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The Aura:
An overview of Auras and their interpretations
The Spiritual Bookstore Online World Religion Library
The word aura means atmosphere or light, and is an appropriate enough
term to use, given the nature of this phenomenon. It is usually defined
as a sort of multi-dimensional energy field, made up of the emanations
of each of the subtle bodies.
A voluminous amount of literature exists today on the human aura, the
psychic energy-field surrounding the physical body, and accesible to
clairvoyant vision. Scientific researchers such as Walter J. Kilner at
London's St Thomas Hospital early in the century (The Human Atmosphere,
1911), Oscall Bagnall, a Cambridge biologist (The Origin and Properties
of the Human Aura, 1937), Harold Saxon Burr and F.S.C. Northrop of Yale
University (Fields of Life, ), the Russian husband and wife team Semyon
and Valentina Kirlian, who invented the High Voltage or Kirlian
photographic technique in the forties, and many others set out to
describe and measure the more physical properties of the aura
(equivalent to the theosophical "Etheric Body"), and were often
persecuted and ridiculed for doing so. Meanwhile, clairvoyants such as
C. W. Leadbeater, Edgar Cayce, and others described the more psychic
aspects to the aura (equivalent to "the astral body"). It would be
impossible to reveiw everything that has been written on the subject, so
only a few more recent sources will be considered here.
Body and Field
Quantum physics refers to the unusual concept of the probability wave.
On the macroscopic level of everyday objects, this effect is not
noticeable (because the Plank Constant is so tiny). On the physical
level that is. But when you take into account other planes and
dimensions of existence, it does become very relevant. The physical body
and associated physical consciousness is the "particle"; and the
unconscious psyche, the aura, and the field of intuition is the
wave-form. It is this wave-form that constitutes the multi-dimensional
psycho-spiritual energy field.
This multi-dimensional energy field has a particular subtle or yogic
anatomy, described by Tantrics, Taoists, Western Occultists, and others.
This includes:
a series of subtle or spiritual bodies or "vehicles of consciousness" -
the theric body, astral body, and so on (more on which later) - which
constitute "octaves" of consciousness/existence within the field
subtle energy centres called chakras ("wheels"), described in stylised
fashion by Indian and Tibetan Tantrics, but as actual energy vortexes by
Western theosophical Clairvoyants.
channels of energy flow; the nadis of yogic psychology and meridians of
Acupuncture
numerous minor energy lines described by Theosophical writers
"drops" (bijas) and other high energy items referred to in Tibetan
Buddhism and elsewhere, that can be released through yogic disciplines.
In addition to these natural subtle organs are the various pathological
thought-forms, accretions, blocks, and other structures that are
responsible for everyday human neuroticism.
Finally, the aura can serve as a sort of sensorium; for example if
someone is staring at you behind your back you can generally feel it,
even if there is no physical way you can know you are being observed.
This is because their gaze strikes your aura, and you feel it that way.
The aura and the Subtle Bodies
The aura can be considered a series or composite of subtle bodies. Each
of these subtle bodies is also a specific psychic energy field or aura
containing thought-forms, ideas, emotions, desires, blocks, fixations,
attached entities, and various other things that might happen to be
floating around in your psyche. But because each kosha or aura is at a
different "vibratory" level, it only contain things that pertain to its
own particular nature. The Physical Mental aura for example contains
thoughts, ideas and knowledge about things in the world, as well as
dogmatism and wrong ideas (which take the form of rigid structures and
fixations) and is mainly yellow in colour. While the Physical Emotional
aura contains desires, likes and dislikes, as well as numerous
insecurities and neuroses, which take the form of energy blockages; and
is multi-coloured. When a formation from the Emotional aura gets
together with a formation from the Mental aura, you have a structure
called a complex (it was Carl Jung who first defined that term; he
studied complexes through word association tests; if a patient took a
long time to say a word, it meant there was a complex or resistance
there). Our personalities are just chock-full of complexes and other
such multi-aura-derived structures.
The Three-fold Aura
The spiritualist Ursula Roberts, inspired by Walter Kilner, incorporated
her observations in a small booklet called Look at the Aura - and Learn
(Greater World Association, London, 1975), written in simple language to
introduce newcomers to this subject. Although some of the illustrations
have a regrettably pious feel about them (the booklet is published by a
Christian spiritualist organisation) the text is very good, and made all
the better by the fact that it is clearly based on the writers own
clairvoyant perceptions, rather than derived from other writers or
over-intellectual speculation, as most books on this topic so
unfortunately are. The opening pages present the basic description of
the aura itself.
