History of HEF Research

Adepts of all religions speak of experiencing light around people's heads. Through meditation and prayer, they reach expanded consciousness that opens latent HSP abilities.

• • Indian tradition (5,000+ years): Prana — the universal energy, breath of life, moving through all forms. Yogis manipulate it through breathing and meditation.
• • Chinese (3rd millennium BC): Ch'i — vital energy composing all matter, containing yin and yang. Balance = health; imbalance = disease. Acupuncture balances yin/yang.
• • Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism, ~538 BC): Refers to the same energies as the "astral light."
• • Christian art: Jesus and saints surrounded by fields of light. (Michelangelo's Moses shows karnaeem as horns rather than the original "beams of light.")

John White lists 97 different cultures that refer to auric phenomena with 97 different names.

The idea of a universal energy pervading all nature has been held by many Western scientific minds.

• Pythagoreans (~500 BC): First recorded the "luminous body" in Western literature. Its light could cure illness.
• Boirac & Liebeault (12th century): Humans have energy that causes healthful or unhealthful effects on others by presence alone.
• Paracelsus (Middle Ages): Called this energy "Illiaster" — composed of vital force and vital matter.
• Helmont (1800s): Visualized a universal fluid penetrating all bodies — a pure vital spirit.
• Leibnitz: The essential elements of the universe are centers of force containing their own wellspring of motion.

Mesmer originated Mesmerism (which became hypnotism). He and Helmont reported that animate and inanimate objects could be charged with "fluid" and that bodies could influence each other at a distance.

Count Wilhelm Von Reichenbach spent 30 years experimenting with the "odic force." Key findings:

• • Similar to electromagnetic fields but with unique properties
• • Like attracts like (opposite to electromagnetism where opposites attract)
• • Poles feel "hot, red, unpleasant" or "blue, cold, pleasant"
• • Conducted through wire at ~4 meters/second (depends on mass density, not electrical conductivity)
• • Part can be focused like light through a lens; part flows around objects like a candle flame
• • Left side of body = negative pole; right side = positive pole (like yin/yang)

Dr. William Kilner (1911): Studied the HEF through colored screens and filters. Described glowing mist around the body in three zones: a dark quarter-inch layer, a vaporous inch-wide layer, and a delicate 6-inch exterior luminosity. Developed a diagnosis system based on color, texture, volume, and appearance.

Drs. De La Warr & Drown (mid-1900s): Built Radionics — instruments to detect radiations from living tissues. Photographed internal disease formations (tumors, cysts, tuberculosis) using the patient's hair as an antenna. Even photographed a three-month-old fetus in utero.

Dr. Wilhelm Reich: Colleague of Freud. Named the universal energy "orgone." Studied disturbances in orgone flow related to physical and psychological illness. Developed psychotherapeutic methods integrating Freudian analysis with physical techniques for releasing blockages. Built "accumulators" to concentrate orgone energy.

Dr. Lawrence & Phoebe Bendit (1930s): Made extensive HEF observations related to health, healing, and soul development. Stressed the importance of etheric formative forces as foundations of health.

Dr. Schafica Karagulla correlated visual observations by sensitives to physical disorders. A clairvoyant named Dianne could describe medical problems — from brain disorders to colon obstructions — by observing the etheric body. Karagulla also correlated chakra disturbance with illness (e.g., an overactive, dull gray throat chakra in Graves' disease).

Dr. Dora Kunz (President of the Theosophical Society) observed that a healthy vital field has a "natural autonomous rhythm," and each organ has a corresponding energetic rhythm. When pathology occurs, rhythms and energy levels change. Surgery creates "impedance mismatching" between adjacent tissues.

Dr. John Pierrakos developed a system of diagnosis and treatment based on HEF observation. Combined it with Bio-Energetics and Eva Pierrakos's conceptual work to create Core Energetics — concentrating on working through ego defenses to unblock body energies and balance all bodies (physical, etheric, emotional, mental, spiritual).

Researchers in this tradition conducted several experiments:

• • With Dr. Richard Dobrin and Dr. Pierrakos: measured light levels at 350nm in a darkroom — slight increase with people present. One exhausted, despairing person actually decreased light.
• • With the UN Parapsychology Club: showed part of the auric field on black-and-white television using a "colorizer" device.
• • At Drexel University with Dr. William Eidson: succeeded in bending/attenuating a 2-milliwatt laser beam with auric energy.

Hiroshi Motoyama (Japan): Measured low light levels from experienced yoga practitioners using a low-light movie camera in a darkroom.

Dr. Zheng Rongliang (Lanzhou University, China): Measured Qi radiated from the human body using a biological detector. The pulse from a Qigong Master differed from that of a clairvoyant.

Shanghai Atomic Nuclear Institute: Found that some vital-force emanations from Qigong masters have a low-frequency sound wave as a carrier. In some cases, Qi was detected as microparticle flow (~60 microns diameter, 20-50 cm/second velocity).

Soviet scientists (Bioinformation Institute, A.S. Popow): Discovered living organisms emit energy at 300-2,000 nanometers — called the "biofield" or "bioplasma." Persons capable of successful bioenergy transfer have wider, stronger biofields. Confirmed by medical academies in Moscow, Great Britain, Netherlands, Germany, and Poland.

The most exciting study in this line of research: Dr. Valorie Hunt at UCLA recorded low millivoltage signals from the body during rolfing sessions, using silver/silver chloride electrodes. Simultaneously, Rev. Rosalyn Bruyere observed the auras and gave a running report of colors, sizes, and energy movements.

Fourier analysis and sonogram frequency analysis revealed: consistent wave forms and frequencies correlated specifically with the colors Rev. Bruyere reported. When she saw blue, the electronic measurements showed the characteristic blue waveform in the same locations.

Hunt stated: "Throughout the centuries in which sensitives have seen and described the auric emissions, this is the first objective electronic evidence of frequency, amplitude and time, which validates their subjective observation of color discharge."

All measurements are consistent with normal physiological processes and go beyond them to provide a vehicle for psychosomatic functioning. The HEF is particulate in nature with fluid-like motion. When charged minute particles move in clouds, physicists call them plasmas — a state between energy and matter.

Many properties suggest a fifth state of matter called "bioplasma" — associated with consciousness, ranging from highly developed to primitive. Highly developed consciousness is associated with higher vibrations and energy levels.