THE RADIANT AURA

Swedenborg, who was one of the most eminent of scientists and engineers, as well as the founder of the religious system that bears his name, asserted that various "aura" surrounded all living beings, and that the mental or spiritual state radiates, just as light and heat radiate from the sun, and cold from the snow. When one was angry, he said, he gave out the aura of anger which enveloped him as a cloud. Hatred had its aura, as well as love, sympathy, purity, impurity, kindliness, charity, jealousy, courage, justice, and the like.

He also asserted that, to those who were simple, natural, and unspoiled by false reasoning—those who were spiritually inclined—these varied aura were clearly perceptible, and were as certainly felt or seen as were heat, cold, whiteness, blackness by the senses.

Rudyard Kipling bases his story, "They," which appeared some years ago in Scribner's Magazine, upon this statement of Swedenborg's, and in this light it becomes an extra fascinating story to read.

A great modern French scientist has made many exhaustive studies of these aura, and claims to have photographed them.

In the Panama-Pacific Exposition, one of the exhibits contained a series of interesting pictures, or diagrams, which purported to be exact representations of the various aura of people under different mental conditions. In an article on this subject, written by a well-known authority, we are told that:

The occultists assert that the aura is extremely complex in its character, in other words, that there are several aura superposed one upon the other. The first appearance is of a luminous cloud, extending some eighteen inches or two feet from the body, assuming a somewhat oval shape. Careful study, however, reveals that this first appearance is resolvable into several component parts, or separate aura, of different degrees of tenuity, and, apparently, superposed. Five of these have been defined. The first, or most material, is that pertaining to the physical body. In a state of health this is composed of separate, orderly, and nearly parallel lines, which radiate from the body in every direction.

When one suffers from disease the lines in the neighborhood of the part affected become erratic, and radiate less actively but in the wildest confusion, or, if the whole body be affected, all the lines are consequently erratic.

For a long time it was not known what kept these lines straight and approximately parallel in the case of the healthy person, until a second radiating aura was discovered. This comes from a healthy body in pulsating waves, with such vigor as to compel the rigidity of the health lines. These waves may be compared to the pulsations of the heated air which rise from the ground on a very hot day. Baron Reichenbach made experiments with certain sensitives who declared they could see these radiations, and he called them "the magnetic flame."

When these "waves" come from a sickly or weakly body they not only lose power, but seem to give a confused direction to the health lines.

Many observations also have led to the conclusion that when the lines are kept straight by the force of the pulsating waves from a healthy and vigorous body, "it seems to be almost entirely protected from the attack of evil physical influences, such as germs of disease—such germs being repelled and carried away by the outrush of the life-force: but when from any cause—through weakness, through wound or injury, through over-fatigue, through extreme depression of spirits, or through the excesses of an irregular life—an unusually large amount of vitality is required to repair damage or waste, within the body, and there is consequently a serious diminution in the quantity radiated, this system of defense becomes dangerously weak, and it is comparatively easy for the deadly germs to effect an entrance."

The third aura is that which expresses one's desires—a kind of mirror in which every feeling, every desire, every thought almost, of the personality is reflected. This changes constantly, in some people, accordingly as they are swayed by their impulses. Its colors, brilliancy, rate of pulsations, alter from moment to moment, or minute to minute. "An outburst of anger will charge the whole aura with deep-red flashes on a black ground; a sudden fright in a moment will change everything to a mass of ghastly livid gray."

Connected with this, and yet, seemingly, of a separate character, are the radiations of the aura that express the progress of the personality into higher and better appreciation of the things of mind and spirit. The more intellectual and spiritual one becomes the more steady and beautiful are the colors and radiations of this aura, and the variations and distressing manifestations of the evil desires of the third aura become less apparent and distinct.

The fifth aura is the highest at present discernible. It manifests the spiritual development of the individual and is of almost inconceivable delicacy and beauty. It seems to be a cloud of living light—the word cloud being used for want of a better term.

In the concrete examples of aura that were presented at the Exposition, that which radiated from a wise mother showing her protective love for her infant, was in the form of outspread wings of a beautiful rosy tint, the wings held together at the articulations by a sheaf-like mass of golden yellow.

Selfish ambition, sudden fear, explosive anger, selfishness, grasping animal affection, greed, jealousy, jealousy mixed with anger, gloom, murderous hatred, were all displayed in peculiar, hideous, and repulsive forms and colors.

Pure, radiating affection, on the other hand, was represented in the form and color of a round body exhaling rays as from a rosy sun. Strange to say, though I had never read anything explicit upon this subject before, I had always conceived of pure affection as giving forth radiations of this exact appearance.

Whether this "occult" explanation of the radiation of aura be a true one or not, it serves to give one a beautiful conception, viz., that every soul may strive so to live within that he sheds upon his fellows glorious rays of light, serenity, warmth, comfort, blessing, joy, happiness that help them to the attainment of like felicities.

In the earlier part of this chapter Swedenborg's assertion will be recalled that those who were unspoiled, real children of Nature, could actually perceive these aura, and that their acts were guided or influenced by them just as ours are by the perceptions of our five senses.

When I began to visit the Hopi Indians in Northern Arizona, who celebrate that wonderfully thrilling religious ceremony known as the Snake Dance, I found that their lives conformed exactly to this aura assumption. They handle deadly rattlesnakes with fearlessness, putting small ones into their mouths so that nothing but their heads protrude, and larger ones, up to five feet in length, in their teeth, head on one side of the mouth, the writhing, wriggling body on the other. Young boys, from three to six and ten years of age—neophytes of the Antelope Clan, which, with the Snake Clan, has charge of this ceremonial prayer for rain—hold these snakes during a part of the ceremony with an indifferent carelessness that is appalling to most onlookers. On the other hand those who are alive to the dangers attending the handling of snakes assert positively that the reptiles must have their fangs removed, as otherwise they would bite, and either cause death or dangerous sicknesses.

Yet both classes of observers are in error. The snakes are not handled carelessly, nor are their fangs removed. Apparent carelessness is often the result of years of training, the ease and readiness that come with much experience. Fearlessness is another result of experience and knowledge. But, once in a while, a member of the Snake Clan is afraid, and at such times he is not allowed to dance. In this exclusion is a strong suggestion that the Hopis fully believe that not only do the aura of our mental and spiritual states surround us, but that even to the lower animals they are as perceptible as light, heat, and cold. It may be true that the truly occult, or clairvoyant, by pure and simple living, return to the clarity of spiritual perception of the child and the lower animals, and they likewise see and understand. In the case of the snakes, the Hopis believe that if a dancer is afraid it makes the snake afraid. In other words, the reptile sees or discerns the "fear aura," and, at once, its own fear is awakened. When afraid it assumes the defensive, for that is its only mode of protection. It coils ready to strike, and rattles in warning: Beware!

On the other hand, when the dancer is unafraid and handles the reptile in the true Hopi spirit, viz., as his Elder Brother—for, according to Hopi mythology, the Snake Clan originates with the Snake Mother, and therefore all members of it are younger brothers to all snakes—the aura of friendliness and brotherly kindliness surrounds him, which, being perceived by the snake, it is at once soothed and allows itself to be handled with restfulness and assurance of safety. And in the thirteen times that I have witnessed the Snake Dance (and several times been privileged to see and take part in the secret ceremonials of the underground chambers where the snakes are handled and washed), only twice have I known any one to be bitten.[A]