On Sat, 07 Aug 1999 04:41:15 -0400 "Michael S. Lorrey" <mike@lorrey.com> writes:
>
> I would imagine that people who claim to see auras actually have
> defective UV filters in their corneas....which could explain why
> people
> struck by lightning report such abilities after their electric
> experience, as the lightning bolt's high levels of UV emissions
> likely
> burns out some or all of the UV filters.
>
> Mike
>
If the few people who claim to see auras are seeing something which objectively exists, as opposed to something which exists only subjectively, and if that objective something is a UV halo or aura, then it should be possible to detect the aura using artificial UV detection and imaging equipment. If that were possible, some investigator would have discovered and reported it by now. Since that has apparently not happened, I can only conclude that there is no such thing as a detectable objective UV aura.
In theory the human body emits electromagnetic radiation over a wide frequency range, including radio, infrared, and even UV. That is not fundamentally because the human body is alive, or is human, but simply because of its surface temperature and surface electromagnetic characteristics. A human body at rest puts out about 50 watts of electromagnetic power, mostly in the infrared. Above the frequency in the infrared where that radiated power has its spectral peak, the power falls off as the frequency increases. Since the human body originates no detectable visible light due to its surface temperature, it must originate even less UV due to its surface temperature. No special equipment is needed to demonstrate this; the dark-adapted eye is very sensitive to light and can detect a flash consisting of as few as half a dozen photons, providing those photons enter the pupil and are focused on a sufficiently small spot on the retina.
And even if the human body were to originate copious quantities of UV, it would still not have an objective UV aura for the same reason that a light bulb does not have an objective aura. When one looks at a bright light one is likely to see what looks like an aura, halo, or nimbus, but that is caused by clouding in the eye's optical path, something which commonly increases with age and in severe cases is called cataracts.
While it is unlikely that auras are objectively real, it is possible they are subjectively real, for some few observers. If so, what use are they? If an observer of an aura could determine from the aura the state of health of the individual whose aura is observed, as some have claimed, that would again raise the issue of whether auras are somehow objectively real. But if an aura observer were able to diagnose patients with some success, it still would not necessarily indicate that auras are objectively real, because the information could have been obtained in other ways. An experienced doctor, for instance, can often derive much information about the state of health of an individual merely by looking at the person, observing the person's appearance and behavior. But he doesn't see an aura.
Ron Kean
.
. . . ___________________________________________________________________Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj.