This year for my birthday a friend bought me a how to guide on ghost hunting. I was initially fascinated with it, until I lost it in the backseat of my car. Don't ask. Within the first few pages it discussed a very interesting phenomenon and some relevant theories. Kirlian Photography, or the "phantom leaf effect". In 1939, Semyon Kirlian, discovered, while subjecting objects to ,high-frequency, high- voltage, low-amerpage-electric fields, that it created images that seemed to be aura-like. Or the "life force", if you will.

This procedure is done by placing a leaf on a piece of photo paper, then tearing part of it off and photographing what is left. Fascinatingly enough, it will show the whole leaf. In the book the author connected it to the "phantom limb" effect. The supposition being, that if you can photograph the whole leaf when only half of the leaf is there, it must be the energy field of the leaf that you see. People who have had limbs amputated claim to still be able to feel the appendages, which are gone, years after the fact. Could this be because the so called "energy field" which surrounds us never changes its shape, no matter what happens to our bodies?

The author, who's name escapes me at the moment (until I dig through my car), described the "energy field" as that 3 or so feet that we call our personal space; "our bubble". He suggested a test: stand, sit, or lie with your eyes closed and have someone take their hand and place it into your bubble. If you stopped them before they touched you, it meant you were very attuned to your own fields. He then said to try and guess where they had their hands. My best friend Kim volunteered to help me try it out. Every time I could feel her come into my space and always knew where her hands where. But she couldn't always tell. It really made me think of those times when I would yell out at my mom that my brother was touching me, when his finger would be millimeters from my skin. At a later time we both tried it out on a male friend. He knew every time when Kim was about to touch him, but had no clue if I was, even when I ventured....er....down. I let my hand hover a few inches over his, well...he didn't have a clue!

Several things could be surmised from this. I don't give off that much energy and Kim does. Or, Kim isn't aware of her own personal space as it relates to others'.  Or it could be all about our body heat.  Her hands are always hot, where mine are usually cold.

What do you think? Is Kirlian Photography real in its suppositions, or is aural photography a hoax?

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Hi, there, glad you posted!  Wolf Singer, tell us more about your experience with the aura photography. 

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Hello everyone, this is Kim, Nat's best friend, who tried the touch experiment with her. (Gosh, that sounded so dirty!)

Nat and I were discussing this last night and a memory of mine popped up suddenly, after having been dormant for years.

Before my family moved half-way across the state, I had this weird ability-type thing, (I don't want to say "power" or other nonsense) and my mom and other members of my family will vouche for this. I didn't think anything of it at the time.
--It started around the time I was eight years old, after my grandfather died. I could, if I were in a certain mood (and I can't recall what the mood was now), place the tips of my fingers on a person's body (bare skin). Doesn't seem special, I know, but what would happen still freaks me out. When I touched the person's skin, there would be a slight humming-like vibration that both I and the other person could feel. Not strong, but still firm. I don't know what caused it, but an interesting part of it is that it stopped when we moved, and I believe it's because I was broken-hearted. The weirdest thing of all was that the vibration seemed to be the strongest when I was touching my mother. Strange, but not unlikely, since I was eight at the time.

Now, I’ve never told anyone what I’m about to tell you. (Not even Nat—sorry Nat!)

Theory about how it started: I believe I was channeling the energy of my deceased grandfather. My mom had never gotten along with my grandfather. They’d been at odds her whole life. My mom has also since told me stories of the weird things that would happen in the house when she was the only one at home (we lived in my grandparent’s house). The weirdest thing I remember is one night, while doing laundry at home alone, mom walked into the kitchen for something before heading back to the laundry room. She says that while she was in the laundry room, she felt a presence of evil surround her. Sensing that she was in danger, she ran back to the kitchen for safety. When she got to the kitchen, all of the cabinets doors were open, and all of the drawers were pulled out, just like that scene in “The Sixth Sense,” only very real. My mom left the house and didn’t return that night.

I also believe that another reason I could have been channeling my grandfather’s energy was that I was extremely close to him. He died a slow death from bone cancer, and I remember that he grew very weak in a very short period of time. I also remember never touching him when he was sick. The only time I ever touched my grandfather was the night before he died when my family was in the house, saying their goodbyes. I leaned over and gave him a hug, and almost instantly, he got weaker, almost as if he were relinquishing his energy. I didn’t think of it at the time, since I was in mourning. But the first time the vibration-thing happened to me was when we were at the funeral home, viewing the body. I’d never touched a dead body before (that I could remember), so I didn’t really know what to expect, but the first time I touched his hand, I felt the vibration. It wasn’t strong, it was very weak, but it was there. I never thought of this until many many years later when I had the opportunity to touch another corpse, and felt nothing. Now, I won’t tell you my theories as to why my grandfather might have “willed” his energy to me, because it’s extremely personal, but given the facts, I think that it’s the only theory that makes sense (Nat, ask me later for details).