"An aura is a little like the skin of an onion because one aura is
enfolded in another. The first aura is the one most frequently
perceived, because it is just an outline of the human body in blue, or
grey, or white light.
In good health this aura may appear as silvery radiance. When people are
tired, it will appear as grey. In real illness it may be almost
impossible to detect....This aura is often called the etheric body...
The second aura is wider than the first one....The colouration and
extent of this aura vary very greatly. Dark shades of colour reveal
people who are engrossed with their own desires and appetites. Beautiful
hues of pink, blue or green are to be seen in the auras of those who
feel love and who unselfishly try to improve the world...Many people
have a dual character, and this duality can be seen in the aura as a
two-fold band of radiation, one band revealing sensuality, and the other
band showing the higher feelings of lve and devotion.
In people who are good but unaware of their spiritual potentialities, it
may extend to 30 cm...
The third aura is much wider, and in very highly developed people it may
extend to distances of three, four, or five feet (one to one and a half
metres)....(T)his is the aura of spiritual energy which is...radiated by
souls who consciously send out healing, light, and loving thoughts,
through...their spiritual will."
[Ursula Roberts, Look at the Aura - and Learn, pp.6-8]
Here we have the three primary auras described: the etheric or physical,
the psychic, and the spiritual. Ms Roberts, and other writers on this
subject as well, have a lot more to say on various topics pertaining to
the aura: perceiving the aura, psychic healing, meditation,
dysfunctional auras, and so on. What is also of course very interesting
is the relevance aura studies can have for understanding the nature of
the human entity, of gradational reality or planes and sub-planes of
being, and in general the way in which the higher, more spiritual
realities interact with and influence the lower, more material facets of
the being.
The Rainbow Aura according to Ronald Beesley
A more complicated account of the aura is described by Ronald P. Beesley,
who founded The College of Psycho-therapeutics in London in 1953, in a
readable little book, The Robe of Many Colours (first published in
1968). Mr Beesley refers to six distinct auras around the physical body,
coloured in successive rainbow hues:
The first auric layer is the Nature Body Substance, which pertains to
the veolution of the physical body. It is of a whitish greyish colour
with a low constant magnetic field. It shows healthy body tissue as
bright and clear, and diseased tissue as turgid or dark brown [p.11].
The second evolutionary stage in the aura is The Emotional or Desire
Form. Heart red in colour, it is responsible for our ability to feel
pain and joy, love and hate, and to create art, music and culture
[pp.11-12]
The mandarin yellow Mental Body reveals much of the early life history,
and shows changes of thought and various levels of a person's thinking
life [p.13]
With The Astral Body we pass the dimensional boundary. The first three
bodies or zones of consciousness are limited by three-dimensional laws,
the elements, gravity, and the need for long hours of sleep. The astral
body, the first of the disincarnate or spiritual bodies, is indicated by
a strong green colour, and the indwelling source of energy for the
physical being. [pp.14-16].
Levels Of Self And Planes Of Existence
The interesting thing about Ronald Beesley's interpretation of the aura
is that the emotional and mental bodies are placed beneath the astral,
in contradiction to the Adyar-Theosophical scheme which locates the
mental above the astral. But this sequence is probably more in agreement
with Rudolph Steiner's distinction between the Astral and the Spiritual
Devachanic worlds, or Ann Ree Colton's distinction between "Maya" and
the "Kingdom of God". Likewise the Adyar-Theosophical clairvoyant
Leadbeater, although very perceptive of the various astral plane
phenomena, had little or no intimation of the higher spiritual (the
Devachanic or Yetzirahic) realms. Hence it would be better to refer to
these other spiritual clairvoyants on that matter.
In view of the locating of the Emotional and the Mental principles in
the physical plane (i.e. beneath the Astral and Spiritual), it seems
that what is being indicated here is the first and lowest (i.e. the
physical) of a series of "octaves"; a periodic repetition of planes.
This is certainly how the Kabbalists, Shaikhis, Theosophists, and
Gurdjieff describe the various levels of being. You have the primary
planes, and these are each divided into sub-planes, octaves, sefirot, or
whatever, with the same basic configoration repeating itself each time.
e.g. the Lurian Kabbalists speak of ten sefirot in each of the five
worlds, or fifty sefirot in all.
This particular ontology allows us to see how the mental body can be
both lower (Beesley, etc) and higher (as claimed by Leadbeater, Bailey,
etc) than the astral body. It may be that there is a mental sub-plane on
the physical, a mental sub-plane on the psychic or astral, a mental
sub-plane on the spiritual, and so on.
from: http://www.kheper.net/topics/subtlebody/aura.htm
read a unique account of
seeing auras:
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