AURAS
I was born with the power to see auras, and I had attained to quite a
grown-up age before I discovered that every one could not see them.
What is an aura? You will see them glittering round the heads of saints,
and of The Christ in church windows. You will see them painted round the
head of the Blessed Virgin, round the head of the Infant she holds, but,
indeed, auras are the property of all, however humble and lowly. Nothing
that has life, be the spark ever so faint, is without its astral
counterpart, its tenuous surrounding atmosphere. Science has
demonstrated this. Auras have now been photographed.
Habitual seeing of human auras has made me no more or less observant of
them than I am of the human face. If I am asked by any one to say what
her aura looks like, I do so to the best of my ability, but at that
complacent moment it is a very tame affair, much like the aura that any
one may see surrounding a lighted candle. A medley of prismatic hues, no
color predominating.
Where auras become really interesting is in a room full of people. I
look down to the far end of the room where a group is seated talking. I
cannot hear what they are saying, but I can tell at once whether the
conversation is harmonious or otherwise.
Often there will be one member of the group whose aura is very
disturbed. It will emit flashes of brilliant red as he talks vehemently.
The aura of the man he is addressing has turned a sulky, leaden gray.
A woman who is sitting listening has an aura of intense boredom. The
colors are all there, but they have become faded, and the extreme tips
droop dejectedly, like so many wilted blades of grass.
The biggest aura I ever saw was that of the late Mr. Sexton, a great
orator whom I once heard in the House of Commons. Some people have mean,
tight little auras, others have great spreading haloes of brilliant
light. I met with a very unusual aura quite lately.
A young woman, Miss L., came to tea with me, a charming, cultured woman,
whose profession it is to keep a large girls' school. She is much
interested in occult matters, and we "got upon" the subject of a rather
wonderful case of spiritualism of which she knows the details--the
medium being a young girl whom I will call "Elsie."
Whilst I was talking to Miss L. I could not help observing something
very peculiar in her aura; it was all lopsided. In place of being a
complete circle around her head, it had a huge bulge out to the left. I
had never before seen an aura like that, and it interested me greatly.
Just before leaving she mentioned auras, and asked me what hers was
like.
I told her honestly that it was peculiar, lopsided, and bulging on one
side.
She laughed and said she knew that, because "Elsie" always chaffed her
about it, saying, "You wear your halo all awry." This was very
interesting confirmation of my power to see auras correctly. I don't
know "Elsie," I don't even know her name, which has been kept a secret,
but we evidently see Miss L.'s aura in exactly the same peculiar form.
The other day I was sitting reading by the window, and as I moved in my
chair I caught sight, "with the tail of my eye," of something bright at
the other end of the room. A patch of light about a foot deep, and two
feet long was coming from behind the edge of a tall screen that hid a
door. I rose and walked out of the room. Behind the screen was a maid,
whom I had not heard enter the open door. She was busy over some quiet
work, and it was her aura that I had seen, though she herself was hidden
from view.
Once before in my life my attention has been drawn to the aura of one
whom I could not at the moment see in the flesh.
I happened to be passing a glove shop in the south of France, and as I
strolled slowly past the door a blaze of yellow gold inside the shop
caught my eye, and attracted my attention. I paused at once and looked
through the open door. This great golden aura belonged to the Empress
Elizabeth of Austria, who was standing at the counter. Her back was
turned towards me, and I stood for a minute watching this aura of a
woman whose restless imagination, and passionate love for the bitter
wine of liberty, brought her finally to an absolutely fitting death. I
believe she would have chosen this death before all others, for at heart
she was a born anarchist. She fell painlessly by the dagger of
anarchism.
One effect of being able to see auras is that they fix certain incidents
firmly in the mind. I remember one such incident very clearly. I was
staying at Hawarden with the Gladstones whilst the Irish troubles of
'82 were at their height. One afternoon we were all assembled on the
lawn having tea; Mr. Gladstone was standing rather apart, his hands full
of papers, which had just been brought to him. I saw him unfold what
looked like a large poster, glance at it, then suddenly he dashed it to
the ground and stamped viciously upon it. I heard him give vent to some
exclamations of intense anger, but had I heard nothing I could not have
failed to know he was desperately annoyed over something, for he was
suddenly wrapped in a brilliant crimson cloud, through which sharp
flashes like lightning darted hither and thither. He was "seeing red."
