Auric Healing:
A Complete Guide to Cleansing, Reading and Strengthening the Human Aura Energy Field

BY DR. FRANCESCA McCARTNEY

the auric energy field surrounds the human body and needs to be cleansed, balanced and cared for like any other organ or system vital to our health and wellbeing. photo: danka and peter

The Aura: Halo of Light

The vital force is not enclosed in man but radiates within and around him like a luminous sphere. It may poison the essence of life and create disease, or it may purify and restore the health.
— Paracelsus

In our practice of Intuition Medicine, we refer to the field of energy around the body simply as the aura. Most people do not realize that they have a second skin — the aura is an energy skin that protects and shields their energy system just as physical skin protects their inner organs.

Imagine having no skin. What would happen? All your organs would spill out onto the ground. Your veins and arteries would sag and bulge.

You would be defenseless against dirt, germs, and viruses. And, perhaps worst of all, you would look pretty frightening! Your skin is a highly efficient protective layer between you and the external world. It holds all of your organs in place, it shields you, and it filters out foreign matter that could be dangerous or irritating to your inner organs.

Like physical skin, the aura should be cleansed and is permeated with natural disease-fighting chemistry, and it hosts the sensory communications of the nervous system.

This second skin is the boundary between your personal energy system and the energy of your environment; an illuminated wrap of life-force medicine; and a subtle nervous system receiving and sending energy messages. This energy skin is your aura. Every living being has an aura.

The human aura field is distributed around the body like an ovoid, spherical, or egg-shaped cocoon of energy. Clairvoyantly, it appears as a shape with different qualities in different places. You may see the boundary as diffuse, well defined, smooth, or jagged (you may not see or feel the aura’s separate, interior layers unless you focus your attention on them).

You can perceive the aura clairvoyantly as color, brightness, darkness, shape, and density. You can hear the aura clairaudiently as tone, sound, music, frequency, and vibration. You can feel the aura’s energy using biotelemetry (the detection and measurement of a human or animal condition, activity, or function such as the heartbeat or body temperature) and psychometry (temperature changes, pulsation, tingling, pressure, or magnetism).

When you are feeling healthy, self-confident, calm, and grounded, your aura is clean and healthy. A healthy aura is indicated by a cocoon of energy surrounding and extending out from the body at least one foot in all directions. This positive protection field is composed of bright colors, strong vibrations, pure tones, and a full, smooth, egg-shaped boundary.

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An unprotective aura can be a cause of illness and distress for sensitive people. Without the natural filtering system of a positive protection field surrounding your body, you are open to environmental influences.

The frequency of different energies can coexist and overlap nondestructively in the same space; take, for example, radio and television frequencies. Much of the energy in your environment — mental, physical, and emotional — may be positive, but much of it is negative.

The Holographic Corona

Your aura acts as a reception and relay network for subtle energies. It delivers energy messages to the chakra system, which translates them into hormonal, nerve, and cellular activity in the physical body. In general, the aura tends to hold present (rather than past) thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and interactions between yourself and your environment. As the world first interconnects with your auric field, the freshest impressions, communications, and intuitive hits are woven into it. As an early-warning system, your aura also detects energy disturbance not yet manifested. This aspect of the aura’s function is a preview of the future that can be utilized as a preventive tool.

Disease in the physical, emotional, or mental body is often preceded by a disturbance in the auric energy, or, if it originates within the physical body, it registers in the aura at the same time or oftentimes before it manifests in a person’s conscious mind or physical body. I had a patient in the medical clinic years ago who was in good health and having her annual health checkup. The clinic doctor asked me to energetically scan her, and I picked up a reproductive-system problem in her aura. None of the medical tests confirmed my aura reading. Three weeks later she returned to the clinic because of uterine hemorrhaging. Your aura is an early-warning system for disease. By paying attention to such forewarnings, you can take preventive aura healing action, whether it is medical, psychological, or energetic.

A grounded, energetically cleansed aura allows you to sense when energy is being directed at you from near or far, and gives you the choice to accept it or cleanse it out of your space. This puts people and situations at a healthy distance from you, thus allowing them less power to unbalance you. With a grounded, healed aura, you will feel safer and more secure, and the quality of all your grounding anchor points will improve. Your aura, when functioning effectively, acts as a lightning rod for negative energy or thoughts that enter your space. If your aura is not protecting you well, you might be hit by someone’s unhealthy energy transference, or you might feel that you are being verbally attacked when someone is simply transmitting information. With a grounded aura, these undesirable intrusions into your system will be intercepted at the outer edge of your aura and automatically grounded out of your personal field and down into the earth. With practice, your aura will become an autonomic system of protection.

