A few days before the lockdown, I was reading James Allen’s “As a Man thinketh”, a book that proved to be very helpful during the photographic investigation that took place then and the results of which you see here. The following quote reflects accurately the spirit of the investigation… “Man is buffeted by circumstances so long as he believes himself to be the creature of outside conditions, but when he realizes that he is a creative power, and that he may command the hidden soil and seeds of his being out of which circumstances grow, he then becomes the rightful master of himself. The outer world of circumstance shapes itself to the inner world of thought, and both pleasant and unpleasant external conditions are factors which make for the ultimate good of the individual. Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself.“
“Because I am what I am, I may be what I will to be. My individuality is one of the modes in which the Infinite expresses itself, and therefore I am myself that very power which I find to be the innermost within of all things.”
A photographic investigator is mostly interested the renewing of their mind while observing the renewing of their subjects mind, emerging fresh and vibrant after every photographic investigation. Complete forgetfulness seems to have a lot to do with this renewing… Like Prentice Mulford, in his book “Your forces and how to use them”, says: “To learn to forget is as necessary and useful as to learn to remember. We think of many things every day which it would be more profitable not to think of at all. To be able to forget is to be able to drive away the unseen force (thought) which is injuring us, and change it for a force (or order of thought) to benefit us.”
That is the main question that’s popping in a photographic investigator’s mind in days where photographic investigations are an underground activity and mysterious viruses infect mysteriously a mysteriously large percentage of mysteriously selected parts of the planet. Being a big Doctor Who fan, I am one of those photographic investigators that wonders… But, the thing with The Doctor is that he is probably here working on the situation, but we have missed him just because we were looking for him. So I am reviewing some of my latest photographic investigations just in case my camera took a glimpse of him without me noticing. It happens very often…
Life is an imagined act, said Neville Goddard, and I know it is so. A photographic investigator seeks proof in her own personal experience before she “knows” anything. In the middle of this global self (or otherwise) imposed quarantine, a photographic investigator also reflects and meditates on reality. And it becomes obvious that besides each one’s personal reality, there seems to be a collective reality that is created from a predominant inclination of the collective mind. And the collective mind is mainly shaped -today- by the TV shows and movies that imprint the subconscious with what is to be expected, how relationships should be, what one should think or feel. Is it a surprise then that the scenario in which we feel trapped today seems like it came from the haunted with fear vaults of the Black Mirror (and other shows of the genre) creator’s minds? So, this photographic investigator has a suggestion. If you find yourself incapable to imagine a better reality, watch some happy and feel good shows and trust in the people who did. Because, wouldn’t it better to have the Ghostbusters happy ending, since our situation clearly resembles -to a point- that scenario? Being stuck at home with nothing better to do, try it for a week and let’s see what happens.
A photographic investigation very often looks like hunting or following appearances, the illusory world that we live in, but in reality is about standing still. A very powerful affirmation (by Florence Scovel Shinn) that I always use in the face of apparent adversity in my photographic investigations is: “I am unmoved by appearances, therefore appearances move”. And they always do.
Emmet Fox said: “You are not happy because you are well. You are well because you are happy. You are not depressed because trouble has come to you, but trouble has come to you because you are depressed. You can change your thoughts and feelings, and then the outer things will come to correspond, and indeed there is no other way of working”. A photographic investigator’s job consists, partly, in proving, photographically, the truth of what she believes in. Like the quote from Emmet Fox, mentioned above.
A photographic investigator knows that her subjects have been instructed, early in their life, to start constructing a story about themselves -enriched over the years with bits of experience, failures, successes, oppressed feelings and desires- and then believe it to be true. So naturally they get trapped in that story, rarely managing to escape it’s limitations. But she also knows that in a twinkling of the eye this truth can be realised and the subjects can write a different story, preferably one of harmony, radiance, health, wealth, love and perfect self expression. A happy story.
While a photographic investigator discovers the various facets of her subject’s true nature, she finds it helpful to watch old TV series. They provide inspiration and valuable assistance and clear her vision. This time it was Highway to Heaven, with an angel helping people in California. Somehow it seemed very appropriate.
