The Aura Machine! May 4, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary , trackback
This bit of fun comes from Paul Tabori’s biography of British ghost hunter Harry Price. No date is given. Are we perhaps in the 1930s?
A less sweeping claim was made by a gentleman who had invented a way of testing the human aura!… It seemed that the ‘aura’ machine was a violet-ray apparatus; it was started in the usual manner by connecting it to an electric mains plug – in this case a metal rod was fitted into the now conducting handle. The ‘patient’ held the rod in his hand and of course, his body became charged with static electricity of high voltage. Then the ‘demonstrator of the aura’ took a tube of glass shaped like a sausage, about ten inches long and two inches thick. This he moved about near the patient and at once it started to glow. This, he explained, showed how far the aura extended and how one could tell the state of the patient’s health. The further the tube was moved away from the body, the less it glowed until a point was reached when it went out altogether. Of course, it was a rather childish trick; anyone knowing a little about potential and electric charges could repeat it. The tube was filled with argon and any such tube would glow when within an electric field – the neon signs are based on the same principle.
Apparently there are some modern aura machines on the market (I was pleasantly unsurprised), but can anyone give some more information on the original argon reader: drbeachcombing AT gmail DOT com
