re krillean photography in article rjr uinnh gap caltech edu carl sol gps caltech edu carl j lydick writes in article apr ultb isc rit edu eas ultb isc rit edu e a story writes in article rgrsvinnmpr gap caltech edu carl sol gps caltech edu 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 todd i stark stark dwovax enet dec com digital equipment corporation philadelphia pa usa a word is the skin of a living thought oliver wendell holmes jr
