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Does anyone have theories and/or personal experiences regarding orbs of light? I do not mean in the "ufo" manner of speaking, but more in terms of orbs that appear around people, inside dwellings, etc.

I have seen them much of my life, even prompting visits to a doctor as a young man to ensure it was not a symptom of a degenerative eye ailment. No problems in that area. But I've always seen lovely sky blue orbs that float around me for about 5 seconds and then vanish. On rare occasions I've seen milk white orbs do the same thing. Once they disappear, I've tried to reproduce the phenomena by shifting my position and seeing if some light refraction could explain it. Never could. In fact, one night when attempting to reproduce the event by moving my head around like an idiot (catching the hall ceiling light), the white orb appeared again on the other side of me, as if to say "Hello! I'm over here now, mate!"

Are they souls of the dead, paying a little call, spiritual reminders to "wake up", some undetermined eye problem (nerve ending quivers?).

For what it's worth, I've purchased a digital camera and routinely pick up orbs around my house.

Ruth,

Are you a fundamentalist? If so, I guess that explains it. The WORD refers to the spirit of God, not Jesus Christ the person. But I am not going to argue religion with you, since I willingly give allow you to have your dogma as it suits you. As one author said, so many Christians worship the road sign, and don't look where it points!

Healthwoman,

I believe you will find that in clasic Christian theology, GOD the Father created everything, and Christ is the manifestation of God within human form, as symbolized by Jesus. The Holy Spirit completes the triune God concept by acting as grace and love in our lives. I realize all is ultimately ONE, but if you are a Christian I would hope you'd know that God the Father created heaven/earth, and Christ (the son) was the physical manifestation, not the originator of all (which is how I read your post). A picky point, but if you are a card carrying member, you should get it right.

Jason,

Could you define for me what the so-called Dark Side is, or what a Dark Practitioner is? I suspect it has to be something beyond just a fashion penchant for dark winter colors. In general culture, the Dark Side usually refers to those seeking personal power and other self aggrandizement with (here I go again) the mottoe "The ends justify the means". If the Dark Side has kind hearted grandma entities who bake astral cookies, then what makes them the Dark Side? Seriously, this reminds me of German apologists after World War 2 who claimed that the Nazi's were very kind to their children and dogs. Of course, if you were a Jew, gay, or any other nationality, the viewpoint differed.

I am just guessing, but what seems in some structures of thought to distinguish the Light crowd versus the Dark crowd is that the former practice service to others, whereas the latter practice service to self. The mottoe of the Light could be "All for one, and one for all" whereas the mottoe of the Dark may be "Every man for himself!"

I prefer the Light, thank you very much.

While I have seen orbs with my own eyes, I also am rather skeptical of digital camera pictures with orbs, even though they routinely appear in my pictures from my house.

Yesterday I was riding a stationary bike. I was wearing glasses. I was starring out a window. Suddenly, I noticed an "orb" within my frame of sight. But it was not actually in the room, it was quite obviously a light refraction of some sort on my glasses. I could reproduce it easily by looking exactly in the same spot. I could make it dance back and forth by merely moving my head from side to side.
Perhaps there is a miscroscopic ding in the glass that picks up light when at a very specific angle. This was a fact! My glasses were creating an orb in my line of sight. This was not paranormal. Yet the orb looked identical to the many orbs seen on web sites like Art Bell's web site.

Consequently, I wonder if many orb photos from digital cameras are the same thing. This does not negate the reality of orbs, just keeps the topic honest. Of course, I do not expect my little post here to change anything, and people will continue to flood the internet with light refraction photos from their digital cameras as proof of orbs. Frankly, I am now of the opinion that if I did not see the orb with my own eyes, then I find it suspect in a photo. Yet the orb digital camera crusade will probably continue to grow and flourish.

To quote countless metaphysicians:

WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT EXPANDS.

Perhaps the first thing Murphy could do is get rid of the "Bad Luck" moniker before the "Murphy".  There are a lot more positive enhancing identities she could select. As I noted earlier, I have had a chronic illness much of my life, yet I lead a normal life. (As a teenager I had bad acne, but I was never once tempted to proclaim for myself the official title of ZIT QUEEN OF LOS ANGELES!). I certainly also have no intention of basing my identity on (and have people refer to me by) an ongoing illness.

I think any basic psychologist worth 2 cents would start working with the self-chosen self-definition of this person. If a ritual by a Kahuna or a white witch or a waitress at Dennys with gypsy blood helps, then do it!

