Image Of A Spirit By Paul Williams

Does An Unusual Photographic Image Capture the Release Of The Human Soul?

In the new book, Image of a Spirit, Paul Williams shares what followed after he took a picture with a cell phone camera of the space surrounding his mother after she died.

Paul Williams has lived a full and adventure filled. Life. He graduated Harvard Phi Beta Kappa in 1965 and became an accomplished Hollywood film director, dated many beautiful women many of whom became famous in their own right. He was also a devoted son who spent the final weeks of his mom’s life with her in Manhattan. He was there with other family members when she died, on the morning of December 27, 2009.

He watched as the caring women attendants cleaned up his mom’s body and dressed her in her favorite blue shirt. He couldn’t be physical with his mother, so he kept his distance and watched the other prepare his mom for her final journey.

Having been a professional photographer, it was then, an hour and fort-five minutes after she died, that he instinctively grabbed his Blackberry smart phone and snapped a few photos looking above his mother towards the two devoted women and the beautiful, loving expressions on their respective faces as they hovered over her.

Picture Above: Left to Right: Miss P, Mom on her back, invisible-to-the-naked-eye psi figure, Melissa, me on my knees.

A few hours later, he uploaded the pictures to his Macbook laptop, and to his utter amazement, discovered a small--maybe six inches tall, blurry hominoid-like figure just above his mother’s body which had been captured by his cell pone camera.

Williams had taken tens of thousands of photographs in his life, had studied and even taught photography at Harvard.

But nothing prepared him for the image that was before him. The photos clearly showed a small utterly clear, distinct image of a person like entity. One of the women was bothered, even spooked by the images. They couldn’t shake the feeling that something was really weird.

Williams determined that there was no obvious conventional explanation for this small blurry figure. It could not be explained by stray reflections or other well-known optical mechanisms. That much was for certain.


What was in the photos? Was it a picture of his mother’s spirit?

Image of a Spirit is the story of Paul William’s experience as he sought to unravel the mystery of the images.

Williams went on a multi-year quest to determine the possible explanations for the captured images.

He shared the photos and sought advice from several Hollywood celebrities and colleagues.

He took the photos to experts for analysis and validation. He researched the possibilities and contacted with people with the highest credentials in the fields of photography, psi research, chemistry and energy science.

He met with Dean Radin, America’s leading scentist  in the field of psi phenomenon investigation. And he met with Loyd Auerbach, author of the classic ghost image referece, the 1996 ESP, Hauntings and Poltergeists.

He gave the photo to Digital Computer Photography expert Professor Hany Farid, in the Image Science Group at Dartmouth College. Dr. Farid developed with Adobe Corp. (Photoshop) the fool-proof  authenticator of digital photos – utilized by courts, the NY Times, and intelligence agencies. Farid performed the forensic evaluation and verified the authenticity of the photo.

Can a cell phone be used to prove the soul exists?

Image of a Spirit. 

What People Are Saying.

I find the image captured an hour after the death, above the corpse, of the mother of Paul Williams, is a really interesting anomaly. It cries out for an explanation. What does it mean? I don't know, but I'd like to know more about it. I've never seen anything like it. This well-written story of Williams' odyssey to answer the question is lively, unexpected, and intriguing.”

ANDREW T. WEIL, M.D., Founder of the field of integrative medicine, famed author of Spontaneous Healing, 8 Weeks to Optimum Health, Healthy Aging and many others

I have never seen such a photograph before—a ”ghost” image that, one, was not amorphous and cloudlike and, two, was comparable to an actual person in continuous time and space—much less one a few inches away and dead less than two hours. I do not know of anyone taking a picture of a specific loved one, so soon after death.

DEAN I. RADIN, PhD, Senior Scientist of the Institute of Noetic Studies, author of The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena, Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality and others.

There are no extant photos captured in the same time and place as the deceased, nor are any so clear, taken in the modern era of photography.

LOYD AUERBACH, Author of ESP, Hauntings, and Poltergeists: A Parapsychologist's Handbook, A Paranormal Casebook: Ghost Hunting in the New Millennium and others

I confirm that the photo shows no signs of manipulation or alteration. In summary, except for the importing of the photo into iPhoto, I confirm that the image IMG00191.jpg is authentic.

HANY FARID, PhD, Professor, Department of Computer Science at Dartmouth College, Inventor, in partnership with Adobe Corp. (makers of Photoshop) of the fool-proof forensic analysis system of digital photos.

The picture–-and everything that followed-- more than justified Paul Williams writing this extraordinary book, and you and me reading this book carefully.