I remember Mrs. Gladstone murmuring something about "posters being torn
down in Ireland," but I was too thrilled over her husband's aura to pay
much heed to what she said. I shall never forget that scene, and the
practical disappearance of Mr. Gladstone in the enveloping folds of a
great red cloud. In a minute or two he emerged, and resumed his habitual
aura, which extended to about two and a half feet beyond his head, and
was largely tinged with purple.
At Hawarden Church on Sunday, whilst he read the lessons, I watched his
aura with much interest, because it changed so continuously, and I
discovered that this change arose out of his absorption in what he read.
Only one little example can I remember to illustrate what I mean. "And
the heart of Pharaoh was hardened and he would not let the people go."
In reading those words aloud Mr. Gladstone's aura deepened to red, and I
saw he was very indignant with Pharaoh's behavior. During the sermon he
sat facing us in our pew, and in a chair just beneath the pulpit, and I
could tell by watching his aura just how he felt about the discourse.
Later on, just after the tragic murders by the Fenians in Phoenix Park
of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Bourke, I received a note from Mrs.
Gladstone, asking me to go to breakfast with them in their London house
in Buckingham Gate. When I arrived the first person I saw was Lady
Frederick Cavendish, calm and composed, and bearing her loss with quiet
stoicism, but the atmosphere of the house was very different from that
of Hawarden. A gloom was over all, and for the first time I noticed that
Mr. Gladstone's aura was depressed and tired. Its vigorous vibrations
had considerably slowed down, like a jet of flame that had been turned
low, and the extremities drooped dejectedly.
Though crimson red is the color of anger, there is a beautiful soft rose
which is the color of love. The "green-eyed monster" of jealousy history
has handed down to us from the ancient seers, also the "jaundiced"
appearance of envy. A gloomy, grumbling person has a very leaden gray
atmosphere, and one who has "a fit of the blues" shows he is "off color"
in his dull, muddy blue aura. But there is a beautiful sky-blue to be
seen in the auras of many artists and scientists. Very material, earthly
people have generally a deep, dull orange tinge in their astral
envelope, and there is a glorious golden yellow surrounding the heads of
the spiritually joyful and highly intellectual. Purple is the color of
power, greatness. Children have an aura of crystal whiteness, which
develops color after the age of seven.
I remember the aura of Frederic Myers very well. A large and intensely
spiritual halo. He is the only man I can remember in those days--about
'92-'96--as having an aura within an aura, though this phenomenon is now
becoming more marked. "A rainbow was about his head," those words
explain exactly what I mean. About a foot above his head circled a pure
rainbow, and this beautiful decoration looked as if it were superimposed
upon the original aura, which streamed out far above it. I have only as
yet, in these later years, seen this rainbow above the heads of two
people: one alive, Miss Maud Roydon, one alas! gone west--the
incomparable Elsie Inglis. I conclude it means a degree of
self-sacrificing spirituality, which as yet has been attained to by very
few. Indeed, I would venture further, and assert that it stands for a
certain initiation conferred upon "the beloved" by the Masters of
Wisdom.
King Edward was blessed by a very fine aura of constantly changing
colors. I remember once noticing this in the most unspiritual of
environments, and whilst the King was still Prince of Wales.
We were on Newmarket Heath, and His Majesty came up to me and said, "I
hear you are married." After a few minutes of friendly conversation,
which had taken an amusingly domestic turn, he said to me, "Now, how
much has your husband got a year?"
There was nothing in the question but the most friendly interest; still,
it will naturally seem strange that he should have possessed the
faintest curiosity as to the financial situation of so humble a member
of his people.
