While exercising my TV-remote thumb this weekend, I stumbled across a show on Lifetime called Lisa Williams: Life Among the Dead. Lisa is a British medium, healer, whatever who does the usual speaking with the dead schtick. All was par for the course for the few minutes I was able to stomach the show, but I was struck by one scene when she goes shopping in some LA boutique and thought I'd share. She stops a woman and tells her she sees a female figure behind her who has passed. The woman nods. Of cancer, Lisa says. Ooops! The woman shakes her head and seems perplexed. Lisa quickly turns to another woman and says, essentially, "how about you?" The woman tearfully acknowledges that her mother and aunt were stricken with cancer. Lisa goes in for the kill and tells the woman her dead mother has come to her. "Oh," the woman says, "my mother isn't dead." Double ooops!

… and all of this on a show glorifyng how astounding Williams' powers are. Sad, sad, sad. I happen to be reading some books this weekend that mention the spiritualist movement of the early 1900s and it's amazing to see that so many are still falling prey to the same tricks that were debunked a century ago.

Revenant,

Interesting stuff, but where are the orb photos?

If anyone has more about the actual history of orbs, like when they actually began showing up on film, I'd like to take a look at it.

I don't have any references to cite but I would be willing to bet that orbs started appearing when flashes (bulbs, LEDs, etc.) were introduced into mainstream consumer photography. Every orb photo I've seen was taken with some sort of flash.