Kirlian Photography

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Kirlian Photography

Human beings are "a spectacular panorama of colors, whole
galaxies of lights...." Throughout the 1960's extraordinary
descriptions by prominent Soviet scientists appeared in the Soviet
press of what humans looked like as seen by a newly developed
form of photography. We're a world of "luminescent labyrinths,"
"fantastic galaxies," "alluring ghostly lights," and "multicolored
flares," they said.

By the 1970's Americans, too, had constructed similar apparatus
and were exploring a new picture of human beings: "a fascinating
new world," "brilliantly colored bubbles and blotches," "the fabric
of organic and inorganic life," flares pulsing out energy "like water
from a fireman's hose."

Researchers East and West were viewing a brilliant emanation from
the human body, which became visible when the body was placed
in a field of high frequency electrical currents. A Russian husband
and wife team had developed a new way to make photographs,
movies, and to visually observe brilliantly colored light plays
surrounding and moving through the human body, animals, plants,
and all living things. They call it the " Kirlian Effect" (pronounced
keer-lee-an) after its inventors Semyon and Valentina Kirlian. They
had labored on their own for decades to develop and perfect this
new form of photography with high frequency fields.

Since the mid sixties, teams of Soviet scientists from Moscow to
Siberia have plunged into the study of these beautiful colored lights
in living things and have come up with some intriguing new
conceptions about the nature of life itself.

Among the initial findings: Disease shows up in a disturbed pattern
of flares long before it manifests in the physical body in any
diagnosable form. If portions of the physical body are cut away, the
energy matrix or "phantom" of the missing part is still clearly
visible in the photograph, although there is no tangible, physical
substance there. Patterns vary according to mood and health and
even thoughts.. Hypnosis and drugs also alter the flare pattern and
colors.

The patterns of the flares arc substantially altered by weather; slay
and night; cosmic disturbances, such as solar flares. The brightest
flares on the body show at the points on the skin known to be
acupuncture points.

Soviet scientists began to w work On applications of the Kirlians'
high frequency photography technique in agriculture, ecology,
nutrition, dentistry, medicine, geology, criminology, archeology,
and so forth.

The story of the discovery and development of Kirlian photography
is given in three chapters in our book Psychic Discoveries Behind
the Iron Curtain. After examining much data on Kirlian
photography, we became convinced, as had a number of psi
researchers in the Soviet Union, that the technique might also be
applied in psi research to help make visible and studiable some of
the psi occurrences whose mechanisms had previously resisted
analysis. Call human thought or energy have an effect on plants to
make them grow laster? The photography might make these effects
visible as they occurred. Does a psychic healer emit some sort of
emanation responsible for healing wounds? Could Kirlian
photography show what was happening? During the mysterious
phenomenon of PK (moving objects by mind power), did the body
emit a different energy pattern somehow involved with causing
motion at a distance, and what was that pattern? Again, maybe the
Kirlian technique could show us new things about psi events. It
might be one more form of instrumentation that could help the rest
of us understand what psychics claimed to perceive.

Of course, the Kirlian photography process itself is not a psychic
event or psychic photography The Kirlian technique per se has
nothing whatever to do with occultism any more than the
electroencephalograph. Yet instrumentation like the EEG and
Kirlian device, developed for use in regular scientific research, can
also be applied to studying psi to help us learn more about the
electrophysiological processes taking place in the body when psi
occurs.

The most basic Kirlian technique uses a Tesla Coil connected to a
metal plate. Film and object to be photographed are placed on the
plate in the dark. Switching on the current of highfrequency
electricity causes the film to record an image of the object
including a field around it. Nonliving things such as a coin, give a
constant unvarying picture, but living things have continuously
changing patterns. For what those patterns may mean, see Chapter
6.

The Kirlian technique, like the Schlieren technique or like REM
(Rapid Eye Movement) monitoring, may reveal things about ESP.

Making photographs with electricity is not new. The originality of
the Kirlian method does not lie in the development of the high
frequency spark generator itself, which has been around since the
turn of the century, when Nikola Tesla first invented the Tesla Coil.
(Tesla, the great genius of electricity who harnessed Niagara Falls,
was probably the first to make photographs with high frequency
electricity.) Rather, the Kirlian technique is original in the wide
range of patented apparatus that make it possible for the spark
generator to be used in a whole spectrum of different photographic
applications for fields from dentistry to botany and for instruments
from microscopes to holography equipment. The Kirlians' patents
on these adaptations have occupied a lot of space in the annals of
Soviet photography and cinematography over the past twenty years.
A very partial patent search reveals the breadth of their ingenuity in
developing ways to apply the spark generator to photography. (See
patents section.) It's curious that until 1973 some twenty years'
worth of these developments in Soviet photography seem to have
been overlooked by Western photography experts.

The tradition of photography with electricity goes back more than
seventy years. At the fifth photographic exhibition in Russia in
1898 Yakov Narkevich Yokdo displayed photos created by an
electrical discharge. In the early 1900's a Czech, B. Navratil,
published on electrography and so did an American, F.E. Nipher.
(Transactions of the Academy of Sciences of St. Louis, 1900.) In
19'39 two Czech researchers, S. Prat and J. Schlemmer, published
electrographic photos of leaves, showing sparkling corona patterns.
They found the emanation would go through screens impermeable
to infrared, visible, and ultraviolet radiation. They wondered:
Could there be some additional unknown radiation involved? Again
in 1949 a professor at Moscow University, Georgi Spivak, also
succeeded in producing electrographic images.