Whilst he put the question, and waited for the answer, his whole aura
and atmosphere deepened and intensified. He was actually interested in
my answer, and this I have always believed was the fundamental reason
of his great popularity. The power he possessed of throwing himself
heart and soul into the trivial, as into the great things of life. He
was intensely human, with a genuine fund of sympathy for the ordinary
affairs of life. He liked to know the domestic conditions of those whom
he honored with his friendship, and the first time I ever spoke to him,
at a dance given by the Rothschilds in Piccadilly, I saw at once that
the natural human simplicities of life absorbed him absolutely whilst
under discussion. Though a man who would not tolerate a liberty, the
easiest way to get on with him when alone, was to confide in him any
personal difficulty, and to forget who he was, always providing that one
had the good breeding to remember instantly that he was the king when
speaking to him in public.
The most occult day (to use the popular expression) I ever spent was the
26th June, 1902, the day of the postponed Coronation. I shall never
forget that warm summer day of stupendous gloom, and oppressive
darkness. There was something more than meteorology in that leaden pall
that hid the skies, and enveloped the whole of London. Even the densest
materialists were uneasy, startled and inquiring, for putting aside that
mighty aura of sorrow and gloom rising up to heaven from the hearts of
millions, there was, as it were, the response of heaven herself. That
dark and mournful response Nature assumed, when wrapping herself in a
shroud of leaden darkness she brooded over the city, like the pall of
death itself. That day the mystic walked in a dream, enmeshed in the
warp of great occult happenings being woven out in the loom of Karmic
fatality. It was impossible to settle down to doing anything. One just
"sat about," living every moment intensely.
Once, when presenting a girl at Court, during the present reign, I
noticed what a very striking aura John Burns possesses. This girl
naturally wished to see all she could, so we went to the Palace very
early, and found a seat in the Throne Room, close to where the King and
Queen would sit later on. In a short time celebrities began to stroll
into the royal circles, divided from us by a cord. First came the
present Lord Grey of Falloden, and then came Mr. John Burns, resplendent
in dark blue knee breeches and gold-embroidered coat. He moved about
quite familiarly inside the holy of holies, speaking first to one, then
another of the gathering little crowd. Being so close to him I observed
him with unusual interest. His aura is very large, and what I can only
describe as massive, and already it was tinged by the gray veil of
disappointment. I have seen him several times since, and the veil has
become more opaque. What interested me so profoundly in him that night
were the contrasts I knew to exist in his life, and which must have
profoundly influenced his outlook on human existence.
One afternoon I was walking alone up Piccadilly. There had been rumors
of coming riots, but no one in the West End gave any credence to such
silly stories, and the streets were full of the usual gay throng, intent
on amusement.
Suddenly, as I walked along, a youth on a bicycle dashed past the
pavement, shouting something I could not catch. More men on bicycles
followed. The promenaders began to "sit up and take notice." Carriage
horses were being smartly whipped up, and women began to scurry
nervously.
Then it seemed to me I could hear something above the roar of the
ordinary traffic, a hoarse prolonged shout. Servants now appeared on
doorsteps, and looked about anxiously for non-existent policemen, others
began closing outside shutters before windows. Just as I reached the
Naval and Military Club I saw that the servants had come out, and were
about to close both great gates--"In" and "Out." One of these men
pointed up the street and advised me at once to seek cover, and I saw in
the dim distance what looked like a mighty crowd advancing.
In a second I had darted through the gates, and was safely inside before
they closed upon the approaching mob.
I have only a very confused memory of what happened after. Of kindly
attentions from the members. Of women's shrieks as their carriages were
stopped, and their valuables taken from them. Of the deafening roar of
furious male voices, crashings of glass windows, howls of savage
exultation, as a hosier's shop close by fell victim to the rioters, the
clatter of hoofs from terrified horses. I could see nothing, but the
battering upon the club gates added tenfold to the terrifying din. The
members withdrew, taking me with them, to the house, and prepared to
hold it against the furious mob, should the gates give way.
Such wild moments are not easily forgotten, and why I looked upon John
Burns that night at Court with such a peculiar interest was because he
led that riot, and suffered imprisonment for so doing.
Looking upon him in Court dress, in the royal enclosure, on intimate
terms with the great of the world, though perhaps not the great of the
earth, knowing him to hold high office in the government, I marked the
change. Then throwing back my mind to those poignant hours in the past,
which he had created, I felt that nothing is too extraordinary to belong
to the careers of some men; they live through several lives in one.
