I’ve seen a bit of soft evidence that auras exist. The most impressive to me is that disparate cultures (European and Indian) both show auras in their artwork. Why would cultures so widely seperated believe in the same thing if it didn’t exist?
On the other hand, it sounds like so much malarky.
What do you think? Is there any hard evidence for auras?
The master speaks of auras indirectly here.
And no, there is no hard evidence for their existance.
Actually, auras do exist, for us migraine sufferers. An aura is what you call the flashing lights, or colorful patterns that often overwhelm one who is suffering from a migraine headache.
I sometimes wonder if they got the name from the supernatural myth.
D’oh! You are correct, Guin. I neglected to take in the very real neurologic phenomenon. However, the migraine (and related) auras are thus far not photographable (except with a PET scan of the brain). And I don’t think the New Age crowd is referring to that variety of aura when discussing the topic.
Perhaps the myth came from the real migraine phenomenon!
What’s your definition of an aura?
Living things give off bio-electro-magnetic energy. Electric fish and sharks can sense that aura even if we can’t.
I don’t know whether or not fish are responding to “bio-electric-magnetic energy.” Fish have sense organs along their sides in what is called the “lateral line.” These organs sense minute pressure and chemical changes in the water. In addition, the eyes of most fish are in the sides of their head giving them nearly 360[sup]o[/sup] vision, at least for motion.
Because of these attributes a fish can spin around and grab a minnow behind it just as easily as you reach out and pick something up off the table.
I have heard people say, “Doesn’t s/he have a wonderful aura?”. I think what they are talking about is that the person is confident, well dressed and has a nice disposition. Probably way off base here, just my pair of pennies.
Maybe the Europeans got it from India or the Indians from Europe? It’s not a days hike, but the two places aren’t that far apart. Remember, Alexander the Great got to the border of India before he died, and the Romans and Indians traded with each other pretty regularly.
Looking at some illuminations (interesting word) from the middle ages, I see various religious figures with halos. Wouldn’t this predate Polo?
I don’t know about auras, but I find that a rather odd statement. I was under the impression that belief in unproveable things are often widely spread across different culltures?
Things like God(s), spirits/ghosts, a flat earth, an afterlife, the idea of monsters, etc. Lots of different cultures believe in things like that… but that doesn’t mean they’re all necessarily right.
Looking back, I see I totally misread your post. Oops.
So I wonder if the concept of a halo goes back to ancient Rome. Any art historians want to share?
I was thinking about that. At first glance it seems like a pretty specific thing, too much so to be a coincidence. But the concept of an inner light might be part of the human condition, and if so variations on it might not be uncommon.
So we have Europe with halos and India with gods enveloped in fire. Did American Indians have something like this? How about East Asians?
The more I think about this the more intriguing it gets.
What I’m trying to say is that having lots of people believe in the same thing doesn’t make it true. Mass belief in something that later turned out to be untrue has occured a few times in history, I think.
Personally, I believe that auras are just one of those spiritual things that we can never ascertain the existence of. The believers will keep on believing, since all they really need is faith, and the skeptics will just keep doubting their existence since no evidence can be found. shrug
But about East Asian auras… well, have you ever seen those Buddha portraits with yellow, glowing discs behind the head? Those might be auras, although I’m not too sure.
(I meant to write electrO-magnetic.)
It is well documented that electric fish sense the electrical “aura” of other living things.
This is the first web-site I found. Its not very “deep” (pun intended), but gets to the point:
Do you mean some sort of aura in a supernatural sense? If that’s the case, then I’d have to say no, they do not exist.
However, it is possible to detect a sense about a person, based on cues from behaviour, how they talk, body language, etc. One might refer to this sense as an aura.
Sharks, skates and rays are extremely good at sensing electric fields. They use this ability for hunting.
If, however, the OP means the sort of aura that people match up with crystals, then, no, there is not the slightest bit of actual evidence for them. In fact, this is so non-debatable that it really belongs in GQ.
Halos in a lot of religious iconography have their origins in images of sun gods.
The Britannica says this about the lateral line.
“A network of sensory receptors located along the head and sides of fishes and amphibians. The system serves to detect movements and pressure changes in the surrounding water. The individual receptor, called a lateral line organ, or neuromast, consists of a cluster of innervated hairs surroundedby a jellylike projection (cupula) that bends in response to water movements. The neuromasts of most bony fishes are set in a series of interconnected depressions, forming a canal, with openings at intervals to the environment.”
Britannica goes on to say that sharks, rays and most catfish have a lateral line that is sensitive to electrical potential differences. You learn something every day.
However, your post said:
“Living things give off bio-electro-magnetic (you later changed that to just electro-magnetic in a later post) energy. Electric fish and sharks can sense that aura even if we can’t.”
The electrical potential in the vicinity of the fishes prey isn’t in any sense of the word a mysterious “aura” that we can’t detect. It is true that we can’t directly sense the electric field, at least at low levels, but we can sure detect it. In fact we can detect such fields so well that it has been determined by measurement just how sensitive the sharks, etc. are. Britannica gives that threshold sensitivity as a field that can be as small as 1 microvolt/meter.
Ever heard of Kirlian photography?