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 =============================================