“What seems to frighten us most is not the thought that we might be alone but that we might NOT be. And the companion fear is that what really terrifies us is not our weakness, limitations, and inability to cope, but the greatness that we suspect lies hidden just beneath the surface of what we are. …In studying orbs, while we are definitely talking of realities that are in this world, they are not physical in any customary sense. So our main difficulty in this study is likely not to be the effort to regard them as at least on the same level as us humans, but the struggle to refrain from seeing them as supernatural.” — Miceal Ledwith, D.D., LL.D., from The Orb Project
“The implications of a realization that we are “surrounded by a cloud of witnesses” are enormous and incredibly hopeful for the world at large.” — Klaus Heinemann, Ph.D.
“Orbs may be to the atmosphere what crop circles are to the earth. Having seen orbs and had them photographed while I was speaking, it is great to know that we are receiving cosmic energetic communication.” — Norm Shealy, M.D., PH.D.
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From left: Dr. Miceal Ledwith, Dr. Klaus Heinemann and Dr. Norm Shealy are captivated by the orb phenomenon. |
By all accounts, millions of digital camera users have seen them. Probably even cursed them. Circular anomalies and other unexplained shapes of light have started appearing on photographs and videos ever since the transition from film to digital photography. Many people believe these balls and patterns of light are merely unfocused dust particles or moisture in the air reflecting in the camera flash, quite easily explained. Others, however, have undertaken extensive testing of this digital phenomenon and have come to a much different conclusion, one that implies that what we’re seeing is just as mysterious and unexplained as the presence of crop circles – perhaps even evidence of spiritual beings in our midst.
Scientists and mystics alike have been pondering the meaning of orbs for years, and recently they have been gathering at ongoing conferences to explore the ramifications of such phenomenon. About five years ago, JZ Knight presented an indepth series of channelings from Ramtha on "orb entities," essentially saying that orbs are what we are without our bodies, life force energy. Similar conclusions have been reached by the authors of a groundbreaking study, The Orb Project (Simon & Schuster/Beyond Words, 2007), in which noted physicist Klaus Heinemann, Ph.D., and theologian Miceal Ledwith, Ph.D., reveal the results of years of research on orbs. Both are quick to admit that the phenomenon remains a mystery, and yet they hint at the incredible possibilities inherent in the discussion.
Dr. Ledwith, a professor of systematic theology for 16 years in Ireland, has amassed more than 150,000 images of orbs during the past five years, the largest known collection, and in the process he has categorized orbs by shape, color and pattern, even revealing for the first time the existence of orbs swirling in a vortex. He has concluded that orbs are electromagnetic in nature, and that the light of the camera flash is not merely reflecting off of the orbs, but that the flash itself triggers the orbs to generate a light from within themselves. He has just released a companion DVD, Exploring the World of Orbs.
As a research physicist with NASA, UCLA and Stanford University, Dr. Heinemann is not quick to jump to conclusions, but he writes that research has led him to believe that orbs are "images of Spirit emanations." Further, he believes that these photographs offer evidence – "as close to scientific proof as we have ever come in proving the existence of the Spiritual reality – that Divine Presence is real."
Interestingly, another scientific researcher, healing pioneer Norm Shealy, M.D., also is intrigued by the presence of orbs, believing that they represent beings from the fifth dimension. Next month, he will be joining Drs. Ledwith and Heinemann and many others at the Prophets Conference in Palm Springs, Calif., to discuss "Orbs: Interacting with Other Realms."
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Dr. Miceal Ledwith standing with orbs all around. |
The following is a condensed accounting of my conversations with the two authors of The Orb Project – Drs. Ledwith and Heinemann – and Dr. Shealy on the phenomenon known as orbs, which in reality are not stationary balls of light, but energy that is speeding by at thousands of miles per hour, only occasionally finding themselves frozen in time in a photograph.
You mentioned in The Orb Project that Ramtha was describing and discussing orbs as early as 20 years ago.
Dr. Miceal Ledwith: Yes, though I wasn’t aware of that at the time. The first acquaintance I had with the Ramtha teachings on orbs was around 2001. He gave a very long teaching on the significance and meaning of orbs, so I didn’t realize at that time that he had talked about them 20 years ago, but I gather that he did.
How did Ramtha describe the meaning of orbs?
