WEBVTT - The Halo, Part 2 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to Stove to Blow Your Mind, the production of 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:14.239 My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:17.640 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:19.840 and we're back with part two of our talk about 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:24.040 halos and the nimbus and the the aureole, the glory 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:27.920 that glows behind the figure, whether that's a Christian saint 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:31.960 or Huahwa the Terrible Or did we end up last 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:36.320 week actually talking about Lucca doors at all? I think 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.640 we did very briefly, partially because we were in the 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:42.000 process of putting together a weird house cinema episode on 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:44.920 us on a El Santo film. But yeah, the question 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:50.720 came up, are there any halos used with Luchador designs? Uh? 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:52.400 With the idea being that, yeah, they're a number of 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:57.040 different Catholicism themed Lucia doors. So after we recorded, I 0:00:57.080 --> 0:00:59.160 did look into it a little bit. I looked at 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:01.920 some of the usual specs, and looked on Luca Wicki 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:05.360 and looked at some photos. I didn't notice any halo 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:08.160 motifs in the mask for the most part, like nothing 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:13.120 nothing like um like actually physically emerging and positioned above 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:16.240 the head, you know. You see a lot of crosses, etcetera. 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:19.959 The best example I did find, though, was a luchador 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:24.280 named Angel azul Um, one of at least four different 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:28.040 luchadors who's used that name. And this particular mask depicts 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:31.760 an entire angel, like a like a Christmas top or 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.880 angel on the front of the mask, and that angel 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:37.800 has a halo. So it's positions so that that the 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:40.399 angel's head and halo appear more or less in the 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:43.000 center of the forehead. So I assume this is a 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:47.080 technico not a rudeo. I guess. So. Um. I don't 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:48.960 know anything about this guy, but it looks like a 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:51.800 technico mask. You know, if you have an angel like that, uh, 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:53.400 you know, it's it's got to be. But then again, 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:55.520 he could easily turn Ruto and become a fallen angel, 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:58.200 especially if he loses that mask. Oh yeah, I mean 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:00.440 a bad angel can be really bad out where you 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:04.560 get angels of death, You've got, you've got. Uh Remember 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:09.080 a particularly haunting mickloshred Noty poem called The Terrifying Angel, 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:11.840 where he an angel appears to him and advises him 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:15.560 to remove his own skin. Yeah, there's there are a 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:17.440 number of different and Lucia. There have been a few 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:21.760 different angels of death, Angel de la Monta. Um, there's 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:24.400 one I remember seeing on TV that did not really 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:28.440 have any any kind of angelic themes in his outfit. 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:31.640 But I did run across on Luca Wicki an old 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:34.440 photo from a magazine that had showed a guy with 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:37.320 a halo motif again on the forehead, almost like a 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:39.600 third eye. But that's the only thing I could really 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:44.040 find in terms of uh, dudes like this with with halos. 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:46.840 Now another thing that comes to mind, though you know, 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:48.639 we're talking a little bit about a halos and and 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:52.120 angels and um certainly an art. But I started thinking 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:55.480 more and more about films, and I can't think of 0:02:55.520 --> 0:03:00.679 a single example of of of an angelic being presented 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:04.200 in say horror film or some sort of supernatural film 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:06.320 in which they have a halo. Like. I was thinking, like, 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:09.000 what are some of the the the angel visitation scenes 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:10.560 that come to mind? And I thought of, well, the 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:13.480 I thought of Bill Paxton's film Frailty, which has a 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:17.600 great angel visitation scene like a um, you know, hallucination 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:20.720 that emerges in his mind, but there's no halo. Now, 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:23.880 I might be remembering that wrong. I thought that the 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:27.000 angel in that it doesn't have like a ring halo 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:30.079 around the head or anything specifically concentrated on the head, 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:33.200 but I did recall a kind of like full body glow. 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.360 Am I wrong? But definitely definitely has a glow to it, 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:40.520 and there is there's a lot of like heavenly architecture 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:43.880 going on above it, but in terms of something more 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:48.160 instantly recognizable as a halo, not so much. Um Likewise, 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:51.920 I was thinking back to the Prophecy films with Christopher Walkin. Uh, 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:53.480 you know, a lot of a lot of a lot 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:55.080 of a lot of angels in that, a lot of 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:57.640 angel wings, and you can think of various things that 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:01.280 were clearly influenced by that. You know, we have angels 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:04.560 and fallen angels popping up and filmmakers will go nuts 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:08.800 given him big, big, feathery wings, but I don't think 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:11.000 they ever really include the halo. And it's kind of 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:14.280 interesting because I guess it comes down to the fact 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:15.880 that it's easy to think of it as such a 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:19.479 cliche thing, but at the same time it is so 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:22.359 weird and it and there's so many ways to depict it. 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:24.240 You think you would you would see more of it. 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:26.760 I don't know. I'd love to hear from folks out 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:30.599 there who have encountered really cool halos in genre pictures, 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:33.840 because I'd love to I'd love to see it. Now. 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:35.919 In the last episode, did you bring up the idea 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:39.040 of a cinembyte from like the Clive Barker verse with 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.920 the with a halo? I can't remember if we if 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:44.800 we did, but I started looking into it after the podcast, 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:47.840 and um, I think there's in a comic hell Raiser 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.760 comic book there's a there's a cinembyte named Halo, but 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:55.720 he doesn't really have a halo. Now, there was a 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:59.520 a Clive Barker action figure for the Todd McFarlane toys 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:04.360 for the Tortured Souls line, and this guy, uh, this 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:08.640 particular guy agonists has kind of a surgery, has like 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:12.760 a surgical halo around his head, like a halo, and 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:14.680 then he also has what I think is like a 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:18.080 human face maybe his own human face position behind him. Uh. 