Weekly News : Auras

The secret of success is energy. When you focus your mental energy into your actions, you can achieve anything — whatever your mind can imagine. And the more focused your energy becomes, the more visible it is.

I call this visible energy an ‘aura’. If that word sounds too fanciful, call it a ‘glow’. Think of a bride on her wedding day: the words that spring to mind are radiant, glowing, luminous. The joy and excitement literally shine out of her. That is her aura, a psychic energy so obvious that no one could deny it.

With a little practice, it’s possible to see the auras around many people. At first, you will probably be able to detect the faintest shimmer, like a colourless heat haze, along the contours of the head and hands. As your ability develops, the haze will be more sharply defined, and you’ll start to pick out colours within the patterns.

Seeing auras is a skill. Like any skill, it’s available to anyone. Some find it easier than others, but no one can achieve it without trying. And like any skill, practice makes perfect.

Find a quiet, well-lit room – and make sure the light source is above or behind you, not shining in your face. Lay out some brightly coloured objects on a neutral background, such as a pink sheet of newspaper from the business section.

Relax. Breathe steadily and rhythmically. Let your mind drift – don’t focus on your desire to see an aura. Daydream. Meditate if you wish. Let your eyes rest unfocused on one of the objects.

Don’t stare directly at the edges, though this is where the aura will be – like the faint light of a star, the effect is brighter in your peripheral vision, so let your eyes wander. After a few seconds, you’ll see a band of coloured light around the object. This is a simple aura, an emanation not of the object but of its colour.

Practice. When your mind is relaxed and you feel day-dreamy, let your eye seek out auras around animals, trees, furniture – anything. Once you start seeing auras, they will begin to appear more easily. It’s a knack – and it only seems difficult until you’ve mastered it! Look for the etheric aura, a gaseous, colourless glow like heat haze. The etheric aura is not generated by colour energy – it reflects the energy in the object itself.

The most dramatic auras surround living creatures, especially people. Learn to look with a partner — it is a deeply bonding experience, to see each other’s aura.

A good time to view your own aura is in the bath. Lie back and daydream. When you are relaxed, rest your feet on the rim and gaze towards them. The first sign of your aura will be a shimmering around the outline, like rippling heat. Colour will build up around this – probably green or blue, because you will be physically and mentally at ease.

A century ago, one brilliant and unorthodox scientist produced research that proved the aura was a biological fact. Dr Walter J Kilner invented a device for viewing ultra-violet light through eye-pieces dyed with dicyanin which made the human aura hazily visible. The electrotherapist at St Thomas Hospital, London, published a book in 1911 expounding his theories: healthy males had similar auric patterns, but women varied and children’s auras lacked refinement.

Kilner identified three aura bands: the etheric, the inner and the outer. The inner aura displayed the densest, most consistent colours, while the outer flared and shimmered. Other experimenters found his eye-pieces caused inflammation and were uncomfortable, and after his death in 1923 Kilner’s work on medical diagnosis using the aura was largely forgotten.

To keep your energy levels topped up to the max, you need to be surrounded by bright, vibrant eye-catchers. Colours are created when light vibrates on different wavelengths, and our minds respond vigorously its energy.

Dynamic reds and yellows are great motivators, filling the mind with the impulse to act. White can be energising if it’s clean and shining — think how your heart lifts at the sight of fluffy white clouds on a blue background (but not at grubby grey clouds!)

My favourite is orange, a fiercely active colour that supercharges the psychic senses. I have orange circles, some as big as bicycle wheels and others the size of satsumas, hung around my home to inspire me.

One of our hidden human abilities is to see colour shimmering in the energy that radiates from every living thing — the aura bands of shining light that glow around the body. Some people even see numbers as shapes, melodies as rainbows or taste music on their tongues.

A team from University College London, led by the eminent neuropsychologist Dr Jamie Ward, believes at least one per cent of humans do this instinctively — and many more of us could learn. In one experiment, Dr Ward asked a 70-year-old schools inspector named Dorothy Latham, who sees colours when she hears music, to describe the hues of a series of notes, starting with deep bass tones and ending with tinkling high ones.

Dorothy saw rippling, dark colours at the low end of the scale, and shimmering light ones at the top. Next, Dr Ward asked his research group, who didn’t consciously associate colours with music, to imagine they could “see” the notes — and they too matched dark hues to low sounds, light colours to high.

“We all seem to do this, even though most of us are completely unaware if it,” Dr Ward said.

Dorothy thinks many people repress the ability. “I imagined everyone would be exactly the same as me, until I spoke to schoolfriends and they said, ‘You’re a weirdo!’ So I shut up about it and kept quiet.”

Panel:

Everyone sees auras diffently, but there are some meanings in the colours which are common to many observers. How do yours compare?

• Red: Indicates physical energy, capacity to work hard, sexual appetite, generosity, vitality.

• Pink: Selflessness, compassion, capacity for loving, attention to family.

• Orange: Emotional power, inspiration, leadership. Becomes yellow as spiritual nature develops.

• Yellow: Joy, childlike enthusiasm, intellectual power, spiritual energy and freedom, focused and positive emotion.

• Gold: Very deep spirituality, enlightenment, inspired teaching gift, psychic.

• Green: love of nature, healing energy, restful mind, methodical.

• Turquoise: Dynamic personality, psychic power, restless mind, wide interests, easily bored, keen to delegate.

• Blue: Highly spiritual, infused with life energies, at one, self-disciplined, healing ability.

• Violet: Clairvoyant, inward-looking, visionary, changeable.

Captions:

Rod Stewart was wearing a vivid, purple-striped jacket when I met him at David Frost’s garden party. His energy is electric, just like the colours of his favourite clothes

Chris Tarrant chose a vibrant red shirt to the garden party. His energy is practical, earthy and forceful, and he radiates colours which express that.

Gillian Anderson, star of TV’s X-Files, has a natural innocence. Her open mind and trusting nature are the keynotes of her energy, and she chooses white clothes which complement her aura.

Vanessa Feltz has a vivid nature with rapidly changing moods. Her aura energy is turbulent and powerful — the colours change rapidly, just as they do in her multi-hued clothes.