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.