Usually, auras and those who claim they can read
them have been relegated to the realm of psychic fairs, new age mysticism or
ancient religious beliefs.
But as Good Morning America’s Science
Editor Michael Guillen has learned, scientists are taking a closer look at
an area that was once dismissed. Perhaps the most dramatic indicator of this
attention is that the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.,
recently decided to start funding research on human bio-fields, the
technical term for auras.
Meanwhile, some impressive scientific mavericks are
exploring a controversial new science, “bio-electro-magnetics.” One
scientist leading the charge is Berkeley-trained biophysicist Beverly Rubik.
She believes that the human body exudes energy, just like glowing candles.
“If you think really what life is: when you’re
dead, what happens to your energy? Absolutely everything,” Rubik said. “You
go from being a warm radiant moving creature to a cold dead stiff creature.
The big difference is the energy.”
Just Like
the Sun
Harvard-trained psychologist Gary Schwartz agrees. He runs the Human Energy
Systems Lab at the University of Arizona and claims that the existence of a
human aura is indisputable.
“It’s like the sun,” Schwartz said. “The sun emits
a whole spectrum of energy, both visible light, infrared, ultraviolet,
x-rays, gamma rays. It’s the same thing with the human body, the human body
is emitting this whole range of signals.”
To show what he meant, Schwartz had Guillen sit
close to an antenna that detects low-frequency radiation. When he moved his
hand close to the antenna, Guillen saw a signal change on the monitor.
Another antenna detected high-frequency radiation. As Guillen got closer to
it, a sound went off, indicating that the antenna had, in effect, picked up
signals that he was broadcasting, Schwartz said.
Your Body’s
Broadcasting System
The cells inside your body actually do the broadcasting, Schwartz said. In
fact, 100 trillion of them spew out an aura of electromagentic radiation,
like little TV towers.
Orthodox scientists believe this aura is nothing
but a meaningless jumble of frequencies. But mavericks point to EEGs and
EKGs, which work by measuring the electromagnetic signals from the brain and
heart. Is it possible signals from the rest of our body also carry
information about our health? Though skeptical, Rubik thinks it’s worth
testing.
She heads the Institute for Frontier Research in
Oakland, Calif.
Guillen volunteered as her guinea pig in an
experiment to test whether auras can indicate health. She first cleansed his
fingers with alcohol to remove any residue from his fingertip images. Then
she took pictures of auras surrounding Guillen’s fingertips with a digital
Kirlian camera, widely used in Russia and Eastern Europe.
Rubik chose Guillen’s fingertips, because according
to Chinese medicine, the fingers contain many acupuncture points. These
points are supposedly connected via energy channels called meridians to
different parts of the body: lungs, heart, intestines and so forth.
Peaks And
Valleys Of Health
So from the auras of his fingertips alone, Rubik’s computer was able to
calculate Guillen’s full-body aura. Next, her computer analyzed his aura for
any signs of illness. His alleged diagnosis was represented by a jagged red
circle.
“Actually I see a very good energy regulation,”
Rubik said. “If that were ideal, it would be a perfect circle.”
Any huge peaks in the jagged red circle are
supposed to mean something is excessive or inflamed. Any huge valleys, she
said, are supposed to mean something is deficient.
Rubik found a little bit of excess in Guillen’s
colon region. “There’s a couple of organ systems that look a little run
down, a little under the weather,” Rubik said.”There is a slight dip in the
endocrine system. It’s a little bit deficient here.”
Critics contend that aura reading is all nonsense,
akin to astrology. But Guillen was surprised that some of the things Rubik
found did, in fact, fit in with his health record. He has an underactive
thyroid, which could account for the “depressed” area on the endocrine
system.
The NIH’s move to research auras split the
scientific community into two camps. For mainstream scientists, the NIH
interest is scandalous. But for the mavericks, it’s long-awaited evidence
that old school science is coming around.
“I mean, who says that today’s physics ends the
process of discovery?” Schwartz said. “Who says that we now know every
single bit of energy that exists in the universe? Only a human being that
has not learned humility … would come to that kind of statement. I say keep
an open mind.”
This story was produced by Melissa Dunst for Good Morning America.