Your Spiritual Skin

The human aura is created by the action of life-force energy within the body as it resonates through the chakras and the physical and subtle anatomy. This life force radiates from the body, forming a cocoon of energy — the auric field. This human corona is similar to an electromagnetic field radiating from an electrical device. Auras have been observed surrounding living systems from ancient times through contemporary investigations. Among those who work with the subtle-energy body, the aura is a universally accepted phenomenon.

getting out into nature is a powerful way to cleanse your aura and induce healing and rejuvenation. photo: xochi romero

Depictions of the aura colors can be found in the religious, mystical, and spiritual art and literature of almost every culture. It is often shown as a halo of light or circular symbol around the head or as a corona around the body. Symbolically, the luminous halo or corona signifies purity, saintliness, or enlightenment, and is a metaphor for spirituality. In particular, it may indicate a deity — a god or goddess. The aura field indicates wisdom and intelligence at work within the haloed person.

The Aura: A Universal Phenomenon

The Greek word aura means “breath” or “air.” In many traditions, the terminology given to the human aura field is synonymous or overlaps with the term used for life-force energy. Aura terminology from 1000 BC to the twenty-first century include a wide variety of names. In the traditions of early Hebrews, ruach; Hindus, paramanu; Cabalists, yesod; Hermetics, telesma; Gnostics, solar orb; Kabbalah mystics, nefish; Hawaiian Kahunas, mana; Christian Bible, golden bowl; and Christian mystics, aureole and nimbus. In the cultures of Germans, wodan; Peruvians, huaca; Sioux Indians, wakan; Eskimos, sila; Ituri Pygmies, megbe; Kalahari Bushmen, rlun; African Elgonyi, ayik; Pacific Ponape, ani; Congolese, elima; Australian Aborigines, zogo; Maoris, atua; and Yaqui, lines of the world.

Philosophers and scientists from ancient to present times refer to the aura energy with different names: Plato, nuos; Erasistratus, pneuma; Paracelsus, munia; Blavatsky, astral light; Blondlot, N-rays; radiesthists, etheric force; Gurwitsch, mitogenetic radiation; Grischenko, bioplasma; Puharich, psi plasma; de la Warr, prephysical energy; von Bertalanffy, anamorphosis; Worrall, paraelectricity; Muses, noetic energy; Burr, L-Field; and Tiller, magnetoelectricity.

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In the field of energy medicine, aura is the most common name for this aspect of the subtle anatomy. Depending on the methodology, other names may be used to refer to the aura: astral body, biofield, bioluminescence, bioplasmic body, bioplasmic field, causal body, corona discharge, Divine rays, electric corona, electromagnetic body, energy body, etheric body, etheric web, golden web, health aura, intuitive body, Kirlian aura, light body, mental body, spiritual fire, spiritual skin, vitality sheath, web of frequency or web of light.

Layers Of Light

All living matter, from a seed to a human being, is surrounded and controlled by electrodynamic fields.
— Harold Burr

The aura is a seamless energetic skin with internal patterned layers or sheaths. These sheaths are like a matryoshka — a Russian nesting doll — as each layer surrounds another to form a whole (see the Aura Layers, Colors and Chakras illustration on page 182 of my book Body of Health: The New Science of Intuition Medicine for Energy and Balance). Another visual metaphor is an onion, with a smooth exterior and a neatly arranged interior of concentric layers. The life-force energy emissions from the seven major chakras create the seven circular layers or sheaths of your aura.

The aura is an energetic weave of life force moving through the seven chakras. This electromagnetic action of the chakras generates seven distinct layers.

This auric web of light is distinct from the bioelectrical state of the physically based energy of the body. The entire energy body radiates with this spiritually based energy and pulses its currents around the physical body like sheaths of light that create your aura color signature. A cleansed aura is like a signature piece of clothing — unique and individual.

In laboratory research, Dr. Valerie Hunt and Rosalyn Bruyere discovered that each color in a test subject’s aura was associated with a different wave-pattern recorded at the seven chakra points on their skin. This confirmed the existence of the chakra system, as well as the extended subtle energies emitted by it. Those subtle energies were found to occupy an extended frequency range distributed around the body — the aura. Measuring bodily radiations with electromagnetic detectors, Professor William Tiller plotted a seven-domain spectrum around the body. He described each domain as unique and able to carry several different radiations, not just one. I interpret this as the ability of the aura layers to hold multiple messages within each layer. As a metaphor, an email inbox holds many messages from different people together in one place.