Dr. Ledwith: He said that they are what we are without the physical body. In other words, we have all been orbs and, if we have the misfortune to lose our physical body, we will be simply orbs again. In fact, even last night he was talking about that very subject. I was at a session and he was saying that sometimes if people are not feeling well or they’re getting ready to leave this plane of existence, that the orb can become manifest. So that was his teaching on them, that there are orbs who attend his own sessions, and we have thousands and thousands of photographs that verify that. The hall where he teaches is absolutely jam-packed full of orbs all the time, and when there’s nothing going on in the space, there are no orbs there.
An interesting part of The Orb Project is your description of the fact that orbs may be intentionally lowering their energy field so they can be seen by us.
Dr. Ledwith: Yes.
And you’ve indicated that you have seen an orb with the naked eye?
Dr. Ledwith: Oh, yes. I did not cover it in the book, but it’s covered in the DVD. Anyone can see orbs. We are seeing them all the time, but there is a difference between looking at something and seeing something.
Looking is sort of a neutral exercise like a camera looks at a scene and whatever’s there is captured – what you see is what you get. But I’m told by experts that the brain discards about 90 percent or more of the information that comes in through the eye, and the brain only selects what’s got to do with basic survival every day, you know, doing the laundry, bringing out the garbage, doing my job, taking the children to daycare. Orbs, obviously, do not fit into that, so therefore the brain will discard them and you won’t see them.
But if you train your brain over a long period – it took about two years of daily photography of orbs for me – you will begin one fine day to see the orbs with your naked eye. Then you no longer have to have orbs coming down to the frequency level of the digital camera in order to be seen. You’ll see them in their own realms, and they’re much more beautiful and colored than they are through the mediation of the camera.
So, in that process is our vibration escalating to allow us to see them at their frequency?
Dr. Ledwith: No, it’s simply asking the brain not to block out those images, not to discard them. But I think that’s another extremely important point you’ve just raised. I think it’s a lot easier to attract orbs into your awareness if your own frequency is raised.
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Plasma-like coulds form. Dr. Ledwith writes: “To my request to form a certain shape, they have on occasion responded positively. These plasmoid clouds are normally of the same color and frequency as the orbs from which they emanate. |
I have spoken about orbs all over the world, from Australia to Japan to South America, and everyone is fascinated by this. Someone asked me, "Are orbs attracted to religious services?" I know Klaus (Heinemann) is very keen on this particular aspect of it. I don’t think it’s the religious service per se, or any particular session that’s going on, like a party or whatever. I think what draws the orbs is the frequency of the event that’s there, and that’s exactly the question you’re raising. Does the change in our own frequency affect them? I have absolutely no doubt that it does, because a person immersed in doom and gloom is never going to see many orbs near them.
From your perspective, what are orbs?
Dr. Klaus Heinemann:
Emanations from Spirit beings. But, this is a working hypothesis that I have. Now, for anybody who has had training and decades of his life in normal research, we try to be very cautious about any conclusions. On the other hand, I am very willing to offer my ideas or my thoughts as to what the conclusions might be. I just simply say it’s a hypothesis and I could be totally wrong.
My hypothesis is that these are emanations from Spirit beings. Spirit beings are all around us, but, of course, they are totally invisible. That’s why they are disputed by most of the world’s population. But I do believe they are all around us and that they are not in the form in which we see these orbs.
It’s more like if you picture yourself holding a flashlight in your hand and then shining that flashlight all around. The light beam from the flashlight is not you, but you are directing it, and you decide where it shines. But if someone in a dark room were to simply take this light beam as the truth and nothing but the truth, they might conclude that the light beam is you, but that person is totally wrong. It is the larger being, you, who decides where the light beam shows up. This is what I think is happening with orbs.
Why does this phenomenon interest you personally?
Dr. Heinemann: Although I grew up as a scientist and I’ve worked as a scientist for a major part of my life, I have always had an urge to look into the beyond. I have always been interested in spirituality more than religion. Finding out about the meaning of life has always been in the forefront of my thoughts.
When I was invited by a spiritual teacher to take photographs of his meetings, his conferences, usually large meetings, then I discovered that there were orbs present. At the time when I first discovered them, I knew nothing about them. I didn’t know what it was, but I did have a hunch almost immediately that there was something to it. I couldn’t explain it. So I just went further and further and further into it.
Have you received information from anybody like a clairvoyant or somebody in touch with information from non-physical beings about these orbs? What do they say about these orbs?
