Reece Scarpignato
Appearances
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
It wasn't enough to like, to really feel like a major difference, but There was something that was definitely there, and the higher we would get, the more I would feel that pulling sensation. Again, I was in work mode. I was focused on what I was doing, and it wasn't really enough to interrupt what I was doing, so I wasn't really that concerned with it.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
It was like a pulling sensation in my chest. That's the best way I can describe it. Almost like, I don't know, something inside me was being just gently tugged at. As we kind of conclude our final interview of him in this location, he suggests that we all go to the top of this hill, right? He's like, that's where all of this spiritual energy focuses.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
So I want us all to go on the top of this hill and stand in a circle on the rim of the hill facing the landscape around us. And we're all going to do a group meditation. And so at this point, you know, we've been hiking, I've been, you know, doing lighting stuff. So I'm, you know, a little tired. I'm just kind of glad to get a quick break.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
You know, I'm like, oh, this will be just like any of the other demonstrations. I'll just get a break from my work, have a fun little psychic experiment, and then we'll go about our day. I face away from everybody, and I'm facing the beautiful, beautiful Sedona landscape, just awesome cliffs stretching out, beautiful nature everywhere.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
And he says, everybody take a deep breath in, and then he strums his guitar twice, and then he tells everybody to breathe out And, you know, I sit there for maybe two seconds, kind of relaxing, not really feeling anything.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
And then all of a sudden, my vision just gets this, like, kind of ultra HD effect to it with like a blurred sort of vignette around the edges of my vision, paired with this feeling of calm and tranquility, which is just completely... contrasted to kind of my work mode brain. And it's not something I usually feel, especially when I'm on set and kind of have to be on call the entire time.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
It was instant. Like, one moment I was just standing there, kind of waiting for the meditation to be over, really. All of a sudden, I just was in a completely different headspace. And before I can really realize what's happening, I just get this mental image that definitely wasn't my own projected into my head, I guess.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
If you can imagine a shape floating in front of you in your mind's eye, that's exactly what it was like. But the only difference was I wasn't in control of that image. So it's like, you know, I could see perfectly fine. If, you know, somebody had come up and walked right in front of me, I could have seen that person.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
But I was also receiving these like images that were very similar to something that you would like imagine if you're trying to, you know, imagine an apple or a cube or something. What flashes in front of my vision is thousands of images of like natural, looking spirit, kind of mother earth spirit, just this mental image of a forest or earth spirit.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
And if you can imagine, you know, putting pictures frame by frame next to each other and playing it back over three to four seconds, it was very similar to that. Just different interpretations of the same idea, all paired with the knowledge that this was this being introducing itself to me. It was just pure thought and feeling with no room for any miscommunication or any doubt on the intention.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
And it was just immediately followed by just this feeling of like anything that was bothering me, anything that I was thinking of was just completely cleared. It was this sense of Calm and synchronicity and togetherness of the universe, very similar to when you take psychedelics. It's just a sense of calm and love, I guess. And they just beamed these thoughts of don't be afraid.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
You know, all is well. The universe is in perfect alignment. Everything is as it should be. It was like all around me was what it was communicating. It was everywhere. It was the hill. It was the air. It was the trees. It was the sky in the same way that everything is connected. It was some sort of thing that was part of the interconnectedness of the world around me.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
It definitely presented itself to me with like a very loving mother energy. It seemed like an intentional way to communicate with me. Like it had chosen that sort of form to get the maximum amount of impact on me. Before I could even really grasp what was happening, after it had followed up introducing itself, it shifted my focus to this large spire to my right. And when I say shifted focus,
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
I found myself moving my head in the direction of this spire completely involuntarily. And as I did so, like, it was kind of like, I just blinked and all of a sudden my, my head was looking at this spire and I don't even remember like looking that direction. And my vision felt like it zoomed into the spire where I automatically knew that was like where I was supposed to focus my attention.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
then the entity started comparing me to this spire and like, was talking about how, like this spire, I was shaped by the wind and the rain and, you know, comparing that wind and rain to the struggles of my own life and how they had
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
shaped me into the person that i am just like the wind and the rain had shaped this spire into the way that it looked and you know despite being weathered despite being battered the spire still stands strong and has more character based on the struggles that it has endured or the wind and the rain that it has endured it was a lot more succinct than my description but
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
It was able to tie those struggles to the very personal emotional struggles in my own life. So much so that I was overwhelmed with emotion, like almost, you know, as if it knew me. I'm not a big crier. I very much repress my emotions. And, you know, when I'm overwhelmed with this incredibly emotional experience, I feel the urge to cry.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
and naturally repress it, that's when it kind of tells me that it's okay to cry and that it's okay to express my emotions. And I feel these tears going down my face. And when I reach up to wipe them away, I realize there's no tears on my face. All it is is this wind, almost like compressed air being shot at my cheeks, almost to like emulate tears.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
So after that incredibly like personal and emotional experience that like really, I mean, probably only lasted a minute, but like was probably better than like a year's worth of therapy. The entity asked me if it, if I had any questions for it. I asked it a couple questions, but they're pretty personal to me. I did ask it about my career in film. That's one thing I will talk about.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
like what is gonna happen with my film career? What is the future of my career going to look like? And it gave me the answers in those same visualizations that it had to introduce itself. And these visualizations were kind of cryptic, and I still don't really know what they mean. It was these blue figures, kind of like bathroom people, but smaller and shorter.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
filled with this white light energy that kind of looked like veins and they were passing that white light energy back and forth to each other in a circular fashion. And as this white light energy was passed to each entity, the amount of entities grew.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
And then it was two, and then it was three, then it was five, then it was 10, then it was 20, then it was 1,000, then it was a million, then it was 10 million. And then just like it had began, it was done. And I was there forever. standing on the edge of the hill with the crew, like exactly how it had started. I don't really know how long this experience lasted for.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
My sense of time was completely altered. I had no concept of time. It could have lasted anywhere from like five to ten minutes, but again, I'm not really sure. There is video footage. The DP was filming this, but I haven't seen it.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
So I just end up right back where I started, you know, on that hill and our meditation's ending and we walk down and I just sit on a rock and I can't talk. I just have the biggest smile on my face to the point where all my crew members are, you know, all back in work mode are like commenting on it. Like, oh, you had a good time. Like you must've had a really good meditation.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
They all just seemed like they'd had a nice little break from work, and they were just going right back to it. Getting ready to go to the next location, figuring out logistics, resetting gear, packing up, just hustle and bustle of normal set life. I'm not a very expressive person, and it felt like I could not physically stop smiling. I felt like this massive weight
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
had been lifted off of my chest and I felt less tired and more energetic and happier than I have in probably years. I don't even remember the walk back down. I was just in a daze. One, just trying to process what I'd just been through. And two, just like feeling definitely like I was in some sort of altered state of consciousness after this experience. I didn't tell anybody what happened to me.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
I didn't even tell Bonna what happened to me because I just, I couldn't. And we were just like on a very tight schedule. And so you're, you know, I was very much back in work mode and trying to focus on that and focus on our next location. I really was trying to make sense of what happened because there's no way that this had been a drug trip
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
I know it sounds very similar, but it would have had to been the most conveniently timed, shortest acid flashback ever. I hadn't taken psychedelics. There's no way that I could have been drugged. I didn't ingest anything from the time of meeting him in the parking lot. I don't even think I touched the man. There was no sound that could have been bounced. I didn't.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
was not hearing anything auditory. He wasn't bouncing any sound off of any cliff walls. We were on top of a hill with just air all around us for miles. It wasn't any sort of hypnotism at all. I wasn't even facing his direction and listened to two notes on a guitar while taking deep breaths. So definitely Couldn't have been hypnotism. Couldn't have been drugged. I didn't sit on any cactuses.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
I know that's been said. It was just a completely lightweight meditation that just involved a single deep breath and me standing while looking at a view. There's no other explanation to me than that I was contacted by some kind of entity. That night, I
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
talked with the director about my experience and she shared with me, she had experienced something of her own also with Bona at our second shooting location. But throughout the duration of filming, uh, me and her were not the only ones who had profound spiritual experiences. I think four out of our five crew members had some sort of spiritual experience that really shook them to their core.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
It wasn't always with the same psychics, and some of them were with psychics that I didn't respond to. A lot of us were film people, were very practical, hands-on, technical people, came in very skeptical, and I think all but one of us left with a new perspective on psychics and spirituality in general.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
