length. Clearly, they agree, the orbs – and the reality of them is undeniable – are manifestations of some sort of energy; and they can only conclude that they are … well, spirits.
In the photograph below, which I have blown up to many times its original size, you can clearly see a number of pale orbs floating in the air, just under the roof of the tunnel. Their outer rims are brightly defined in a yellow-orange colour. Their interiors consist of complex multi-coloured patterns. (The bright dots in the bottom right-hand corner are a line of candles … from this world, not from the next.)
And here (see below) is an image of one of these orbs blown up even more. It comes straight out of a sci-fi film, does it not? Except that it is entirely real. To the right of it you can just make out what appears to be a small satellite orb. A lesser spirit, perhaps, or a younger spirit; but a spirit nevertheless.
And here’s another thing. In the photos I took under that Ancient Roman arena, the same orbs appear … faint, but undeniably there. Whereas in my digital photographs of the cathedral-sized Roman water-cistern, there are no orbs. Why? Well … no vividly-lived human experience; therefore, I suppose, no spirits and no orbs.
I can’t think why I have sat on this for so long. But when the insanity of modern life becomes more unbearable by the day, it does one good to ponder something not of this world, but every bit as real … and – I am sure, because I felt it in the entrance to the Underworld – more peaceful and not mad at all.
Bonnes vacances, dear readers.
