Magick Basics

Energy Fields part 1

Dr. Kim Bonghan links the etheric body and the meridians, suggesting that the meridians are an interface between the etheric human energy field and the physical body. The etheric body creates the meridians, which in turn form the physical body.

Special Energy Fields

There are many different biofields that regulate various mental, emotional, spiritual, or physical functions and these correspond to various parts of the subtle body. The following list of biofields is based on the work of Barbara Ann Brennan and others.

P

hysical field: Lowest in frequency. Regulates the human body.
Etheric field: Blueprint for the physical structure that it surrounds. There is also an etheric human energy field for the soul.
Emotional field: Regulates the emotional state of the organism.
Mental field: Processes ideas, thoughts, and beliefs.
Astral field: A nexus between the physical and spiritual realms. Free of time and space.
Etheric template: Exists only on the spiritual plane and holds the highest ideals for existence.
Celestial field: Accesses universal energies and serves as a template for the etheric fields.
Causal field: Directs lower levels of existence.

The Aura

Scientists have been investigating-and substantiating-the existence of the aura, the human energy field that surrounds our entire body, for over a hundred years, adding to the knowledge our ancestors already possessed. This field consists of multiple bands of energy called auric layers or auric fields, that encompass the subtle body, connecting us to the outside world.

The aura has been known by many names in many cultures. The Kabbalists called it an astral light. Christian artists depicted Jesus and other figures as surrounded by coronas of light. The Vedic scriptures and teachings of the Rosicrucians, Tibetan and Indian Buddhists, and many Native American tribes describe the human energy field in detail. Even Pythagoras discussed the field, which was perceived as a luminous body. In fact, John White and Stanley Krippner, authors of Future Science, list ninety-seven different cultures that reference the human aura, each culture calling it by a different name.

Science has been actively involved in penetrating the mystery of the aura since the early 1800s. During that time period, Belgian mystic and physician Jan Baptist van Helmont visualized it as a universal fluid that permeates everything. The idea of the aura acting like a fluid-or flowing-as well as being permeable has remained consistent throughout history. Franz Mesmer, for whom the term "mesmerism" was coined, suggested that both animate and inanimate objects were charged with a fluid, which he perceived as magnetic, through which material bodies could exert influence over each other, even at a distance. Baron Wilhelm von Reichenbach discovered several properties unique to this human energy field, which he called the odic force, and would later be ascribed to the subtle body.
He determined that it shared similar properties to the electromagnetic field, which had previously been investigated by James Clerk Maxwell, one of the fathers of electricity. The odic human energy field was composed of polarities or opposites, as is the electromagnetic field. In electromagnetism, however, opposites attract. Not so in the odic field, where like attracts like.

Reichenbach also found that the human energy field related to different colors and that it could not only carry a charge, but also flow around objects. He described the field on the left side of the body as a negative pole and the right side as a positive pole, similar to the ideas of Chinese medicine.

These and other theories have revealed the aura to have a fluid or flowing state; to be comprised of different colors, therefore frequencies; to be permeable and penetrable; and to be magnetic in nature, although it also has electromagnetic properties.

Other research has underscored these subtle body theories and expanded one additional element of the auric human energy field: its connection to the inner sanctum of the human being.

For example, in 1911 Dr. Walter Kilner examined the aura with colored filters and a special kind of coal tar. He discovered three zones: a dark layer next to the skin, a more ethereal layer flowing at a perpendicular angle to the body, and a delicate exterior with contours about six inches across. Most important, the conditions of this "aura," as he called it, shifted in reaction to a subject's state of mind and health. In the early part of the 1900s, Dr. Wilhelm Reich furthered our knowledge of the human energy field and its qualities through experiments studying a universal energy that he named "orgone."

During his studies, he observed energy pulsing in the sky and surrounding all animate and inanimate objects and beings. Many metaphysicians believe that orgone is equivalent to chi or prana. He also noticed that areas of congestion could be cleared to release negative mental and emotional patterns and thus affect change. This emphasized the connections between the subtle and the physical energies as well as emotional and mental energies.

To be continued in part 2