The Kirlians, who have worked with the method since the 1940's,
have developed a fairly sophisticated technology of electrography.

Our publication of material about Kirlian photography in 1970 and
subsequent exchanges of data among scientists have helped respark
interest in photography with high frequency electricity in America.
To date, a large number of American researchers have succeeded in
constructing electrographic equipment and making photographs.
They have not only duplicated some Soviet work but also moved
into new and different areas of research. In 1972 scientists from
Stanford, UCLA, Newark College of Engineering, the University of
New Mexico, Roger Williams College, among others, gathered at
the First Western Hemisphere Conference on Kirlian Photography
and Acupuncture in New York. Several hundred people attended. A
second conference on Kirlian photography was held in 1973. After
attending the conference, professionals from many fields have
published enthusiastic articles. Editors of Popular Photography
Magazine call Kirlian photography a "fascinating . . . developing
technology artscience," and in a profusely illustrated article
(February, 1973) conclude, "What it may all mean and where it may
go is for the future, but the imaginative possibilities are terrific."
Dr. Dudley Chapman, a medical journal editor- in-chief, was so
impressed with "this exciting new phenomenon" that he devoted the
entire October, 1972, issue of The Osteopathic Physician to the
topic of Kirlian photography.

The interested amateur experimenter who would like to get in on
the frontier of this photography will find in Chapter 7 a way to
make a very simple electrographic apparatus. This of course is not
the same as the Kirlian equipment used in Russia.

To the best of our knowledge, Westerners have not yet presented at
any public conference, duplication of the most sophisticated of the
Kirlian type apparatus used in research at many universities from
Moscow to Alma- Ata, although we've heard that a major military
lab has begun work on such equipment.

New technology in the area of Kirlian photography could help us
not only in psi research but in other disciplines.

Research on Kirlian photography is an area of psi that interests the
United States government, and recently they have given several
research grants to Mankind Research Unlimited Inc., of
Washington, D.C., for work on the Kirlian effect. MRU, originally
a subsidiary of a large engineering consulting firm, and now an
independent company, considers the contracts ". . . 'firsts' for
government supported 'human engineering' research grants." Former
Naval officer Carl Schleicher, who is president and research and
development director of MRU, told us, "We have found that the
government can and will support research in these areas [psi], if
such research is properly communicated to them, provides a
beneficial use of tax payers' funds and is conducted by responsible
organizations."

One of Carl's secrets of communicating with the government in
order to obtain psi grants has been translation of occult and
parapsychological terms into "respectable" technical jargon.
Referring to a grant project involving the study of chakras (body
energy centers, according to yoga), Carl told the Washington Post
Potomac Magazine (July 22, 1973), ". . . I can communicate this
information to a government agency that doesn't know what the hell
a chakra is . . . I just call them 'unique psychophysiological tools
and techniques,' and they say, 'Fine, thanks very much.' " By the
same token, Kirlian photography, for purposes of government
grants, was described as "chemiluminescent and
electrophotographic (Tesla effect) techniques," and "certain . . .
psychosomatic evaluatory areas."

With Kirlian photography, as with everything else for which he has
sought funding, Carl looks for pragmatic applications-- techniques
that can be applied to a problem, something to diagnose sickness,
something that might even spot hijackers.

Many people seem surprised at the idea that anything springing
from the occult could prove practical and useful; yet basically, if
there had not been certain practical benefits from the occult
sciences, they would not have survived to modern times.

Says Professor Douglas Dean, former president of the
Parapsychological Association, "We have far to go to bridge the
gap between certain areas of Soviet research and our own . . .
particularly, Kirlian photography. But certainly we have much to
gain by pursuing such research. The great unknown potential of
Kirlian photography may open up areas yet undreamed of, which
can be of great benefit to the whole of mankind."


Exploring Psi with the Electrograph


When we first got back from Russia, late in 1968, with plans and
scientific material on Kirlian photography, we could hardly wait to
get started photographing so we too could see what it was the
Soviets were all talking about. We translated Kirlian plans,
scientific papers, patent material, and the more we learned of the
multiplicity of applications of the Kirlian method, the more we
were convinced the Kirlian technique could help in psi research.
But we were in for a letdown. Electronics experts took one look at
the material and stated flatly, "No such machine can be built here.
If it was, it wouldn't work--it would fry anything touching it. The
project is impossible," they assured us, "because Western electrical
components are totally different from Soviet ones." They also
claimed that Soviet scientific papers always leave out key details
and Westerners have trouble following them.

One biophysicist who was enthusiastic about Kirlian photography
hooked up the wrong equipment and electrocuted his plant.

Finally we decided the easiest solution to the problem of
interpreting the Kirlian plans was to import equipment from a
Soviet bloc country. We succeeded finally in arranging for a high
frequency photography machine to be imported from

Czechoslovakia. The Czech device is called an electrograph, and
they say it gives results similar to those obtained with Kirlian
equipment. They agreed to build a machine for us.

Eventually, by the beginning of 1972, a waist high crate from
Czechoslovakia arrived at Lynn's home in the US. After wrestling
through the crate, she unearthed the electrograph--an apparatus
about 10" X 15" X 6"--housed in a wooden cabinet (see photo). To
take a picture with the electrograph you put film and object on the
exposure plate on top of the box and switch on the current for a
second or so. Photography must be done in darkness. Flares are
visible under the object or finger and a tingling sensation can be
felt in the fingers. Could we get pictures similar to what the
Russians had gotten?

One of our coauthors on another book, Professor Douglas Dean, is
an electrophysiologist. At the Newark College of Engineering Psi
Project he had pioneered physiological psi research. The minute the
electrograph arrived he was eager to run some experiments. At a
professional photography lab he and Lynn completed a series of
photographs. They showed the corona effect just as the Kirlian
pictures had. When two people placed their index fingers side by
side, they showed streamer repulsion and thinning of the corona
just as the Russian pictures had. In other words, the corona or
radiation pattern folds back on itself and does not intermingle with
another person's.

The Jersey Society of Parapsychology, of which Douglas Dean was
then president, provided Dean with a small grant to carry out
further Kirlian photography experiments, to see if the equipment
could duplicate results the Russians had gotten photographing
psychic healers. In PDBIC we mentioned one of the famous
Russian healers, Colonel Alexei Krivorotov who works with his
son, a medical doctor. Colonel Krivorotov does magnetic healing
by placing his hands an inch or so away from the patient. Patients
maintain they feel intense heat "like a hot water bottle" but no
physiological indicator shows any change in the patient's or
Krivorotov's skin. The colonel has been especially successful with
back problems, infections, diseases of the nervous system. The
Kirlians photographed Krivorotov's hands at rest and when
preparing to heal. The Kirlian photos showed Krivorotov's hands
had regular, average sized flares before treating a patient, but when
asked to prepare to heal, the flares greatly enlarged. Perhaps the
Kirlian technique made visible an energy or information exchange
between healer and patient that helps the patient reprogram himself
for health. (See photo section, photos 2 and 3.)

Could the electrograph help tell US more about what happens
during the healing process? Dean organized a series of electrograph
photography sessions with Mrs. Ethel DeLoach, founder of the
Jersey Society of Parapsychology. Mrs. DeLoach has become
known for her healing abilities and has been permitted by some
doctors to treat their patients in New Jersey and New York
hospitals. Mrs. DeLoach had her index finger photographed while
resting. It showed average flares. Next she was asked to think about
healing. The flare patterns in these pictures showed a large shower
of flares pouring from her finger. Each time the sequence was
repeated, the same increase in flares showed up. Results matched
those of the Kirlians. In color photos these flares are predominantly
bluish. (See photo section, photos 4 and 5.)

Dean also did a photography series in color while Mrs. DeLoach
was actually healing a patient. The before photo showed the usual
small blue corona. Then the finger of one hand was photographed
while with the other hand she attempted to heal a wen on the
patient's left arm. The wen, a sort of cyst filled with dead cells, was
about 1/4'' high. During the laying on of hands, Dean photographed
a striking change in Mrs. DeLoach's finger. Not only had the flares
increased substantially, but in addition a brilliant orange sunlike
emanation appeared in the corona from the area just below the
fingerpad. "It seems reasonable to think she was healing because
the wen on the patient's arm disappeared the following day," says
Dean.

These initial results were an encouraging indicator that the
electrograph and Kirlian technique did seem to be able to make
visible certain psi effects that had previously been difficult to
detect and record objectively. For patients it could become a means
of monitoring effectiveness of treatment. For healers, it could make
objective whether or not treatment is having any beneficial effect on
a person. At UCLA, Dr. Thelma Moss and Kendall Johnson also
did a series of photographs of healers. They obtained a distinct
difference in before and after photos of healers and patients: The
healer showed a large corona just before healing and a small one
after healing.

Subsequently Dean did many more series of experiments with our
Czech electrograph, including setting up a closed circuit video
display. The pictures continued to back up initial photographic
results. The initial comparative pictures of Mrs. DeLoach, although
only preliminary, have been widely reprinted in European and
American publications, including a medical journal.

Mr. Paul Sauvin of New Jersey (who was the patient in the above
healing test) was one of the first people to whom we showed the
Kirlian plans. Paul Sauvin has a good background in electronics
and an eclectic mind and was one of the first to offer
encouragement about the possibility of creating an American
adaptation of the Kirlian equipment.

After weeks of testing out various alternative power supplies,
during which he often spent evenings with his kitchen table all lit
up with high frequency currents due to a too powerful generator,
Mr. Sauvin finally suggested the type of commercial Tesla coil used
by beauticians as being effective and safe. We followed up on his
idea, obtained a High Frequency Outfit and worked out several
types of exposure plates to adapt it for photography. We found it
gave excellent results. (See Chapter 7.)

