Aura Photography

cam
Posts: 77
Joined: 2007-11-19
User is offlineOffline
Aura Photography

 

I was walking through an arcade in town not long ago when I came across mystic/hippy type shop where they were offering to take photos of your aura. They had posters on the wall showing examples. They basically look like a normal photo with some pretty coloured cloud effects layed over the top.

I stopped and talked to the guy in the shop. He said he had a special camera for aura photography that cost him $14000 USD. He said it worked by measuring the eletromagnetic energy that comes from a persons body. He then went on to tell me that it measured 'spiritual energy'. I tried to ask him where on the EM frequencey scale this spiritual energy was, but I could not get a straight answer out of him.

I find it hard to think on my feet, and was getting a bit flustered trying to get sense out of the guy. So I ended up just asking him to write down the make/model of the camera so I could go look up information on it myself. What he wrote down was 'Pro 6000'.

The shop has a website, with info about aura photography here:

http://www.pranaspirituallifecentre.com.au/auras.htm

So my questions are:

Does anyone know the truth about this camera? Is it just a normal camera with a special in-built graphics program to apply a cloud effect?

Does the human body emit EM radiation? What sort, how much?

Is there any basis in science for auras and the aura photography?

I have no doubt that this guy is a kook (look around his website) and I would really like to confront him with some facts about what he's doing. In fact, it would be nice if his little business could be closed down because basically what he's doing is defrauding people, I think. But am I wrong? I really need to know the facts.

By the way, I posted this in the science forum because there seems to be no forum dedicated to debunking this new age / mystic stuff.

 


deludedgod
Rational VIP!ScientistDeluded God
deludedgod's picture
Posts: 3221
Joined: 2007-01-28
User is offlineOffline
Quote:

Quote:

Does the human body emit EM radiation? What sort, how much?

Absolutely not. That is utterly ridiculous.

Specifically, electromagnetism is generated by the 90 degree oscillation of a current with a magnetic field. A current (the flow of electrons) perpendicular to a magnetic field will generate a voltage. That’s called flux cutting. This is the principle upon which dynamos and generators and transformers work (That’s what oil is used for. Burning it produces steam which is used to turn a turbine which is used to turn a current carrying wire rotating through a magnetic field at a 90 degree junction. Actually come to think of it, that is a very primitive way of generating electricity…
Anyway, the equations governing electromagnetism are crucial to everything we see around us and are a critical triumph of mankind. That the New Age phenomenon would attempt to repackage them into vague, meaningless, idiotic absurd statements revolving around a slew of meaningless therapies which work on the pseudoscientific principle of the body having an electromagnetic field (it does not) is insulting to real science. The assertion “the body has an electromagnetic field” is one that so many buy into that reveals stunning ignorance. It’s a completely false bold statement. The body is not a dynamo. It generates voltage, but in a completely different way (the regulation of the passing of charged ions in and out of cell membranes controls the net charge, generating something called an action potential). AS we can see from this simulation of magnetic field lines:

The easiest illustration of this concept is a solenoid:

A current-carrying wire wrapped around an iron core creates an electromagnet, because the current is perpindicular to the direction of the field lines. THis is still easier demonstrated by a motor. which generates movement from electricity:

In a motor, the same principle is applied such that one direction of the rotating wire has a force acting up, and on the other side it acts down, this continually rotates such that the motor can have 360 degree spin, but only if the current is AC. That is why AC current works, because since the current continually switches direction, at the 180 degree line, the moment where the current-carrying wire is no longer touching with the electricity supply, there is no force acting on the wire. When the current switches direction, the motor is forced to continue rotating, since the forces now act in the opposing direction. It is the intersection of the field lines with the current that produces the effect, and that is electromagnetism. That is why at 180 degrees, the motor stops for a moment because the wire is parallel to the field lines. The direction of the curent must have an angular intersection with the direction of the magnetic field. That is why a DC current can only rotate half around once. The human body has no such device. This can be illustrated using a Sine Wave:

Now, as we can see, there is a repeated alteration between force in one direction and the other where when the line touches the axis (the point at which the wire is angled at 180 degrees), there is no force acting on the wire, this immediately otates in the other direction due to the AC (which is represented by the repeated up-down switch of the curve).

The human body does not have any such mechanism. There is only one example of a freely rotating axle in biology: The flagellar motor, and that does not generate the motion by a dynamo, it pumps protons across the membrane to force a rotation. There is no example in biology of anything like an electromagnet. The closest mechanism to this is voltage generation in cells by means of controlling the ion gradient, which, in axons, looks like this:

Quote:

Is there any basis in science for auras and the aura photography?

Huh?

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

Books about atheism


magilum
Posts: 2410
Joined: 2007-03-07
User is offlineOffline
  How do you get these

 

How do you get these presentations together so quick, DG?

I wanted to add to the second illustration, which is a little abstract, that the solenoid is basically a coil that pulls a ferrous core in a linear motion. You can make one by wrapping a soda straw in insulated or enameled wire for a few layers, and inserting an iron nail halfway through an open end of the straw. When you run current from a lantern battery through it, it should cause the nail to jump.

Also, there is such a thing as a DC motor, but it actually has to replicate the alternating polarity of AC using a mechanical switch called a 'commutator,' which is admittedly a bit of a kludge.

I think the OP was wondering what the colors shown in 'aura photography' actually were.

 


CrimsonEdge
CrimsonEdge's picture
Posts: 499
Joined: 2007-01-02
User is offlineOffline
As DG said, it's bullshit.

As DG said, it's bullshit. Cameras like that have a very slow shutter speed, which is why the person is very slightly blurry. There is an apparatus at the top that, randomly, emits different colors INSIDE of where the film is, and is ALWAYS on the right side. They simply turn the camera so it's taking a portrait instead of a landscape.

You can take a picture of nothing and have the similar ) shape.

 

Think of it like an ink jet printer. It picks what colors it wants to show (some allow the camera operator to choose) and emits it in a &#39Eye-wink' shape. 


Little Roller U...
Superfan
Little Roller Up First's picture
Posts: 296
Joined: 2007-06-27
User is offlineOffline
I'm also calling bullshit

I'm also calling bullshit on this camera. If nothing else, you could find better things to buy with US$14000 than a camera.

A trip to Europe, for instance. Or a used Corvette. Or a few hundred cases of beer.

But fourteen large for a camera? Unless you're a professional photographer with a six-figure salary, invest in something better, like the trip, the car or the booze.

Good night, funny man, and thanks for the laughter.


magilum
Posts: 2410
Joined: 2007-03-07
User is offlineOffline
http://www.csicop.org/si/2000

CrimsonEdge
CrimsonEdge's picture
Posts: 499
Joined: 2007-01-02
User is offlineOffline
Note that the person didn't

Note that the person didn't pay that much for the camera. $14,000 is only 100,000 off from the worlds most expensive camera. At most the person payed $400 for it.