And that web site that practically glorifies bad luck has got to go....devoting a world wide web site to the publication of your bad luck is NOT the way to eliminate such an ingrained pattern in life. I've found that people very soon lose interest in someone who proudly wears a victim's mantel.


Edited by - fastwalker on 02 March 2002  16:45:40

Violet,

Your posts always contain a lot of fascinating information.

On psychic vampires, your assumption was that such individuals KNOW they are draining others. While there are such adepts (and I encountered one, a very aware psychic man with no sense of morality...who send trailers of white energy like worms after me while we supposedly were having a polite chat!), most psychic vampires probably do not know they are doing this.

One person I discussed this with said that obese people have a tendency to partake in some psychic vampirism just to constantly recharge their body needs, since carting around an extra 50 - 100 pounds more than nature intended takes a lot of basic energy!

What I have found works with unconscious vampirism is to just visualize a mirrored shield surrounding your body, and to use your real hand (or a mental visualization) to literally CUT OFF any attachments to your body, which can be visualized as energy hoses, primarily into your solar plexus, as you noted.

When I was about 25 and trying hard to escape a very emotionally disturbed controlling mother, I visited a well known psychic. The first thing she noted was that there was a huge "hose" connected from my solar plexus back to my mother. She asked my permission to cut if off for my own good. I agreed, and actually felt an incredibly good feeling in the solar plexus area, almost like a mini orgasm, as she did her energy work to dislodge and destroy this connection and then "mend it" with a shield.

I've found that with some people during sex, they can unconsciously steal your energy like a psychic vampire. After sex at times, I have had distressing feelings of pain/low energy in the abdominal area. I meditated on it and got the response that this was energy stealing. My partner was just very unconsciously greedy for my energy. This person loves me dearly, but doesn't realize what is happening. So before and during sex I do affirm a shield that acts as an appropriate filter (like an on-line fire wall, so to speak) to protect me. This sounds simplistic and silly but it works!

Again, if you are working with a pro, then the tactics may be different, but in most cases the psychic vampire probably doesn't even consciously know what they are doing. I know this is not politically correct, but I am wary of the obese for that reason and tend to shield myself around them. This allows me to enjoy their company without needing a nap afterwards!

In a sense, we all lead double lives: the normal conscious life of our ego selves that can relate to sitcom reality, and a subconscious energy life that entails blending and repelling and attracting certain energies. BOTH seem to rely a lot on habit unless the person becomes AWARE (a basic rule of the spiritual path) and evaluates what they are doing in both sectors. I am still working on it.



Edited by - fastwalker on 02 March 2002  16:27:32

As Robert said:

"Most modern people today seem to only turn their face towards God when they are hit with seriously bad life experience, say when they lose a loved one, or their pay packet.  Apart from this, and the occasional wedding or funeral, most people seem to live self-absorbed hedonistic lives these days."

This has bothered me, NOT in others so much as within myself. I begin each work day, for example, with prayer and meditation. Just a wee bit of self introspection made it obvious I was connecting myself to spirituality via fear of the work day challenges. But when those challenges are not there (on a weekend or holiday), my discipline has traditionally lagged a bit.

Happily, there is a part of myself that seems to be monitoring all this (an observer self that does its best to stay detached from the go self), and was not pleased at my own fickle commitment level and asked for some guidance on this. What came back to me is pretty basic stuff, but it seemed profound to me (ain't that the way it is?). The response I got was that it was time for me to maturely connect with spirit via GRATITUDE and APPRECIATION each morning, not relying instead of the negative factor of fear to drive me to spirit. As a motivator, I find gratitude and a sense of appreciation very rewarding. Gratitude can be for something as simple as a breath without pain and a sky with a patch of blue.

Well, enough of that. I just thought I'd pass that on, since I have for many years had a strong spiritual quest, but I also saw how fat and lazy I could metaphorically become at times when the wolves weren't at the door. I do think fear is a legitimate incentive to connect to spirit, but it is really tedious over a lifetime. I find gratitude and wonder much less taxing (although, being human, I expect fear will still act as incentive more often than I might want to acknowledge).

