file.newsgroup.med.59396 Maven / Gradle / Ivy
From: [email protected] (Todd I. Stark)
Subject: Re: Krillean Photography
In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Carl J Lydick) writes...
>In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (E.A. Story) writes:
>=In article <[email protected]> [email protected] writes:
>=>Greg:Flame definitely intended here. Bill was making fun of the misspelling.
>=>Go look up the word "krill." Also, the correct spelling is Kirlian. It
>=>involves taking photographs of corona discharges created by attaching the
>=>subject to a high-voltage source, not of some "aura." It works equally well
>=>with inanimate objects.
>=
>=True.. but what about showing the missing part of a leaf? Is this
>="corona discharge"?
>
>Yup. The demonstration to which you refer consists of placing a leaf between
>the plates, and taking a Kirlian photograph of it. You then cut off part of
>the leaf, put the top plate back on, and take another Kirlian photograph. You
>see pretty much the same image in both cases. Turns out the effect isn't
>nearly so striking if you take the trouble to clean the plates between
>photographs. Seems that the moisture from the leaf that you left on the place
>conducts electricity. Surprise, surprise!
This is true, but it's not quite the whole story. There were
actually some people who were more careful in their methodology
who also replicated the 'phantom leaf effect.'
One of the most influential critics of Kirlian Electrophotography
is a Theosophist (and threfore presumably willing to entertain the
hypothesis of scientific evidence for a human aura, electromagnetic
or otherwise), professor of electrical engineering at London's
City University, and a past president of the Society for Psychic Research
named A. J. Ellison.
After years of studying the method and the claims, Ellison
came to the conclusion that the photographic images are what we
calls 'Lichtenberg Figures,' an effect of intermittent ionization of
the air around the object. It's a bit more complicated than
'not wiping off the plates,' but it comes down to the same thing
in the end, Kirlian electrophotography has much more limited
value (if any) than was previously widely thought. Electrical and
magnetic fields generated by the body are much too small to be
of much use diagnostically without very elaborate equipment and
usually also tracer chemicals.
kind regards,
todd
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