Orb of Thesulah

In both Buffy and Angel series, the Orb of Thesulah is used in a Gypsy ritual by the Kalderash clan to restore a vampire's soul, most notably Angel.
Appearances and description
In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 2, the orbs are used to bring a soul from the nether realms and contain it until it can be put back into its original body. They first appear in "Passion" (episode 17) when Jenny Calendar purchases one from a magic shop in an effort to recover Angel's soul after it is lost when he experiences a moment of pure happiness. The magic shop owner tells Jenny that the orb is useless without a translation of the Ritual of Restoration. Jenny uses a computer program to translate the ritual. Drusilla learns what she is doing, and tells Angel, who smashes the orb and kills Jenny.
Willow Rosenberg later finds the translation, obtains another orb and completes the ritual in the season finale, "Becoming". The ritual is successful and Angel's soul is restored just in time for him to be impaled by Buffy and sucked into a vortex leading to a hell dimension.
An orb also appeared in the episode "Orpheus" from Angel's own spinoff series, as Angel's soul had again been displaced, this time on purpose. This time it doesn't go as well, as outside forces conspire to disrupt the ritual.
The orb appears in such novels as City of Angel.
An Orb of Thesulah is also mentioned in Supernatural, an unrelated series on the CW network. In "The Mentalists" (season 7 episode 7), this orb is believed to be contained inside a necklace that is being passed around to psychics before their deaths; it's found to be a fake, as it has "Made in Taiwan" engraved on the back.
Reception
Nikki Stafford writes that although it is comical that Rupert Giles uses the orb as a paperweight, "it seems strange he wouldn't have offered it earlier for a restoration spell, or why Jenny doesn't see it in his office."

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See Also

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