Hey, Murphy! I know what you mean about wanting to be a sheep in a lush pasture for awhile. We all want that at some level for some period of time if RL (real life) has been rough. Most people in the middle ages (when life was decidedly tough) saw heaven as their version of Club Med - no work, all play, all modcoms (what at that time probably meant a hole in the ground to poo into). It's all relative in that respect. I regret that your life is difficult. For what it's worth, I've had a chronical disease all my life, and as I near 50, it really really is becoming quite a "bore", but that's how it is. Maybe I came into this particular life for specific lessons, and either the health issue is one of them, or else I compromised and said I'd put up with the health crap for all the other benefits this particular set-up would offer. It is all conjecture. I will accept that there truly are people with curses upon them. But I also know it is tempting to project all of this upon some "other". When I was a little kid my parents taught me that anything bad in my life was a direct punishment from God because I had sinned. What a trip to lay on a 5 year old! I still remember stubbing my toe one time on the bed post and crying out "God, what did I do wrong?"  Happily, I have left behind such trash-heap theology, but it is very dangerous to picture diabolical forces out there constantly making us stub our toe. Again, peace to you. If necessary, seek professional help from a Robert Bruce in a neighborhood near you.






Edited by - fastwalker on 01 March 2002  06:40:57

I just want to add that I will excuse myself from this discussion in the future. Why? Because people are coming from a particular belief system, and they want answers to perplexities in that belief system. I try to get across that the belief system itself PRODUCES THE PARTICULAR QUESTIONS BEING ASKED! So while people have legitimately posed a question based on their beliefs, I come along and say that the belief itself produces the discontinuity between expectation and reality (like someone being taught that all sex is evil, but then wondering why God created sex as the way to create all life!?! Um...could it be that the original belief that created the question is just wrong?).

Maybe I am arguing something a bit too subtle for this particular thread. So I am going to graciously tip my hat to y'all and wish you (as Robert says) G'Day.  


Edited by - fastwalker on 28 February 2002  16:30:44

Edited by - fastwalker on 28 February 2002  17:26:44

Joe,

I really doubt I missed the point (as Murphy claims), but instead am trying to express the view that if your paradigm has what seem like paradoxes (e.g., God is Good, the Devil is Evil, but God doesn't seem to blatantly help out much), then perhaps that paradigm needs a relook. Instead, you and Murphys are always coming from the assumption that your paradigm is 100% correct, and that therefore there must be a logical explanation for why it doesn't work out when applied to "real life", e.g., what is keeping those blasted angels from responding to a spiritual 911 call!

I have no answers, but I warn you of this: If you just continue to accept your belief system as the ultimate "fact", there will come others who will offer you convenient logical ways to plug up the paradoxes. Then you can be happy. But this does not mean any of this is necessarily "the way it is". I think back to the middle ages when astronomers worked diligently to explain all the movements of the heavens under the basic (wrong) assumption that the earth was the center of the universe. They even came up with brilliant complex models to explain the retrograde motions of other planets like Mars and Mercury. Brilliant, yet totally 100% WRONG!!!

I am not claiming that Christianity is 100% wrong, but you must keep an open mind to what really is, not what you want to be true or what you've been taught. The world is stuffed full of people like that, and they ironically all believe many different things. I guess my approach is to keep a light hand on my beliefs, let them go if experience proves that they just don't work in reality, and not seek ways to patch them up (since the human mind is always ingenious enough to find patches eventually, but that does NOT mean the original belief was 100% correct).

I have to agree with Robert that ALL comes from 1 source. We may never as little human beings in our western intellectual arrogance accept that the BIG PICTURE may be beyond our understanding. I do not know why little 7 year old girls in San Diego are killed, but I am not going to stuff a "fix" into a pre-existing belief system by trying to come up with a logical reason why angels did not save her. That's just the way this "game" (level of reality) works. If you want to figure it all out, good luck. Incredible minds since early Greece have tried, and current thinkers like Ken Wilber are taking a stab at it. I just think you've taken on a universal question that may be a lot bigger than the folks here can solve, unless (as I noted above) they just come up with some "fix" that lets the participants rest easy but may have nothing to do with reality.



Edited by - fastwalker on 28 February 2002  16:31:54

Joe,

Your question reminds me of very ancient Walk Disney cartoon where Donald Duck is a young duck. He is supposed to go to school, but is tempted to play hookey. On one shoulder is a bad angel, and on the other shoulder is a good angel. The point of bringing up this carhming old cartoon made in the 30's was that the good angel was seen as rather wimpy and ineffectual. While the bad angel would tempt Donald and use his fists (in one comical scene, he took the good angel's halo and shoved it down around the angel's waist, thereby pinning his arms to his side). Only at the end when the good angel got fed up with the meally mouthed pious drivel, and took action (pretty much beating up the bad angel and kicking him away from Donald as if the bad angel was a basketball) did "Good" triumph.

