From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!CAD:tektronix!teklabs!jeffma
Newsgroups: net.misc
Title: Kirlian Madness (124 lines; long but worth it)
Article-I.D.: teklabs.1772
Posted: Sat Feb 26 15:45:50 1983
Received: Tue Mar  1 03:44:25 1983


Is Kirlian photography a means of photographing psychic  energy?  Auras?
Astral  bodies?  There seem to be a lot of believers out there: the fact
is, there isn't a shred of scientific evidence to support  such  ridicu-
lous conclusions.

The few mainstream scientific investigators who  are  looking  into  the
"Kirlian  Effect"  have  found  no  mysterious processes.  Anyone with a
shred of physics training will recognize that  the  equipment  used  for
these  photos is exactly what one would use to generate and photograph a
CORONA DISCHARGE  around  the  object  in  question.   Corona  discharge
involves  the  passage  of  electrons  through  a  gaseous atmosphere in
response to a high-intensity electric field.  The result is a glow (both
visible  and  ultra-violet)  which  does not necessarily include conven-
tional "sparks".  If you've ever seen high-tension power  lines  glowing
at  night,  you've  seen this type of discharge.  Now, if you think this
represents a "simple" explanation for Kirlian photography, you're wrong.
The physics of this type of discharge, and how other physical parameters
influence it, is quite complex.  It  does,  however,  represent  a  NON-
MYSTERIOUS explanation (and hence a useful one).

Cooper  and  Alt  (Department  of  Physics,  California  State  College)
reasoned  that,  if the image was indeed that of a corona, then it would
not appear if the atmosphere surrounding the  object  was  removed.   To
test  their  hypothesis  they  tried  to  make a Kirlian photograph in a
vacuum.  Guess what?  No auras.  Of course, this  observation  does  not
PRECLUDE  "psychic energy", because decades of "parapsychology research"
(cough cough) have not yielded even a scrap  of  consistent  information
about  its properties.  So the smug psi-cotic might remark that auras do
not form in a vacuum (which perhaps implies that your "astral body" must
don an "astral spacesuit" before buzzing off to Jupiter, ad nauseum).

A corona discharge produced and photographed with a Kirlian device would
have  an  appearance  dictated by a large number of physical parameters.
These include moisture,  voltage,  photographic  plate  characteristics,
electrode  characteristics,  air  temperature  and  pressure,  insulator
characteristics, and so on.  Thus explaining  the  exact  shape  of  any
individual  photograph using the corona model would be a lot like trying
to describe exactly how the tea leaves left  in  your  cup  happened  to
assume a funny shape (ask a physicist about how easy it is to use fluid-
ics to solve real-world problems).  But again, a complex phenomenon does
not  demand  the  invocation  of  mysterious  forces (it only makes them
easier to IMAGINE).

But wait, you say, what about all those mysterious colors?  William Eid-
son,  Harry  Kyler,  David  Faust,  and  J.O. Pehek of Drexel University
discovered that the color of the photographed discharge was a by-product
of  the  mechanics  of  photographic  plates.  The three color-sensitive
layers in common color film are blue, green, and red, arranged from  top
to  bottom  (the actual substances which generate the color are arranged
in the subtractive primaries cyan, magenta, and yellow):

                   finger or whatever
       _____________________________________________
             blue-sensitive layer + yellow dye
       =============================================