So basically Bona would host these, these psychic gatherings, I guess you could call them or psychic parties, which, you know, we had been invited to since we were interviewing all these psychics and a couple of them were at this, this gathering. I kind of was chatting with Bona after everyone was filtered out of the party and I hadn't
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
He'd just heard through the grapevine of me telling other psychics that I had had some sort of really powerful experience through his meditation. But I, he didn't know what it was cause I hadn't really told anybody. And I basically just told him everything that I just told you right now, minus two key details, which is kind of really important.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
I didn't mention the tone of voice, the fact that it was like devoid of emotion. And I didn't mention the wind tears when I was telling him about my experience. But it wasn't until he heard about the blue figures in my final vision that he was like, oh, a lot of people have contact with them around Sedona. It's like a pretty common experience.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
in their contact something i hadn't brought up to him was you know the wind tears so i was like okay he's not just talking out of his ass right now and he told me that they had you know were able to speak to people telepathically where it's very direct and loving but emotionless and that was a described the way that they communicated to me to a t
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
My name is Reece Scarpignato. I'm a freelance filmmaker. I do a lot of different jobs, but during the course of kind of this time period, I was doing a lot of freelance gaffing and grip work. So what like a gaffer is for people who don't know, that's like a guy who's kind of in charge of lighting and electric in a very simplified way. There's a lot of like setting up lights
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
something I hadn't brought up in my telling of the story to him. So that really legitimized like his opinions on my experience to me as something that he had gone through himself and many others had experienced as well. I know it's a lot, but again, after like independently corroborating something that had happened to me that was frankly inexplainable. I really am a believer in that now.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
After having this experience, I found myself questioning everything I know. I was a very deep-rooted atheist. I was, you know, Raised in the Catholic church, but didn't believe really in it at all. Probably had the furthest thing from any spiritual experience in that system. It was a pretty hardcore atheist. Didn't believe in spirituality at all.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
Was always the first to be a skeptic and explain things away. But now having this experience, I, I feel like imagining that we know everything about the universe and everything about higher dimensions and everything outside of our narrow window of perception which really if you even compare it to animals is tiny the fact that we like think we know everything about that i think is a form of ego
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
really it's it's the same mentality when we were saying that the earth is the center of the universe then the sun was the center of the universe and then the galaxy was the center of the universe it's the same thought pattern that like there can be nothing larger than us because we are everything but if you really look at the the gamut of what we've observed
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
the room that's there that we just cannot perceive even with machines is just so vast and like in my opinion infinite that it's just it's so much less likely that there's nothing out there than that there is something larger than us whether it's physically out there in our third dimension Or in the infinite number of dimensions that like transcend and descend below our current one.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
I just think it's just an ego driven thought that we are the end all be all of existence and that there's nothing that knows better than us and that there's nothing that, you know, can exist outside of our perception. It's opened me up to question everything that I thought I knew about existence. Because if I can be wrong about that, what else am I wrong about?
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
And it's really taught me that to really be a skeptic, you need to examine your own beliefs and be skeptical of the things you think you know before you're skeptical of the things that you don't understand.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
The thing that really, I think, set him apart, people would be like, oh, and thank you, Bona. Thank you for making this happen and appealing to his ego. But he would deflect and he'd be like, it's not about me. That was his whole message. The work is within you. The big difference between him and a lot of the psychics that we worked with A lot of the psychics were very like, this is about me.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
I am the key that you need to unlock your psychic gifts. And without me, you would not be able to do this. Whereas like Bona's messaging was very much different than those psychics. It was like, you are in charge of your spiritual journey. This is about you being open. This is about you confronting your struggles, answering your own questions. I am just here as a facilitator.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
and then kind of sitting back and doing nothing. We're very much like the grunts of the film set, so we'll be moving stuff around, again, setting up lights, bounce cards, negative fill, all that stuff. Working as a freelancer in LA, you're kind of hopscotching from one project to the next.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
I'm barely part of this equation. Like you could do this without me.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
But I think in a way that's kind of perfect. I felt like a lot of the psychics that we were interviewing were putting on a show. They made money on the image of what a psychic was supposed to be. Do you know what I mean? And I feel like the fact that he kind of rejects all of that in a way is what makes it that much more... At least that maybe is what resonated with me specifically. You know?
