Paranormal Investigator Puts His "Aura" to the Test

Paranormal investigator Joe Nickell decided to put his money where his mouth is when it comes to the subject of "auras." Nickell, who is Senior Research Fellow for the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), came across an aura photographer at a psychic fair in Upstate New York. Not one to pass up an opportunity to experience the paranormal, he commissioned two aura photographs of himself for a cool 20 dollars each. He recounts the results in his "Investigative Files" column for the May/June 2000 issue of Skeptical Inquirer magazine.

Nickell allowed himself to be photographed by the "Aura Camera 6000," an invention of California entrepreneur Guy Coggins. The aura camera employs a process Coggins calls "intensified Kirlian imaging," which, according to Nickell is "not the actual image of the body's unseen image field but the imitation of such a field based primarily on something called skin resistance." The "Aura Camera" uses a galvanometer to measure electrical resistance on the skin's surface. The measurements are relayed to a printer and a liquid crystal display (LCD) within the camera. The results are a photograph of the subject bathed in a colorful halo, and a plotted aura printout bearing a caption descriptive of its significance regarding mood and character.

While Nickell found his "full body aura photographs" to be an interesting novelty, he was disappointed that they provided no evidence for auras. "[T]ranslating the electrical frequencies [of skin resistance measurements], and then substituting for them simple flashes of colored light…can scarcely be called photographing the aura," Nickell writes. He also observes that the two photographs he had taken were remarkably unalike-discrediting the notion that auras are distinct for each individual.

Joe Nickell is the author of Camera Clues: A Handbook for Photographic Investigation (University Press of Kentucky, 1994) and Psychic Sleuths (Prometheus, 1994), in addition to authoring, co-authoring and editing dozens of books articles and publications relating to paranormal claims. He is a regular contributor to Skeptical Inquirer and is a member of the magazine's editorial board.

• aura, Kirlian

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