Talk:Aura (paranormal)/Archive 2

This talk article was duplicated from aura.

I just removed some of the article because the language it used was POV from the New Age perspective (i.e, it assumed that auras were real). Feel free to put it back if you can cite a source and reword it to be NPOV. --218.101.24.11 08:09, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Removed from the article

List of persons reported to be able to see auras
Just for references.--Jondel 02:13, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Edgar Cayce
 * Joseph Ostrom added by Lottie 12:34, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Older origins of aura beliefs?
I wonder if anyone knows anything about origins of the aura belief. Most New Age beliefs I'm familiar with go back to concepts from old mythologies, philosophies or belief systems. But I haven't found anything relating to "aura". Can anyone help me out on this? AdamDobay 08:27, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Auras as audio frequencies stupidity remove
I have removed the following paragraph from the article, because, frankly, it feels like who wrote it had no idea what they are talking about. If the frequency of a dark blue aura is 200 Hz, it would be a sound (220Hz is A in the second octave), not a colour invisible to the naked eye. These are not even high frequencies, as humans can perceive sound waves between about 20Hz and 20000Hz. See Audio Frequency for more. AdamDobay 09:52, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Perhaps the strongest evidence that Auras exist comes from Dr. Valerie Hunt who correlated high frequency sounds with the observations of several aura readers. After doing a fourier frequncy analysis here are her results:


 * Arrr, sound and electromagnetic waves are completely seperate. I don't know what the devil you're talking about. I support keeping this crap out, though, since it lacks verifiability. -- Consumed Crustacean | Talk | 16:51, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Maybe the decimal point was in the wrong place, like maybe if it was converted from different units of measure? --Classic8uranus 20:33, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


 * It doesn't matter. We have scientific instruments that can measure both acoustic and electromagnetic frequencies from DC to gigahertz.  If an 'aura' was either audio or electromagnetic, we'd be able to measure it - and we can't.  The question here is not "Is that table correct?" it is: "What instrument was used to measure those numbers?"  If such an instrument exists, Why is it not mentioned?  How does it work?  What is it made of?  Knowing the answer to those questions would answer either (a) this is utterly bogus or (b) place the whole business of aura's firmly into the domain of hard science.  If (as generally claimed) auras are detectable to sensitive humans ONLY - then this table should not exist because humans cannot (unaided) attach numbers like this to sensory phenomena.  If in fact there is an auraometer out there somewhere then its operation needs to be explained in great detail here. SteveBaker (talk) 17:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Good job so far
A sincere thank you to all who have contributed to this article. I find it to be an interesting subject.

That being said, I would like to note my surprize in seeing such a short article paired with such a long discussion page. Geez people, quit talking so much and dish out some information instead.

Also in case you didn't know, and I'm actually trying to be helpful here, the proper way to cite references is to use reference tags. This involves placing a cited source after the statement it pertains to, inside of two &lt;ref&gt; tags. Then under the References section you place a single (self closing) tag &lt;references /&gt;.

Example:


 * This machine doohicky can purportedly photograph Auras.&lt;ref&gt;Super cool book&lt;/ref&gt;&lt;ref&gt;Neato website&lt;/ref&gt;


 * References


 * &lt;references /&gt;

Thank you for the help. I've added some info from a couple of books I have, and have added footnotes and a "Notes" section at the bottom of the page for them. Godshatter 07:38, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposal For External Link
Would like to propose the following for an external link - Yogi Philosophy - The Human Aura Smithville 00:42, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

poi
The image of a person using glow-in-the-dark poi sticks isn't an actual artists interpretation of an aura, and isn't 100% applicable to this page. 66.41.66.213 20:26, 20 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It is a very beautiful image, but has nothing to do with this subject, so it's gone. A kirlian photography image would be more appropriate, even though it too would have nothing to do with auras, but they are at least claimed to be images of them. -- Fyslee 18:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

James Randi specific test removed
The test given conflicts with the writings of Robert Bruce, so would not be valid as a test for the validity of auras. Godshatter 03:51, 15 December 2006 (UTC)


 * From what I've seen of Randi's proposed tests, and that's not a lot, they rarely would work according to most theory on the relevant subject... Certainly explains why no genuine people actually have a go at winning the cash, as they know the test won't actually realistically test their ability. I'd like to find out more.


 * Anyway, I think if Randi's test is going to be included it should be with a quote or some such saying why someone-with-knowledge thinks it's rubbish. Lottie 10:05, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Adding a relevant link for this, I think we're talking about Randi's million dollar challenge in this section of discussion. According to this million dollar challenge section (in Wikipedia), I think I need to disagree a bit with Lottie. It seems like any psychic who could consistently demonstrate their abilities could win the money. On the other hand, the key word seems to be "test" - if there isn't a test to see whether people can detect auras, then it's going to be impossible to get the money. Lisatwo 05:28, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Please, this is an embarrassment. "Someone with knowledge" who "thinks it's rubbish"? There is no such thing as "knowledge" of auras, because there is no such thing as auras, as anyone with actual "knowledge" of the world we live in knows very well. Wikipedia is supposed to be a reputable encyclopedia, not a trashy new-age paperback. Is there a way to restrict these articles to empirical fact, rather than a grab-bag of woo-woo nonsense? MrBronson 13:07, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd just like to point out this small clip I found on YouTube of another James Randi test done on an Aura reader, if it helps contribute to the betterment of this artical. JayPetey 03:15, 8 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The deal with Randi's challenge is that you have to consider all the ways the world could be and the outcomes that would result if that way were true:


 * If there were people who could reliably detect aura's - then surely at least one of them would want to earn $1,000,000 and prove to the world that this was true. Someone would have taken the test, succeeded, walked away with the money and gone on to overturn science and destroy scepticism and earn fame and fortune.  This clearly hasn't happened.
 * If some people BELIEVED they could reliably detect aura's - but could not - then we'd see people (as in the YouTube clip above) coming forward for testing - and failing. However, we know there are crazy people in the world - so this doesn't tell us much other than that such people exist.
 * If there were people who could sometimes detect aura's (significantly better than just chance guessing - but not perfectly) - then it might be tough for them to come up with a solid scientific test that could be agreed with Randi to prove this. A few people have come forward - but all (so far) have failed to show any ability whatever in the face of preliminary testing...but if their skill is patchy - maybe that's expected.
 * If nobody believed that they could do this then everyone who claims to be able to do it would knowingly be a charlatan. If this were the case then it would be surprising if many of them would be willing to undergo scientific testing.  It seems that very few people who claim this ability are willing to try for the $1,000,000 prize - so this is likely to be the case for most of the people who claim the ability.


 * It seems the only things that fit the facts (given the existance the Randi test) are EITHER (a) A very unreliable ability in a few individuals that's too close to chance to be easily testable or (b) Nobody can do this - but some people believe that they can while most are charlatans. Deciding between these two possibilities is difficult without tedious statistical trials (which are VERY easily screwed up by poor scientific methods).  So we are left with the present situation where a few people believe they can do this (reliably enough to convince themselves) - but not reliably enough to prove it to others.  Mainstream science cannot accept that because it violates every known principle of the way the universe works - and extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.  Lack of serious statistical evidence means that the theory becomes a victim of Occam's razor.


 * SteveBaker (talk) 17:13, 9 January 2008 (UTC)