I know I’m going to regret this…but…I can see people’s auras. Not everyone’s and not all of the time and, for some reason, it helps if they are standing or sitting in front of a white or light colored backdrop.
To me an aura is a faint, smoke-like outline around someone’s head and/or shoulders. Some of them are colorless, like a white mist, others have a pale color to them. Some people’s auras change colors or shift from one color to another color, back and forth, while I’m watching.
Some of them have more of a glow or a “charge” than others.
I mean a real and detectable visible glow around a person, often described as a color. Much as psifireus described. Some would say it’s a supernatural thing, but I’m wondering if such a thing actually exists, and if so, if there is any scientific explanation for it. Many people, like psifireus, claim to be able to see it, and I tend to take them at face value. However, I have not ruled out any possible explanations for it, including a mere trick on the eyes.
In fact, I occasionally see auras around many things, including inanimate objects, but this usually happens when I first awaken, and have not yet rubbed the gunk out of my eyes.
I generally tend to think of “cleansing” an aura by grabbing at the dirty bits several inches away from someone’s head as a bunch of new age hokum. I have less doubt that people are seeing something, but I don’t know what that something is.
Psifireus, I once saw a Discovery channel (I think) presentation of that phenomenon. A little boy was able to see auras around everyone’s head and he supposedly used it as a judge of that person’s character, or something like that.
That’s very cool, IMHO. For you, have the auras ever corresponded to anything about the particular person?
<skepticism>I don’t disbelieve that you see them, but how do you know they are “auras”, per se? Perhaps it’s something your eyes or brains interpret as glowing auras, which they may or may not really be. For example… I know that when I wake up every morning, my eyes can be blurry. But that doesn’t mean the world is actually blurry, it’s just the way I happen to see it at that moment. I don’t know enough about vision and its processing to say anything of value, but I’m just wondering.</skepticism>
Hmm. Are you talking about Western religion only, or other world religions as well?
I would point out that in comic strips when a person gets an idea (especially a “bright” idea), a lightbulb appears over his head. No one has top explain to us what that means, we all just know it. People with religious insight are said to be enlightened. Religion is said to bring people out of the darkness. When we finally get a concept, we are said to see the light. We refer to smart people as bright, and dumb people as dim. “Science as a candle in the dark.” “I’d rather light a candle that curse the darkness.” Sun gods.
Clearly something is going on here, and I don’t think it’s just a cultural reference. It may be a universal concept. Now if this concept comes from the reality of auras, that would be fairly interesting. Or possibly the myth (or misperception) of auras comes from this concept. Or perhaps they are entirely unrelated, and it’s mere coincidence.
That’s exactly the point of the OP, though. I don’t claim that people seeing them are lying. Let’s go on the baseline assumption that some people, in fact, see auras. Therefore auras are real.
The next task would then be to define what an aura is: Electro-magnetic energy? Trick of the eyes? Trick of the brain? Self-delusion? Refraction? Reflection? A soul spilling out of the body? Mass insanity? Some of the above? All of the above? None of the above?
As for collecting Randi’s million, how would that be testable?
“I see your aura.”
“No you don’t.”
“Yes I do.”
“No you don’t.”
Come to think of it, I’ve seen this too. And though I have 20-15 vision, I’ve been diagnosed with cataracts.
OK, let’s do a little experimentation. Looking around my room, looking at objects against a white wall, I can see little auras around most objects, especially dark objects. I’m clearly seeing something, though very feint. It could just be my imagination. It could also be that my brain is trying to fill in a bit of contrast, making the white wall just a tad whiter around these objects. It could also be that I’m not very awake yet.
When looking at Buddhist art, it’s important to remember that much, if not most of the iconography is Indian in origin. Indian and East Asian halos are the same symbol.
Of tremendous importance in the development of Buddhist art is the Gandhara school. Gandhara was a kingdom in what is now eastern Pakistan/ southern Afghanistan. The Gandhara school of art is believe to have started with the patronage of emperor Kanishka (2nd c. AD).
Gandharans were the first to represent Buddha as a man and are responsible as such for laying out the bases of Buddhist sculpure. It is believe that Gandharan artists based their representation of Buddha on Apollo and the Persian Sun god Mithra, and that is where the halo came from.
Although Persian in origin, the cult of Mithra was very popular in Rome and it is not surprising that Roman-trained artists would have borrowed his halo in their portrayal of Buddha.
Note also, that Mithra’s holiday was december 25th (no coincidence) and that he is believed to have inspired original depictions of Christ.
Conceivably, an aura radiates a few inches or so beyond a person’s body; so, if that remains true for the head, a wall could be set between the testee and the person whose aura he/she will claim to see, and the testee, by looking for the aura that emanates beyond the head of the person behind the wall, should be able to say where that person is at any given time.