I think there is a common perception that good is very wimpy and weak, whereas evil is macho and will do whatever it takes to win. I've always found that rather dismaying too, as if so-called good is like a very distant father/mother who spends too much time on the intellectual plane.

Frankly, my final conclusion at a young age is that God and Angels etc. do not function the way I want them to because I must be conceptualizing REALITY in the wrong way. Reality is reality. If we want to conceptualize it into polarities and insist that our team win (when instead it seems rather ineffectual much of the time) then perhaps our dogma or our philosophy (or whatever word you employ) needs a reality-check. Perhaps the universe just doesn't really work the way we think it does or should. It does no good to rail at God for not fulfilling our conceptualization. Perhaps our conceptualization is simply wrong.  

Or as my dad used to say "If you want good in the world, do good. Stop expecting someone else to do it." (especially if that someone is God and his gang - they often seem a bit late for the party).

Much to my surprise, I've learned that not all spirit guides have the same personality!! They don't all work the same way!  Like humans, some are much more extroverted and willing to be blatantly part of the life of a human, while others (no matter how much you might coax or whine) just do not want to be a focal point of your life, and prefer to work subliminally with you, i.e., behind the scenes as that little voice you might hear in the head from time to time, or a strange coincidence that saves you from being in the wrong place at the right time!

I am no expert but the basic path to see if you can open up your conscious self is by meditation. Then perhaps you will receive guidance and/or a more direct sense of relationship. It certainly isn't a matter of rubbing a genii's bottle and having your spirit guide show up like I DREAM OF JEANNIE.

One of my close friends claims his spirit guide WANTED a direct relationship and talks to him. He has even seen visions of what this being looks like, or at least in a past life. But my friend really had nothing to do with this, except being open to it (instead of afraid) when it happened. He just happens to have a rather aggressive guide while some seem (in human terms) rather laid back or reticent. So just remain mentally open, which is a byproduct of meditation. Don't be tempted to try any occult magical rites to manifest a presence, since you might get something far different than your spirit guide!

Daniel,

I traditionally tend to bristle a little inside when yet another Christian proclaims that his way is the only true way, since we've been hearing this over and over and over from the dogma drones.

But I am not hostile, just probably expressing the tedium of and suspicion with which many "average" folks probsbly react to the classic Christian attitude towards everyone else.

I respect your faith and I do believe the consciousness and energy that has built up around Jesus Christ is gigantic over the last 2000 years. If Jesus never physically existed (which I am not debating here, although everything said about him was previously said for ages about other so-called saviors, and the Bible seems a veritable grab bag of tales from previous cultures sewn together under 1 cover), the mental projections of billions of people for 2000 years would have by now created an incredible entity projection on another plane, a huge vortex of available (and supposedly benevolent) energy. So to call upon Jesus Christ seems a very sensible thing to do! I would probably do the same, since it is my personal heritage, although I would never proclaim that this was the only legitimate thing to do, which would be typical western culture arrogance. To each his own.

But again, I do believe there is tremendous energy around the Christ as manifested as Jesus due to the spiritual core that created that reality/myth plus 2000 years of having the western world's greatest aspirations cast upon that figure. What else could exist but a huge reserve of positive energy at some level?

As John Lennon once said "Christ! It ain't easy! They're going to crucify me!"

Violet,

I have no explanation, but it does make you wonder at how literally to take these experiences if you attempt to look at it from a normal left brain viewpoint. Afterall, why would some amazing being visit you in such a miraculous way, but then blather on for 10 minutes in an unknown language? Wouldn't you think it would have it within its intelligence to use a translator to Canadian English? What is with these entities, anyway?

I am NOT being flippant because I believe every word you said. But I've also had enigmatic experiences, and one of the frustrating elements is how often they make no sense to the conscious mind!

Sometimes I wonder if the medium is the message, i.e., the point of the visit is just to tell us that reality is much larger than we think. Perhaps using some strange tongue is just a way to signify how little we know of the vastness of the universe. If we assume a language originates within a group/culture, then this visit implies a vaste "civilization" that speaks a tongue we normal folk don't even recognize. Perhaps that was the message. Or perhaps the message spoke (as some claim for crop circles) to a subliminal aspect of the human mind?

