The Eye of the Watcher

Throughout the history of mankind the eye has provoked the most primal of responses.

It is not surprising, for having a disturbing feeling that you are being watched by unseen eyes is basic to most all living things. Through eons the unease at the presence of a fixated iris has been passed on from generation to generation until the actual sight of an eye upon you is naught but the confirmation of what the rest of your body is telling you.

You are being watched.

It is the feeling of being prey. It is a learned trait that has been passed on to future generations for survival in a cruel and violent world.

Sometimes this natural response to the predator/prey instinct seems preternatural.

You cannot explain it,but you know you are being watched.

I am sure most of you have experienced that hair raising feeling of being watched by unseen eyes. You don't know why, but you know there are eyes upon you.

Perhaps some of you are feeling that sensation now.

In our modern times with Internet communication, and the proliferation of hackers and government oversight, it is a fact that there are unseen eyes upon you, watching your every move.

You are being watched.

Sometimes though, you do not have that unsettling feeling of being watched while sitting in the glow of a monitor alone in some secluded room. No. It is while you are at work, or at play. It is while you were taking that leisurely walk in the woods that lie not far from your home.

You could swear you were being watched.

There is an eye upon you.

What is the intent of that elusive watcher out of nowhere?

Is it something that plans your destruction; are you the prey for a superior predator that is merely stalking you?

Or is it something else?

History is also abounding with references to an 'all seeing eye'. From the beginning of human culture, religious iconography has been imbued with an eye symbol. Be it Wedjat (the ancient Egyptian eye of Horus), The third or inner eye of Eastern Mysticism or the Western eye of providence; the symbol of the eye often connoted deeply spiritual truths for the follower. The believer was either protected from evil, the object of divine oversight or imbued with deep spiritual knowledge or wisdom.

The eye symbolizes an active presence.

There are also folklore traditions of the malevolent eye gazing upon you, wishing you ill will. The most popular of these instances is the curse of the evil eye. A person of magical power is said to have the ability to curse with but a look from their eyes. This belief spans many millenia and cultures; it often spawns the production of various amulets or counter hexes to ward off the evil power of the dark enchantment.

So historically there are many meanings to the symbol of a watching eye. However to many in our culture today the symbol of the disembodied eye conjures a creepy and loathsome feeling of menace. Perhaps it is the ancient fear of the watching predator or pop culture referencing such as the evil eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings.

Of course it would be very disconcerting if one would encounter an actual disembodied eye in real life.

Moreso if you discover the eye is connected with a phenomena that you have been trying to explain, and something you have put off as a hallucination or signs of old age or disease.

And greater the perplexity of the situation if the phenomena occured in a church.

I have referenced the church that I attend here on this blog numerous times. After many investigations by various local paranormal groups St. Paul's United Church of Christ here in downtown Erie has officially been declared haunted by at least two groups. It has been featured on local news stations and was host to a paranormal tour this Halloween season. One of the videos caught at the church will also be featured in an upcoming episode of the new show Ghost Lab.

This past Halloween night Erie County Paranormal once again investigated the church. As a Church Council Memeber I sat with them while they did the investigation. Usually when I have my turn at hosting the church for an investigation I catch up on my reading (or sleeping!) in the Pastor's Study. However, this time I thought I would join in on the fun and stationed myself in the santuary with a camera and digital recorder. I sat in the back pew and sang hymns and prayed hoping to perhaps catch an occasional voice that might sing alone. Alas, there were no such phantom voices on my digital recorder after the night. However, it was a very strange night to say the least.

Throughout the night I was seeing tiny flashes of light all over the Santcuary. Like tiny pinpoints flares of a flashlight quickly turning on and off at various areas in the air. There were white ones and red ones. None of these seemed to have an outside source. It was if they appeared and dissapeared out of nowhere.

This was not the first time I had experienced this phenomena at the church. Last year while talking with the leader of the same team in the church's fellowship hall, we both experienced the blinking tiny lights floating in mid air. At that time we both chocked it up to being near a high electro magnetic field that was on the other side of the hall. We thought we were halucinating.

This previous Halloween though, I saw this phenomena while in the midst of others who did not notice it. I again counted it up to either hallucination or old age. Later in the night though as two of the groups members sat across the sanctuary in the chior loft, the lights began to occur more frequently. And one of the other members saw them as well. All night I had been taking photos wth my digital camera, and I tried to see if I could catch these lights on camera. Luckily, and to my astonishment, I did. Here is the photo:

The most obvious explanation for this photo is that it is an orb, and therefore a piece of dust reflected from the camera light. I did catch many orbs in the church that night, in fact there is an orb in this same photo-almost in the exact center. However all the orbs I caught were the common phantom half lit circle. This object is very bright, appears very high in the ceiling (50 ft) and oval in shape. And it is exactly what I had been witnessing all night. Bright tiny oval flashes. I was curious what I would find if I magnified the flash to see if I could make out the image more clearly. to my surprise I caught this:

Take a closer look at the enlargement:



At first I was a little disturbed. My mind raced back to Lovecraftian Literature and to the vivid images of August Derleth where the ancient evil ones constantly observes the Earth waiting for the eventual invasion of the ancient evil horde and he total destruction of mankind.


But a much better esoteric explanation can be found within Scripture itself.

Revelation 6:6 And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind.

This verse describes the Angels of God before His throne.

Angels are not only God's messengers, they are also God's eyes over the Earth. Not limiting His omnipresence, they observe with a distinct free will and compassion that is their own. Perhaps the eyes of light were snapshots of a sort. Just as I was trying to capture the otherworldy within the church with my digital eye, perhaps the beings of the otherworld were capturing what was happening in our material realm with their supernatural eyes.

Until Next Time,
Pastor Swope