is it possible to have a spotlight pointed in a certain direction but not actually have light shine on certain objects within its path but still have it shine on others? sort of like having eyes of a face glowing in the dark or something to that effect

You can have objects not receive shadows but I don't think you can have them not receive light. If you wish to have glowing eyes just turn up the abience in the material lab.

perhaps what you're looking for is to use the radial light instead of the spotlight, and mask it to leave what you don't want illuminated unlit. Turn off shadows. If you use the spotlight, then in the edit feature, under render option, you want to use infinite light instead of visible object.

yeah the glowing eyes was just an example, what i was really trying to do was create a spotlight shining on an object but not have a spot on the ground directly underneath the object. the radial light will have to work but i was looking for a spotlight effect. thanks for your help guys

Ahhh...then simply use a ranged light so that it stops at your object.

There's another way too. Put a light in there that lights up your objects and put a spotlight on the one you don't want highlighted and give it a negative light. You'll have to use multiple light objects to do this. When you use a negative light, it takes away the lighting on an object. Remember to use the little icon that lets you track and object to keep the negative light directly on the one you want to dim.

Attached Link: http://www.petersharpe.com/Tutorial26.htm