I finally had some time to play with the Gather node in P7.  I was able to re-create the magic sphere glow (using Anton's magic fx) fairly closely.  The pose could be better, and the hand is not lit like the original, but I did get it close.  Applied to Alt Diffuse of all body parts Samples = 50.00 Max Dist = 8600 Ray Bias = 8.6 Angle = 180

Rendered fairly swiftly on 2ghz dual-core.

The graininess can be eliminated by higher Sample rates.