According to spiritual beliefs, an aura or

energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of ...

field is a colored emanation said to enclose a human body or any animal or object. In some esoteric positions, the aura is described as a

subtle body A subtle body is a "quasi material" aspect of the human body, being neither solely physical nor solely spiritual, according to various esoteric, occult, and mystical teachings. This contrasts with the mind–body dualism that has dominated ...

Psychics A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws ...

and holistic medicine practitioners often claim to have the ability to see the size, color and type of vibration of an aura. In spiritual

alternative medicine Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine despite lacking biological plausibility, testability, repeatability, or evidence from clinical trials. Complementary medicine (CM), complementary and al ...

, the human being aura is seen as part of a hidden anatomy that reflects the state of being and health of a client, often understood to even comprise centers of vital force called

chakra Chakras (, ; sa , text=चक्र , translit=cakra , translit-std=IAST , lit=wheel, circle; pi, cakka) are various focal points used in a variety of ancient meditation practices, collectively denominated as Tantra, or the esoteric or ...

s. Such claims are not supported by

scientific evidence Scientific evidence is evidence that serves to either support or counter a scientific theory or hypothesis, although scientists also use evidence in other ways, such as when applying theories to practical problems. "Discussions about empirical ev ...

and are thus

pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claim ...

. When tested under scientific controlled experiments, the ability to see auras has not been proven to exist.

Etymology

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

and

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

, ''aura'' means wind, breeze or breath. It was used in

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old Englis ...

to mean "gentle breeze". By the end of the 19th century, the word was used in some spiritualist circles to describe a speculated subtle emanation around the body.

History

The concept of auras was first popularized by

Charles Webster Leadbeater Charles Webster Leadbeater (; 16 February 1854 – 1 March 1934) was a member of the Theosophical Society, Co-Freemasonry, author on occult subjects and co-initiator with J. I. Wedgwood of the Liberal Catholic Church. Originally a p ...

, a former priest of the Church of England and a member of the mystic

Theosophical Society The Theosophical Society, founded in 1875, is a worldwide body with the aim to advance the ideas of Theosophy in continuation of previous Theosophists, especially the Greek and Alexandrian Neo-Platonic philosophers dating back to 3rd century CE ...

. Leadbeater had studied

theosophy Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late 19th century. It was founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorized by scholars of religion a ...

in India, and believed he had the capacity to use his clairvoyant powers to make scientific investigations. He claimed that he had discovered that most men came from Mars but the more advanced men came from the Moon, and that

hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-to ...

atoms were made of six bodies contained in an egg-like form. In his book ''Man Visible and Invisible'' published in 1903, Leadbeater illustrated the aura of man at various stages of his moral evolution, from the "savage" to the

saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and denomination. In Catholic, Eastern Or ...

. In 1910, Leadbeater introduced the modern conception of auras by incorporating the Tantric notion of

s in his book ''The Inner Life''. Leadbeater did not simply present the Tantric beliefs to the West, he reconstructed and reinterpreted them by mixing them with his own ideas, without acknowledging the sources of these innovations. Some of Leadbeater's innovations are describing chakras as energy vortices, and associating each of them with a gland, an organ and other body parts. In the following years, Leadbeater's ideas on the aura and chakras were adopted and reinterpreted by other theosophists such as

Rudolf Steiner Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (27 or 25 February 1861 – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as ...

and

Edgar Cayce Edgar Cayce (; 18 March 1877 – 3 January 1945) was an American clairvoyant who claimed to channel his higher self while in a trance-like state. His words were recorded by his friend, Al Layne; his wife, Gertrude Evans, and later by his s ...