Tiller calls these fields “multiple auric sheaths around the body.” The seven layers of the aura operate as antenna systems that relate to the seven chakras and the physical body via the endocrine glands. If there is a disturbance in a particular auric layer, a response to this disturbance will manifest in the physical body and require auric healing and cleansing to correct; when the disturbance originates in the physical body, a response will be mirrored in the aura.

To further understand the function of the aura’s layers, consider that biologists have measured the electromagnetic energy of each organ and system of the body as pulsing at a unique frequency, indicating that the body can function as a type of transmitting and receiving antenna. In this biological model, health is diagnosed (using the measurement tools of conventional medicine) as the body’s electromagnetic field pulsing in coherence. A radio antenna can receive a range of frequencies; when the radio is tuned properly, it receives coherent radio broadcasts. The layers of your aura work in a similar way. With training, you can operate and control your auric antenna, improving your reception and transmission of energies.

The Seven Layers Of The Aura

A considerable number of consistent, reliable mystical and scientific reports provide evidence that layers of electromagnetic energy exist within the human aura. The seven layers of the aura generally correlate with the energies of the seven chakras, with some differences and additional functions. In this section, I describe the function of each auric layer, which you should visualize as a three-dimensional holograph, and provide additional information about that layer. I begin with the sheath of energy next to your physical body and move outward to the seventh layer, which is farthest away from your body, at the edge of your auric field.

the layers of the auric energy field. it is useful to know their rough orientation and position, along with those of the chakras, when engaging in auric cleansing, healing and reading practices. illustration: francesca mccartney

The first auric layer, closest to the body, indicates the immediate health or disease of the physical body and may indicate the need for aura cleansing and healing. For most people, this layer seems to be the easiest one to see and feel. This layer is the auric anchor to the physical earth, which metaphorically and literally shows the strength of the life force. When you are ungrounded or “out of your body,” this layer is diffused or does not hug your skin. In people who are about to die, whether by accident or disease, I usually read this first auric layer as a dull, flat black, devoid of any pattern or movement. Conversely, I had a client who had a brilliant, full, sapphire-blue first layer, which I saw gave him great physical prowess. I later learned that he was an Olympic gymnast. A healthy first layer supports the vitality of the immune system as well.

The second layer of the aura flows concentrically and holographically around the first layer. This second layer is an emotional security blanket, wrapping the body with a feeling of safety and well-being. When this layer of the aura reads as healthy, your inner relationship with your sexuality is harmonious, which gives balance to your sexual expression with others. This is the layer where you display your feelings of attraction or rejection toward others — your energetic pheromone! When people are engaged in chaotic emotional or sexual relationships, this layer appears riddled with pebbled patterns or ripped lines indicating the need for aura cleansing and healing. I once had a client who was happy in her profession as a prostitute; her second aura layer read as radiant with a rainbow of pleasurable colors. Another client, who was experiencing an agonizing divorce, had bloody rips in her second layer, from her angry husband. A healthy second layer supports a balanced sexual identity and emotional body.

The third layer of the aura displays how you interface with your environment and society in general, as well as your expression of personal power in the world. A low pulse or diffuse layer shows a tentative, weak, or introverted interaction with the world and indicates the need for aura healing and cleansing. I often read this aura layer as huge and gaily loud in performers, and delicate and pristinely quiet in monks and nuns. A healthy third layer shows a clear, purposeful attitude about yourself as a participant in your environment.

The fourth layer of the aura is where people display their hearts. It indicates whether they are humanitarians or Scrooges, beatific souls or miserly louses. This layer indicates the interactive emotions of your primary relationships with friends, partners, coworkers, and pets. Often the most recent interactions with others are held in living color in this layer.

I once had a client who had an image of a crocodile in this layer; I was confounded until she spoke excitedly about having spent the morning at an aquarium, where she had been lovingly watching a pool full of crocodiles. Because auric layers often report that which is about to transpire, I have sometimes seen in this layer the images of an impending divorce. A healthy fourth layer embodies and develops a heart-centered, compassionate disposition.

The fifth layer of the aura field indicates creative force and communication skills. This layer is a linking and transfer area, reflecting the transformation of spiritual perception and altruism into expressions of creativity and communication. Your satisfaction or disappointments with the creative forces in your life are displayed in this layer. When people are happy with their career choices, this is an ebullient and buoyant layer; those who are languishing in a boring occupation often have a sandpaper pattern, dull colors, and slow movement of energy through this layer and require aura cleansing and healing. I have read the aura of stellar speakers rainbowed with a glowing, burnished fifth layer while giving presentations. Conversely, timid people and those who do not trust their creative force have quite narrow bands of energy in this layer.

