Aura

Blavatsky

Original sense

The aura is the radiation of the human constitution — a magnetic, vital, and psychic atmosphere. Sensitive people and adepts can perceive it; it is affected by health, thought, and passion. She did not publish the later rainbow chart of bands and chakra colors.

The aura is the emanation from the inner man, a magnetic atmosphere that surrounds every living being.

Leadbeater’s Man Visible and Invisible (1902) painted the egg of colored layers that New Age posters still copy. Blavatsky supplied the premise (an emanation that reveals inner states) without the standardized palette.

New Age

Later sense

A multilayered egg of color around the body, readable in a ten-minute session, cleanable with sage, crystals, or ‘cord cutting,’ and photographed by aura cameras at fairs.

Typical use. Aura portraits, ‘your aura is muddy,’ color-to-mood charts, and merch promising to ‘seal the aura.’