We had hoped of course that publication of the Soviet approach to
psi research in PDBIC would help stimulate some similar work to
check out possibilities for this approach in the West. What the new
Soviet work definitely stimulated was tourism to the Soviet bloc
countries. Hundreds and possibly thousands of journeys have been
made by Westerners to the Soviet Union and East Europe to further
an exchange of ideas in the field of psi.

Many more people brought back Kirlian plans and many varieties
of equipment have been built, some based on a simple model-T
ignition coil, others more complex, such as the unit at Stanford
University.

In the winter of 1970 Dr. Thelma Moss, a medical psychologist and
assistant professor at the Neuropsychiatric Institute, UCLA, made
an important journey to the USSR, which eventually led her to set
up the first full scale Kirlian research program in America. The real
credit for getting Kirlian photography off the ground in America
must go to Dr. Moss and her coworkers.

After consulting researchers in Prague, Sofia, Moscow, and
Leningrad, Dr. Moss then traveled several thousand miles east to
the republic of Kazakhstan and the city of Alma-Ata near the
Chinese border. The Kirov State University of Kazakhstan biology
department has done much of the major research into scientific
applications of Kirlian photography.

Dr. Moss made the trip at the invitation of Dr. Viktor Inyushin, a
young biophysicist whom we'd met in 1968 in Moscow. She was
invited to lecture at the university, visit the university lab, and learn
more about his six years of research into Kirlian photography. She
was greeted warmly by the Kazakh scientists, which was some
comfort since the heat had gone off in her hotel and the temperature
was two degrees below zero.

But the next morning Dr. Inyushin regretfully informed her that
permission for her to visit his lab had been refused by authorities in
Moscow. It was a great disappointment for Dr. Moss. Permission to
visit Dr. Kogan's psi lab in Moscow had also been refused. Why?
Many other Western scientists have also been refused at the lab
door. Why? One may ask, too, why Westerners are not permitted to
visit Soviet space installations and launching sites.

While the Americans run guided tours of Cape Canaveral, no one is
even definitely sure where one of the major Soviet space
cosmodromes is located--at Baikonur or Tyuratam, in Kazakhstan.

John Wilford, aerospace expert for the New York Times, asserts
that the Soviets generally organize high priority projects on a dual
basis, one organization open and science oriented, the other secret
and technology oriented. Members of the open organization are
permitted to meet Westerners and attend international meetings.
Members of the secret organization (often referred to as a "state
commission") remain anonymous. These people exercise the real
power in any project. For example, the men who actually run the
Soviet space program have never been identified. Projects are
shrouded in secrecy. Has the Soviet psi program been organized in
the same way, with an open group handling visitors and a secret
group operating behind the scenes? One Slavic psi specialist told
us, "You will never even know who the key researchers are in the
psi field in the USSR."

Whatever the reason, bureaucratic buck passing or the Soviet policy
of secrecy, Dr. Moss never got to see the university lab, but she did
benefit from examination of published scientific material.

Once back at UCLA, she set out to replicate the Kirlian work at her
own lab. She showed several American electronics experts the
schematics of the Kirlian apparatus. The plans are "insufficient,"
"unfeasible," "absurd," the experts told her.

How she finally came by a Kirlian device will probably remain the
highlight of her career as a professor, she says. During a UCLA
extension course lecture, she described her Russian trip, current
research in psi and showed Kirlian pictures from Moscow and
Alma-Ata. At the end of the lecture, a Mr. Kendall Johnson
presented himself and said he'd like to make some Kirlian pictures.

"I would, too," she replied. She described the discouraging views of
the experts and gave Ken the supposedly "undecipherable"
schematics and the translated scientific papers. At the next to last
class for the course he presented himself again, this time with what
looked like an astonishingly good "Kirlian photograph." "Where
did you get it?" Dr. Moss asked incredulously.

"In my father in-law's garage," he replied.

With Ken's electronic ingenuity and several more weeks of
perseverance in the garage they had a working apparatus. Their
equipment is quite different from the Kirlians' as it pulses at a low
frequency of 3,000 cycles per second rather than 200,000. Moss
and Johnson have joined forces on research into what they now call
radiation field photography.

Says Professor Dean, "Johnson, perhaps because he had not been
trained in electronics, finally succeeded in altering the Russian
design so as to achieve the first modern Kirlian type photos in the
United States. This accomplishment served to verify that the Kirlian
effect is a real one and inspired many other labs to start similar
work...."

Over the past three years, Moss and Johnson have taken
substantially more than 50,000 radiation field photographs, studied
more than 500 persons and more than 1,000 leaves.

Dr. William Tiller, Chairman of Materials Sciences at Stanford
University, traveled to the USSR with a group of scientists,
doctors, and laymen from the Association for Research and
Enlightenment, Virginia Beach. This group had a stimulating trip
covering Moscow and Leningrad; and Dr. Tiller learned a great deal
about Kirlian photography, which he has published in detail along
with technical plans in the A.R.E. Journal (March, 1972, 75cents).
At Stanford Dr. Tiller has assembled equipment designed to
approximate the Soviet technique. He gives details in Galaxies of
Life. He has already done some preliminary research studying
metals with Kirlian photography. At this point a great many people
have developed equipment and have begun their own explorations.



