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A COURSE IN MIRACLES A completed self-study spiritual thought system that was channeled through Helen Schucman between 1965 and 1972. It consists of a Text, Manual for Teachers and Workbook for Students and teaches that all humans share a capacity for love, forgiveness, compassion and peace. Rather than trying to change the world, it teaches, you must change yourself and your view of the world. Miracles are defined as a shift in perception from fear to love. It also emphasis that it is but one version of the universal curriculum, of which there are 'many thousands'. Consequently, even though its language is that of traditional Christianity, the course expresses a nonsectarian, nondenominational spirituality.

ABSENT HEALING Healing that results from sending healing thoughts, visualization, prayers or energy towards some distant person or persons. It is based on the belief that all beings are interconnected by a universal life force or energy and that healing thoughts send out subtle energetic charges into this web of interconnection and out to the person being thought about.

Aside from countless personal accounts from those who have benefited from absent healing, American doctor Larry Dossey conducted several double blind trials to test the effectiveness of absent healing in the early 1990's. At the end of the trials the groups that had been the object of prayer showed greater improvement in health than the control groups.

Scientists are now proposing that psychokenisis is at the basis of healing be this self healing or healing by another person focusing positive intention on another individual. See healing for a more detailed exploration.

ACUPRESSURE Is an ancient Chinese healing method that involves applying pressure to selected points on the body to relieve pain and tension. It is based on the belief that the body has 14 'meridians' that flow through the major organs and carry energy, called chi, throughout the body. Acupressure is an alternative medicine technique that deals with all the aspects of a person - body, emotions, mind and spirit - as one whole rather than as separate parts.

ACUPUNCTURE An ancient Chinese healing system and alternative medicine technique that involves inserting and stimulating particular points on the body with fine needles. Acupuncture, like acupressure, is built on the theory that there are special 'meridian' points on the body connected to the body's internal organs and that 'vital life energy' [chi] flows along these meridian line. According to this theory, disease is caused by interrupted energy flow; inserting the needles restores normal flow.

AFTERLIFE [also know as life after death] is the continuation of existence beyond this world There are various sources for this belief but most for this is the testimony of individuals who claim knowledge of the afterlife because they have

• Died and returned [near death-experience]
• Visited the afterlife when they were unconscious [out of body experience]
• Seen the afterlife in vision
• Remembered the afterlife for a pervious existence [reincarnation]
• Been visited by a representative of the afterlife such as angels of spirits
• Believe the testimonial of shamans or intermediaries between the living and the afterlife.

Almost every society know to us has some belief in survival after death, although these conceptions vary enormously.

Christian ideas heavenly influenced by nineteenth century spiritualist authors life Andrew Jackson Davis, who dictated his lectures in trance. Davis suggested that after their death, humans continue spiritual progress through a series of spiritual spheres until they reach the seventh sphere and become with the infinite vortex of live and wisdom.

AFFIRMATION A positive phrase or sentence that through frequent repetition uses the power of your mind to create a truth or reality. Even though you may not be consciously aware that you are doing it, everyone uses affirmations [i.e. positive self talk] to boost confidence and motivation at some time or other.

Affirmations are powerful verbal messages repeated over and over again, so that they come embedded in your brain and create new pathways of thought and action. In other words they provide your intuition with new avenues for insight and opportunity and prepare your mind for change. Once the mind is prepared for change and new opportunities it is thought to be far easier to create those opportunities.

Affirmations are typically used by men and women in sport and business but they can be useful for any career or life skill where goal setting and mental strength is crucial. Going in to 'The Zone' is an approach adopted by man sports trainers to help their students enter and sustain the winning mind view. Psychotherapists and motivational speakers like myself as well as life coaches tend to use them as tools to help empower their clients and build self esteem, and alternative medicine as well as increasingly more enlightened main stream doctors and health care practitioners suggest the use of affirmations to encourage the body's self healing processes. In this setting the term entering 'The Field' creates the self same effect as carried out by sports coaches. The key to both entering and sustaining a connection with either 'The Zone' or 'The Field' is to shift attention away from outside influences and make a connection through the intuitive self with that bigger, non-physical aspect of self. I believe it was Buzz Aldrin, who viewing earth from the moon returned and said how his mind set and subsequent life style changed completely. Here, as I read and reflect on his self report of such a transformational event, I think of the term 'mindstlye' which I created a few years ago to define a simple yet powerful shift in consciousness resulting in a powerful connection.

ALCHEMY The term alchemy, commonly believe to attempts to change base metals into gold, covers a wide range of topics - from the discovery of a single cure for all diseases to the quest for immortality, from the creation of artificial life to straightforward descriptions of scientific techniques. Broadly, one could describe alchemy as the art of converting that wish is base, both in the material and spiritual world, into something more prefect. Symbolically, alchemy is the mystical art for human spiritual transformations into a higher form of being.

The spiritual teachings of alchemy were based on the idea that humans have a spirit or soul as well as a physical body, and it was thought that if the spirit could be compressed or concentrated, the secret of changing one aspect of nature into another could be discovered. The elusive catalyst that allowed this change to take place is known as the philosophers stone, which is not a stone but a powder or liquid that turned base metal into gold and, when swallowed, gave everlasting life.

Alchemists are often pictured as stirring a bubbling concoction of base metal on a fire, hoping it will turn into gold. However, not all alchemists were like this, and some of the best minds of the last twenty or so centuries have studied alchemy as a way to unlock the secrets of nature.

Alchemy probably first emerged in ancient Egypt and China. In China it was purported to transmute base metals into gold, and the gold so produced was thought to have the ability to cure disease and prolong life. In Egypt the methods of transmutation were kept secret by temple priests. Western alchemy has its basis in the skills of those Egyptian priests, Eastern mysticism and the Aristotelian theory of the composition of matter. Aristotle, following the theory of Empedocles, taught that all matter was composed of four elements: water, fire, earth and air. Different materials found in nature contained different ratios of these four elements, and so by proper treatment the base metal could be turned to gold.

In the eighth and ninth centuries, Chinese, Greek, and Alexandrian alchemical lore entered the Arab world. Arabian alchemists postulated that all metals were composed not of four elements but of two: sulphur and mercury. They also adopted the Chinese alchemists concept of a philosophers stone - a medicine that could turn a sick [base] metal into gold and act as the E1 or elixir of life - and so begun a never ending quest for this elusive catalyst.

Arab alchemical treatises were popular in the Middle Ages. Indirectly, through Arabic, Greek manuscripts were translated into Latin, and alchemical explanations of the nature of matter can be found in the treatises of such scholars as Albertus Magnus [c.1200-1280] ad Roger Bacon [c.1214-1292].

Before the scientific revolution, alchemists were respected figures on the European scene, and Kings and nobles often supported them in the hope of increasing their revenue [a little like the situation we face now in regard to pharmaceutical companies ???] but among the sincere were charlatans and swindlers, and their fraudulent activities led to alchemy getting a bad name. Even as late as 1783 a chemist called John Price claimed he had turned mercury into gold. When he was asked by the Royal Society to perform the experiment in public, he reluctantly agreed. On the appointed day, however, he drank some poison and died in front of the invited audience.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many practical alchemists, like Paracelsus, the first European to mention zinc and the use the word 'alcohol', turned from trying to make gold towards preparing medicine. The story is told of a seventeenth century chemist who claimed he had the found the elixir of life in the waters of a mineral spring. This substance has since been identified as the laxative sodium sulphate.

After the scientific revolution in the seventeenth century, alchemy became marginalised, and interest in the transmutation became limited to astrologers and numerologists. Nevertheless, the scientific facts that had been accumulated by alchemists in their search for gold because the basis for modern chemistry. In the West, interest in the spiritual dimension of alchemy was rekindles in the mid-twentieth century through the work of psychiatrist Carl Jung on alchemical spirituality.

Today genuine alchemists see the universe as a unity and believe that by exploring the infinite workings of its parts they can better understand the whole. The symbolism of turning base metal into gold represents exactly what they are trying to do within themselves - refine themselves spiritually - and it could be said that alchemists are simply taking a more scientific approach to the age old quest of 'know thyself'.

ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS [ASC] The term 'altered state of consciousness' was coined by parapsychologist Charles Tart [b.1937], and it refers to a shift in the pattern of consciousness or normal waking state, for example during hypnosis, trance or dream state, when the conscious mind is subdued and the unconscious takes over.

States of consciousness take place in four levels of brain wave activity: beta, alpha, theta and delta. Beta level is complete waking consciousness. Alpha level is where material from the subconscious is available to the mind, as in meditation or day dreaming. The theta level is equivalent to light sleep, as state of unconsciousness in which one is vaguely aware of what is going on around one. The delta level is deep sleep.

Many ASCs can be differentiated, ranging from dreaming to trance to mystical states of consciousness, such as that experienced during shamanic state. ASCs can occur spontaneously or can be induced through disciplines such as Yoga, Zen and other forms of meditation, prayer and magical techniques. They can also be induced through chanting, dancing, fasting, sex, hypnosis, trauma and sleep deprivation.

Orthodox science largely rejects the experiences and knowledge gained from ASCs, many of which are intensely spiritual in nature, but scientific research has been effective in the areas of dreams, meditation, biofeedback and drug-induced states. Laboratory tests since the early 1950s on ASC induced techniques such as relaxation, hypnosis and meditation have also been show to enhance psi function, especially extrasensory perception [or ESP].

ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE Medical or health practice based on unconventional principles, methods, theory, practice, treatments and knowledge - unconventional in that they are not in line with standard, traditional or orthodox medical practice and scientific beliefs. If the alternative therapy is offered alongside orthodox medicine it is called complementary medicine.

Alternative medicine is often [but not always] based upon metaphysical belief. Some of the most popular alternative techniques that incorporate metaphysical beliefs include acupressure, acupuncture, aromatherapy, body cleansing, bodywork, chelation therapy, chiropractic, craniosacral therapy, energy medicine, electro - diagnosis, herbalism, holistic medicine, homeopathy, iridology, macrobiotics, naturopathy, osteopathy, polarity therapy, psychic healing, reflexology, Reiki, Rolfing, subliminal tapes, therapeutic touch and traditional Chinese medicine.

APPARITION The supernatural appearance of a person, animal or object too far away to be seen felt or heard by normal senses. Contrary to popular belief, most apparitions are of the living not the dead, but apparitions of the dead are also called ghosts.

Only a small number of apparitions are visual; most apparition experiences feature noises, unusual smells, extreme cold or heat and the displacement of objects.

Every civilization and throughout history from around the world has held beliefs about apparitions. Among Asian peoples belief in ancestral ghosts is strong, and rituals exist to hone and placate them, as the spirits of the loved ones are thought to interfere regularly in the affairs of the living and are credited for both good and bad fortune. The ancient Hebrews, Greeks and Romans believed that spirits of the dead could return to haunt the living.

During the Dark Ages people believed in all manner of apparitions: daemons, vampires and devil dogs. Around this time the Christian Church taught that ghosts were soul trapped in purgatory until the expedited their sins, the only apparitions that were whole and permitted by God were apparitions of religious figures, such angels, saints and Jesus. All other apparitions, including spirits of the dead, were delusions created by Satan to confuse the living.

In seventeenth century Europe apparitions of the dead played an important role as advisors to the living. Belief in ghosts fell out of favour in the eighteenth century returning in the nineteenth with spiritualism, which espouses survival after death and mediumistic contact with the dead. Many motifs of apparitions appear in the folklore of different cultures, such as the Flying Dutchman or the Ankou.

According to a study of apparitions by American psychical researcher Hornell Hart, published in 1956, there is no significant difference between apparitions of the living and of the dead. Apparitions can move through solid matter and appear and disappear abruptly. They can cast shadows. Some are corporeal and lifelike in their movement and speech while others are luminous or limited in movement and speech. Apparitions are typically dressed in clothing of their time. The majority of apparitions are thought to manifest for a reason, for instance, to communicate a crisis or death, give a warning, offer comfort or convey important information. Some haunting apparitions appear in places where emotional traumas have taken place, such as murders or battles, but other haunting seem to be aimless.

Systematic studies of apparitions began with the Society for Psychical Research, London, in the late nineteenth century. By the 1980s polls in the United States conducted by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Council showed a dramatic increase - around 78 per cent - in reported apparitions, perhaps due in part to changing public attitudes towards acknowledging paranormal experiences.