From the Foreword: 

“You are about to read a one-of-a-kind and likely history-making book.  I only have one concern about this book.  The book is so interesting, Williams’ life is so extraordinary (and eccentric), the author is so colorful and such a superb storyteller, that the scientific and spiritual significance of his apparent afterlife communication account may become overshadowed by his life.

“Of course, this makes for fun reading, and I personally enjoyed the book immensely.  However, the primary reason I decided to write this Foreword was to make sure that you, the reader, recognize the potential profundity of what Williams has discovered, and what it might mean for science as well as our personal lives.”


GARY E. SCHWARTZ, PhD - Professor of Psychology, Medicine, Neurology, Psychiatry, and Surgery, and Director of the Laboratory for Post-Materialist Science and Spirituality, at the University of Arizona; author of The Afterlife Experiments, The G.O.D. Experiment, The Energy Healing Experiments, and The Sacred Promise Paul Williams.

Also, since the reproductions in the "print-on-demand" Amazon version of the book had such poor quality reproductions, we are only offering the kindle version--no trade soft cover-- (I hope to get a quality publisher soon for a print edition for sale)…

Kindle edition $9.99  (http://www.amazon.com/Image-Spirit-Paul-Williams-ebook/dp/B00SZ4JI3S)
ISBN:  978-1-941768-39-6  Print Edition
ISBN:  978-1-941768-18-1  e-book
Published by Waterside Press

The first clear image of the human spirit was photographed accidentally, after the death of Paul Williams mother. This is the story of the taking and the subsequent authenticating and evaluating of the photograph by leading world experts.

This book is Williams odyssey of identifying, assessing and understanding a psi photo which clearly shows the image of a “spirit” or “ghost”, present at the same time and in the same place of the corpse.
The book is a narrative documentary which includes the results of interviews and evaluations with numerous researchers and experts along with interactions with many great and highly renowned individuals among them, the medium Sandra O’Hara, Pope John Paul II, Robert M. Gates, Erik H. Erikson, Huey P. Newton, Mescalito, the current Dali Lama’s teacher, H.H. Dilgo Khyntse Rinpoche, Oscar Ichazo, Fidel Castro, Francis Coppola  and Andrew T. Weil, M.D.

About the Author:

Sponsored by The National Science Foundation, Paul Williams wrote an undergraduate summa cum laude thesis on non-verbal communication, later published by Focal Press in 1970, in Messages of the Body.

He was a film director/producer/co-producer from 1965 to 2002 with credits to films including  1966; “Out of It” United Artists, Berlin Film Festival (Director/Writer) 1967; “The Revolutionary” U.A., Sorrento Film Fest (Dir.) , stars Robt Duval, Jon Voight 1969; “Dealing or the Berkley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues” (Dir) Warner Bros., based on book by Michael Crighton, stars Barbara Hershey, John Lithgow (also PW Screen Writer) 1971; “Badlands” Sissy Spacek & Martin Sheen, directed by T Malick 1972; “Phantom of the Paradise”, directed by BrianDePalma; “Nunzio,” (Dir) Universal, Toronto Film Festival 1975; “Miss Right” Sony (Dir), stars Virna Lisi, Karen Black, Marie-France Pisier, Margot Kidder, et al 1980;  “The November Men” (Dir) 1994;  “Mirage” Universal(Dir), stars Edward James Olmos, Sean Young (Wms., also Actor); 1996; “The Best Ever” (Dir)  a reality film of the Tantra teaching of Charles & Caroline Muir, 2002; Producer, “Cats: The Movie” Vivendi-Universal, directed by Susan Emerson.   Jeremy Piven and Michelle Rodriguez are among the voice actors, on screen nothing but cats, 2002. Researched as Producer/Director “And the Walls Came Tumbling Down…” in Poland and Italy, with Academy Award-winning writer John Briley (“Gandhi”).  A major production about the conflict between Pope John Paul II and the Eastern European empire of the Soviet Union, the film was suspended on direct orders from the Vatican.  Williams research included sessions with ex-CIA Chief, Robert Gates, ex-NSA head, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Lech Walesa, various ex-Communist ministers and the highest prelates of the Catholic Church 2003-2004.

He was admitted into Motion Picture Academy of Arts & Sciences, Directors’ Branch in 1972.

He was politically active and was friends with Eldridge Cleaver and Huey P. Newton, Visited Cuba with FF Coppola, Terrence Malik, et al; met with Fidel Castro, guarded him in 3-on-3 basketball games one morning in 1974.

He was married to Elizabeth Rosenwald (1967 to 1971). Later romances with Margot Kidder, Deborah Salt, had a child with Barbara Clarke Lilly (1974), Carrie Snodgress, Karen Black, et. al.

He lives in Malibu, California, and in Barra de Guaratiba, Rio de Janeiro.

Full bio on IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0931435/