Zenobia is not just the name of the warrior queen of Palmyra (or of her incarnation) but is also the name of a distant planet. It’s inhabitants have no real existence - they are various moods that make their presence known only by attaching themselves to the matching vibration of a visitor. I took my subject with me in yet another inter-dimensional journey in order to photographically investigate these Zenobian moods. You can see the results of my investigation.
I photographically investigated Vera and her noir world after watching a great television version of Agatha Christie’s “A murder is announced”. This could have been the name of the investigation as the whole atmosphere was overflowed with a sense of secret, of something hidden. Well hidden, in Vera’s case.
My assignment was about another noir woman actor who liked to play to the theater but was born to play in old noir movies. To achieve that she had to time/dimension travel and there was only one photographic investigator who could trace her: me. As you know, I have a great experience in inter-dimensional travel, even though this leads to an inevitable depletion of my power. But with enough good rest in a sunny, tropical island, everything is restored. So, this investigation took place, with me full of solar energy , powerful and positive. Needless to say, I knew where my subject was even before dialing possible other-dimensional addresses. Conclusion: with enough solar power, everything is done instantly…
I was photographically investigating a subject that every year was sending to Santa Klaus a list with various vegetables. That was all she wanted for Christmas. Santa was troubled because he did not want to leave a bag with vegetables to someone’s fireplace -and then result that it was all a prank… So I went, I saw, I photographically investigated and indeed, for this year she was asking for 2 packs of mixed green salad, 10 tomatoes and 4 cucumbers. May your Christmas be merry and green, as we photographic investigators say in occasions like this…
When a photographic investigator has a chance to integrate to the Clear Light of Objective Reality she never misses it. The urge to be free is great to a photographic investigator who has spent her life investigating the illusions /lives of her subjects, as well as her own. And although she has read many times the Tibetan Book of the Dead hoping that she will remember what to do when the time comes, she also likes the American Book of the Dead, by E.J. Gold and his guidance in the bardos. She must remember, she must remember…: “Now I am experiencing the Clear Light of objective reality. Nothing is happening, nothing ever has happened or ever will happen. My present sense of self, the voyager, is in reality the void itself, having no qualities or characteristics. I remember myself as the voyager, whose deepest nature is the Clear Light itself; I am one; there is no other. I am the voidness of the void, the eternal unborn, the uncreated, neither real nor unreal. All that I have been conscious of is my own play of consciousness, a dance of light, the swirling patterns of light in infinite extension, endless endlessness, the Absolute beyond change, existence, reality. I, the voyager, am inseparable from the Clear Light; I cannot be born, die, exist or change. I know now that this is my true nature.” (― E.J. Gold, The American Book of the Dead)
My assignment was an interdimensional one, after a long time… I had to decline in taking this kind of assignments because of the energy drain that is caused to the photographic investigator by travelling to different dimensions and through time. But this one was very interesting -and I was feeling very strong and full of energy, after all. The portal was in the greek pavilion of the Venice Biennale -like so many are- and it was active only the last day of the Biennale. My task was to photographically investigate and follow a greek shadow that remained greek despite the nationality of the person who was casting it. It was taking their form, but not their nationality. Which, I guess was a tangible proof that nationality is not a real thing…
My assignment was to photographically investigate the latest incarnation of Zenobia, the beautiful, magnetic, powerful and rebel queen of Palmyra. She had assumed the identity of another legendary (but fictional) warrior woman, Xena (also known to TV watchers as Xena, the Warrior Princess). The choice of an alias, although sometimes unconscious, is never too far from the source and this proved to be of great assistance to me. The task of a photographic investigator is to uncover the unlimited, hidden and always powerful identity of her subjects, of which they usually have no memory. Fortunately, this is a temporary situation and the process is greatly speeded up after the resuming of the photographic investigation.
A new chapter in a photographic investigator’s book should be inspired. Inspired by a divine spark, a sudden revelation, a flash of realisation caused by a quote, a read or the words she heard by an unsuspected subject that interacts with her. In this case, my new chapter was inspired by a beloved Florence Scovel Shinn quote: “The robbers of time are the past and the future. Man should bless the past, and forget it, if it keeps him in bondage, and bless the future, knowing it has in store for him endless joys, but live fully in the now”. Fortunately, all my subjects are robbery proof. I am a lucky photographic investigator indeed.