Some Basic Kirlian Explorations


Here are just a few observations made so far by different
researchers in the West:


* Altered states of consciousness can be made visible in Kirlian
photos.

* Electrophysiological studies showed corona emanation does not
relate to skin temperature, galvanic skin response, vasoconstrictions
or dilations, or to perspiration.

* When a person is in a normal, healthy state, finger shows
predominant blue and white corona. When emotionally aroused,
anxious, or nervous, finger pad often emanates a red blotch.

* English researchers D.R. Milner and E.F. Smart, experimenting
with DC high voltage photography, found there's an energy transfer
interaction between a freshly picked leaf and a dying leaf picked
twenty four hours earlier.

* Studies of different states of consciousness through drugs
(alcohol and marijuana): Intoxication with either produces a
general increase in brightness and size of corona. One subject who
worked his way up to his seventeenth drink went from a small close
knit emanation to a "rosy glow" eventually to being "all lit up."

* Moss and Johnson studied three people who claim healing
powers--their photos showed the reverse of the Russian and Dean
findings. A change was still evident but in this case the healers at
rest had a very wide corona, but while healing a much smaller one.
The patients had a small corona before healing and a larger one
after healing.

* Hypnosis showed a similar pattern as above, though results are
inconsistent.

* A psychic in his normal waking consciousness showed a very
small emanation; in trance, a brilliant blue white corona.

* In general each person has his own unique patterning.

* Plant leaves, when gashed or damaged, show red areas and
bubbles.

* Thought energy directed toward an injured leaf by a psychic
restored its original brilliance in the Kirlian photos.

* PK psychics' fingertips show a sharp, concentrated corona during
PK compared to normal state.

* During magnetic storms caused by sun spots, corona changed to
large red flares.

* Music seemed to change corona, making emanation more
concentrated and showing more globules.

* Colored light on skin seems to affect corona as seen in before and
af ter pictures.

* Pictures vary according to time of day as a result of cyclical
changes in the earth's electrical field. Field is maximum at 7 P.M.;
minimum at 4 A.M. Greenwich Mean Time. (Convert to your own
time zone.)

* A California researcher is working on developing a preliminary
medical diagnostic procedure.


Here are just a few of the recent findings by Kirlian researchers in
the Soviet Union:


* Specific thoughts a person has vary the electrobioluminescence --
i.e., thinking of a fountain pen versus thinking of an interesting
book.

* Pricking your finger near a plant makes the leaves glow fifty
percent brighter.

* If a person trained in biofeedback or autosuggestion suggests to
himself that his hand is getting warmer, there are specific structural
changes in the luminescence observed only during the
autosuggestion of warmth.

* If the trained person touches another person not trained in
autosuggestion and the untrained person is photographed, he too
shows the same structure of luminescence as the trained person.


* Plants were ideal detectors of this energy change. Holding one's
hand near a plant and suggesting that the hand is warm caused the
plant leaves to increase in luminescence. Suggesting that the hand
is cold caused a decrease in luminescence of the leaves.

* Dew forms on the leaves of plants in exactly the same locations
as the maximum flare patterns shown in the Kirlian pictures of the
leaves.

* Kirlian photography was found useful in studying ways of
preserving fruit and vegetables.

* Studying acupuncture with Kirlian photography: Stimulation of
certain points on an acupuncture energy channel could cause
brighter luminescence at other flare points on the channel.

* For nutrition: Studies of sprouts are interesting--luminescence
intensity of spring wheat root sprouts is considerably higher
compared with other types of sprouts.

* Kirlian method can be used in ecology for early diagnosis of
poisons in fish--photos of scales from poisoned fish showed clear
difference compared to control fish. Could be very helpful advance
warning for poisoned lakes and rivers.

* In use of Kirlian equipment for early diagnosis, sharp flashes of
energy occur in stress situations--useful in evaluating gravity of a
patient's condition.

* A complex analysis of the whole luminescence spectrum has been
done for use in analyzing the Kirlian photos and for diagnosis.

* Each different part of the body is generally a distinctive color:
heart regions, blue; forearm, greenish blue; thigh, olive.

* Detailed analysis of Kirlian pictures of various types of cancer
tissue as an aid in diagnosis: Compared to normal tissue, cancer
tissue from the stomach showed a microdiffused discharge pattern
with fine white or gray granular shadows. Researchers analyze the
nature of the discharge channels, their geometry, and energetics to
elucidate tumor diagnosis.

* Kirlian diagnosis can be done with a person as a whole or with
their cells.

* It can be used for registration of emotional condition; medical
diagnosis (especially cancer); monitoring effects of drug treatments
on a person; monitoring effects of radiation treatments on a person.

* Hope to use the method with X-rays and ultrasound holography
to make a person transparent to a certain depth.


(For more details on these Soviet findings see Bioenergetics
Questions, Material of the Scientific Methodological Seminar in
Alma-Ata, 1969. Available from Southern California Society for
Psychical Research, 170 South Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills,
California 90212.)



