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Concept
Aura (paranormal)
Summary
According to spiritual beliefs, an aura or energy field is a colored emanation said to enclose a human body or any animal or object. In some esoteric positions, the aura is described as a subtle body. Psychics and holistic medicine practitioners often claim to have the ability to see the size, color and type of vibration of an aura.
In spiritual alternative medicine, the human being aura is seen as part of a hidden anatomy that reflects the state of being and health of a client, often understood to even comprise centers of vital force called chakras. Such claims are not supported by scientific evidence and are thus pseudoscience. When tested under scientific controlled experiments, the ability to see auras has not been proven to exist.
In Latin and Ancient Greek, aura means wind, breeze or breath. It was used in Middle English to mean "gentle breeze". By the end of the 19th century, the word was used in some spiritualist circles to describe a speculated subtle emanation around the body.
The concept of auras was first popularized by Charles Webster Leadbeater, a former priest of the Church of England and a member of the mystic Theosophical Society. Leadbeater had studied theosophy in India, and believed he had the capacity to use his clairvoyant powers to make scientific investigations. He claimed that he had discovered that most men came from Mars but the more advanced men came from the Moon, and that hydrogen atoms were made of six bodies contained in an egg-like form. In his book Man Visible and Invisible published in 1903, Leadbeater illustrated the aura of man at various stages of his moral evolution, from the "savage" to the saint. In 1910, Leadbeater introduced the modern conception of auras by incorporating the Tantric notion of chakras in his book The Inner Life. Leadbeater did not simply present the Tantric beliefs to the West, he reconstructed and reinterpreted them by mixing them with his own ideas, without acknowledging the sources of these innovations.
Official source
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Related concepts (7)
Energy medicine
Energy medicine is a branch of alternative medicine based on a pseudo-scientific belief that healers can channel "healing energy" into a patient and effect positive results. The field is defined by shared beliefs and practices relating to mysticism and esotericism in the wider alternative medicine sphere rather than any sort of unified terminology, leading to terms such as energy healing or vibrational medicine being used as synonymous or alternative names.
Energy (esotericism)
Proponents and practitioners of various esoteric forms of spirituality and alternative medicine refer to a variety of claimed experiences and phenomena as being due to "energy" or "force" that defy measurement and thus are distinguished from the scientific form of energy. Claims related to energy therapies are most often anecdotal, rather than being based on repeatable empirical evidence. There is no scientific evidence for the existence of such energy, and physics educators criticize the use of the term "energy" to describe ideas in esotericism and sprituality as potentially confusing.
Subtle body
A subtle body is a "quasi material" aspect of the human body, being neither solely physical nor solely spiritual, according to various esoteric, occult, and mystical teachings. This contrasts with the mind–body dualism that has dominated Western thought. The subtle body is important in the Taoism of China and Dharmic religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, mainly in the branches which focus on tantra and yoga, where it is known as the Sūkṣma-śarīra (सूक्ष्म शरीर).