Aura guide
What is an aura?
An aura is a traditional idea: a subtle field of energy said to surround every living being. Here is what traditions say, how practitioners work with it, and what science has found.
- Traditional belief
- Practitioner method
- Customer-reported experience
- Experimental evidence
- Established science
In traditional terms
Traditional belief
Indian yogic and tantric traditions describe prana, a life force that flows through channels (nadis) and gathers at centres (chakras). Many traditions, in India and elsewhere, also describe a luminous field around the body. In Theosophical writing of the late 19th and early 20th centuries this field was called the aura and described in layers and colours.
How practitioners describe it
Practitioner method
Aura practitioners describe the aura in colours, layers and balance, and link changes in it to mood, stress and life circumstances. Readings are made by observation, from photographs and through trained intuition. Different schools use different colour meanings, so two readings can describe the same person differently.
The aura colour wheel
Explore how many practitioners describe the seven aura colours. These are interpretations within a practice — schools differ, and no instrument measures them.
How many aura practitioners describe the seven colours:
- 1. Red Often described by practitioners as energy, drive and being grounded in the body and daily life.
- 2. Orange Often linked with creativity, warmth and enjoying the company of others.
- 3. Yellow Often linked with optimism, curiosity and an active, thinking mind.
- 4. Green Often linked with growth, balance and care for others.
- 5. Blue Often linked with calm, honesty and clear communication.
- 6. Indigo Often linked with intuition, reflection and inner focus.
- 7. Violet Often linked with imagination, meaning and spiritual interest.
What people tell us
Customer-reported experience
A reading may give someone words for how they are feeling, or a prompt to rest, reflect or change a habit. Such experiences are personal and can be valuable, but they are not evidence that an aura exists or that a reading is accurate.
What experiments show
Experimental evidence
In a well-known blinded test, 21 experienced touch-therapy practitioners tried to sense which of their hands was near an investigator’s hand; they were right 44% of the time, close to chance (Rosa et al., JAMA 1998). No independent, blinded study has shown that an instrument can measure a human aura as traditions describe it.
What about aura photographs?
Experimental evidence
Kirlian photography, gas discharge visualisation (GDV) and “polychromatic interference” photography produce striking coloured images, and they are often presented as pictures of the aura. Kirlian and GDV images record a small electrical discharge around the skin. A review of these techniques explains the images with concepts from the physical sciences and finds no reliable evidence that they image an aura or reveal health (Duerden, 2004). A 2023 systematic review of GDV studies concluded that more robust research and clinical validation are still needed (Bista et al., 2023).
What established science says
Established science
The body does produce measurable physical signals — heat, tiny electrical currents and magnetic fields from the heart and brain. These are studied with medical instruments and are not the same as the aura described by traditions. Some aura-imaging devices turn sensor readings taken from the hands into colours; those colours come from the device’s design, not from a photograph of a field.
How wXonAura uses the idea
We treat the aura as a meaningful traditional language for reflection and wellbeing. Our readings are practitioner interpretations within that tradition. They are never a medical test and do not tell you anything about physical health.
What does “energy” mean here? · Research on aura and biofield traditions · Full Body Aura Scan