, but his occult anatomy remained of minor interest within the esoteric counterculture until the 1980s, when it was picked up by the New Age movement. In 1977, American esotericist

Christopher Hills Christopher Hills (April 9, 1926 – January 31, 1997) was an English-born author, described as the "Father of Spirulina" for popularizing spirulina cyanobacteria as a food supplement. He also wrote 30 books on consciousness, meditation, yog ...

published the book ''Nuclear Evolution: The Rainbow Body'', which presented a modified version of Leadbeater's occult anatomy. Whereas Leadbeater had drawn each chakras with intricately detailed shapes and multiple colors, Hills presented them as a sequence of centers, each one being associated with a color of the rainbow. Most of the subsequent New Age writers based their representations of the aura on Hill's interpretation of Leadbeater's ideas. Chakras became a part of mainstream esoteric speculations in the 1980s and 1990s. Many New Age techniques that aim to clear blockages of the chakras were developed during those years, such as

crystal healing Crystal healing is a pseudoscientific alternative-medicine practice that uses semiprecious stones and crystals such as quartz, agate, amethyst or opal. Adherents of the practice claim that these have healing powers, but there is no scientifi ...

and aura-soma. Chakras were, by the late 1990s, less connected with their theosophical and Hinduist roots, and more infused with New Age ideas. A variety of New Age books proposed different links between each chakras and colors, personality traits, illnesses, Christian sacraments, etc. Various type of holistic healing within the New Age movement claim to use aura reading techniques, such as

bioenergetic analysis Body psychotherapy, also called body-oriented psychotherapy, is an approach to psychotherapy which applies basic principles of somatic psychology. It originated in the work of Pierre Janet, Sigmund Freud and particularly Wilhelm Reich who develo ...

spiritual energy Proponents and practitioners of various esoteric forms of spirituality and alternative medicine refer to a variety of claimed experiences and phenomena as being due to "energy" or "force" that defy measurement and thus are distinguished from t ...

and energy medicine.

Auric energy

yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consciou ...

participants attempt to focus on, or enhance their "auric energy shield". The concept of auric energy is spiritual and is concerned with

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

. Some people think that the aura carries a person's soul after death.

Aura photography

There have been numerous attempts to capture an energy field around the human body, going as far back as photographs by French physician

Hippolyte Baraduc In Classical Greek mythology, Hippolyta, or Hippolyte (; grc-gre, Ἱππολύτη ''Hippolytē'') was a daughter of Ares and Otrera, queen of the Amazons, and a sister of Antiope and Melanippe. She wore her father Ares' ''zoster'', the Gr ...

in the 1890s. Supernatural interpretations of these images have often been the result of a lack of understanding of the simple natural phenomena behind them, such as heat emanating from a human body producing aura-like images under infrared photography. In 1939, Semyon Davidovich Kirlian discovered that by placing an object or body part directly on photographic paper, and then passing a high voltage across the object, he would obtain the image of a glowing contour surrounding the object. This process came to be known as Kirlian photography. Some parapsychologists, such as Thelma Moss of

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

, have proposed that these images show levels of psychic powers and bioenergies. However, studies have found that the Kirlian effect is caused by the presence of moisture on the object being photographed. Electricity produces an area of gas ionization around the object if it is moist, which is the case for living things. This causes an alternation of the electric charge pattern on the film. After rigorous experimentations, no mysterious process has been discovered in relation to the Kirlian photography. More recent attempts at capturing auras include the Aura Imaging cameras and software introduced by Guy Coggins in 1992. Coggins claims that his software uses

biofeedback Biofeedback is the process of gaining greater awareness of many physiological functions of one's own body by using electronic or other instruments, and with a goal of being able to manipulate the body's systems at will. Humans conduct biofeed ...

data to color the picture of the subject. The technique has failed to yield reproducible results.

