Kirlian Photography, Auras, and Halos

In 1939, a process was invented (by accident) that purported to photograph auras. Named after its inventor, Kirlian photography involves an object, a photographic plate, and a high voltage electron field. Semyon Kirlian believed that the aura of an object represented the life force of the energy field around it. For people who believe that an astral body exists around the physical body, Kirlian photography appears to provide proof of the ethereal body's existence.

Various colors appear in Kirlian photographs and many metaphysicians and others involved in the healing arts believe that each color represents a state of physical, psychological, and/or emotional being. The color red, for instance, may mean that the subject is angry. Green, on the other hand, might indicate an individual who is a healer. White indicates purity, as you might expect. Kirlain photographers consider the different shades and combinations of colors when they interpret the photo.

Color, however, is not the only means used in interpreting a Kirlian photograph. Like precious stones, auras are examined by their clarity and consistency. Their shape is also examined and is supposed to be clearly defined. Spikes in the aura may show an increase of energy in the area they appear, while holes in the aura may indicate dysfunction, such as deformity, disease, or illness. Cloudy images may mean a loss of vitality specific to the area where it appears.

Skeptics argue that colors generated in Kirlian photographs occur because of humidity, barometric pressure, temperature, and even electricity from the camera itself.

But skeptics find it difficult to explain experiments where, in photographs taken of leaves that have been cut, phantom images of the portion cut off remain in the photograph. One explanation may be that people who've lost limbs often report sensation in the amputated limb. If astral bodies do indeed exist, phantom limbs may still be attached in the ethereal world. Leaves, like humans, are living organisms.

Some people claim to see auras without the help of a special camera. Seeing auras, however, may indicate a health problem (glaucoma patients see auras). In addition to glaucoma, other health problems may be present in one who sees auras. A physical anomaly known as synesthesia (or synaesthesia), which occurs in about one in two thousand people, causes the senses of these individuals to become altered. Some of them hear, rather than taste, their food and some of them smell music. Thought by some scientists to be a cross wiring in the brain, the condition appears to be genetic.

One way to test the validity of people who see auras is to compare the image they see to the image in a Kirlian photograph.

Even if Kirlian photography does not capture an aura, what is it that appears on the outside perimeter of the body in a Kirlian photograph? And if auras cannot be seen, why did all of those early artists draw halos around the heads of venerated beings?