6. Kirlian Photos: Can They Show Us What Psychics See?


An aurora borealis of brilliantly colored lights pouring from the
human body! That's how some Soviet scientists have described
Kirlian photos. Are these the luminous energies of living things
that psychics claim to see? Do the photos show us any element of
the aura or etheric forces? Or do the Kirlian photos simply show us
nothing more than the electricity with which they are produced?
This was the controversy that began to rage when Kirlian
photography with high frequency electricity was first heard of and
replicated in the West.

If you succeed in making Kirlian photos, you too will be asked,
"What are these pictures about? Do they show the aura, psi energy,
or just electricity?" Within the last year there's been more new
scientific evidence all pointing to the same conclusion --that you're
really seeing the activities of a genuine natural energy emanation
from living bodies in your Kirlian pictures.

In the Soviet Union scientists have differing opinions. Some think
that stimulating the skin with the high frequency charge used in
Kirlian photography simply causes the body to radiate electrified
particles, which show up in the photos as different patterns in the
corona. They call this "cold electron emission," and physicist
Victor Adamenko says it might have its roots in the same level of
substance as the aura. Some Western scientists say this theory
cannot account for all the light given off. Other scientists insist that
Kirlian photography is amplifying a different energy within the
body, which they call "bioplasmic" energy.

At the Kirov State University of Kazakhstan a group of scientists in
the biology department, led by the famous academician B.A.
Dombrovsky, assert that the energy visible in the pictures is a form
of plasma, the fourth state of matter. They claim that this
bioplasmic energy forms the energy matrix of all living substances.
They envisage the bioplasma body as a kind of energy counterpart
of the physical body. The bioplasma body is not the mere radiation
of the physical body, but rather the physical body is the mirror of
the energy body. Thus, disease strikes first in the energy body
before it reaches the physical body. The Kirlian photos have so far
proved to be a means of early detection of illnesses, which show as
disturbed energy patterns in the pictures.

It is possible, then, to prevent illness, too, by rebalancing these
disturbed energies seen in the Kirlian photos, and this might be
what acupuncture treatment does.

This energy body apparently reflects the emotions of a person,
states of mind, reactions to sound and color and the whole
environment, and also picks up psi information. It is also theorized
that the bioplasmic body broadcasts energy as well as receives it.

Talking to the Kazakh scientists, Dr. Moss learned that they
consider bioplasmic energy similar to the energy of prana as
defined by Yoga.

Within the last few years several exciting discoveries that may hold
the key to Kirlian pictures have been made by scientists working in
different areas of biophysics. Back in the thirties it was a Russian
scientist, Alexander Gurvich, who announced that living things
could generate light. After years of careful experimentation he was
able to show that some sort of radiation coming from some living
things had an effect on other living things. He called this
mitogenetic radiation. Gurvich believed this energy to be more
powerful than the ultraviolet light reaching us from the sun. To
other scientists it seemed incredible that living beings could
generate such energy. They couldn't see the "light" and Gurvich's
work was bypassed.



Living Luminescence


However, by the 1960's biologists around the world knew it wasn't
just glowlworms that glimmered. People glowed, too. In the Soviet
Union a principal investigator of extremely faint rays of light from
plants and animals was the well known Dr. Boris Tarusov of
Moscow University. To see this luminescence researchers used
highly sensitive amplifiers of light called photoelectronic
multipliers. These are similar to the snooperscopes used to see in
total darkness in military activities. Photo multipliers are also used
in star tracking in astronomy. With photo multipliers biologists saw
infinitely small rays of light coming from leaves and even
individual cells. But there was still a mystery--the why of the glow.

At first it was assumed that active chemical compounds in the
living bodies of humans, animals, and plants were responsible for
the glow. Some researchers assumed that the faint light changed
according to the metabolism of the plant: chilled plants --low glow;
warm plants--high glow. Others thought the glow had to do with
the earth's electrical field. The puzzle shone on.

At the State University of Kazakhstan, where scientists researching
Kirlian photography had developed the theory of bioplasmic
energy, the idea grew that the processes observed in the Kirlian
photos might be related to this natural ultrafaint luminescence
researched by Tarusov. "We submit that ultrafaint luminescence in
biological systems represents plasmic processes," says Dr. Viktor
Inyushin of Alma-Ata. It's possible to strengthen this ultrafaint
luminescence in living things by the use of Kirlian photography,
Inyushin asserts. [Italics ours.] (See Bioenergetics Questions, Paper
3.) In the opinion of the Kazakh experts, the Kirlian process
changed the natural luminescence of the body from weak to bright
so that it was easier to see what was going on in it. By 1972 a team
led by Dr. Boris Nikolaevich Tarusov, Chairman of Biophysics at
Moscow University, made an important new breakthrough. Long
and patient observations of ultrafaint luminescence with the latest
type of supersensitive photo multipliers paid off. They found that
plants didn't always glimmer with a steady light and that the glow
variations were tied to much more than metabolism.