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
I mean, it proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's something. There's something there.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
You could be working with a very high-budget, very professional crew one day, and then the next day you're working on, like, a three-person music video, you know, shooting with camcorders and elevators and stuff. It's very unpredictable. There's everything from music videos, television shows, commercials, you know, passion projects, short films, interviews, you name it.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
I did production design for a Teddy Swims music video recently. They showed clips of it at the Grammys a couple days ago, actually, which is really, really cool. But I've also worked on stuff where it's, you know, producer, actor, director, screenwriter, all in one. And, you know, it's kind of a bit of an ego show, I guess. Those are the ones you really have to watch out for.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
I got brought onto this project through a good friend of mine who was the director, producer. We, you know, worked on a couple things before, but, you know, we're mostly just like friends outside of work. And she was like, oh, I've got this documentary. We're shooting in Sedona. We're going to be following some psychics. I was like, already, I'm in.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
Like, we're interviewing like a bunch of psychics. Like, this is going to be super fun, funny, should be a really easy gig. doing some sit down interviews.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
No, no, I didn't know. Like, cause I'm really not a spiritual, like I was into spirituality more as like entertainment. I never took it seriously. And so I didn't really like know about Sedona. If I had heard of Sedona, I think it was like, I was like, Oh, like, you know, it's probably just a bunch of, you know, white girls with crystals in the desert.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
But like, yeah, didn't didn't really take it very seriously. So Sedona is a massive hotspot of spiritual tourism, but also spiritual like culture in general, like it's the type of place where you'll drive around and see just a wizard standing on the side of the road with a crystal ball and a staff. I think we saw at least three to four, like just separate wizards, like out and about in Sedona.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
It's this beautiful part of Northern Arizona covered in like it it basically looks like zion national park everywhere but it's covered in just this lush greenery so there's this beautiful uh juxtaposition between like the desert red rock and like the beautiful foliage like everywhere you go it's just it really is like a very awe-inspiring place just from first glance
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
If you want to get the vibe of this place, they have a McDonald's with a turquoise M, and it's all made out of Adobe, or kind of faux Adobe, I guess. When we went out there, I hadn't met any of the crew prior besides the director. It was just come to this random house in the middle of Sedona, And we're going to meet the crew.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
So I just drove out in my own car, loaded up the rental lights and equipment in my own car, and just drove out to this random house that the financier had owned, I guess, on the outskirts of Sedona. It was this big ranch house out in the middle of nowhere. And we just lived there for the duration of the shoot. Basically, I arrived at the house in the middle of the night, you know, met the crew.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
It was a very, very small crew. I was kind of the gaffer slash PA. Then we had the DP, the AC. DP is director of photography. AC is the assistant camera, the director producer, and the sound guy. So there were five of us in total staying at this large kind of ranch house in the outskirts of Sedona.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
We basically spent the duration of our time there interviewing psychics from, you know, crystal shop owners to personal healers to tarot card readers to people who could tell your future. There's a very large community of psychics in Sedona. So that was kind of, you know, the focus of our documentary was just taking each one of these psychics and interviewing them
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
And then letting them do like a demonstration. Since I was the gaffer PA, I was the most like expendable member of our five person crew. Like we joked and said, my, my position was the psychic Guinea pig of the, uh, of the crew. So I was most of the time thrown in as like the, uh, example for, um, their demonstrations.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
We had a lot of group demonstrations where all of us were involved, but for most of the single demonstrations, I'd say I was the one who was receiving the brunt of the psychic demonstrations. Basically, I thought this was one big joke. I was like, oh, we're going to come here, and I'm just going to see all these phony psychics do their thing, and I'm going to leave just absolutely tickled.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
That's kind of how I came in. So we had quite a few different ones. I think I had one where it was a sound healing ritual that we did up on one of the, on the mesas, like during sunset, which was really cool. But I didn't really like feel anything when that was going on. But they put like a sound bowl on my chest, made a circle of rocks.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
