Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!ames!vsi1!wyse!mips!vaso
From: vaso@mips.COM (Vaso Bovan)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Kirlian photography
Summary: Non-psychic phenomenon
Message-ID: <27659@buckaroo.mips.COM>
Date: 16 Sep 89 06:51:56 GMT
References: <3778@uokmax.UUCP> <349@galadriel.bt.co.uk>
Reply-To: vaso@mips.COM (Vaso Bovan)
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 27

In article <349@galadriel.bt.co.uk> pcf@galadriel.bt.co.uk (Pete French) writes:
>
>Kirlian could not explain this, until one day he chanced to look at a
>doll representing the points on the body which are used for acupuncture.
>
>These corresponded to the locations of the rays visible under the
>Kirlian process.
>
>(just thought I'd throw that into the discussion)
>
Since there are hundreds, or thousand of "acupuncture points," (depending on
the cited authority), its not hard to correlate the location of Kirilian
rays with nearby points.

Watkins and Bickel (Dept. of Physics, U. of Arizona, Tucson) have produced
Kirlian images of inanimate objects such as paper clips and brass gears.
(Yes I know, they must have been Shirley McLaine in a previous life).

The W&B paper ("A study of the Kirlian Effect", The Skeptical Inquirer, vol.
10, Spring 1986) notes that all five major claims of Kirlian enthusiasts
can be adequately explained by natural (non-psychic) processes. Their best
guess (they didn't want to waste any more time on these claims), is that
"Kirlian aura is a visual or photographic image of a corona discharge in a
gas [modulated by]...composition of the air, pressure, impurities emanating
from the sample, as well as the voltage and current of the source."  

Thats all.