A healthy fifth layer contributes to embodied inspiration.

The sixth layer of the aura field is the immediate depiction of intuitive development and intelligence. This layer shows the development of the doorway to the subtle realms of the world — the mystic’s portal to what most people call the unseen world. When this mystical sense is integrated, the sixth layer is broad and full of light. Those who perceive the world from a linear and analytical viewpoint, on the other hand, have a small, brittle-patterned layer which indicates the need for aura cleansing and healing. A convicted felon who I observed in a police lineup had a shriveled, black sixth layer. I had the privilege of reading the aura of and studying with a Hindu master who had a crystalline, diamond-blue sixth layer. A healthy sixth layer supports heightened intuitive perception and respect for life.

The seventh layer of the aura is the cloth woven of your spirituality.

Spirituality is your connection to God, Goddess, the Divine — whatever that means to you. Highly developed, evolved individuals radiate a notable light in this layer, an almost ethereal glow. This layer, coupled with the sixth layer, is what most people see around the head and describe as the “halo of light” or “corona of color.” Most young children have the light of this spiritual glow from birth, but unfortunately it diminishes with immersion in the physical and mental world and indicates the need for healing and cleansing of the aura. Your aura glow and your connection to the Divine can be cultivated and strengthened by filling this layer with your spiritual light. As the Bible says, “If thine eye be single, thy whole body will be filled with light.”

Sensing and Reading The Aura

How do we see physically? No different than we do in our consciousness — by means of the productive power of imagination. Consciousness is the eye and ear, the sense for inner and outer meaning.
— Novalis

A comment I often hear in aura training is “I do not see layers.” Most students do perceive energy around the head, though, and some emanation of color, sound, pulse, or pattern within the auric field. Often, the strongest chakra energy creates the dominant or “loudest-resonance” layer in the aura, and the other layers operate at a subtler, quieter level. For example, if someone is angry, you may read only a red aura. If a person is ill, you may read the aura as primarily a dull, gray field of energy.

The aura’s light is subtle to most Western eyes; clairvoyance requires stimulation in order to train the inner eye to perceive the subtle light-energy of the aura. When you perceive clairvoyantly, you are setting ocular vision aside and engaging the inner eye to see subtle energy. Besides an outer light and eyes, sight requires an “inner light,” one whose luminescence complements the familiar outer light and transforms raw sensation into meaningful perception. You can stimulate your ability to read the entire panoply of the aura’s layers (and other subtle-energy fields) through the use of hand psychometry. Psychometry involves meridian connections into the pineal gland, which stimulates the light-sensitive clairvoyant perception. Whether or not you feel energy in your hands, moving your hands in front of your chakras and through your aura stimulates currents of signal energy, which travel up your arms and into your pineal gland. This energy pathway tweaks the light-sensitive pineal gland to function at a higher level in perceiving subtle variations of light. With practice, your ability to perceive, or read, your aura’s light and layers will improve. My observation of a connection between the hands (psychometry) and clairvoyance (the sixth chakra and corresponding pineal gland) directed me to research conducted by Dr. Fritz-Albert Popp, who in 1973 built the first photon detector sensitive enough to study biophotons. Based on his study of a hand-to-head bioenergy connection, I emailed him an inquiry asking if there exists a measurable photon-emission correlation between the hands and forehead, and, if so, whether the emissions are carried by a biophoton pathway. My assumptions were confirmed as correct in a recent email from Dr. Popp’s office.

Numerous intuitives report feeling palpable sensations when they move their hands close to, but do not touch, the body. Normally these sensations are symmetrical, smooth, and evenly distributed around the body. However, different intuitives may experience different sensations when moving their hands around the body of the same individual. If illness or injury is present, a distinct sensation is noted near that part of the body. This aura reading may be experienced as heat, coolness, tingling, stickiness, or other feelings in the hands. Make it part of your journal practice to write down the sensations you feel and to draw the images you perceive when scanning and reading your own aura; this will contribute immensely to the development of your intuition vocabulary. Whatever you experience is your personal language of intuition; that language will build upon itself as you acquire intuitive wisdom.

A twenty-two-year-old university student and first-year Intuition Medicine practitioner felt her life change as she became acquainted with reading her aura:

When I started consciously working on cleansing and healing my aura, I could only imagine and trust that it was there based on what I had heard from others. Now I can see my aura and feel a pressure and temperature change as it strengthens.

Creating a stronger aura has given me a sense of freedom. I can get more important things done without other people’s agendas popping into my head constantly. Cleansing and healing my aura boundary has also given me a deepened appreciation that my daughter and husband have all they need on their paths without my interference.