And like, you know, I stood there while like they kind of rang the bowl and stuff.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
was another one where i was kind of there's two psychics and and they were trying to read my feature but i i don't really think they got it right they're also like telling me things about myself which was just like i mean even the crew that had only known me for like about a week were like that doesn't sound like you at all so there's definitely like times where i
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
didn't really feel anything but maybe i just like wasn't open enough or something we were there for i think it was two weeks and it was like every day was like a new psychic i could go on and on and on at this point i was just kind of doing my job like
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
Gaffing can get kind of physically intensive, even if you're on kind of a lax schedule like we were, you know, mainly just setting up lights, sitting around or just, you know, being thrown in as like the test dummy. So I was having really just a great time, but, you know, still very much in work mode.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
Like we would be very serious and professional during the day, get our shots, get our interviews and then go back and read, you know. Kind of play cards and chat, have a couple drinks with the crew back at our house. And that's kind of was the experience most of the, the trip. It was honestly just like super fun, kind of like a paid vacation, but you get to do like what you love while you do it.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
It was during this period, you know, of interviews, one was a little different than the other psychics we were interviewing, which were kind of like in their offices or in like their shops or it was very much inside. We were going to go on a hike called a vortex tour. Basically what a vortex is, is a concentration of spiritual energy in certain places.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
Sedona is known for having a lot of them, but they're all over the world. They have these complex vortex maps that I don't understand. That's the reason that a lot of people are drawn to Sedona and it has such a big psychic following or psychic concentration is because apparently people are drawn to the massive amounts and powerful vortexes in Sedona.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
The guy that we were interviewing was a vortex tour guide. That's kind of what he did for a living. He'd done it in many different places. He'd done it in Hawaii, he'd done it in Sedona, I think parts of South America as well. Basically, what he said during the Vortex tour is that the reason that Sedona has this concentration of vortexes is the makeup of the soil.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
Basically, it has a lot of iron oxide and quartz, which are both very conductive. Iron oxide conducts electricity. And quartz conducts like radio waves and things like that, like it's used in radios to transmit frequencies and just kind of the shape of like spires and mesas and stuff really helps get that energy flowing.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
I didn't believe this at all when I was hearing it, especially not from our guide. Our guide was this guy named Bona, despite the fact that he was a white dude from Portland who had like a very youth pastor vibe. He, you know, carried a guitar. I think he was dressed in all white with a white baseball cap when, uh, when we interviewed him, you know, would say, send it all the time.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
Definitely not the type of person that I thought of as like a shaman or like a spiritual guide. The hike was right off the main trail. It was within sight of like a parking lot and a road. We're walking through just kind of scrub land, like overshadowed by these massive, massive mesas covered in beautiful green foliage. I think we were there in the winter when like
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
It's like probably the greenest all year. So it's just this beautiful contrast between the red rocks and the green foliage. And we make our way to this thing called the Baby Bell, which is this small hill right near what they call, I think it's the bell. It's this giant famous rock formation towards the center of Sedona that kind of overshadows most of the city.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
So as we're ascending this small hill, it couldn't have been more than a few stories high. he starts explaining to us the mechanics of the way in which vortexes form and are kind of transmitted, I guess. He starts talking to us about the soil makeup and how that contributes to vortexes forming, especially in this area. And what he explains while we're ascending is that
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
that you can feel this pull inside of your body. Sometimes it'll be pulling kind of upwards, sometimes it'll be pulling downwards, but it's kind of this draw. Again, I didn't really believe it. I was just kind of in work mode, you know, I was like making sure the lighting on his face looked good when they were shooting him and you know, for the interviews.
Otherworld
Episode 121: The Vortex
But as we started, you know, to ascend this hill and when we, you know, stopped for interviews on, on each little point, I started to feel that effect that he was describing like more and more and more as we ascended. At first I was like, oh, this is totally placebo. You know, he's like bringing this up. And so like, you know, obviously you're going to kind of feel it.