Sometimes these almost invisible rays would suddenly burst with
power, almost as if the plant were sending out a light flash signal.
The Soviet scientists found that plants could "talk" with their flash
signals. A specific light pattern meant too much water or salinity
around roots. Other signals corresponded to lack of fertilizer or
excess. Most importantly, luminescence flashes seen with the photo
multipliers showed--just as Kirlian photography does--that diseases
can be diagnosed from the light patterns given off long before any
physical symptom of the illness can be detected. A specific pattern
of increased luminescence in plants turned out to be a sign of a
coming bacteria and fungus attack. Studying the flashing
luminescence in cotton plants, they found a specific signal, a
warning pattern that the deadly wilt disease was threatening long
before the plants showed any physical sign of ill health. The
Kirlians had found the same thing with their electrical photographic
technique.

One unexpected benefit of the luminescent plant flashes: the plants
themselves indicated which of them would do best-- grasses or
shrubs-- in a new area where gardeners had not previous
experience. There began to be more and more evidence. Many of
the patterns that show up in Kirlian photography also show up in
natural radiations from living creatures even when they aren't
illuminated with high frequency electrical fields.

Another new finding has come up to strengthen the idea that
Kirlian photography is indeed showing natural energies active in
and around the body. Out in Siberia an enterprising scientist, Dr.
Vlail Kaznachaev, decided to have another look at Gurvich's
contention that organisms radiate some kind of energy. Rather than
trying to make living radiation visible with such things as photo
multipliers and Kirlian photography, Kaznachaev and his
coworkers decided to search for any effect such radiations might
have on other living things.

Results were stunning. Among other things they found diseased
cells emit rays that carry information, rays that can penetrate
through quartz glass to healthy neighboring cells and make them
sick, too. (See Energies Section, pp. 212 15.)

Interestingly, Kirlian researchers have found that different diseases
show specific light patterns in their photos. They have speculated
that these flashes of light may well be transmitting information.
There are similarities here, as Kirlian people point out, to
Kaznachaev's finding. The discovery that there is a radiation from
living cells that carries information is a major one, something few
scientists believed possible. Kirlian investigators are now
attempting to correlate this confirmed light radiation from living
things with the light patterns so beautifully shown in their pictures.
The idea is, of course, that the radiation could carry not just
information related to illness but could, like computer cards, carry
programs for all sort of phenomena--in particular, perhaps, for
psychic healing.

At Alma-Ata, Dr. Inyushin and his colleagues have also been
developing new ways to register these X bioenergies and correlate
them with the energies appearing in the Kirlian pictures. Inyushin
explains that he obtains a recording of the subject's energies
without changing him from his normal condition for the
experiment, i.e., without turning on highfrequency electricity.
Again based on Gurvich's theories, the Kazakh scientists found a
way to register extraordinary emanations from people's eyes. They
used a special film emulsion sensitive to the ultraviolet spectrum
along, with selective filters, and they suppressed all heat radiation.
They got some very strange pictures on the film. "We discovered an
emanation from the eyes of animals and humans," reported Dr.
Inyushin at an international conference on bioenergetics in
Moscow in 1972. The energies coming from human and animal
eyes vary with emotions and environmental conditions, says
Inyushin.

To record these extraordinary emanations, they used a film
emulsion of very fine]y divided particles placed in a cryostatic (low
temperature) element together with photocells. Even through
opaque screens and thin metallic sheets, "We obtained from human
eyes. under conditions of autosuggestion, after an exposure of only
one thousandth of a second, very clear images on the emulsion."
[Italics ours.] (Journal of Paraphysics, Vol. 6)


Could it be that Kirlian photography amplifies these as yet
uncharted radiations from the human body? Just as brain waves
must be amplified many times over before they can be made
recordable, it may be that the high frequency electrical field
amplifies some of the energies involved in such phenomena as
ultrafaint luminescence, radiation to neighboring cells, emanations
from the eyes on film.

Across the USSR scientists are again examining the theories of
Alexander Gurvich on natural radiations and glowing light from
humans. Their findings are beginning to prove Gurvich right.
Humans seem to radiate energies and the Kirlian technique may
make them visible to us all.

Benson Herbert of the Paraphysics Lab in England stresses the
extraordinary importance of coordinating all this new research into
the natural radiations and luminescence of the human body with the
research on Kirlian photography. If bioplasmic energies, radiations,
luminescence, can be registered from the body in its natural state
without putting a person into a high frequency electric field as
Kirlian photography does, and if in both cases similar energy
patterns are found, it may settle once and for all "the controversy
which is still raging--at both ends of Europe." Some believe the
patterns appearing in Kirlian photos are exclusively due to the
electric field applied to the body and that there are no energies of
the body being revealed.

Referring to the current work at Alma-Ata, Herbert says, "Success
in this experiment would in fact give encouragement to those
Western parapsychologists who like to believe that some
connection may exist between the Kirlian patterns and what is
referred to in occult literature as the 'aura.' . . . It would at least
leave open the question as to whether the 'aura' and the corona may
have certain common features in their nature or causation...."

For psi researchers, the work of Dr. Boris Tarusov on ultrafaint
luminescence; Dr. Vlail Kaznacheev, Dr. Alexander Gurvich,
George Lakhovsky, and the researchers at Alma-Ata on radiation
from living things, are all very important. New research techniques,
especially those using supersensitive photo multipliers, may also be
valuable in tracking general psi happenings as well.


The View from Here


Some US psychics who have seen the Kirlian pictures and are
familiar with metaphysical theories see a resemblance between what
the photographs show and the Yogic theories of prana energy.
Other psychics think that what is made visible is the effect of the
aura on the high frequency discharge.