Although many ghost investigators have their own categories, the following are the most typical:

• Crisis apparitions: usually images that appear in moments of crisis to communicate death or danger. • • •
• They typically appear to a person who has close emotional ties to the agent [the person who is the source of the apparition].
• Apparitions of the dead: manifestations of someone who has died, usually within a short time of death, to comfort a loved one or communicate important    information.
• Collective apparitions: manifestations of the living or dead that occur to multiple witnesses. • • • • •
• Approximately one third of reported apparitions are witnessed collectively.
• Reciprocal apparitions: apparitions of the living in which both agent and the recipient [the person who experiences the apparition]. Separated by   distance, experience apparitions of each other simultaneously
• Deathbed apparitions visual images of divine beings, religious figures and dead loved ones that are reported by the dying in the last moments of life
• Apparitions in cases of suggestive of reincarnation cases when the deceased appears in a dream to a member of the family in to which it will be reborn.   Such dreams occur frequently among Native American tribes of the Northwest and in Turkey, Burma and Thailand.

A large number of theories have been put forward to explain apparitions, but none explain all the different types. Society for Psychical Research founders Edmund Gurney and Frederick Myers at first believed apparitions were mental hallucinations that had no physical reality, either produced by telepathy from the dead to the living or projected out of the percipient to others around him or her. However, telepathy among the living does not explain why witnesses in collective sightings notice different details.

Myers, who believed strongly in survival after death, began to doubt the telepathic theory as early as 1885. In his landmark book 'Human Personality and Its Survival after Death' (1903), he suggested that the apparitions consisted of a 'phantasmogenic centre', a locus of energies that could be perceived by the most psychically sensitive people. He conceived of a 'subliminal consciousness', as the basis from which the consciousness springs and which survives the body after death. He theorized that the subliminal consciousness was receptive to extrasensory input and that apparitions appeared to psychically receptive people.

Other theories that have been advanced subsequently about apparitions suggest they are:

• Idea patterns or etheric images produced by the subconscious mind of the living
• Astral or etheric bodies of the agents
• An amalgam of personality patterns, which in the case of hauntings are trapped on a psychic or psi field
• Projections of the human unconscious, a manifestation of an unacknowledged need or guilt
• Vehicles through which the 'I', the thinking consciousness, takes on a personality as well as a visible form
• Projections of will and concentration: see thought form
• True spirits of the dead
• Localised physical phenomena directed by an intelligence or personality

An additional viewpoint put forward by others is that apparitions are recordings or imprints of vibrations impressed upon some sort of psychic either. In Eastern mystical philosophy, the cosmos is permeated by a substance called the Akasha. Oxford philosopher H.H Price called this substance 'psychic ether', a term adopted by some psychical researchers to suggest that if all events are recorded on some invisible substance, then perhaps psychically tuned people can get glimpses of these records and get a playback. For more details see Akashic Records.

It is unlikely that any one theory can explain all apparitions, and it is conceivable that some apparitions are created by the living, that some have their own reality, that some are hallucinations and that some are psychic recordings.

Twentieth century psychical researcher Andrew Mackenzie suggested that the ability to have hallucinations could be a function of personality. In his studies he found that one third of cases occurred just before or after sleep, or when the percipient was woken in the night. Other experiences took place when the witness was in a state of relaxation or doing routine works such as housework, or concentrating on some activity such as reading a book. Only when the external world was shut out was the unconscious able to release impressions, which sometimes took the form of an apparition.

English psychical researcher G. Tyrrell also made this link between dreamlike states and sightings of apparitions. Tyrell theorised that there were two stages in a hallucinatory experience. In stage one the witness unconsciously experiences the apparition, and in stage two the information from stage one is processed from the unconscious in dreams or hallucinations with the required details added, such as clothing and objects.

APPLIED PSI Also known as applied parapsychology and psionics, applied psi is a branch of parapsychology that assumes psychic ability exits and seeks ways to apply it in everyday life.