Perspectives On The Auric Field

The colors in our aura reflect the character of our soul.
— Edgar Cayce

The layers of the aura are a template and matrix of health and disease.

Scanning each of the seven layers of your aura gives you a current health evaluation and diagnosis. When you become expert at healing or simply maintaining your aura at optimal health, you will be able to discover most disease before it becomes a physical or psychological issue. Many, if not all, dissonant emotions can be cleansed and healed from your auric field before you absorb their ill effects. In this manner, reading your aura acts as an early-warning system.

Another key function of the aura is to absorb and contain life-giving energy. Imagine your aura as a solar panel; when charged with light, it supplies vital force through all your systems; when depleted, all systems operate below normal health or cease to function well.

Your aura acts as a multipurpose broadcast system, much like a broadband radio; it sends out your energy and messages and receives messages, thoughts, emotions, and energy from the world. Your aura can hold these energy messages like an email inbox, but leaving them unanswered can cause an overload of dissonant frequencies to mix with your life-force energy. This mixing of frequencies can cause discomfort: voices in your head, ceaseless mental conversation, feeling crowded or claustrophobic, or a sense of lacking personal space. I suggest that you read and answer or delete—essentially, cleansing and healing—your aura-energy messages daily. As you become more practiced at reading the incoming and outgoing energy fluctuations in your aura, you will be able to immediately respond to these energy messages by cleansing and healing your aura, thereby maintaining the health and integrity of your aura energy.

The outer edge of your aura functions as your emotional boundary and psychic protection; this is your energy epidermis. Indeed, when this function is weak or lacking, the outer world merges and mixes with you, and your uniqueness is compromised by this blending of energies. The best of the world’s love, joy, and happiness may merge with your own energy and inspire you or make you feel better, but your aura cannot sustain the energy of others without lowering its personal health frequency, necessitating aura healing.

People often intentionally allow energies from other people to blend with their own because they lack self-love, or they are afraid to take responsibility for their personal power, or they believe that the answer is outside themselves. This merging with other people’s energy creates an aura of lowered vitality that is an energetic cause of illness and requires aura cleansing and healing.

The Electric Body Of Health

The superior physician cures before the illness is manifested. The inferior physician can only care for the illness which he was unable to prevent.
— Chinese aphorism

You are enmeshed in an ebb and flow of energy exchange with everyone and everything around you. Every living organism is born, lives, and dies in a sea of electromagnetic radiation, and all of life has evolved in an environment consisting of electromagnetic energy. As a result, the interactions that take place between living organisms and electromagnetic energy are crucial to life. To deny these interactions would be to deny the fundamental interaction upon which every living thing on the planet depends. The pulsing magnetic fields of the earth, cosmos, machines, and creatures all affect the energy field of your aura and, in turn, your body, mind, and spirit.

The acupuncture practice of Chinese medicine deals with the invisible levels of energy, also known as the auric field. A skilled acupuncturist reads the pulses of the physical body to determine whether there is an imbalance in the counterpart of the energy body. The physician then rebalances the energy flow to prevent physical or mental disease, effectively, cleansing and healing the aura. A noteworthy piece of history: in ancient China, patients paid doctors to keep them from getting sick. If they did fall ill, the doctors paid them. In Russia, acupuncture is used as an adjunct to psychotherapy.

Your aura is the mirror of your health and life. Like film imprinted with a light-produced image, your aura registers the intentions of your thoughts, moods, and actions. A living communication system, your aura sends information to the world around you and receives information from it. An aura reading shows what needs healing and cleansing.

A thirty-year-old second-year Intuition Medicine practitioner had a dramatic experience when expanding his aura energy field. At 5 feet tall and 120 pounds, he is a small-statured Cirque du Soleil performer, but he has a huge, charismatic aura. Here is his aura story:

In 2002, I was meditating before a show for the NBA Sacramento Kings’ opening season. I set my intention to expand my aura to touch the capacity crowd of fans in Arco Arena. After the show, the promoters told me that they had never seen anything transpire between an audience and a performer like they had just witnessed. All the fans in the stadium were silent during my act, and when I took my final bow at the end, the silence broke into screaming pandemonium. I couldn’t believe that I had expanded my aura; I really did feel like I touched all of the 17,613 fans in the audience.

A Practical Protection Aura In Daily Life

Is it possible that there exist human emanations which are still unknown to us? Do you remember how electric currents and “unseen waves” were laughed at? The knowledge about man is still in its infancy.
— Albert Einstein

A highly healthy aura nourishes us with a constant circulation of life force. It also protects us, because high-energy fields disintegrate energy that enters from lower-energy fields.