Generally the consensus among psychics here is that the Kirlian
pictures may show us etheric energy.

Professor Dean describes what it looks like in motion based on
Kirlian movies shown at a 1972 Moscow psi conference. "The
flares shown in the stills periodically shoot out energy every few
seconds, like water from a fireman's hose, and change color from
one burst to the next in the motion picture. In addition globules are
shot out from a leaf or finger," he reports. The flares were said to
come from acupuncture points on the skin. "These effects are very
difficult to understand," says Dean. He points out that the standard
calculations for known energies done by physicist Dr. Tiller cannot
account for all the energy displayed. Dean, Moss, and Johnson see
a striking correlation between radiation field photographs and
descriptions of an energy body given in metaphysical literature,
such as A.E. Powell's The Etheric Double (1925): "Every solid,
liquid, and gaseous particle of the physical body is surrounded with
an etheric envelope.... In size it projects about one fourth of an inch
beyond the skin.... In appearance, the etheric double is a pale violet
-grey, or bluegrey, faintly luminous and coarse or fine in texture,
according as the dense physical body is coarse or fine." Blue and
violet colors consistently appear in Kirlian photographs of living
things in their normal state.

Powell discusses the phantom pain many amputees experience.
"This is due to the fact that the etheric portion of the limb is not
removed with the dense physical portion." The Russian photos of
leaves with portions cut off show "phantoms" of the missing
portion.

"It is by means of the etheric double that prana [energy] runs along
the nerves of the body. a . . Furthermore, just as the particles of the
dense physical body are constantly changing and being replaced by
fresh particles derived from food, water, and air, so the particles of
the etheric body are being constantly changed and replaced by fresh
etheric particles, these being taken into the body . . . in the form
known as the Vitality Globule." Could these be the globules and
bubbles that seem to shoot out of leaves and fingers in the Kirlian
movies? Powell describes the invisible energy of the body as "rose
colored" and sustaining the nervous system. He claims that it is this
type of energy that may be transferred from healer to patient.

Kirlian photographs of healing situations of both people and leaves
have often shown a rose colored emanation glowing distinctly and
pinkly. Researchers Moss and Johnson conclude, " Kirlian
photography might be able to provide physical evidence for some
type of energy system that exists within and extends beyond the
physical body."

Douglas Dean asserts, "For nonpsychics the intriguing possibility
looms that everyone may now be able to see on film what psychics
claim to see naturally.... The possibility of seeing what was hidden
before is generating excitement in this new method of photography
and is making dozens of laboratories turn to it."

No matter what it turns out to be that generates the patterns in
Kirlian photos, American researchers Moss and Johnson and Dean
are convinced that Kirlian photography can reveal a great deal
about ourselves.

(For more details, see luminescence references.)


Experiments with Human Luminescence


Even without costly photo electronic multipliers (snooper scopes
for seeing in the dark) or expensive lab equipment for studying cell
cultures, you can experiment with human luminescence. Perhaps
you will find correlations between natural luminescence and the
Kirlian pictures.

To try a basic experiment you'll need some highly light sensitive
black and white or color film. You can use either sheet film or roll
film. Polaroid color film that comes wrapped in individual sheets
can also be used if you have access to a Polaroid camera to develop
it.

If you are using regular film, take a sheet of film, or cut a section
from a roll of film and wrap it carefully in lightproof material so no
fraction of light can penetrate. Tape this piece of film on your arm
or any part of your body and wear it all day. Note how many hours
you wear each piece of film and the location. Have the film
developed, or if Polaroid, develop it in a Polaroid camera. Very
often you will find a kind of blurry pattern of colors on the film.
This is an experiment that the psychic healer and engineer Ambrose
Worrall used to do to demonstrate there were definite emanations
given off by the body that could affect film. Sometimes, if you
think strongly about a particular image while wearing the film, the
pattern on the film will vaguely reflect that image. Is it body heat
that causes the pattern? Dr. Thelma Moss of UCLA tried heating
and chilling film but the film remained blank. Only humans
wearing the film for several hours gave unusual energy patterns. If
you have the time, try placing a strip of film over your eyes and
leaving it there for an hour or so. See if the emanations recorded
from the eyes are different from those from the fingertips or the
arms. Consult an acupuncture map and try locating film on an area
where there appears to be a great many acupuncture points
clustered together. Does this area give off more luminescence than
other areas where acupuncture points are sparse? If you know
someone with Kirlian equipment or have built some yourself, try
correlating the patterns of emanations on film with what appears in
the Kirlian pictures.

Try making film pictures at different times of day. We all exist in
the earth's electrical field and the earth's field changes twice a day.
It's at its minimum everywhere on earth at 4 A.M. Greenwich time
in London and at its maximum at 7 P.M. Greenwich time. Add or
subtract hours to convert Greenwich time to your local time zone.
See how your biofield changes at the hours the earth's electrical
field is shifting gears. Some researchers have found that
luminescence pictures can change depending on the change of the
earth's electrical field.

www.madra.dp.ua/archives/kirlian/bondarev3/