What's Your Color?
Tuesday February 26, 2008 8:12 AMAccording to many psychics and energy workers, each and every human being is surrounded by a nimbus of light. This full-body halo is the human aura, and it is believed to be the extension of our personal energy fields. Some claim to be able to see the aura, describing it most often in terms of light and color. Still others claim to have invented gadgets that can photograph this otherworldly glow so you can own a picture of your own aura for $19.95 — and sometimes, considerably more.
There are a baffling number of aura cameras out there, and they claim to reveal everything from potential health problems to a person's current mood. If you're shopping for a camera that will just let you point and click and get an image of your aura, however, you might find the market a little thin. Most aura cameras out there don't actually photograph the energy field around a person. Instead, they rely on principles of bio-feedback and galvanic skin response to compile the image of a probable aura, and then they project this onto a photo or other image for the curious to see.
There's the Aura Spectrophotometer 5200, that claims to measure the frequencies of a person's bio-magnetic field through the use of sensors embedded in handplates. The system then takes the data gleaned from these sensors and essentially designs an appropriately colored aura around an image of the person. Then there's the Inneractive Aura Video Station, which uses a similar hand-plate, or biosensor, but then allows you to view your aura in real-time. Palm-focused sensors are also integral to the function of the Aurastar 2000 as well as its high-tech successor, the Biopulsar-Reflexograph. The names sure sound impressive, don't they?
I had the opportunity to give the Aurastar 2000 a whirl several years ago at a local psychic fair. Like a lot of people, I was disappoined at first to learn that the so-called aura camera wasn't really photographing anything at all. But the image the Aurastar 2000 did spit out looked interesting enough, and one of the operators offered an interpretation of the colors that nailed a few personal details right on the head. In the end, I had a colorful image to commemorate the event, but I remained skeptical of the science involved in procuring it.
If aura cameras aren't taking photos of a person's aura, what (if anything) are they tuning in on? CSICOP skeptic Joe Nickell believes the devices might be tuning in to the electromagnetic activity of the nerves or even the weak sonic and chemical emissions the human body. It's unlikely that such emissions could reveal the true nature of a person's spirit guides, but insight into a person's health and well-being remains within the realm of possibility. All in all, the technology of aura photography can be as fuzzy as some of its photos, but it remains one of the only methods around for trying to compile an image of the human energy field so many psychics claim to see.