In order for your aura to act as positive protection and illuminated healing energy, it must be in a whole and healthy state of coherence.

When your aura is filled with life force, others will show respect for your boundaries. With a diagnostic scan, you can locate and heal aberrations in the field of your aura. With intention and affirmation, you can quickly revive the potent vitality of your  aura’s protective qualities. You need not be in quiet meditation to practice aura diagnosis and healing; aura cleansing can and should be part of your practical daily awareness.

When you leave your home, the best health initiative is to walk into the outside world with a grounded, vibrant aura. Physical, mental, or emotional abuse of any kind — real or imagined; from within yourself or from your environment — can affect all of your subtle-energy systems when you are not being conscious. At times, your positive intentions may be pushed out of focus, and you may find yourself unprotected and affected by chaos from the world or ill intentions from other people.

These are the times to be energetically proactive. Immediately scan your aura, reading and cleansing it for aberrant patterns — energies that are not yours and have attached themselves to your auric field and are operating below your level of positive intention.

The following story illustrates how to actively work with and heal your aura in daily life. It comes from a twenty-five-year-old corporate secretary who is a highly clairsentient second-year Intuition Medicine practitioner. She had difficulty with a boss who constantly intimidated her; she felt his energy pushing out her own feelings and thoughts, leaving her speechless and vulnerable in his presence. She described this situation as a “violation of boundaries,” but she has now learned to use her cleansed aura as positive protection during these episodes.

The biggest aura revelation for me was discovering that the ways in which I had always tried to protect myself (being defensive, withdrawn, shut down, and angry) were energy drains in and of themselves, and that my boss was still able to “get in” and drain my energy. The discovery of being grounded, being aware of my auric field (which I think was probably very diminished back then), keeping my auric field grounded, and having healthy energy circulating through my aura literally changed my experience of life. Now I truly feel safe and protected, and I am almost immediately aware when someone or something is trying to violate my boundaries — or if I’m ungrounded, energetically unprotected, or vulnerable. I feel like a different person than I was a year ago.

Here is how to cleanse your aura, creating an aura of positive protection: First, affirm or visualize that your aura is entirely surrounding you and is grounded into the earth. You can clairvoyantly or clairsentiently scan for leaks in your aura; holes or tears indicate that someone is angry at or envious of you, and streaks of energy that are not of your aura’s color or pattern indicate invasive mental messages. If you leave home feeling bright and happy, then find yourself feeling upset or gloomy without apparent cause, this can indicate a lack of aura boundary or body grounding, or perhaps that your attention is out of your body and not centered in your meditation sanctuary. You can test for this by scanning and reading the shape of your aura and sensing whether it is equally full all around your body; where you lack an expansive energy skin, your body is unprotected. For example, if you read that your aura is closer to you in back and farther out in front, you are more likely to get backaches or neck aches; if your aura reading shows that it is diminished at your legs and feet, you will tend to have cold feet. The strength and fullness of your cleansed and healed aura protect your body and continually bathe it in healing life force; a lack of this constant state of healing provides an entry for dis-ease. Do not leave home without a vibrant, healthy cocoon of light surrounding you.

Your aura is your body halo. Your cleansed and healed aura is your protective energy skin; when it is compromised, you will often compensate with other ways to protect yourself.

A thirty-year-old high-school teacher and first-year Intuition Medicine practitioner often felt the angst and anger of her teenage students:

Before I learned how to create my aura as a protective field, I would clench my muscles as protection from unwanted energy when I felt that I was “under attack” from my students. Now, when I revert to clenching parts of my body, I know that my aura needs work. I cannot express how wonderful it is to sit within a self-made bubble of protection with the feeling of no one else being present in my space.

Aura Cleansing and Protection Images

Play with some of the following aura protection visualizations and see what works for you to cleanse and heal your aura. Change the images when you are in different situations during your day.

+ A golden net
+ An arboretum
+ A clear crystal sphere
+ A rainbow of light
+ Spinning discs
+ Silver swords
+ A nurturing womb
+ Sounds — bells, drums, chants
+ A forest of grounded trees
+ A moss-covered rock
+ Symbols of love, compassion, and altruism
+ A luminescent white pearl
+ Gems and minerals
+ A mirror
+ A translucent bubble (like Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz)
+ A waterfall

Aura Meditations

To heal means to release obstruction (demons, germs, despair) between the sickness and the force of life driving towards wholeness.
— Robert Becker

Positive energy nourishes and heals your body, mind, and spirit, and this is done most potently through meditation practice. Aura meditation (see the next chapter) can boost your overall health. A morning aura meditation seeds the rest of your day with the power of your positive intentions, cleansing and healing your aura.

