Physiology and the ‘Aura’ | Nature

ABSTRACT AT the annual general meeting of the British Psychological Society on Dec. 19, Prof. D. F. Fraser-Harris read a preliminary communication on a physiological study of the human

‘aura’, as it is called by occultists. By the ‘aura’, or ‘human atmosphere’, spiritists refer to a misty emanation which envelops the living body but cannot penetrate the clothes. Unless the

body is naked, the aura can be seen only around the head, hands, and fingers. A typical experiment claimed to demonstrate the aura is as follows: Hold the outstretched fingers of the two

hands touching one another at the level of the eyes about a foot or so in front of a black back-ground, then after staring at the finger-tips for about fifteen seconds, slowly draw the

fingers apart, when the aura in the form of ‘greyish mists’ will be seen streaming from the ends of the receding fingers. At the outset, Prof. Fraser-Harris said that he questioned the

accuracy of these observations. What are actually seen are very dark or black areas corresponding exactly in shape to the fingers, and _inter_digital spaces filled with the ‘greyish mists’.

His explanation is that the black areas are the negative after-images of the pale fingers viewed against the black background and produced by temporal retino-cerebral induction. The grey

mists of the interdigital spaces are the whitish afterimages of the corresponding spaces of the black ground similarly produced by this form of induction. That the phenomenon is optical and

subjective is shown by the fact that when the conditions are reversed the after-images are also reversed. It is claimed, therefore, that the so-called ‘aura’ of fingers (or hand or head) has

nothing to do with vitality, and, under the conditions just observed, is the familiar negative after-image produced by temporal retinal induction. Access through your institution Buy or

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permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Physiology and the ‘Aura’. _Nature_ 129, 197 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/129197c0 Download citation * Issue Date: 06 February 1932 * DOI:

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