Applied psi is used today when anyone acts on his or her intuition to make a decision. Experimental studies of applied psi date back to the eighteenth century, but it wasn't until the twentieth century that the discipline was seriously explored. In 1963 the Newark College of Engineering in New Jersey became one of the first engineering centres in the US to explore psi ability in people. Researchers found that successful people use psi and precognition daily in their jobs in the form of intuition, hunches and gut feelings. In the early 1980s American parapsychologist Jeffrey Mishlove urged parapsychologists to assume that psi existed and to focus on ways to use it in everyday life. By 1984 applied psi did become an informal part of a number of fields, including archaeology, agriculture, executive decision-making, scientific discovery, military intelligence, criminal investigations and weather predictions. However, over subsequent years the erratic nature of psi made it an unreliable tool.

Some experiments raised interesting questions as to how effective applied psi can be when it comes to making financial investments. It is not uncommon for people to place a bet or buy and sell stock on gut instinct. Experiments, such as one conducted by the St Louis Business Journal in 1982, compared the results of a group of experienced brokers with a psychic. The stocks picked by the brokers fell in value, but the ones picked by the psychic rose. Despite such successes, however, widespread use of applied psi in the stock market has never materialised - if it did it would probably spell the end of the stock market, thriving as it does on unpredictability and chance.

ARCHEYPES Psychiatrist Carl Jung first used this term in 1919 to refer to apparently universal images which are inherited from our ancestors. Archetypes are unconscious instinctual patterns of mental images that are passed down to us all but are modified according to individual experience. Interpretations of archetype images have been applied in many fields, such as past life therapy, psychotherapy, tarot, women's studies, mythology, astrology, the healing professions and even sales and marketing.

According to Jung, archetypes are unlimited in number and created by the repetition of experiences that are imprinted on the psychic mind. When a situation occurs that corresponds to an archetype, the archetype is triggered and instinct takes over. God, death, birth, power, magic, the sun, the moon, the wind, animals and the elements are all archetypes, as are the figures of the hero, the lover, the judge, the child, the mother and the father. Archetypes develop and change as an individual grows and encounters new situations, archetypes communicate with the conscious mind, and it is possible to gain insight into oneself by paying attention to the archetypal forces at a particular time in ones life. Jung believed that archetypes were psychic forces that demand to be taken seriously: if neglected they could lead to compulsion, neurosis and illness.

Jung thought that the existence of archetypes could be proved through dreams and through imagination, and by understanding your dreams you learn what you need to move forward with your life.

ARRIVAL CASES The appearance of a person before their actual arrival. Frequently the arriving phantom appears in the same clothing the individual is wearing at the same time. The individual is usually not aware of appearing in a distant location until told about it.

Arrival cases were collected and studied by the founders of the Society for Psychical Research in the early twentieth century. They collected their evidence in their exhaustive survey 'Phantasms of the Living' [1918].

Arrivals have claimed to eat, sleep and seem so real that anyone could believe it was a double [doppelganger] of the real person. The most likely explanation of arrival cases is that the individual somehow projects a double, which is perceived as real, perhaps as an out of body projection [bilocation] or as a psychic projection of inherent desire to be in that different place. Other researchers think that arrival cases are a quirk of time duplicating itself.

ASTRAL BODY Various esoteric traditions talk about the many bodies - the different levels of consciousness and existence - that each person has. Some people think of these different aspects as 'subtle bodies' or selves that exist in a parallel plane but are all part of a larger consciousness. This theory suggests that the body itself does not contain these aspects. Rather, this larger consciousness contains the body, as well as other levels of existence, and you can learn to create a closer connection to any of these aspects within yourself.

A commonly recognised 'extra' self is the astral body. The word 'astral' is derived from the Greek for 'star'. The astral body can also be called a double or doppelganger, because it is a duplicate of the physical body. Theosophists refer to it as the 'etheric' or 'spiritual double' containing the soul and made from the vibrations that make the up physical body.

The astral body is thought to exist on the astral plane, also known as the astral realm, astral world or astral sphere, and in metaphysical terminology the astral plane is contiguous in space, if not in time, with the material world. The astral realm is the one that the spiritual part or astral body enters during periods of sleep, under the action of anaesthetics or drugs, by accident when a person is unconscious, or immediately after death. The astral realm is not normally visible to ordinary sight, yet it is regarded as the proper dwelling of people's higher spiritual bodies.

