The following podcast may not be for all listeners.
Listener discretion is advised. You've probably all heard about
the spiritual practice of psychic manifestation, focusing
your thoughts like a laser beam to attract success, love, or
healing. But there's another psychic
ability that few dare to whisper about Thoughtography.
This isn't about manifesting a new car or a better job.
This is about burning your thoughts directly into physical
reality, scorching your mental images onto surfaces through
sheer psychic force. In the dark corners of
paranormal history lurks the strange story of Ted Serrios, a
Chicago bellhop whose claimed abilities sent shivers to the
scientific community of the 1960s.
Serios didn't claim to speak with the dead, predict the
future, or manifest wealth. He claimed to possess something
far more intriguing the power to burn images directly from his
mind onto Polaroid film. Armed with nothing but a
mysterious black tube he called his Gizmo and an alleged psychic
mind, Serios captured the attention of respected
psychiatrist Doctor Jewel Eisenbud.
He would spend years documenting what he believed to be genuine
thoughtography. In countless sessions, images
would materialize on blank Polaroid film, buildings, cars,
landscapes, all supposedly projected from the depths of
Sirius consciousness. Join me as I walk through the
unexplained realms of thoughtography and learn about
Ted Sirius, the man who took pictures with his mind.
In the shadows of early 20th century academia lurked
Tomikichi Fukari, a man whose obsession with the unseen world
ultimately would destroy his career as an associate professor
at Tokyo Imperial University. He dared to venture where his
colleagues feared to tread, into the murky waters of clairvoyance
and thoughtography. While others chased conventional
psychology, Fukhari haunted ghosts in the machine, convinced
that human consciousness could imprint on photographic plates
without a camera. His experiments with psychics
ended in scrutiny, forcing him from his prestigious position in
1913. But like the spirits he sought
to capture, Fakhari refused to fade away.
He continued his research in the darkness, spending decades
trying to prove that the human mind could imprint itself.
What if we could take our minds images and push them out of our
subconscious and into the physical world?
According to Ted Cirrios he possessed this ability.
Photography. There isn't much known about Ted
Cirrios early life other than he was born in Kansas City in 1918
and served in the US Army in Vietnam.
After the service he was disabled and struggled bouts of
heavy drinking and increasingly erotic behavior.
Ted Cirrios life began to unravel.
The breaking point came when authorities committed him to
Chicago State Hospital, where doctors diagnosed him with
schizophrenia. He moved forward and became
immersed in the service industry, becoming a Chicago
bellhop with sticky fingers and a taste for trouble.
In the gleaming Conrad Hilton Hotel of the 1960s, he spent his
days pocketing cash from the register and borrowing the
guest's cars for joy rides through the Windy City's
streets. Little did anyone know, this
petty thief would soon captivate the nation's imagination with
something far more extraordinary than Grand Theft Auto.
In the shadows of the Conrad Hilton's dimly lit corridors, he
crossed paths with George Johannes, a man whose innocent
job title masked a far sinister obsession.
Johannes dabbled in the art of hypnosis, but not the parlor
trick variety that made people cluck like chickens.
He sought something more unsettling, the ability to send
people's consciousness to drift into the unknown, particularly
traveling clairvoyance, which is much like remote viewing, but it
occurs while the subject is under hypnosis, like puppet
strings attached to the human mind.
He'd guide his subjects through an ethereal void, commanding
them to peer into places that they were never meant to see.
It was remote Viewings Twisted Cousin performed on the
unwitting souls who caught his attention.
As the two Co workers began to learn more about each other, Ted
revealed to George that he could project images from his mind
onto paper. This piqued George's interest in
Sirios. Did you plan to use Sirios's
ability to find hidden treasure located in the sea?
Armed with the camera given to him by George, Ted went home and
began working diligently to transfer images from his mind
onto the film. The film was sent out to be
developed and returned with a few images.
Ted was in disbelief. He chose to purchase his own
camera to be sure, and it also came back with impossible
images. Ted assumed he must be
sleepwalking and capturing these images, so he began locking
himself in his room at night. But the developed film still
would produce images. Ted ditched traditional film for
something more immediate, a Polaroid camera.
Day after day, he'd stand there, waiting for his mental visions
to materialize in real time. Occasionally an image would
appear, but he'd ultimately never find the sunken treasure.
The instant photos became his obsession, blank squares
transforming into physical proof of what lurked inside his mind.
Desperate for stronger results, Ted sought out a hypnotherapist.
But fate has a way of orchestrating the strangest
moments during his session. An unexpected phone call forced
the therapist to step away, asking Ted to wait in the
reception area. He raised his Polaroid to a bare
wall, the receptionist's eyes widening as she watched him snap
photo after photo of the bare wall.
What developed before their eyes defied explanation.
Six images emerged from what should have been blank shots of
white plaster walls, but scenes from India materialized like
ghosts on the Polaroid film. The receptionist's skepticism
crumbled as she watched impossible images bloom in Ted's
trembling hands, each photo a window into a place thousands of
miles away. When the therapist returned, he
found himself facing evidence that the boundary between the
mind and reality was far more fragile than his years of
training had led him to believe. The hypnotherapist's suggestion
would prove fateful, turning the camera's eye inward, making Ted
both observer and subject of his own inexplicable gift.
Each time he pointed the Polaroid at his face, it was
like opening a door that shouldn't exist, capturing
something that lurked beneath his ordinary reflection.
