GMA: Auras Gain Recognition

Dec. 8, 2000 -- Auras have been taking on — well, an aura of respectability lately.

Usually, auras and those who claim they can read them have been relegated to the realm of psychic fairs, new age mysticism or ancient religious beliefs.

But as Good Morning America’s Science Editor Michael Guillen has learned, scientists are taking a closer look at an area that was once dismissed. Perhaps the most dramatic indicator of this attention is that the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., recently decided to start funding research on human bio-fields, the technical term for auras.

Meanwhile, some impressive scientific mavericks are exploring a controversial new science, “bio-electro-magnetics.” One scientist leading the charge is Berkeley-trained biophysicist Beverly Rubik. She believes that the human body exudes energy, just like glowing candles.

“If you think really what life is: when you’re dead, what happens to your energy? Absolutely everything,” Rubik said. “You go from being a warm radiant moving creature to a cold dead stiff creature. The big difference is the energy.”

Just Like the Sun Harvard-trained psychologist Gary Schwartz agrees. He runs the Human Energy Systems Lab at the University of Arizona and claims that the existence of a human aura is indisputable.

“It’s like the sun,” Schwartz said. “The sun emits a whole spectrum of energy, both visible light, infrared, ultraviolet, x-rays, gamma rays. It’s the same thing with the human body, the human body is emitting this whole range of signals.”

To show what he meant, Schwartz had Guillen sit close to an antenna that detects low-frequency radiation. When he moved his hand close to the antenna, Guillen saw a signal change on the monitor. Another antenna detected high-frequency radiation. As Guillen got closer to it, a sound went off, indicating that the antenna had, in effect, picked up signals that he was broadcasting, Schwartz said.

Your Body’s Broadcasting System The cells inside your body actually do the broadcasting, Schwartz said. In fact, 100 trillion of them spew out an aura of electromagentic radiation, like little TV towers.

Orthodox scientists believe this aura is nothing but a meaningless jumble of frequencies. But mavericks point to EEGs and EKGs, which work by measuring the electromagnetic signals from the brain and heart. Is it possible signals from the rest of our body also carry information about our health? Though skeptical, Rubik thinks it’s worth testing.

She heads the Institute for Frontier Research in Oakland, Calif.

Guillen volunteered as her guinea pig in an experiment to test whether auras can indicate health. She first cleansed his fingers with alcohol to remove any residue from his fingertip images. Then she took pictures of auras surrounding Guillen’s fingertips with a digital Kirlian camera, widely used in Russia and Eastern Europe.

Rubik chose Guillen’s fingertips, because according to Chinese medicine, the fingers contain many acupuncture points. These points are supposedly connected via energy channels called meridians to different parts of the body: lungs, heart, intestines and so forth.

Peaks And Valleys Of Health So from the auras of his fingertips alone, Rubik’s computer was able to calculate Guillen’s full-body aura. Next, her computer analyzed his aura for any signs of illness. His alleged diagnosis was represented by a jagged red circle.

“Actually I see a very good energy regulation,” Rubik said. “If that were ideal, it would be a perfect circle.”

Any huge peaks in the jagged red circle are supposed to mean something is excessive or inflamed. Any huge valleys, she said, are supposed to mean something is deficient.

Rubik found a little bit of excess in Guillen’s colon region. “There’s a couple of organ systems that look a little run down, a little under the weather,” Rubik said.”There is a slight dip in the endocrine system. It’s a little bit deficient here.”

Critics contend that aura reading is all nonsense, akin to astrology. But Guillen was surprised that some of the things Rubik found did, in fact, fit in with his health record. He has an underactive thyroid, which could account for the “depressed” area on the endocrine system.

The NIH’s move to research auras split the scientific community into two camps. For mainstream scientists, the NIH interest is scandalous. But for the mavericks, it’s long-awaited evidence that old school science is coming around.

“I mean, who says that today’s physics ends the process of discovery?” Schwartz said. “Who says that we now know every single bit of energy that exists in the universe? Only a human being that has not learned humility … would come to that kind of statement. I say keep an open mind.”

This story was produced by Melissa Dunst for Good Morning America.