Dr. Heinemann: Yes. I can at least get into it. There are a number of friends of people whom I esteem highly, let’s say maybe three of them in particular, who were very congruent in their interpretation of these images. Two of them actually see very distinct faces in them. I have personally refrained from even mentioning that or going into that detail very simply because I do not see that, or at least I’m too rational to say that I see a face. I just do not want to go that far. But there has been a very clear sensation in these highly intuitive people, whom I know and whom I know of very good friends, that there is something extraordinary to these orbs. Two of them say that they could literally talk to them, that they can see their presence, that they can see them, which I cannot. So, although I can only go by hearsay and, therefore, I don’t really go any further with it, to me it means more. It confirms to me that we are dealing with something that is of a profound nature.
When did you first become aware of orbs and why did they interest you?
Dr. Norm Shealy: I guess I became aware of them about four years ago. Suddenly there’s these little bright things that you see sometimes in the air, but most often on a photograph, and they began to appear with enough frequency that you can’t deny them. It reminds me a little bit of a painting of Ambrose and Olga Worrall, the great healers. In the background of that painting, and often in photographs taken of Olga, you see faces. Now the orbs don’t seem to have faces, but they are bright lights, so to speak.
I think these represent another dimension. I think they are entities from what we might call the fifth dimension speaking to us. Now, as someone who has been talking with what I call guides and receiving inspiration from guides and angels for much of my life, it’s no surprise that there might be another way for this energy to come through.
You have spoken about orbs in relation to crop circles, the fact that we have these different intelligences appearing to us about the same time.
Dr. Shealy: Exactly. I guess as a species, we need to be knocked in the head to get the message. It’s better to have it done in crop circles and orbs than in major catastrophes.
I think that there are energetic introductions into our dimension, and these are the ways. I have no doubt whatsoever that every great, creative process, whether it’s art or music or science, involves somehow tapping into something larger than ourselves. I sense there is information in the cosmos that’s available to all of us. If you just happened to be tuned, you get messages. Einstein was tuned to a specific physics, if you will. Fleming was tuned in so that he discovered penicillin. Certainly all of my discoveries – I’ve just gotten my tenth patent – have come through what I would call guidance. Each of us does that.
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Dr. Ledwith stands in the midst of a vortex forming. “From where I stood, to the core of the vortex measured about 11 feet.” |
What effect does our attention play on the presence of orbs?
Dr. Heinemann: This is again a working hypothesis. I believe that there’s a great connection between our thoughts and the emergence of the seeing of orbs in our pictures. To really get into that, I must say that I do believe that with our thoughts, we are penetrating into this other reality in which these orbs or these spirit beings reside. You and I, now, at this very point in time, are in fact existing to a significant extent in that reality. We just don’t know it, but we are. That reality is characterized by being independent of space and time the way we know it.
This is the reality where I see orbs coming from and functioning in. When we use our mind, when we somehow preoccupy ourselves with something like this, then we are, in fact, inviting them to appear. With our mind, we influence their willingness to show up in our photographs. It is clearly not the same if a total critic takes his camera and tries to hunt orbs, or if you and I, or many others who are very much accepting of the presence of orbs, try to shoot their pictures. It appears, from the experiments that we’ve done, especially my wife and I, that these orbs show up on their own volition. They are not something that you can hunt to see. It’s something that you can invite to make themselves visible. It’s them wanting to show up in our pictures, not the other way around.
You make a hypothesis in The Orb Project that says one reason that these orbs may be here now, being made aware to us, is the fact that humanity is "in dire need of discovering it’s purpose – and that they are here to help us (make a) jump in consciousness." Why do you feel this?
Dr. Heinemann: This is the type of statement where I’m daring to go beyond to make conclusions. I’m using the example of the apparitions at Medjugorje to get into that. At the time, and still today, these are very important experiences to some people, but these experiences were only visible or really experienced by a small number of people, children between ages of 10 and 20 at the time. Everybody else could only have a second-hand experience from observing the primary people who had the experience.
In my mind, potentially the next step of that – where the experience of tapping into something that is very real but is residing in what we call the Spiritual reality – is now becoming open to everybody who wants to see it and who has a digital camera. It is a humongous step beyond that. In that sense, I’m drawing the conclusion that there is a message out there that is potentially available to us, or that "they" are making an effort to pass that message on to us, and that we need to develop the ability to see it, receive it, interpret it.
What is the next step in our understanding of orbs?
Dr. Heinemann: The next step, in my mind, is that more people first become aware of them and experience them personally. The only way that an awareness can truly be helpful is by experiencing it yourself rather than seeing something secondhand. Then I would say what is important is to simply get into finding out what message, if there is any, there could be.
