THE OTHER YOU: How To Develop Your Psychic Potential
Author: Andrew Laurance
(C) 1986 Javelin Books/US Sterling Publishing Co., Inc
AURAS:
Subtile emanation from anything; atmosphere diffused by or attending a
person etc. especially in mystical use as a definite envelope of body
and spirit.
OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY
The idea of an aura, a luminosity radiating from our bodies, is as old
as history itself, and that all living matter is surrounded by an enrgy
cloud, which can be seen by sensitives as a colorful emanation
following the contours of the body to a width of between one centimetre
and a metre, is one of the phenomena described by psychics which is
accepted by scientists as being worthy of examination.
Since time immemorial holy personages have been represnted by a
surrounding light, and long before the Christians circled the heads of
their saints with halos, the early Egyptians, the Greeks, Romans and
Indians had fringes of radiancy shinning from the bodies of their
dieties and the aura of Buddha was believed to envelope a whole city.
Not until the middle of the 19th Century were auras questioned by
science. In the 1850's (*interesting date, is it not?*; LM) the German
chemist Baron Karl von Pheichenbach (1788-1869), who discovered
creosote and paraffin, became interesed in the paranormal and started
experimenting with various psychic friends, coming to the conclusion
that people radiated a force that particularly sensitive persons couls
see and feel in the DARK. He called this force od, from which came the
term "odic force", a form of body magnetism which many at the time were
pleased to believe explained away the root of spiritualists' ectoplasm,
their power to move furniture, speak in a multitude of voices and make
a good deal of frightening noises.
Though a Yugoslav scientist, Nikola Telsa became interested in the
subject some thirty years later and invented a wire coil device that
caused the body to spark, it was not till 1911 that someone decided to
research the possibility that this divine mythical light could in fact
be explained as an electric currnt produced by the human body.
A British doctor, Walter Kilner (1847-1920), in charg of the
electro-therapy department of St. Thosmas's Hospital in London
discovered that by looking through coloured glass screens he could see
a definite band of light, six inches wide emanating from the body. He
further discovered that the band of light changed shape and colour
depending on the health of the subject and realized its immense
potential for diagnostic purposes.
Inventing a glass screen which hermetically sealed solutions of
dycyanin dyes, he was able to precieve a misty light around the head
and shoulders and hands of his human guinea pigs when he stood them up
against a black back drop.
In his book, "The Aura", he describes the luminosity appearing in three
layers, the innermost of which he refers to as "the etheric double" ,
the middle the "inner aura", surrounded by the "outer aura".
The whole aura, he found, was sensitive to magnetism and electric
current, which, when applied, vanished to reappear again with greater
intensity.
Not everyone was able to see Kilner's aruras, though using his screens,
and he explained that he had had to sepnd a good deal of time before
carrying out his experiments getting his eyes accustomed to looking
through his screen by first staring at daylight through darker glass.
He also claimed that he was perhaps more sensitive to auras than
others, and that his is likely is explained in this passage from Lyall
Watson's "Supernature":
"Our eyes are sensitive to light that lies between the wavelengths of
380 and 760 millimicrons. With very high intensity artificial sources
we can extend this at either end of the spectrum into the areas of
infrared and ultraviolet light. The fact that man's body sends out
electromagnetic waves just too long for most people to see has been
vividly demonstrated by the new "thermographic" technique, which
translates heat radiation into wonderful colour pictures. Atpms
generate infrared rays by their constant motion, and the warmer they
are the more active they become. In thermographic portraits, cold hair
and gingernails show up black of blue, cool earlobes are green, the
nose is a lukewarm yellow, and the neck and cheeks glow with orange and
red. The system is now being used to detect tumours, arthritis, and
cancer, which show up as isolated hot areas."
(Note: Shampoo advertisements on television demonstrate thermographic
hair as an easily accessable example.)
"So the body does radiate on a wavelength just outside our normal
vision, and this radiation changes according to the health of the
transmitter.
Perhaps Kilmer was right. THe range of human sensitivity is quite wide:
some people hear sounds that to others are supersonic, and some people
see wavelengths that to others are invisible. Those who claim to be
able to see an aura surrounding living things could be supersensitive
at the infrared end of the spectrum. Wave this length are beyond the
capability of the cone-shaped cells of the retina, which appreciate
visible colours, but they may be within the range of the rod-shaped
cells that are more sensitive to low light intensities."
Kilner's theories and discoveries had to wait until 1939 before they
gained credibility amoung the scientific factions. In Krasnador,
southern Russia, near the Black Sea, lived an electician, Semyon
Kirlian. He was an extremely competent man and his services were often
called upon by researchers working at the local hospital to repair the
varioius pieces of equipment when they malfunctioned.
One day, while in a laboratory, Kirlian was present during a
demonstration of a new high frequency electrotherapy unit.
As the patient received the treatment through electrodes, Kirlian
noticed minute flashes of light sparking between the person's skin and
the electrodes themselves.
An amateur photographer, fascinated by the infinite possibilities
offered by a photographic plate, he wondered whether it would be
possible to record these minute skin flashes.
He realized that since the electodes were made of glass for safety, the
photographic plate would be ruined by exposure to light before the unit
could even be switched on, so he decided to use metal electodes; though
this was clearly dangerous.
Placing his own hand in the right position after adjusting the
photographic plate, he switched on the power, was instantly and
painfully burnt, but hoped that after the three seconds he had exposed
the plates, he might have an original photograph.
When the plate was developed he saw a very strange imprint. Around the
contours of his fingers a luminosity had been recorded.
He set to work developing a machine that would photograph this apparent
aura. The known techniques of photography without light -X-Ray and
infrared - he knew would be of no use, so he devised a process that
would only catch this new luminous energy emanating from the body.