But gifts like these are fickle. The deeper Ted ventured into
hypnosis, the more his strange ability slipped away.
Like water cupped through hands. The trance state that should
have heightened his power instead smothered it, leaving
him with nothing but blank photos and mounting frustration.
Only in those raw, conscious moments, fully awake and aware
with the impossible images bleed through onto the Polaroid film,
his ability increased. Ted felt he needed to find a
scientist to assist in documenting the strange ability.
The owner and editor of Fate magazine shared Ted's unusual
story with Doctor Jules Eisenbudd, a psychiatrist
originally from New York but based in Denver.
The two met in a Chicago hotel for drinks.
The Chicago hotel bar became the stage for Ted's unraveling.
Double scotches disappeared one after another, followed by shots
before attempting to demonstrate his ability.
But the photos came out wrong. What Ted called blackies, sheets
of pure darkness, as if the light itself refused to touch
the film. Each failed attempt pushed him
further into agitation, his pulse hammering against his
throat like a trapped thing trying to escape.
His composure cracked under the weight of his own expectations
until finally he sat cross legged.
The Polaroid shook in his white knuckled grip as he turned it
towards his face, a mirror to capture whatever darkness was
rising within him. After each failed attempt,
desperation crept in until Ted finally mentioned his gizmo.
He described a simple hollow plastic tube, a crude tool he
claimed could help channel his ability by placing it over the
camera's lens. Doctor Eisenbutt's professional
curiosity sparked at this revelation, his eyes narrowing
as he held out his hand, silently demanding to inspect
this mysterious aid. The moment felt heavy with
unspoken questions. Was this the crutch that
explained everything, or just another layer in Ted's
increasingly complex mystery? For two crueling hours, they
watched failure after failure develop in Ted's hands.
Doctor Eisenberg's envelope of target pictures, brought with
such academic optimism, remained untouched, a testament to the
evening's disappointments. Just as the doctor put the
target pictures away, something happened.
Finally emerged. An image.
Not the sharp, clear proof they'd been hunting for, but
something else. A blurry structure.
It wasn't until later that the blurry image was identified.
It was the Chicago Water Tower, it's distinctive silhouette
barely contained within the frame's boundaries.
The timing was almost cruel. Success arrived precisely when
they'd stopped looking for it. Ted produced another image
during this meeting, but Doctor Eisenbutt halted the session as
Ted's blood pressure was extremely high.
Though Ted claimed he knew he was ready when his heart began
to pound. Doctor Eisenbutt invited Ted to
Denver so they could further study his ability with his
colleagues. In Denver's clinical confines,
Ted's gift revealed its darker nature.
Doctor Eisenberg and his colleagues watched as a pattern
emerged, one that echoed through the halls of paranormal research
like a familiar shadow. The key to Ted's power wasn't
concentration or meditation, but raw and filtered emotion.
Anger specifically acted like a match to gasoline, igniting
whatever mysterious force allowed him to burn impossible
images onto Polaroid film. The discovery linked Ted to a
broader, more unsettling truth about psychokinetic phenomena.
These abilities fed on turbulence, drawing power from
the storm of human emotion rather than the calm.
It was the darkness within that open doors to the impossible,
not peace or tranquility. Serios, often in various states
of intoxication, produced image after image under what Eisenbutt
considered foolproof conditions. During one session he was unable
to produce but became extremely intoxicated and belligerent.
The doctor refusing to allow him any more.
Alcohol incited rage, and Ted grabbing the camera to prove his
ability, produced a blurry image of a double Decker bus.
But here's where our story takes a darker turn.
Professional magicians and skeptics were convinced it was
all a trick. The famous magician James Randy
claimed the gizmo could easily conceal a small lens or optical
device. Critics pointed out that Serios
would only perform when holding this mysterious tube, and many
of his successes came after hours of failed attempts, when
observers might be tired or less vigilant.
What makes this story so fascinating isn't just the
phenomenon itself. It's the questions it raises
about the nature of consciousness, reality, and
human perception. Sirios was a fraud.
How did he fool so many scientists and researchers for
so long? And if he was genuine, why
couldn't he produce results consistently under stricter
conditions? Doctor Eisenbad died in 1999,
taking many of his conclusions about Serios to the grave.
Serios himself faded into obscurity and died in 2006,
leaving behind a legacy of uncertainty and wonder.
The photographs still exist, hundreds of them stored in
university archives, continuing to puzzle anyone who studies
them. Perhaps the most chilling aspect
of the Ted Serios case is that we may never know the truth.
Like so many mysteries in the paranormal world, it sits in
that uncomfortable Gray area between the possible and the
impossible, between fraud and phenomenon.
I guess we'll just leave this to the unexplained realms.
And so ends our journey into the darkest corners of paranormal
photography. Ted Serios, the hard drinking
Chicago bellhop who claimed he could burn images from his mind
onto film, remains an enigma that haunts the halls of psychic
research. In the 1960s, during countless
nights of experimentation with Doctor Jewel Eisenbud, Serios
produced hundreds of inexplicable photographs, some
clear, others distorted like fever dreams.
Was he a fraud with a cover slate of hand, or did this
troubled man truly possess the ability to bridge the gap
between thought and reality? The answer stagnated him, but
his autographs live on ghostly artifacts of a time when science
dared to probe the boundaries of human consciousness.
I hope you'll join me again soon.
Until then, keep watching the shadows, for sometimes the most
terrifying truths are the ones we capture when we think no
one's looking.