According to shamans and Theosophists the astral body or second self resembles the physical body but is made up of a subtle field of shining and flexible light that encases the body, visible only by a psychically sensitive person. It is thought that when you are sleeping the astral body can separate from the physical body, which results on flying dreams and the experience of disorientation experienced if you wake suddenly and the astral body hasn't had time to line up with the physical one. Driven by emotions, passions and desires, the astral body is believed to be a bridge between the physical brain and a higher level of mind.

ASTRAL PLANE According to occultists the astral plane is an alternate and non-physical dimension of reality that can be visited during astral projection or out of body experiences. The word 'astral', from the Greek word meaning 'star, described the heavens of the Greek gods, but as time passed the concept expanded to refer to a spirit world inhabited by etheric entities, disembodied spirits and higher beings.

The astral world is believed to be invisible to the ordinary eye because it vibrates at a higher rate than the energy that comprises the material world. However, occultists believe that it can be perceived through astral projection and clairvoyance and it is a world just as real as ours. It has scenery, inhabitants, countries and seas and is subject to laws of nature and constant change just as the physical world is.

Modern psychologists argue that accounts of trips to a strange and alien dimension spring from the imagination, but according to occult theory the astral plane is undeniably real. It is an invisible level of reality between the physical plane and the divine realms where communication with higher beings can be established and where the individuals thought forms take on a reality.

ASTRAL PROJECTION / ASTRAL TRAVEL The astral body is believed to be capable of a very special type of travel. While leaving the physical body at rest, it can get up, walk around and look at its physical body, explore its surroundings and journey to new places. What makes this experience unique is that you are fully conscious and in control throughout the experience.

This process of consciously leaving the body and travelling free of physical constrains it often referred to as astral projection or astral travel. Although the terms are often used interchangeably, experts define astral projection as becoming aware that your consciousness is separate from your physical body. For instance, people describe floating above themselves and viewing their bodies during astral projection. With astral travel an individual uses this conscious awareness to experience a sense of flying to new, non-physical or physical realms.

How the mind disconnects from its everyday type of consciousness and separates from the body remains a mystery. Experts agree that having a relaxed focus, such as in meditation or when you are just about to fall asleep, helps you to reach that stage, as concentrating too hard on achieving the experience may interfere with the process.

ATLANTIS The name of a vast island continent and the many civilizations that flourished upon it that sank under the sea in a cataclysm. At least fifty locations around the globe have been proposed as sites of the lost continent, but no proof has ever been found of its existence.

There are numerous legends about the Atlanteans and how their highly advanced civilization was destroyed by their misuse of power, but the story was first recorded by Plato in around 350 BC. Plato described the Atlanteans as a wealthy, successful, politically advanced and military powerful society that overran Europe with it armies before being defeated by the Greeks. Shortly afterwards an earthquake caused Atlantis to sink beneath the ocean.

The modern myth of Atlantis began 1882 with the publication of 'Atlantis: The Antediluvian World' by former American congressman Ignatius Donnelly. Donnelly proposed that Atlantis might be located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, to serve as a bridge and source of culture to other areas around the globe.

Numerous other theories have been put forth. The Atlanteans have been linked to the Titans of Greek mythology, the first race of beings on earth who came from the sea and possessed the power to create thunderbolts, earthquakes and terrestrial disturbances. Madame Blavatsky, mystic and co founder of the Theosophical Society, believed that Atlantis was located in the North Atlantic Ocean and that the Atlanteans were psychically developed descendants from another legendary lost continent, Lemuria. The Lemurians migrated to Atlantis when their own continent was destroyed. In 'The History of Atlantis' [1926], Lewis Spencer, who founded and edited The Atlantis Quarterly, a journal reporting on Atlantean and occult studies, concluded that Atlantis existed on both sides of the Atlantic and was the means of dissemination of culture from East to West.

Another medium Edgar Cayce believed Atlantis was located at Bimini, one of the Bahaman Islands off the coast of Florida. Cayce said that the Atlanteans had misused the forces of nature and destroyed their own continent and that in subsequent reincarnations Atlanteans exhibited the same potentially destructive traits.