I believe it’s been done before and no one claiming to see auras has ever succeeded. Not in a reputable scientifically controlled, double-blind test, that is.
That’s making a pretty major assumption. All that test proves is that the aura doesn’t radiate from there, or that it can’t pass through walls. And if it is an optical illusion, such a test wouldn’t apply anyway.
Very interesting and “enlightening” post. I’m ashamed to admit that my knowledge of history of both art and religion are lacking, but how old are the depictions of Shiva, et. al. bodily ringed by fire?
Both Europeans and Chinese used to believe in the existence of dragons. That doesn’t mean dragons ever existed.
Also posted by tdn:
My father, who is active in several skeptics’ and humanists’ groups, told me he once saw aura-reading debunked on a TV show, by a simple demonstration: An “aura reader” claimed he could see auras radiating about six to twelve inches from every person’s skin. He was challenged to find the location of a person standing behind a screen that came up to just a couple of inches above his head. He failed. I can provide no more info and I never saw the show myself.
A while back I stared a similar thread: “Is there really such a thing as ‘chi’?” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=167264 Most posters aserted there is no hard evidence whatsoever that “chi” – a very important theoretical concept in Chinese medicine, not to mention martial arts and feng shui – really exists.
The test setup to which I was referring is actually designed for the testee to accurately point out an aura above the wall, not through it.
That said, you’re right in pointing out that assumptions do exist in the way I described the test. Which is why the testers and the testee need to agree upon the nature and design of the test beforehand. Once the testee clarifies his claim of talent, then a proper test can be designed and agreed upon; in fact, this is what happens over at Randi’s place.
As for it being an optical illusion: I think that once the claimant asserts that he/she can not only see auras but divine the health of the person whose aura is currently being seen (or even the future as some have claimed), we’re falling beyond a simple (not that neurology is simple, mind you) optical illusion into a need for evidence of paranormal powers.
I absolutely agree. If it were up to me, I would design the preliminary tests not to detect a supernatural entity, but to determine if people are seeing anything at all, and if so, in what way they are seeing it. This would take it out of the realm of parapsychology and put it in the realm of either psychology or optics. If it fails in both of those, I would see no reason to persue it any further, and no reason to bother Randi at all.
In much the same way I would test astrology – I would first determine if people born in certain months have common characteristics above and beyond statistical anomolies. No need to bring in mumbo-jumbo astrologers to determine what is being measured – first find out if there is anything to measure in the first place.
Cartoon I saw once in (I think) The Skeptical Inquirer:* A witness is picking a suspect out of a police lineup. Points at one of the group: “That’s him, officer! Third from the left! Mustard aura, right, with greenish flecks?”
Both Chinese and Europeans had ‘evidence’ of dragons in dinosaur fossils.
The fact that they were wrong in the conclusion does not mean that they didn’t have a reason for the belief. If there have been people in the past, like psifireus, who have seen something around the heads and shoulders of some people that could easily be the genesis of the belief in auras. Not that the conclusion of that belief is necessarily correct – i.e. all people have aura, these aura tell about the emotional/spiritual state of the person, for $$ your aura can be cleaned, etc. However, it does give one explanation to why the belief exists.
As a matter of fact, I am quite capable of detecting electro-magnetic energy given off by living things. But calling that an “aura” is quite stretch. Furthermore, my understanding is that for the most part electric fish detect their own electromagnetic field rather than that other beings. If another fish gets close enough for the electric fish to catch it, the electric fish will detect it through the pertubation in the electric fish’s field. Notice the comparison to echolocation: bats do not find other animals by listening to the other animals’ noises, but by creating their own noises and listening to how they are affected by other animals.
Both passive and active systems are found. The Britannica has this:
“Sharks, rays, and most catfishes are able to detect electrical changes (biopotentials) emanating from other organisms. The freshwater mormyrids and eels, on the other hand, have special signal-emitting electric organs. They produce a series of weak electric shocks (up to a few volts), sometimes quite regularly and frequently; for example, about 300 shocks per second in the mormyrid fish Gymnarchus. In this way, a self-generated electric field is created in the immediate surroundings. Any appropriate object (for example, a prey animal with good conductivity in relation to fresh water) will cause a deformation of the electric field and can thus be detected in a radar-like manner through the sensitive ampullar electroreceptors.”
However, as you say and I posted earlier, this is not some mysterious aura but is only a garden variety electric field which scientists have been able to detect for a long time now. And again, as noted in my post, not only can fish biologists detect these electric fields, they have studied both kinds of system, made measurements on how sensitive they are and I’m sure that there is beaucoup data on the subject if anyone cares to look for it on the net.