Their Karma is so crowded with stirring events, in the working out of
the past, in the makings of the future, that nothing human can be any
longer strange to them. The auras of such men are naturally great,
because such contrasts of light and shade only come in the lives of men
possessed of great and lofty ideals.
For some years little has been heard of the former idol of Battersea. He
is facing west now, though a ray or two of dawning light may still touch
him in the near future. That wild idealism which comes to men who keep
their eyes fixed upon a dawn so long in coming, fades out behind the
veil of disillusion, as the days come not, and the years draw nigh with
no pleasure in them. Man's ingratitude to man is one of the cruelest
tests imposed upon the soul of idealism. The soul that can bear it
without a tinge of cynicism has risen to mighty heights.
Such grandeur of soul was possessed by Elsie Inglis. So impregnated was
she with pure love of humanity, that when her own country virtually
turned its back upon her, this irreparable disgrace, brought upon
themselves by her own people, cast no shadow upon her soul. In the years
before the war I often noted her lovely aura as I sat amongst an
audience, and watched her on a platform fighting woman's battle.
After the war broke out I only saw her once, by the merest chance. It
was then I marked that a rainbow was now about her head, and I knew at
once that tremendous events were in store for her, though the British
Government had refused her services. Ah! the poor little cramped mind of
England's officialism! yet has not this very poverty of imagination,
this iron-bound worship of worn-out tradition, brought to birth an
internationalism which could never have been ours without it? It drove
forth hundreds, thousands of ardent souls, to other lands. Rejected by
their own, they clasped the pierced hands of strangers, and laid down
their own incomparably gallant lives at the foot of a cross, whereon
hung those who had at length become their brothers through a commune of
agony.
Elsie Inglis received no honor or decoration from the people, or the
"Great of England." Only the body, worn very thin in the service of
humanity, was at last honored in death. Knowing the woman, and the stuff
she was made of, one can only feel intensely this was all as it should
have been. To offer Elsie Inglis a medal would have been a sacrilege.
"Hands off such souls as hers," is the cry one's every instinct rings
forth to the "bauble worshipers" of this world. Besides, and this is a
very great besides, those who go with a rainbow about their heads are
not destined for earthly honors. They have taken the great step, they
have received the great Initiation, a jewel in the blazing crown of
eternity, and for them no more are the laurel wreaths that perish. In
justice to those throned on high on earth, the above should be
remembered. If it is with Elsie Inglis, as I fully believe, she would
have understood that for her God and Mammon were eternally divorced,
and any attempt at worldly recognition would have been frustrated by
"The Lords of Eternal Light and Wisdom," whose chosen disciple she had
become.
The psychology of the people is a very interesting and curious study, to
the aura seer. The analysis of the collective mind awaits some great
writer who will give us a book of absorbing interest. Those who can see
auras have a great advantage, if they are public speakers. During the
period of my life, when I had a great deal of political platform work, I
was always very sensitive to my audiences, because I could see how they
were taking my remarks. I have always found big audiences of the people
very colorless in the main. Flashes of bright color would be apparent
all over the hall, but there was no sustained glow. Whilst sitting on
some one else's platform, often that of a great orator, I have marked
exactly the same phenomenon. The soul of the people is still young and
childlike. It has the indifference of extreme youth, the forgetfulness
and ingratitude of extreme youth.
I look back upon the fall of Parnell and Dilke, great minds whose
earthly careers were destroyed by the people. All the world knows why.
To-day I look on the "perpetrators" of the Gallipoli and Mesopotamia
tragedies, and I see they have all gone up higher in the esteem of the
people. They have risen in the world, and are looked upon as ripe for
even higher office. The poor human brain reels before such anomalies. I
was in London when the Gallipoli reports were given to the public. They
shook me to the very foundation of my being. I think they were given out
towards the end of the week, because I remember saying to myself, "on
Sunday morning the British working man and woman will read all this
abomination of desolation and crime in their Sunday paper."
Purposely I strolled about the London parks in the lovely afternoon of
that Sunday. Crowds were there, reading, courting, sleeping. I went home
realizing that no one cared. The collective aura of the people was as
serene and indifferent as ever.
