Through science man is slowly beginning to catch up with phenomena such as yoga, and other forms of meditation and self-development. By the use of Kirlian photography, he is now able to show the forces that people are experiencing, and which oriental traditions have known about for thousands of years.
We've made a film for television in such a way that the viewers are gently led into what Kirlian photography is trying to show. At the end of our film we have shown what man is now able to do by mind power, and the forces that emanate from our bodies. These forces have always been there, will always be there, but I am sure that through methods such as yoga, man will be able to control not only his mind, but the things around him.
In the recent work done in Australia, we're only just beginning to get further than taking pictures of leaves and fingertips. These are very important because they have been used in America and Russia (where Kirlian photography started) to set certain levels, certain standards to work from, a base line. Now we are trying to integrate man and his responses to his mind but unfortunately man is a very unstable creature. His make-up is very complex, and this is one of the factors which make this type of work very slow. Even though it has been going on since 1939, with a big boost in 1964, the time is still far off when we will be able to show you how man's mind works through Kirlian photography. This is an exciting prospect; it's a frightening prospect really. We are now at the beginning of man's last frontier, the mind and spirit.
To photograph these energy fields requires a special apparatus called a Kirlian device. About 40,000 volts go through it at a very high frequency. Basically, for anybody who's into electronics, here is an outline of how to produce this high frequency, high voltage spark effect. There are two power supplies, one supplies a high voltage coil at 280 to 300 volts, and the other is a low voltage supply which feeds the transistorised equipment. The front end is a multi-vibrator circuit that triggers or gates an SCR, which then passes the 300 volts into an ignition coil. From that comes a very high spark. A car uses 12 volts in its battery to produce the spark that works the spark plugs. By putting about 300 volts into the same coil a very fat spark results, but the coils don't last very long. A very hot sports coil gives good results. Only the peaks of this voltage are sent to a conductive plate in which photographic film is situated.
These peaks produce a luminous discharge which is reproduced on the film. The resulting impression will be different according to the object placed on top of the film.
Life force must be emitted by an object before there's an aura. We've used a coin taped to the electrode device. This gives a constant aura effect which stays there no matter what we do. The difference in photographing living things is that their psychological state alters the amount and quality of emanations coming from them. In other words, the way a person is thinking - whether he is tired, calm, excited, or in pain, all these things alter the emanations. But with a non-living object like a coin, the emission is the same all the time, it doesn't alter. We've even tried wetting a dead leaf to increase its conductivity, but we don't get the same results as with a live leaf.
We were actually able to photograph the various stages in the death of a leaf. It took two or three hours, and we could see it dying. The outside perimeters of the leaf were closing in, and you could see the actual life force going as we photographed progressively. As the life force moved inwards, it changed the colour of the leaf. In Russia, as well as in North and South America, they have found that when the tip of a leaf has been cut off, a Kirlian photograph shows it still there.
In a Kirlian photograph what we actually see are high voltage sparks which are modulated or altered by the life force. In no way are we seeing the actual aura or the colours of the aura. We are only seeing a chemical representation on a sensitive emulsion. To view the aura you usually require dark or dim light conditions. If you lie in bed at night with all the lights out, hold your hand up at arm's length, and look at the ceiling, you will see the aura. If you put both hands up you can see the aura jumping from one to the other.
In Kirlian photography human hands show flare points, fire points and corona, especially with interaction between male and female. Many people think that this is an electrical phenomenon, but these emissions are what radiate from the body. Remember both fingers have contact on the plate. They both get the same current and are joined in the middle. Some eminent physicists and scientists in America, among them William Tiller and Thelma Moss from UCLA, state that this is the aura, but we will not say this categorically. It may be an electrical emission. There are many theories, but as yet a lot of work must be done to prove them.
Your own personal emissions will not blend with any other person. What you can do, and what the Kirlian photographs show, is a blending of your emotions. Your emotions will blend whether it's anxiety or arousal. If two people are sensually aroused there is a blending. There is something that is over each individual's personal emissions which will blend and usually show up bright red. We haven't been able to get this colour in Australia yet. Thelma Moss seems to be the only one who can do it. But this shows that these are our own emissions rather than an electrical phenomenon.
Slides from Thelma Moss of UCLA show a series of experiments she did with alcohol using a normal baseline finger-pad print where the corona could be seen around the outside. In the experiment the volunteer was drinking whisky to get drunk. The first picture was taken some hours before the experiment started. The next slide taken after he had drunk seven ounces of whisky, shows the characteristic blotchy type of emission you get when a person is nervous and withdrawn into himself. If a Kirlian photograph is taken of a frightened, nervous or anxious subject's hand, the emissions are blotchy. In the next one he's had more whisky and is starting to lose his anxiety, nervousness and inhibitions; his corona is once again starting to expand quite freely. At seventeen ounces of whisky, his emanations are glowing.
In a series of experiments, we had four subjects. We put them through the Kirlian device and on one person, two fingers didn't appear. We knew he had the fingers, so we questioned him and found he'd been extremely drunk the night before. One and a half hours later we checked him again, and the fingers were just beginning to show. This means you feel fine when you're getting drunk. But when you come to the hangover, all your energy retracts.
An experiment we've been working on recently goes much further to a seemingly insignificant little blob we call the third eye. In our work on this area one thing comes into a lot of prominence, and that is the spiral shape with a darker tone within the centre section. There are no fire points within this centre section. Wherever we've taken pictures on and around the body there have always been these fire points, except in this third eye area, which is one of the best known chakra points in man.
Getting into other levels of consciousness, in one experiment a subject was switched into a biofeedback machine and was indicating alpha when we began photographing him. The pictures showed that blue and white colours are the most predominant in subjects who are getting into the higher realms of consciousness, beyond alpha and past theta. This subject was practising transcendental meditation at the time, and there was a very soft blue corona around his finger. If people could reach this state at will, how much more peace there would be in the world!