Viewing The Human Aura With The Kilner Dicyanin method
- Jul 1
- 4 min read
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This historical article discusses Dr Kilner’s Dicyanin Method for viewing the human aura through chemical screens, controlled lighting, and careful observation.
Original Source: “The Human Aura and How It May Be Cultivated,” Light, July 22, 1911.
The Human Aura and How It May Be Cultivated
In one of his recent lectures at 110, St. Martin’s Lane, Mr. W. J. Colville made special reference to a remarkable book entitled The Human Atmosphere, or the Aura Made Visible by the Aid of Chemical Screens. This instructive volume derives added interest for the general reader from the fact that it is the work of a doctor of medicine who investigates along definitely material lines.
Dr. Walter J. Kilner, the author, was at one time electrician at St. Thomas’s Hospital, London, and is evidently a man of studious research, filled with a desire for original investigation. In the preface, we are told that there is nothing essentially occult in the study of the human aura, as it can be successfully carried forward with the aid of purely material apparatus.
This is demonstrably the case within certain limits, and Dr. Kilner wisely refrains from casting any reflections upon more mysterious branches of inquiry than those into which he has most successfully entered.
the healthy Human Aura
The first portion of the treatise, said Mr. Colville, deals exclusively with the aura of healthy persons and makes delightful reading. The style is so clear and the illustrations so graphic that it elucidates, in small space, practically all the essential rudiments of the subject.
Clairvoyants and other sensitive individuals who rely on some psychic faculty for knowledge will find much corroboration of their discoveries from a purely scientific standpoint. In consequence of this, it is not going too far to say that here we have fresh proof that many psychic discoveries forestall external verification.
Dr Kilner’s Dicyanin Method To VIew the Human Aura
While reading the descriptions of how material means can be employed for discovering auric emanations, we learn that most of Dr. Kilner’s investigations have been conducted in a small room with only one window. This window is provided at the top with an ordinary blind. Below is a dark serge blind, which can be raised to any height desired.
As the serge allows too much light to pass through on bright days, this is excluded by pulling down the ordinary blind. A slight gap can be left between the blinds to allow more light when observations are made through a dark screen, and also when complementary colours are employed.
Opposite the screen, and about eight feet from the window, is a movable pole supporting black and white curtains, which can be used as wanted. The person undergoing investigation stands about a foot in front of the background, so that shadows or marks upon it may not produce optical illusions.
The Use of Dicyanin Screens
The observer takes the dark dicyanin screen and peers through it at the light for at least half a minute. The room is then darkened, and the observer stands facing the one to be investigated, looking at him through a pale screen. The aura ought to be almost immediately perceived.
It is said to be of assistance in discovering the colour of the aura for the “patient” to place his hands upon his hips and extend his elbows, so that in the spaces between the trunk and arms the aura emanating from the body will be reinforced.
The Three Portions of the Aura
Three distinct portions of aura are discernible. First, there is a narrow transparent portion appearing as a dark space. This is called the etheric double. Second, there is the inner aura. This is the densest portion and varies only a little in width with different persons. It invariably follows the contour of the body. Third, there is the outer aura, which is very variable in extent.
Plates showing these different degrees and grades of aura represent it as varying considerably with physical capacity. A very strong man at the age of thirty-three is shown surrounded with highly developed auric belts. The same is exhibited with healthy boys, though not quite to the same extent.
The stronger the individual, of any age or either sex, the greater is the volume of the aura and the more widely does it surround the body.
The Aura in Health and Affliction
The later portion of the book, dealing with the aura of afflicted persons, shows many curious alterations from the normal and affords much information of particular value to physicians.
Taking the book as a whole, it may well be hailed as a very important contribution to practical modern scientific literature.
The appendix is, in some respects, the most interesting part, because it relates how the influence of decided willing causes plainly marked changes both in the colour and the extensiveness of the aura.
