Rural Retreat times. [volume] (Rural Retreat, Va.) 1892-1918, 1911-10-20

2
some change in the distribution of the
bands might mark the passage of the
unknown, mysterious factor from the
frame of the dying man What color
the soul might assume, what space 1t
covered in relation to the body, wheth-
er 1t emanated from the lips or from
the head alone-these were some of
the momentous questions he thought
to settle forever.
But neither the pure white light nor
the spectrum bands told aught of the
body's departing guest. That 1t
showed no refraction to light was not.
after all, surprising. There is one
substance or force in the universe that
is totally devoid of light refraction,
and that is the interstellar ether, the
wonderful, perfectly transparent me-
dunn In which light itself moves I'M
checked and unbent. What If the
soul were ether?
While the revolutionary theory of
the soul as un actual existence of
ting tongues wagging In Boston, pu-
pill of the famous DR.. Walter J. Kill
ner of London, was performing expert
ments just as marvellous in Chicago
Doctor Kilner is believer in the hui
man aura. He holds that every hui
man being is surrounded by an en-
Evelope of a peculiar kind Of light
!. which follows and incloses every con-
| tour of the form. Thus another Inn
agined myth-the halo and encircling
glory that the superstitious ages at
tributed to the saints-may be dem
onstrated by a queer scientific revers-
al as solid reality.
Kilner's pupil in Chicago is Doctor
Patrick S. O'Donnell. He had from
his master a set of slides specially de-
signed to make auras visible. These
are merely bits of glass glued together
with a solution. more or less concen-
Grated, of dark blue dye termed
dicyanin The observer first looks at
his subject through stronger glass.
and then when he has identified the
aura as a nebulous haze surrounding
the subject he transfers to a weaker
glass with less blue pigment, which
shows him the aura as "a distinct
blush gray ring extending complete
ly around the body" After the eye
has thus been accommodated to the
extreme limit of it's vision, the lenses
can be dispensed with altogether and
the unaided, naked sight will discern
by itself the aura's blush glow.
Doctor O'Donnells first demonstra-
tion was merely to establish the fact
of the aura to doubling Thomases.
Twelve prominent Chicago physicians
and Six sisters of the Mercy hospital
witnessed the trials. Most of them
said the demonstration was COM
plete success and that they saw dis
tinctly the bands of light encircling
the bodies of the girl art models who
had consented to pose. Each aura was
visible In three parts. First, next to
the body, a dark band quarter of
an inch wide, which is known as the
etheric double; secondly, the inner
aura or band of light. and finally the
outer aura.
When one of the physicians drew
his hand along the undraped figure
of the subject the aura followed it.
Sister De Lourdes noticed there were
distinct bands of light between the
doctors finger tips and the body of
the model under observation. With
drawal of the hand seemed to pull the
color like putty away from the body.
causing decided change of shape in
the aura, which. however. soon re-
sumed its original position.
Curious as all this is. 1t forms but
prelude to the truly extraordinary
experiment Doctor O'Donnell made
little later. This offers a strange par