The Bridge of Consciousness 

In around 1971 I bought the treatise »The Etheric Body of Man: The Bridge of Consciousness« (the German translation »Die Brücke des Bewusstseins« was published by Adyar Verlag Graz). This work dealt with the vital etheric field of Man. The English nurse Phoebe Bendit-Payne, who had clairvoyant capabilities, and her husband, the physician Laurence J. Bendit, wrote this treatise, in which the processes of the human »vital etheric aura« are described in all states of human life. The book analyses the etheric field of humans in pregnancy, childhood, in adults, as well as in health, disease and death.

    The treatise fascinated me because it was not based on religious beliefs but on scientific methods and studies. Furthermore it described the energy fields which I had felt and perceived since having fasted for three days. All energy fields together are called aura, which was described first by W.J. Kilner, a Council physician and a former staff member of the St. Thomas Hospital in London. He made these fields visible to people with normal perception by using certain chemical filters.

    In the preface of her book Phoebe Bendit-Payne explains what she understands by clairvoyance: “In the physical world one can learn much by observation, but it does not at all follow that what is observed is understood. In using the faculty of clairvoyance one still uses external observation, and sees much that is not necessarily deciphered accurately. All such vision is personal, and not to be confused with spiritual illumination. The evidence of the physical senses can never be accepted as proof of ultimate reality. All extra-sensory perception has to pass through the mind of the percipient and is therefore biased by its mental images, intellectual interests, and the neutral tone and coloring of that mind.”

    The authors describe an aura which surrounds every living beeing and which is hidden from ordinary vision, and which varies in states of health or disease. „The skin only represents a physical limit to the dense body. Outside it there is a region of emanations which though subtle and beyond the range of normal vision, or even of the most sensitive photographic film, is nevertheless intimately connected with the body and its functions while alive. After death it is no longer there. It may be argued at this point that one is dealing with so mundane a thing as the heat radiated from the living body, so that when the coldness of death sets in it has vanished; and indeed it may be that some part of the aura is associated with heat. But that would leave unanswered why a piece of hot metal does not have precisely the same aura as a living body. Moreover, it would not tell why the contours of this aura change even when there is no measurable change of the local or general body temperature.

    In the light of modern research it can be further suggested that what is being made visible is simply an electromagnetic field such as is created by all physiological action, even if it is in the nature of minute potentials of a few microvolts. This is certainly nearer the mark, since these potential differences appear to be directly related to events taking place in mind and body, in orther words, to vital phenomena.

    Again, many people in the last decades have found themselves able, by using apparatus varying from supposedly electrical manchines costing a great deal to simple divining rods or pendulums or even the bare hand, to diagnose the seat of disease and the state of health and vitality of patients. It seems reasonable to think that by these means they too are concerned with the field of emanations around the body and, for that matter, within it…

    If we consider all these facts, they simply confirm what clairvoyance says about this matter. And while no two clairvoyants probably agree exactly as to details, there is a very great measure of agreement among them, first that such an aura or atmosphere actually exists; secondly that it presents a projected picture of the physical vital, and of the psycho-spiritual state of the person to whom it belongs.

    The aura around living beings, seen clairvoyantly, is far larger than the restricted atmosphere by Kilner. His technique appears to have made visible only the inner layers of the whole, that part which roughly follows the outline of the body. Subtler methods of observation show that the total energy field extends a considerable way beyond, and that the general form is ovoid. In a normal person who is alert and active, it would be roughly two yards across at its widest point, while it would extend roughly two feet above the head and below the feet. But these dimensions are very variable, far more so than those of the denser inner aura round the body.

    The larger, ovoid aura is an elaborate structure of lines of force which indicate both the actual processes of thought and feeling from moment to moment and the potentialities, developed and undeveloped, of the spiritual and psychic aspects of the individual. It is, in short, a mirror in which the whole man is reflected at every stage of his personal development.

    A particular feature of the aura which stands out to the vision of every competent clairvoyant is a series of quickly moving vortices of energy situated at certain points of the body. These were known of old, and are often found represented in ancient diagrams, whether of East or West, on statues or carvings, and so on. But in any case they appear pretty constantly both in ancient traditions and in the perceptions of modern sensitives. Moreover, it is not by any means essential to be able to see to realize their existence, and many people become aware of them through their hands when examining a person with an extra-sensory touch… Their Sanskrit name, chakra, is the word for a wheel, and is very suitable and descriptive. They are organs of the psychic aspect of every living creature, and highly complex in structure. Moreover, they are intimately linked with the controlling mechanism of the dense body through the nervous system and the endocrine glands.” 

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