Helped by his wife, Valentina, a journalist and teacher, he eventually
found a method of taking the pictures he wanted and his first
successful result was the photograph of a leaf revealing, around its
edges, millions of light energy dots flaring in turquoise and orange
patterns from the direction of the lef's veins.
When he similarly photographed his own finger, it appeared on the
picture like an erupting volcano, flames of energy sparking from the
tips.
As these were static pictures, the husband and wife team went on to
perfect an optical instrument that would enable them to see their
discovery in motion and, according to the Ostrander and Schoeder report
in "Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain":
"The hanbd itself looked like Milky Way is a starry sky. Against a
background of blue or gold, something was taking place in the hand that
looked like a firework display. Multicoloured flares lit up, then
sparks, twinkles, flashes. Some lights glowed steadily like Roman
candles, others flashed out then dimmed. Still others sparked at
intervals. In parts of his hand there were little dim clouds. Cerain
glittering glares meandering along sparkling labyrinths like spaceships
travelling to other galaxies.
"When the Kirlians places a fresh leaf under the lens of a microscope
connected to the high frequency generator, they saw a picture similar
to that of the human hand. Next they tried a half withered lead. It
looked like a great metropolis turning out its lights for the night.
They tried an almost completely withered lead. There were almost no
flares and sparks and "clouds" scarcely moved. As they watched, the
lead seemed to be dying before their eyes and its death was reflected
in the picture of energy impulses. "We appeared to be seeing the very
life activities of the leaf itself," Kirlian said, "intense, dynamic
energy in the healthy lead, less in the withered lead, nothing in the
dead lead."
This Kirlian discovery soon made scientific news and, with the backing
of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, they elaborated further on their
machines and carried out endless experiments.
What they proves was what mediums had been saying for years, that
living matter has an aura, and that that aura is affected by
frequencies of energy governed by the state of health of the subject.
Fatigue, poor states of mind, anxieties and illnesses all contribute to
the behaviour of the aura.
When the Kirlians examined two leaves side by side taken from similar
plants and saw a sharp contrast, they were puzzled. But a visiting
scientist who had given them the leaves was quite ecstatic.
"Both leaves were torn from the same species of plant, but one of these
plants had already been contaminated with a serious plant disease.
You've found this out immediately! There is absolutely nothing on the
plant or this lead to indicate that it has been infected and will soon
die. No tests on the actual plant or the leaf show anything wrong with
it. With high frequency photography you've diagnosed illness in the
plant AHEAD OF TIME!"
In the Ostrander and Schroeder book a series of photographs are
reproduced. These show, among other things, the changes in
lumninescence of a figertip when the subject was calm and even tempered
compared to the fingertip when the subject was in a state of gatrigue.
The aura, when the person is calm, resembles a glowing coal fire, when
gatigued, like the exhaust of flaring rockets.
Psychics who can see auras all seem to agree that the luminescence
around the human body is egg-shaped, wide around the head and
shoulders, tapering towards the feet.
In the famous book, "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of
Knowledge" by Carlos Castaneda, who wrote it when he was a graduate
student at the University of Califronia, this egg-shapes aura is
briefly but interestingly mentioned.
In 1960, Carlos Castaneda first met Don Juan, a Yaqui Indian feared and
shunned by the ordinary folk of the Maerican South West because of his
unnatural powers. During the next five years Don Juan's arcane
knowledge led him into a world of beauty and terror, rules by concepts
far beyond those of Western civilization. Using psychedelic drugs --
peyote, jimson weed and mushroom humito -- Castenada lived through
encounters with diembodied spirits, shamans in the form of huge wolves,
and death in the shape of silver crows. Three times he met Mescalito,
the god of peyote; finally, after a night of terror in which he
realized his life was threatened by forces which he still cannot fully
explain, he gave up the struggle to become a Man of Knowledge -- to
find the other you -- but wrote his remarkable book in which Don Juan
tells him:
"I like to sit in parks and bus depots and watch. Real people look like
luminous eggs when you "see" them. In a crowd of egglike creatures you
can spot the one who looks just like a person, then you know that there
is something wrong and that, without this luminous glow, this is not a
real person at all."
Having accepted that all living matter is surrounded by a field of
force which can sometimes be seen or photographed as an aura, there is
also the aura which is perceived by psychics that DIFFERS slightly in
that is is coloured by the thought processes of the subject.
This colouring ranges from fine violet, blue hues to yellows, dark
browns, greys and dull reds. Sometimes the auras shine with a pure
golden light, which, if some of the interpetations put on colour can be
proved to be correct, signifies spirituality.
Pale blues and purples are interpeted as the given power of healing.
Pink for pure love and effection. Red for desire and anger. Green for
intellect. Browns and muddy shades going to greys signify disease. An
aura which appears to be shrivelling sggests approaching death.
THese colours, however, are not always reliable symbols and should not
be applied as hard and fast rules. What matters most in the aura is its
clarity and purity of colours which indicates stability, or instability
in the subject's character. Blues merging into reds merging into greys
like a dirty artist's palate is supsect. A clear yellow outlined by a
pure green is obviously more sound.
The acquisition of auric sight, like all otehr parnaormal faculties, is
a question of practice and patience. Compared to other forms of psychic
powers it is, however, relatively simpe to try out, providing you give
yourself time and do not limit yourself to only one or two experiments.
Auric sight is one of the faculties which may indicate that you can
develop OTHER powers in the psychic field, but apart from this, and
possibly confirming that a person is physically or mentaly unwell
because of the poor state of their aura, auric sight can only be
regarded as a fascinating additional and supernatural dimension.