Another factor I didn’t mention was that during all of this death and dying commotion, celestial coincidences were occurring. Within months of my grandfather’s death, the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into Jupiter, but really, was completely inconsequential to my case. The comet that merited the freakishness was Comet Hyakutake, thereafter referred to as Comet H. Comet H was discovered nearly two years to the day after my grandfather’s death. Comet H also happened to be the closest to earth (1/10 of an AU [93 million miles--the distance between the earth and sun]) on my deceased grandfather’s birthday. Comet H was also in the sky the night my mom fled the house for fear. Animals reacted strangely at night when Comet H was visible. Now, Comet H was discovered by a Japanese man, and was speculated NASA scientists to not have been in our solar system for at least a thousand years. Comet H was also found to contain large quantites of the molecules of both ethane (C₂H₆) and methane (CH₄), gases not usually found in comets. NASA also observed for the first time X-Rays emitted from a comet. Finding these usual molecules in a comet suggests that Comet H may be a new type of comet. An abundance of ethane comparable to that of methane implies that Comet H must have experienced very different conditions during its birth than other comets that do not contain these gases. The question now is: is the molecular makeup of Comet H responsible for ghostly happenings and odd animal behavior or is its appearance in our sky simply a coincidence? 

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Cont.'d from before...

That I can’t answer, and I doubt anyone can, but you can judge for yourself from the information I’ve given you. (See http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/comet/hyakutake/ for more info)

I have tried to produce the vibration effect since I’ve been here in Ada (almost ten years), but always to no avail. I’m not sure what it was, the air, the city, the atmosphere, the house, the comet, but I do know that since I left my grandparent’s house ten years ago, I’ve not been able to do it. It could also be the fact that when we moved, our entire family uprooted. It’s possible that since my grandfather’s extended family remained, his spirit could have also remained. But it also seems that after we left, everything that had to do with my grandfather’s extended family seemed to deteriorate, almost immediately. Marriages were ended, a lot of people died, relatives became estranged, houses were destroyed, etc.

Now, during the touch experiment that we tried (see above) earlier, we hypothesized that I had a more established energy field than either Natasha or David, since both could feel my presence when I was more than a few inches away, and I couldn’t feel their presence until they were practically touching me. Could it be that I have an energy field, an aura, rather, that protects me from intruders? Nat once told me of the phenomenon of psychic and touch vampires- persons who, either knowingly or unknowingly, “suck” the energy away from you by means of psychic thought or touch. (See http://whispy.com/psychic-vampires.htm for more info) Nat and I established that I was unknowingly a “touch” vampire, but apparently, I only “drain” the energy out of others that my aura finds offensive, i.e., people I work with, enemies, etc. For example, Nat told me that I didn’t drain her, and I believe it’s because our auras are complementary to one another.

I’m not sure what else I can tell you about the weird things, but I definitely want your input. Post here or you can email me at kimadababe@yahoo.com.

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Part 3

 This is an aside from the posts I added earlier.

 -Stigler, my hometown, is rich in native American history and culture. Stigler is also in very close proximity to Spiro, Natasha’s hometown (the one with all of the burial grounds and haunted happenings). Spiro is special because it is the place where the Choctaw tribe stopped traveling on the Trail of Tears. Stigler, which is not much farther down the road, is also significant because of the settlers (both white and native American) that colonized the area.

-It is also worth pointing out that whilst our hometowns are so close, Natasha and I met in college, hours away from both. (One might argue that we would be destined to meet.)

-On the part about how everything changed with my grandfather’s family after we left: it seems to me now that everytime there was a change, it was always a big enough change to bring at least one member of my family back to Stigler for various reasons, i.e., will readings, divorce court, funerals, etc.

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worth pointing out, that Kim forgot to do... Is that at the time when she first experienced the vibrations, she was only 8 years old.  Just a baby, really.  She made the comment to me on the phone earlier that she might have stopped feeling the vibration because she had reached the "age of accountability".  But I think rather that her innocence, which was undoubtedly lost or trampled on, was effected by circumstances surrounding her grandfather's death, uproot of her family and sickness of her younger sister, which she didn't mention.  These are very traumatic things for anyone to suffer, especially an impressionable child.   Hehehe, and wasn't she such a cutie with her bowl-shaped hair cut!!!

Maybe at the time Kim was trying to give comfort to her mother.  And in the process of the move she was the one who needed comfort and didn't find it.  Kim most definitely needs to touch and be touched by people, and in many ways I think she does receive something beneficial from it.

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