You can set a specific goal for the day and quietly repeat that intention several times during the day, continuing to nourish and ground your energy. Your evening aura meditation cleanses and closes your day. It is a peaceful retrospective on the day’s lessons and discoveries.

There is a direct correlation between a vibrant aura and good health.

Without a daily dose of the cleaning and healing aura meditation, a sensitive person can quickly become unwell. The following story illustrates this point. It comes from a twenty-year-old hairstylist and second-year practitioner of Intuition Medicine who worked in a beauty salon with her boyfriend and his previous girlfriend. She found herself in a triangle of jealousy and competition, which made her ill when she forgot to practice her Intuition Medicine.

After about a month of not practicing my usual daily aura meditation, I became ill. In meditation, I noticed almost immediately that my aura was collapsed on all sides. Unfortunately, I did not do energy healing right away, but rather I went through the illness as a purely physical experience (perhaps I needed to learn something). I noticed that when my aura was down, I palpably felt the presence of my boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend in my space. I felt that I had no protection. I felt like she was attempting to energetically merge into my aura to feel what was going on in my relationship with her ex-boyfriend. I found myself highly fearful, which is not a normal circumstance. I also felt as though a foreign energy overlaid my entire body like a net. When I began to cleanse my aura, the fear subsided as well as the feeling that I was being invaded by her jealous, negative energy. Since this episode, I have felt that I am better at visualizing and clearing my aura, and I now make time each morning to meditate.

Are You Practicing Energetic Field Awareness?

The universe seen from within is light; seen from without, by spiritual perception, it is thought.
— Rudolf Steiner

When you first start reading your aura and noticing how you operate in the world, you may see your cleansed and healed aura as a defense mechanism.

As your aura reading practice continues, you will realize that there is much more to the function of your aura than protection. With a healthy, cleansed aura, you are more fully present and supportive for others. In maintaining your own aura integrity, you are a witness for others, allowing them to experience the full range of their own emotions and reactions without outside interference or judgment. This way of operating in the world allows you to hold the integrity of your own space and to honor yourself and others.

Here is an observation from a thirty-three-year-old Registered Nurse and third-year Intuition Medicine practitioner:

As a nurse, I thought the best way to support and facilitate healing in others was to give away my energy to those who needed it more than I did.

Since I was strong and happy, I thought I could share those gifts. Unfortunately, working this way left me depleted and hollow; it wasn’t until I studied auras that I became aware of the necessity of energy boundaries and how my aura could protect me. I now know that I can help someone without falling completely into their world, without feeling their pain and suffering. Now I allow people to experience their process of healing, and I support them without joining them in that experience.

Healthy Aura, Healthy Body

Your physical sensations are a good indication of the state of your aura.

Are you feeling vibrant, energized, and strong, or are you feeling lethargic, dull, and weak? The goal of Intuition Medicine is to help you move toward a vibrant self. As you learn to maintain your aura in a state of positive protection—cleansing and healing your aura—you will find yourself feeling more consistently upbeat, self-confident, and healthy.

Take a moment to look at the following lists, and see how many of the “in harmony” and “out of harmony” descriptions are part of your experience. You can quickly diagnose the strength or weakness of your aura by comparing your feelings with the “in” and “out” lists.

It is a good practice to identify a couple of symptoms that indicate to you whether your aura is cleansed and operating as a protective boundary; these indicators can become part of your intuition toolbox. For example, you know that your aura is healthy when you feel your own energy strongly and you connect to others without depletion or merging; you feel appreciation and respect for other people. A converse example would be when you feel vulnerable, unsure, and smothered or crowded by others; you get irritated easily, and you react like a mother bear to aggressively defend your space.

Take a moment to read and reflect on these questions:

+ Think about times when you have felt or seen your aura. What were the sensations of your aura awareness at those times?

+ Think about times when you intuitively perceived another person’s aura. How did you perceive the aura — through clairvoyance, clairsentience, knowing, or another method?

Using your aura perceptions as an intuitive language, you can become more aware of subtle communication when you interact with others. The next time you perceive another person’s aura — even slightly — stop and interpret the relationship of the energy perception to the immediate interaction, thoughts, or situation you are involved in. Learn to notice and act on these intuitive messages; they are your universal human language.

