A. T. SCHOFIELD, M.D., ON SCIENCE AND THE UNSEEN WORLD. 59 



Discussion. 



After the conclusion of the paper, the Chairman (D. 

 Howard, Esq., D.L., F.C.S., F.LC, Vice-President) said that 

 such papers as that to which they had just had the great pleasure 

 of listening, showed how great is the danger run by those 

 who consider that nothing can exist which one does not understand ; 

 on the other hand we have to be careful at the present day not to 

 run into the opposite danger, nor be led by the fact that some 

 things are wrongly understood, to consider that nothing exists 

 which one does understand. He had pleasure in calling on 

 Dr. Stenson Hooker, who would follow up the remarks on the 

 aura made by the reader of the paper. 



Dr. Stenson Hooker prefaced his remarks by pointing out that 

 the fact of the existence of the aura was based on scientific 

 experiment, and that the sanity and unemotional nature of the 

 belief in the existence of this manifestation ought to carry weight. 

 He himself had now given up experimental work owing to the 

 physical and mental depletion which was, as Dr. Schofield had 

 remarked, too often the accompaniment of such research. When the 

 phenomena of the aura were first pointed out to him he had been 

 deeply interested, but at the same time extremely sceptical. He had 

 engaged in this sceptical spirit on a course of research which lasted 

 for three years. He had conducted over 300 scientific experiments 

 from which all guesswork had been, as far as possible, eliminated. 

 The result was that the only possible conclusion to which he could come 

 was that this force, this invisible emanation, of which the aura wa.s 

 the visible sign does certainly exist. There was, he believed, in every 

 person a force which radiated outwards and in a greater or lesser 

 degree affected other things with which that person came into contact. 

 These force radiations, or n rays, were visible to some but invisible 

 to others, and in the form of a visible coloured radiation from the 

 person were known as " the aura." 



A tabulation of the different appearances had been made 

 according to colour and thought, and when it was seen how closel}/' 

 the results given from study of the particular aura tallied with the 



