Deva Photo taken in Arizona on Mt Lemmon

I thought I would try communicating with the deva. So I visualized various symbols, and the deva repeated them after me. For example, I visualized a pentagram, and, to my vision, a pentagram appeared, many miles across, spread against the sky.

What is this photo?

Do you see anything unusual about this picture? Do you see a central, vertical, luminous streak of light that starts at the peak of the mountain and goes up to the sky? Do you see more than one streak? What could it be?

Could it be a defect in the film or its processing? If so, how could it be that the defect exactly corresponds to what I saw on the mountain when I took the picture?

Could it be a trick of lighting? A shaft of light seen through the clouds? If so, then how did I see the same vertical shaft of light from several different angles? On cloudless days? Over many different years?

Could it be some kind of natural feature of the landscape? Some kind of stationary lightning? How did it endure for most of a decade?

Or could it be a deva? You decide.

The word [Deva] is derived from the Sanscrit meaning "to shine" — hence the "shining ones", the "resplendent" ones.... And there are many — with something devic, perhaps, stirring in their hearts — who feel that we shall never rightly understand the world of Nature, or rightly feel at home in it, until we have come to terms with these neighbours of ours, and for whom all that we mean by Nature is the very breath of life.
Devas and Men vii-viii

The photo shown here is at 75 dots per inch and thousands of colors. Here is the same picture at 200 dots per inch and millions of colors. This photo is around 345K in size.

About this photo

This photo was taken about a decade ago with a Minolta 35mm camera with automatic focus, using Kodak film. The location was near the top of Mt. Lemmon, near Tucson Arizona, USA. The film was probably 400 speed, as that was what I was used to purchasing at the time. No zoom lens or other options were used.

The mountain peaks shown here are perhaps 400 yards (or maybe 380 meters) away. There are apparently two peaks, but they are on the same promatory, so there is really only one. The tree to the right is on a relatively close bluff, only about ten yards (or meters) away. The mountain peak is much further away than the tree! There is a whole canyon in between.

The photo was taken in cloudy conditions, however it was close to mid-day and there was plenty of light. This particular photo was developed with the sky as the focal point, hence the clouds show up well but the ground seems dark, as though it were twilight. It was not twilight, but, as I said, reasonably well-lit landscape.

This is unusual because normally we do not care about the sky, we care about what is on the ground or, at most, a bird or airplane that is in the sky. This particular photo, however, was pointed more at the sky than at the ground, and the automatic film processing equipment must have assumed I wanted the sky to be correctly exposed rather than the ground. Consequently the unusual image was revealed, because the photo was "spoiled."

The quantity of so-called spoiled film is great, and no one takes the trouble to look carefully at seemingly unsuccessful photographs.
Supermundane: The Inner Life, Book One, #77

I would suspect that there are many, many photos that have images like this, but we simply never noticed them, or if we did, thought that they were a mistake.

History of this photo

Many years ago I went with a friend of mine to Mt. Lemmon. On that trip up the mountain we stopped and got out of the car, and went a ways into the trees that cover the mountain. We were both of a metaphysical frame of mind, so we got to discussing the deva life that, so it is said in esoteric literature, is the "soul" of all natural phenomena. At one point, while enjoying the spectacular view, I noticed this shaft of light that seemed to emerge from the top of one of the peaks on the mountain. This, to me, was a deva.

Symbols... are signs which convey cosmic truths, and instruction, and can be comprehended alike by the evolved of both evolutions.
Alice A. Bailey, A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, p666

We visited Mt. Lemmon a second time, and again we went to the same spot. The deva was still there, and again, a conversation of sorts ensured. (If you wish to consider this the result of an over-active imagination, that is fine with me.)

Still later, I was traveling once again to Arizona, and resolved to take a photo. I reasoned that, if I could see it with my own eyes, then a camera should be able to do just as well. We arrived at the place where my friend and I used to go, and the deva was still there. So I took a few photos. Only one of them shows the deva, for reasons explained above.

Afterwards, seeing that I actually had a picture, I wanted to go to Arizona again and get more, for proof. But I could not return for many years, and when I did, the deva was no longer there.

For whatever it is worth, I showed the photo to my father, Jack R. Mitchell, who taught photography for decades, who owned a camera shop for decades, who served in the Navy during W.W.II as Ship Photographer, etc. He also was an experienced hiker and mountain climber, and had taken countless pictures of nature and the mountains. He was also totally unfamiliar with any concept of devas, or about anything else in esoteric philosophy (I have tried to explain all this to him, but without success) and so he was thus knowledgeable and reasonably unbiased. He did not know of anything that could cause that streak of light on that photo. Period.

If you want to see a deva

First, don't bother with Mt. Lemmon. At least, the deva was no longer where I had seen it for so many years. Perhaps the many tourists had driven it away, or perhaps something else occurred. On the other hand, perhaps it moved to a more remote location on the same mountain. I do not know.

The place I saw the deva on Mt. Lemmon was not on the road or any of the trails. (On the other hand, if you knew where to look, you could have seen the deva from the road. Why more people did not report it is a mystery to me.) The place where the photo was taken was invisible from the road, but had a commanding view of a portion of the mountain. Please do not tramp all over Mt. Lemmon looking for it!

I do know of one other place I have seen a deva, but I have not had the opportunity to go there in daylight, in order to take pictures. Naturally, when I did get there once (in twilight, unfortunately) my camera did not work (even more unfortunately). I will be trying again when I can.

Why I don't have more photos

When I found that I had what I thought was a real-life photo of a deva, and not just a painting, I excitedly showed it to other people, who politely listened to me, became glassy-eyed, and then seemed to change the subject as soon as possible. I concluded that people are not really interested in this matter, or don't believe it, or don't think it has anything to do with them. So I put my photo in a frame, in loving memory, and forgot about the matter.

Now, though, I have a web site, and via the internet I can show more people than my friends and relatives; perhaps one of you will find this matter of interest. If so, I will expedite the accumulation of photos. I want to try to get shots from multiple angles so that we can measure its width and height. Even more importantly, I would like to establish some kind of communication between humans and devas.

The deva and human evolution will, during the next five hundred years, become somewhat more conscious of each other, and be able therefore more freely to co-operate. With this growing consciousness will be found a seeking after methods of communication. When the need of communication for constructive ends is sincerely felt, then, under the judicious guidance of the Masters, will certain of the old mantrams be permitted circulation. Their action, interaction and reaction will be closely studied and watched. It is hoped that the benefit to both groups will be mutual. The human evolution should give strength to the deva, and the deva, joy to the human. Man should communicate to the devas the objective point of view, while they in turn will pour in on him their healing magnetism. They are the custodians of prana, magnetism and vitality, just as man is the custodian of the fifth principle, or manas.
Alice A. Bailey, Letters on Occult Meditation, p182-183

Also, if interest exists, I will post more information from the esoteric literature on devas. I have a lot more thoughts about this photo than the ones posted here.

And to those who have asked, yes I know about several books on devas, including "The Kingdom of the Gods" by Geoffrey Hodson. I note, by the way, that most of the devas pictured correspond to a vertical column of light.