How It Feels When Your Aura Is…

In Harmony

+ Connected to inner self and spirit
+ Connected to others without merging Full of self-love
+ More present in your meditation sanctuary
+ Able to live authentically Chakras in harmony
+ Enclosed, protected, and secure
+ Full of your own energy
+ Healthy emotional boundaries
+ Expansive, safe, and loving with others
+ Confident, friendly, and cheerful
+ Less internally defensive Complete; full of self
+ Harmonic, vibrant, and alive
+ Clothed, protected, and comfortable inside your body
+ Like a warm security blanket
+ Able to sense a clear inner voice
+ Able to sense someone staring at you
+ Able to tell when someone is behind you
+ Not anxious or agitated in crowds
+ Able to say no with ease and without guilt
+ Able to sense a subtle extension of skin nerve endings
+ Able to be in a situation that previously diminished your grounding
+ Receiving respectful communication from others

Out Of Harmony

+ Neglectful of self and spirit
+ Engaged in unhealthy lifestyle choices
+ Not healing yourself when you need it
+ Easily distracted; not present
+ Vulnerable, unsure, or afraid
+ Defensive or reactive
+ Responding inappropriately
+ Having difficulty containing feelings
+ Feeling unwanted energies in your space
+ Losing yourself in interactions with others
+ Easily invaded, judged, or not seen
+ Feeling exposed or raw
+ Primarily focused on protection
+ Drained by any interaction with others
+ Tired, grumpy or withdrawn
+ Needing to be alone; needing rest to rejuvenate
+ Anxious when interacting with others
+ Clenching muscles as a defensive gesture
+ Feeling fearful anticipation without cause
+ Exposed, vulnerable, or porous
+ Feeling pain or discomfort from the environment
+ Experiencing jolts of feelings unrelated to circumstances
+ Feeling scattered energy; “forward” and in your head
+ Vulnerable, unsure, or tentative
+ Unable to detect bad circumstances
+ Feeling discomfort when energies enter your space

Are You Aware Of Your Aura Health Needs?

Use the light within you to regain your natural clearness of sight.
— Lao-tzu

Lists of activities and things that tend to affect the health and harmony of the aura follow on the next page. You might agree or disagree with the entries; feel free to add your own entries to these lists. As you become more aware of your cleansed and healed aura’s role as both a protection boundary and a cocoon of health energy, some of the things that tend to deplete you will no longer do so.

Your Aura As Boundary And Healing Protection Is…

Enhanced By…

+ Daily meditation and grounding practice
+ A nurturing home space
+ A harmonious work environment
+ Self-love, affirmations, and strong grounding
+ Exercise and nature walks
+ Being with healthy people and animals
+ Taking care of your body’s needs
+ A nutritious diet
+ Good thoughts; a positive outlook
+ Consciously intending an aura of light
+ Conscious breathing
+ Acts of kindness
+ Singing, laughing, and smiling
+ Speaking the truth
+ Respecting yourself and others
+ Admiring beauty
+ Trusting your intuition
+ Being fully present as a spirit in your body
+ Being present in the world
+ Living in a state of grace

Depleted By…

+ Neglecting daily meditation practice
+ Not paying attention to yourself
+ Overworking or overthinking
+ Long sedentary times; not moving enough
+ Verbal, physical, or energy attacks
+ Interacting with negative people
+ Worry, mental obsession, and fear
+ Constant thoughts about the future Noise
+ Being exposed to media-communicated violence
+ Depressing thoughts; unclear intentions
+ Electrical devices: computers, TV, and radio
+ Crowds of people
+ Not speaking the truth
+ A constant focus on negativity
+ Compulsive caretaking of others
+ Not trusting your intuition
+ Neglecting necessary boundaries
+ Merging with others’ pain, worry, or grief

Reflect on the preceding lists; do you engage in more of the “enhance” or “deplete” activities? Who do you intuit to be the people in your life with vibrant auras, and how do these people affect you? Who do you intuit as having weak auras, and how are you affected by these people?

Health is a choice; as you read this book, you are gaining more practical knowledge about making wise choices in creating your body of health.

This article on the healing, reading and cleansing your aura energy field is excerpted with permission from Body of Health: The New Science of Intuition Medicine for Energy and Balance by Francesca McCartney, Ph.D.

About The Author

Francesca McCartney, PhD, is founder and president of the Academy of Intuition Medicine in Sausalito, California. The Academy offers a masters degree in Intuition Medicine and is approved by the California Board of Registered Nurses to grant continuing education units.

Since 1984, Dr. McCartney has trained students to use her techniques in their work as health-care providers, massage therapists, and counselors. She has been practicing and developing her intuitive skills for thirty years and has a dual PhD in Intuition Medicine and Energy Medicine. Visit her website at intuitionmedicine.com