Of all the worlds unsolved mysteries, that of the lost continent of Atlantis is probably the biggest, exerting influence over humankind for thousands of years. Even though centuries have passed, and scientists and scholars seem intent on banishing it to obscurity, however interest in the fabled continent has not diminished and probably never will.

AURA The name given to the subtle envelope of vital energy that is thought to radiate round natural objects, including human beings, animals and plants. The colours and forms of each aura are believed to be characteristic of the person, animal or thing it surrounds and to fluctuate and shift according to mood and state of health.

The aura is normally invisible, but it can be seen by clairvoyants as a halo of light and colour. Two clairvoyants viewing the same aura might see different colours or interpret it in different ways. State of health and a persons emotions show up as difference in colours and energy patterns or breaks in aura. Physical illness seems related to the part of the aura that is closest to the body, often called the etheric body. Some psychics see the aura as a psychic screen for the projection of information, past, present and future.

Although the body does have a magnetic field- a biofield - there is no scientific evidence that auras exist [kileran photography does show the field but modern science has yet to accept] however the belief that the human body emits radiations of a kind that in certain circumstances become visible has been encountered for centuries and was present in ancient Egypt, India, Greece and Rome. In the sixteenth century, discourses on the astral body and its 'fiery aura' abound, and in the eighteenth century the theory of animal magnetism was developed by Anton Mesmer, who promoted a variety of scientific experiments to try to identify the phenomenon.

Just before World War I, Dr Walter Kilner from St Thomas's Hospital in London developed a method to view auras, which he claimed appears as a faint haze around the body, using an apparatus that rendered ultraviolet light visible. His theory of auric diagnosis of illness linked the appearance of an aura to a patient's health. Kilners work was greeted with scepticism and interrupted by the outbreak of hostilities. In 1939, Semyon Davidovich Kirlian, a Russian electrician, developed a technique that he claimed recorded auras on film, but this technique remains to be verified.

Auras, like parking places, are easy to find when you aren't looking for them, so if you want to see an aura, you need to feel as relaxed and calm as possible. Then instead of looking directly at someone, look straight past them and casually glance in their direction, allowing your eyes to loose focus. The ideas is to trick your rational brain by deliberately putting a lot of your concentration on something else, but to keep a vague focus on the person whose aura you want to read.

With practice you may see a dim haze of energy around someone. Keep breathing deeply, and the aura may brighten to a colour. Don't expect people to light up like a Christmas tree and stay that way. Visions of auras tend to be lightening quick, but the more you practice the more natural it will feel and the more likely it is for colour to become noticeable.

AUTOMATIC WRITING The most common for of automatism automatic writing is writing that does not come from the conscious mind and is done in an altered state of consciousness. Some attribute it to spiritual beings who are somehow able to manipulate a writing utensil in order to communicate. Psychical researchers believe automatic writing emanates from material in the persons subconscious mind or is obtained through ESP.

Many people try automatic writing in an effort to make contact with spirits or to communicate with the dead. Typically the writers is unaware of what is being written and the writing is much faster, larger and expansive than their normal handwriting. Some people experience tingling in the arms or hands. Pens are a common tool, but slates and typewriters may also be used. Automatic writers have been known to produce mirror scripts, starting at the bottom right of the page and finishing at the top left. At the height of spiritualism automatic writing was common in séances, and it replaced the much slower methods of spelling out messages from spirits with table rapping's and pointers.

In some cases automatic writing occurs involuntarily. Through automatic writing, mediums have claimed to produce messages not just from deceased relatives or loved ones but from famous persons in history, but one of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research found little evidence that spirits communicated through automatic writing but, curiously, after his death several mediums claimed to receive automatic writing messages from him.

While psychical researchers continue to investigate automatic writing as evidence for the existence of the spirit world, the field of psychology has adopted automatic writing. Psychologists use it as a way for the unconscious mind to express thoughts and feelings that cannot be verbalised. Automatic writing continues to be used as a therapeutic tool to this day. Some critics warn of dangers of automatic writing - they claim that the writer is vulnerable to harassment from the evil minded dead. However, psychologists maintain that the real dander is in exposing material from the unconscious that has been repressed.

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