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Capturing
The Aura With Kirlian Photography
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Place
Russia
Year 1950
Event In the late 1950s,
the Soviet husband-and-wife team of Semyon and Valentina Kirlian
published their research on a fascinating method of imaging:
a photographic process capturing a normally invisible energy
field, or bio-energy, that they said radiates from every living
organism. The technique involved placing an object or part of
the body directly on film laid atop a metal plate, which was
then subjected to a high voltage current. A distinct pattern
showed around the object in the developed picture. This was
assumed to be the bio-energy, or aura. The Kirlians said an
individual’s biological state, including disease, could
be judged by studying auras.
Kirlian photography supposedly discloses emotional information
as well: The auras of a healthy, calm person appear to differ
from those of an anxious, tense subject. Moreover, some researchers
believe that Kirlian photographs can show psychic interaction,
especially between individuals with reputed healing powers and
their patients.
Scientists say physiological variations at the surface of the
skin, such as moisture, temperature, and pressure, produce the
differences in the “auras”. They further explain that
the image on film is actually that of a corona discharge in
a gas, a natural electrical phenomenon.
Thelma Moss of UCLA, a leading pioneer of American research
into Kirlian photography, has countered by arguing that even
if the phenomenon is a corona discharge, the changes that occur
in it under varying conditions make it worthy of study. In a
1978 report, Rumanian researchers asserted that cancer tumours
photograph differently than normal tissue. They purportedly
detected breast cancer with 100 percent accuracy through Kirlian
methods. Alfred Benjamin in Los Angeles reported that his research
indicated that blood from cancer victims displayed a Kirlian
aura different from that produced by blood from people who did
not have cancer. One medical research team in the early 1980s
found the technique promising in the possible diagnosis of asthma.
The hand coronas, or auras, of people with the condition tended
to display a distinctive wispy pattern. Such results have encouraged
continued investigation into Kirlian photography. |
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Freemasonry’s
Physician Patriot
Place Boston, America
Year June, 1775
Event The first major
engagement of the American Revolution came on June 17, 1775,
on a knoll outside Boston known as Bunker Hill. The British
army outnumbered the American volunteers almost two to one,
but the upstart colonists were tough, holding their ground
against two vicious assaults. The English prevailed on their
third try, however, forcing an American retreat. The grim
British victory was costly to both sides: Each army lost about
one-third of its men.
Fighting with the rebels was Dr. Joseph Warren, a passionate
revolutionary and dedicated Mason.
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| Grand master of
the Massachusetts grand lodge, Warren was also a leading Boston
radical. In 1774, he wrote the Suffolk Resolves, |
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expounding the doctrine
of forcible response to British injustices. Warren almost
certainly helped plan the Boston Tea Party, and it was
he who sent Paul Revere on his midnight mission to Lexington.
In the patriots’ retreat from Bunker Hill, Warren
was among the last to turn back. He was shot and killed.
English general Gage, pleased to find himself rid of the
outspoken rebel, reportedly remarked that Warren’s
death was worth that of five hundred men. The victorious
British Stripped Warren of his elegant clothes, wrapped
him in a farmer’s coat, and buried him in a common
grave. But after the British evacuated Boston in 1776,
Freemasons recovered Warren’s remains and interred
them according to the brotherhood’s elaborate funerary
customs. |
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