With crop circles we do have some indications, through the symbols, that they do give rise to some interpretation. Maybe it is at some point in time the faces or symbols that we see in orbs. I don’t know that yet, but I get more and more e-mails from people who have read the book and who have seen orbs and get pictures from them indicating that that is so. There is a large number of people out there who are able to see symbolism, not necessarily faces, in orbs. I don’t know yet, but that could be the case.
Dr. Ledwith: It very often happens that discoveries are made that change our whole understanding of the world and our place in it. In the new DVD, I give examples like the discovery that the earth is round and it’s not at the center of the solar system, the discovery of the circulation of the blood, or that disease is not due to demons, but due to germs and bacteria and microbes. I think the discovery of the orb phenomenon is on the par with that. I think we will be able, within a generation, to establish a means of communication with these beings, and that is going to widen up our horizons as human beings enormously. That would be my next step.
As I said, unfortunately right now it’s the amateurs like Klaus and myself who are doing the research, and I say that with all due respect. But if the correct equipment, which is quite sophisticated, could be brought into play, I am sure that this field of discovery would become part of a new physics that would reward enormously those who got involved with it.
To what degree is this phenomenon playing a role in your current work?
Dr. Ledwith: Well, I probably have the largest collection of orb images in the world – by that I mean around 150,000 images, of which 99.9 percent I have taken personally. The bringing out of the book, which was a long, slow process, and the bringing out of the DVD, was something I wanted to do to make people aware of what’s happening here. I was even saying over in Portland on live breakfast TV a couple of weeks ago that it would be a wonderful thing for soccer moms and so forth to spend time with their children going out and photographing orbs. I just wanted to make people aware in general of this phenomenon and how it could be done.
This DVD shows you the best equipment to use, the best techniques to use, the mistakes to avoid, so that anyone with even a very simple digital camera will find the photography of orbs a most rewarding experience. Now, I am hopeful that we’ll be able to advance our research with the use of much more sophisticated equipment from here on in. This is not my main field of work, but as you gather from the number of pictures I have, it’s something that I have been doing almost every day.
Dr. Heinemann: This whole experience is transforming my life. It is just a very clear affirmation that there is a lot more to life than what we normally would perceive as being alive, that there is a whole other dimension that may be much, much more profound out there than the one that we can see and touch and hear and sense.
What is the significance of the orb phenomenon to humanity?
Dr. Heinemann: I think it has an enormous significance, and I see this appearance of orbs or of emanations from Spirit beings as an extremely positive event. First, I believe that generally there is only one direction in that realm, and that is in the direction of the positive. I almost categorically exclude any notions of evil spirits or any of that sort in my consideration. Whatever message there is will be one that is good for mankind, that is good for the evolution of individual people, as well as the evolution of mankind at large.
It means looking at our planet in a different way. You could say our planet is the ground on which our own beingness has a chance to evolve, and we want to keep that functioning and we don’t want to destroy it. We would have to assume that we want to keep this going for a long period of time. So in that sense, these messages that we are getting may very well be practical ones.
Dr. Ledwith: In a way, it’s very parallel to the discovery of the new world by Christopher Columbus, except, obviously, these beings are not separated from us by distance. You don’t have to travel to Alpha Centuri or the Pleiades or anything like that. They’re here, within touch. All we’ve got to do is flip the switch of frequency and they’re there.
So many of the big frontiers have been passed in our own lifetime that the explorer is running out of places to explore anymore on this earth. I think that this is opening up an entire new dimension of exciting discovery for us, one that will enable us to understand far better where we fit into this universe and relate to the other beings that compose it. Up to now, all our research, all our discovery and exploration, has been on this physical plane. Now there’s a vast dimension beyond that opening up. The orb phenomenon is just the tip of the iceberg of an expansion of a vast dimension that’s awaiting us right now….
Frequency may be what separates the orbs from us. If we can generate in ourselves particular frequencies, rather than being immersed in negativity and doubt and jealously, anger, greed and hatred, and if we can control the frequencies we’re emitting, then we can draw into our lives the frequencies that we would desire to have there. I think the orbs give us an enormous tool for self-growth and fulfillment.
The world, God knows, needc compassion and love, but compassion and love are meaningless without the power to support them. Otherwise, they’re just trampled under foot. What the world needs now is power, not power over other people, but power over ourselves and over our destructive emotions. I think the orbs have an enormous amount to tell us about how we should interact with the universe, and I think orbs tell us much about the existence of a much more rich universe than we had previously suspected.
For more information on orbs, visit orbprojectbook.com, hamburgeruniverse.com or www.acviews.com/kh/orbs.htm