Who knows? But if the feeling tone was positive, then I'd take it as one of those benevolent yet annoyingly obtuse experiences that life seems to throw at us. At least your experience has a metaphysical dignity! I've had a few that I greatly hesitate to share since they are so mundane (no cosmic voice, no flowing robes or light figures with celestial choirs in the background like an old Laurence Welk TV show). In fact, one night an orb appeared to me and the thought appeared in my mind "Stop using alcohol based Stridex pads on your face. They are giving you Rosecea."  What's a person to do with that kind of experience? I stopped using Stridex pads, but never get any "ooohs" or "aaahs" and wise nods of affirmation when I tell this true story. What was it, a celestial commercial or public service announcement?

Shrug.

Shirley,

Thank you for the wonderful link to Ken Wilber's latest indepth musings. I find his work absolutely fascinating, on a level and caliber far beyond the usual pop psychology/sociology being hawked on TV talk shows (and certainly far beyond the pale of anything on such self-professed "on the edge" radio shows like the USA's DREAMLAND and COAST TO COAST with Art Bell). Ken Wilber is a heavy read, but you leave his work realizing that your mind has had a very healthy and much needed work out, after the cotton candy diet so prevalent in modern culture.

Probably the best book to begin with is A BRIEF HISTORY OF EVERYTHING, a rather amusing title that I am sure he enjoyed creating. While I have yet to memorize his color coded levels of consciousness ("are you blue, green or yellow?") the basic concept of holons within holons is quite easy to digest, this being the idea that each jump in consciousness INCLUDES but GOES BEYOND the previous understanding. In that sense, a universal state of spiritual consciousness that realizes that we are all ONE actually includes within its arms (the larger holon) the quaint fundamentalist Christian fear based tribal view (my view of God is right, all others are demonic), but surpasses such a mythic pardigm in depth and understanding. I can't possibly do Wilber justice.

But your post awoke a need for me to do more mental aerobics, to get off the mental golf cart putzing around a thoughtless green course, and instead take the rewarding but challenging ride through Wilber-land in a jeep!

I'm just your average suburbanite, so I have no great wisdom from the ancient libraries of Middle Earth (although each year I look a bit more like Gandolph). Nonetheless, I would agree that spiritual development entails enlarging one's perspective beyond the "little self", which is often referred to as the ego that obsesses on striving for earthly power, fear, comparison,  judgment and vanity...perhaps all as part of a survival mechanism that evolved in humankind long ago when a focus on third dimensional reality was crucial to survive. Spiritual development would be enlarging your awareness to see a larger reality. This is often compared to climbing a mountain. You still may see your starting point (the ego) and may not really leave that behind (since you need it to effectively manage in this world) but you also see the hillsides and sky. What is the hillside and sky? As others have noted, this may be your conceptualization of the "ultimate", being your connection to what is commonly called God, which some belief systems claim IS everything and everyone (making us all therefore ONE).

Now spiritual development isn't just memorizing this sort of philosophy (the way I had to memorize a catechism as a boy) but instead may entail experiencing a greater reality. As noted, meditation is one tool.

A lot of people in this world (traditional religious versus New Age) insist that they are on a serious spiritual search and even claim to be highly spiritually evolved. But the proof is in the pudding. I've found (even here in the suburbs!) that the ultimate test is whether the individual expresses the timeless universal spiritual verities, e.g., nonjudgment, kindness, equanimity, forgiveness, detachment, humor, etc.  As a recent example in the USA, after the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center, that wellknown fundamentalist Southern Baptist preacher Jerry Falwell and his sidekick Pat Robertson used the situation to proclaim that gays, feminists, lesbians, civil libertarians (and a host of other political enemies) were the cause of the attack, prompting "God" (trade mark pending) to disown America. Compare the ranting of these 2 professional "spiritual men" to the litmus test I just gave above, and you'll see what I mean by the proof being in the pudding.

In my opinion some folks use spiritual development as an escape from their problems. They hope to cross some rainbow bridge to nirvana by avoiding their internal psychological issues. That strategy is doomed to failure. God (or the universe) just isn't that easily fooled! Eventually we each much encounter ourselves and saying "Hail Mary" 10,000 times or participating in a New Age ritual in the center of a South American Mayan ruin in white robes will not eliminate the need to eventually face yourself.

As a long time watcher of the paranormal circuit, I've found that the conspiracy community (!) at some time or other exposes the title of ex-CIA to just about everyone as the ultimate badge of evil. Next they will claim that anyone who has ever worked for the US Postal Service is actually putting secret nano sized cameras in citizens' junk mail. "What a world!" as the wicked witch said in the WIZARD OF OZ. (Note: I have found no credible evidence that she was ever in the CIA).