Tests

Tests of psychic abilities to observe alleged aura emanations have repeatedly been met with failure. One test involved placing people in a dark room and asking the psychic to state how many auras she could observe. Only chance results were obtained. Recognition of auras has occasionally been tested on television. One test involved an ''aura reader'' standing on one side of a room with an opaque partition separating her from a number of slots which might contain either actual people or mannequins. The aura reader failed to identify the slots containing people, incorrectly stating that all contained people. In another televised test another aura reader was placed before a partition where five people were standing. He claimed that he could see their auras from behind the partition. As each person moved out, the reader was asked to identify where that person was standing behind the slot. He identified two out of five correctly. Attempts to prove the existence of auras scientifically have repeatedly met with failure; for example people are unable to see auras in complete darkness, and auras have never been successfully used to identify people when their identifying features are otherwise obscured in controlled tests. A 1999 study concluded that conventional sensory cues such as radiated body heat might be mistaken for evidence of a metaphysical phenomenon.

Scientific explanation

Psychologist Andrew Neher has written that "there is no good evidence to support the notion that auras are, in any way, psychic in origin." Studies in laboratory conditions have demonstrated that auras are instead best explained as visual illusions known as afterimages. Neurologists contend that people may perceive auras because of effects within the brain:

epilepsy Epilepsy is a group of non-communicable neurological disorders characterized by recurrent epileptic seizures. Epileptic seizures can vary from brief and nearly undetectable periods to long periods of vigorous shaking due to abnormal electrica ...

migraine Migraine (, ) is a common neurological disorder characterized by recurrent headaches. Typically, the associated headache affects one side of the head, is pulsating in nature, may be moderate to severe in intensity, and could last from a few hou ...

s, or the influence of psychedelic drugs such as LSD. It has been suggested that auras may result from

synaesthesia Synesthesia (American English) or synaesthesia (British English) is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who rep ...

. However, a 2012 study discovered no link between auras and synaesthesia, concluding "the discrepancies found suggest that both phenomena are phenomenological and behaviourally dissimilar." Clinical neurologist

Steven Novella Steven Paul Novella (born July 29, 1964) is an American clinical neurologist and associate professor at Yale University School of Medicine. Novella is best known for his involvement in the skeptical movement as a host of '' The Skeptics' Guide ...

has written: "Given the weight of the evidence it seems that the connection between auras and synaesthesia is speculative and based on superficial similarities that are likely coincidental." Other causes may include disorders within the

visual system The visual system comprises the sensory organ (the eye) and parts of the central nervous system (the retina containing photoreceptor cells, the optic nerve, the optic tract and the visual cortex) which gives organisms the sense of sight (th ...

provoking optical effects. Bridgette Perez, in a review for the ''

Skeptical Inquirer ''Skeptical Inquirer'' is a bimonthly American general-audience magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) with the subtitle: ''The Magazine for Science and Reason''. Mission statement and goals Daniel Loxton, writing in 2 ...

'', wrote: "perceptual distortions, illusions, and hallucinations might promote belief in auras... Psychological factors, including absorption, fantasy proneness, vividness of visual imagery, and after-images, might also be responsible for the phenomena of the aura." Scientists have repeatedly concluded that the ability to see auras does not actually exist.

In popular culture

* The book '' The Third Eye'', written by Cyril Henry Hoskin under the pseudonym Lobsang Rampa, claims that Tibetan monks opened the spiritual

third eye The third eye (also called the mind's eye or inner eye) is a mystical invisible eye, usually depicted as located on the forehead, which provides perception beyond ordinary sight. In Hinduism, the third eye refers to the ajna (or brow) chakra. In ...

using

trepanation Trepanning, also known as trepanation, trephination, trephining or making a burr hole (the verb ''trepan'' derives from Old French from Medieval Latin from Greek , literally "borer, auger"), is a surgical intervention in which a hole is dri ...

in order to accelerate the development of clairvoyance and allow them to see the aura. It also includes body gazing techniques purported to help achieve aura visualization. The book is by some considered to be a hoax.

References

Sources

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External links

Auras in the "Skeptic's dictionary"

How Aura Photography Invaded Instagram
{{Parapsychology, state=collapsed Consciousness–matter dualism Energy (esotericism) Esotericism Hindu philosophical concepts New Age Paranormal terminology Pseudoscience Theosophical philosophical concepts Vitalism Consciousness Quantum mind