I have come to think more kindly of our people's pathetic indifference,
because I am sure it is the indifference of very young souls, who have
passed through but few incarnations, and "know not what they do." I see
them exploited by the politicians, given a rag doll to amuse themselves
with, anything will do, from the big loaf to the "Kayzer," and sent to
the polls hugging their golliwog, but I doubt the returning troops being
so easily amused and deluded.
The state of the Universe is the expression of man's desire, and man is
really the builder of his own body, that "house not made with hands,"
though in his youthful ignorance he attributes both to an over-ruling
intelligence, whom he alternately blesses and curses. When men learn
that they must work with, and not against the mental laws, they will no
longer ask why God permits the world to be so full of misery. They will
cease to erect a scapegoat, because they will have learned that they are
the makers of their own misery or happiness.
Many people seem to think that the power to see auras must be very
useful in helping one to distinguish between friends and foes, but such
is not really the case. Auras exemplify individual character, not
individual predilections, and some of my friends being very bad
characters, indeed, have shocking auras. I had one great friend who, at
the beginning of our acquaintance, spent much of his time in prison,
which was really a blessing for his ill-used wife. His aura was
literally in tatters, just a little irregular circle of rags and
patches.
I had just succeeded in making him sober, by insisting constantly and
most seriously that he was "a cut above the public-house," and much too
superior a man to mix with such degraded companions, when the war broke
out. He went to the front, and on his first return to Blighty, badly
gassed, he came at once to see me. I really felt a sort of personal
pride in him, and an actual sense of personal possession in his
enormously grown aura. It was clear evidence of his sprouting soul. He
went back to France, but was wounded and again gassed, and this time his
return was final, as he was of no further use.
For a few months he did odd jobs with great difficulty, then, finally,
he succumbed to pneumonia. I was very proud indeed of his aura as I sat
beside his bed, his hand in mine. There was real love in my heart for
him that day. Here, indeed, was an infant soul that had begun to develop
on the right road, and the tattered aura of rags and patches had become
a neatly trimmed little halo round his poor tired head.
So he went west, and his broken body, wrapped in the British flag, went
to a soldier's grave, and a firing party gave him the Last Post.
His wife returned home to find that her neighbors, anxious to celebrate
the occasion, had brought their best china and had arranged a tea-party.
As we sat down, she turned to me and said:
"Well, thank God, my man's been buried like a gentleman."
When I came to think it over I arrived at the conclusion that "the worst
character in the slums" had not done so badly with his life, after all.
He had died like a gentleman. The British Flag is a strange case of
transubstantiation. At first, just so many pieces of common material
sold across a counter. Fashioned into the emblem of our Nation it
becomes a sacred symbol, taken kneeling like a sacrament, which indeed
it has become. What better shroud could any man ask for?
I am sorry that I have had no opportunity of seeing President Wilson's
aura, the man who has turned his face towards a heavenly ideal, and is
scattering the seed amongst all the nations. When a man sets out on such
a long radiant path, he will carry visibly in the daylight an
illuminated brow. He has brought to us the vision without which the
people perish.
The life of the heart has always meant much more to me than the life of
the head. The rebel by nature can only be held by love, and I have been
blest by twenty-eight years of perfect union with one who has given me
love for love, faith for faith, and complete intellectual understanding.
My life has also been wonderfully gifted by staunchest friends, who have
loved me through sunshine and storm, and who still clasp hands with me
across continents and seas.
I suppose I must have enemies. They say every one has, but they have
never made me aware of their enmity, perhaps because there is no room in
a very full heart to receive aught but love. If I were to single apart
one outstanding feature in my life, it would be the wonderful kindness
and friendship that has been given to me. Ah! how easy that makes it to
write lovingly of others.
Behind all this lies the master passion of the born mystic for
liberation. The constant ache and urge for real freedom, and power to be
victorious over all circumstances. At home in all scenes, restful in all
fortunes. There is the urge of the soul for universality of contact with
all humanity, independent of race, color or creed. The urge of the
spirit to smash the confines which pinion it down to earth.
I think it is really the urge of reincarnating life still clinging to
me. The knowledge that my immortal soul must return to the House of
Bondage, until perfection is reached, and there is the going out no more
from the Father's House, from a freedom which has become supreme.