Hello again worriedfriend,
Secrecy is surely encouraged at RSE; and for a few reasons. Probably the main reason is that it protects the cult and what it promotes from being evaluated by outsiders who may be exercising critical thinking, just as you are. It also serves to isolate members from their friends, family and outsiders who may try to elicit the critical thinking skills in them, and so dissuade them from continuing with the cult. Cult members will often disassociate from anyone who questions their beliefs because when it comes right down to it, the cult member has no way of proving what they have been told is true.
Thus the reason your friend will avoid debating with you; he has no reproducible evidence on which to base his assertions; and that lack of concrete evidence serves to expose that he is operating on blind faith alone.
Alas he is likely controlled by the mind and behaviour modification that he has been subjected to through RSE. Of course he will avoid telling you things because the faulty reasoning on which they are based just won't hold up, even if looked at through the view of plausibility alone. It certainly won't hold up to scientific evaluation or scrutiny, so that will be avoided at all costs.
If you press the issue he will likely deliver a programmed response that has been taught to him by RSE such as, "You don't understand... You are running on automatic... You are the walking dead."
In recalling the automatic delusional thinking that I would call up (with little effort), in response to my detractors, I now find it interesting that the very responses I would deliver in defence of what I was involved in, actually described my own state of mind at the time. But I couldn't see that then.
You are unlikely to succeed in impressing him with your knowledge of science or with the knowledge that you may gain regarding mind control or behaviour modification. He will most likely dismiss it, you and your friends as products of ignorance. This he may do with the same intensity that he would use to dismiss the obvious inconsistencies of the RSE experience (see the thread: Your RSE Experience & What Red Flags Woke You Up Toward Leaving). So if he isn't questioning those inconsistencies yet, you may have to wait a bit to approach the subject of his involvement in RSE.
The ORB thing is a big item at RSE and it seems that it is mainly used to further convince participants that they live in a world filled with things that are invisible to the naked eye. Participants are encouraged to interact with these ORBs even though they can not see them, at least initially. With persistence however, some participants begin to see them; a phenomenon that I have come to understand as a self projected hallucination.
While at RSE I learned how to project images onto the sky in a similar way; through staring and holding the desired image in my mind...and I did "see" the images that I desired to see, there in the sky. It never dawned on me to consider that only I could see the images that I projected though

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Either way, the intent of doing this practice, was to make the desired image manifest into reality; because that is what I was told would happen by Judith appearing as Ramtha and by RSE staff. In my experience no such manifestations happened, despite dedicating countless hours to the practice over a three year period. There are followers of RSE that have been doing such practices for decades. Sadly for some of those who were born to parents involved with RSE, this cult's theories and practices form the base of their "reality"; it is all they know.
Your friend likely believes this theory of how to create reality; for this is the sort of quantum field theory, pseudo-science
thing that is promoted and sold at RSE for a profit. There is also a high percentage of probability that your friend spends quite some of his time dedicated toward engaging in similar practices, known there as 'disciplines'. All of these discipline practices are promoted at RSE as the only way to negate the personality which doubts, undermines intent and asks questions (possesses critical thinking), so that communication can occur with a god-self directly.
What really happens (especially if one sees something that isn't there - hallucinates), is that the participant looses the ability to critically evaluate what they are dedicated to and why they continue with it, despite the lack of tangible evidence or reward. Oddly enough even the obvious costs to the participant, financially and otherwise, are not seen or recognized as conflicting with the practice of attempting to create one's reality in this way. Unless of course the participant truly desires to become isolated from their friends, family and humanity as a whole through degradation of their thought processes, emotional responses and basic survival mechanisms.
Back to ORBS...
Some people have explained that ORBs are dust particles floating in front of a camera lens, refracting/reflecting light onto the film.
More recently RSE has been using an infra-red movie camera in the main building where retreats are held, to catch the image and movement of these particles on film. In such films, the ORBs definitely follow a pattern suggestive of floating in an air current, rather than showing independent movement in relation to each other.
Similarly, if ORBs were in fact a spiritual/etheric form of a being, then one would think that they should show up moving THROUGH solid objects in the photographs or on movie film. But this is not the case. Instead they appear on top of the other images that have been captured in the photographs and on the films. That would seem to indicate that they were in front of those images (between the object in the photograph/film and the camera lens), when their images were captured.
Admittedly I have seen photos of ORBs that do appear to be moving through an object, but I did not take those photos so I can not say whether a Photo-shop alteration had been performed or not

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The concern for your friend is how much of his time is spent on ORBs and pseudo-science instead of interacting with other human beings or with life in general? The isolation that can result from adopting the RSE way of life is often insidious but so too is it profound. In time, he may very well loose all reference to who he actually is, and come to wholeheartedly believe that he is what RSE tells him he is; a god. The implications of that are only limited by one's imagination.
I respectfully suggest that your course of action at this point is the one that you have taken. Gain what information you can, and feel comfortable with; so that when the times are right, you can help your friend through understanding, compassion and true friendship.
Much love, Kensho