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:22.960 That also seems to mimic halo iconography. So it's a 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.040 very Cinabitte esque character. So I'm this seems to come 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:29.440 close and certainly Clive Barker loves uh toying around with 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:32.240 religious imagery, so it makes sense that we would find 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:36.200 an example of this and something he designed. Yeah. Fun fact, 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:39.240 those those figures that came out, UM turns out they 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:42.040 each had a portion of a novella in them that 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:43.960 I think for a long time you could only get 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:46.320 if you bought all the figures, but it's subsequently been 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:49.040 put out since sometime in the last five years or so. 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:54.360 UM the titled Tortured Souls the Legend of Primordium, and 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:57.240 I read it over the weekend UM joined some time 0:05:57.279 --> 0:05:59.960 out in the Hammock, and it was pretty fun. You know. 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:03.640 It's a it's like, there's not a relatable human character 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:05.240 in the whole thing. It's just like a bunch of 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.800 like sort of monsters and uh and so forth. It's 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:12.120 in a kind of a dark fantasy setting. UM. Kind 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:14.359 of hell razory at times, for sure, but but not 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:16.640 entirely like it felt. It was really good. It is 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:18.160 one of the I haven't read a lot of Clive 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:19.960 Barker recently, but this one was new to me and 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:23.880 I enjoyed it. So a novella that comes serially within 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.560 the action figures that you would buy at Spencer's Gifts 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:29.200 in the nineties. Yeah, and it was, and to my 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:31.919 shock it was like it was it was actually really enjoyable. 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:35.359 So there you go. I wonder if the Insane Clown 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:38.479 Posse action figures had a novella that came with them. 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:40.599 I doubt it. I think this was the only I 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:43.760 think there was actually another Clive Barker line, who is 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:46.360 some sort of like Carnival kind of a theme, where 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.320 he did another one like this where he had different 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:52.160 different chapters in a novella that all came together if 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:55.720 you bought all the figures. But but and that one 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:57.839 when that one is also available to read now, but 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:00.240 I haven't read it. It's interesting though, with the Action 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:02.359 figures though, because the whole thing, right is that you 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:04.880 don't take them out of the box if you're collecting them. 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:07.159 And if that was the case, you wouldn't get to 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:11.320 read the cool little novella chapters that are hidden within there. Well, 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:13.080 you wouldn't get to play with them either. I mean, 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:14.960 what are you supposed to do with these things? I 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:17.800 don't know. They don't look tremendously fun to play with. 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:21.480 They kind of they're very grizzly. Have a little tea 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.880 party with your barbie and your cinebites. Yeah, but but 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:26.920 that's that's like I said that the novella was fun. 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:30.640 So in the last episode we ended up talking about 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:33.120 a lot of the different ways that the halo or 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.960 the nimbus has been represented or characterized in history. You know, 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:39.960 sometimes as a glowing disc behind the head, or even 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:42.720 a solid looking kind of gold disc, sometimes even as 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:45.520 a square or as a ring around the head. Other 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:48.600 times as a kind of just general emanation of light, 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.320 like a glow coming from behind the head, almost as 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:55.360 if there's bioluminescent hair or a light bulb behind the 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:57.679 head or behind the whole body. A full body glow 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:01.040 is sometimes characterized as a halo or a reole or nimbus. 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:04.080 And when it comes to the kind that's just like 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:07.760 a glow or an emanation of divine light from around 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:12.600 the body, I started to wonder about the idea of 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:15.880 the aura. Now, I guess there's a general concept of 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:17.640 an aura that you could just think of as like, 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:20.679 this is any emanation of color or light from a body, 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:24.400 like in the u in the ancient Mesopotamian mythology, where 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:27.800 we talked about Humbaba or Huahwa having the seven terrors 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:32.559 or the radiance terrifying radiance that emanated from his body. Uh. 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:35.080 Those things could be viewed as an aura. But there's 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:38.320 also a more specific definition of an aura, which is 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.080 a sort of standard claim in the modern world of 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:45.800 psychics and New Age spirituality and parapsychology. People often claim 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:49.080 to be able to see some kind of aura around 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:53.080 human bodies and sometimes around other objects. So I wonder 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:56.720 could this modern belief in auras in any way be 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:01.040 related to the origins of the religious belief in the halo, 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:05.120 the glory, the melom, the sun, disk, crown, etcetera. And 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:07.480 this sounds perfectly reasonable, right, I mean, this is a 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:09.560 lot of it is getting would seem on the surface 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:11.760 at least to get to the same idea, the idea 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:17.480 that there's something either emanating out of you or through you. Right, yeah, 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:21.000 totally uh. And And the secondary question, if people do 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:24.160 really sometimes see a glow of color or cloud of 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:28.800 blazing light around someone, what would cause that? Uh? So 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:30.800 I'm going to transition into this subject for a bit 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:32.680 and look at it a few different ways. The first 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:35.520 thing I wanted to know was, wait a second, is 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:39.400 it actually possible in just a straightforward scientific physical sense 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:42.920 that humans do actually sometimes glow. I don't know. I've 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:45.160 come across weirder facts on this show before, so I 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:48.280 started looking into this. H The first thing I thought 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:50.720 of was, I wonder if there's ever been a case 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:54.520 where somebody was was made to glow by exposure to 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:56.880 I don't know, something in the environment. And the thing 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:59.520 that popped to my mind was in the Simpsons and 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:02.360 art ters who work at the nuclear power plant acquire 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:06.200 what Mr Burns would call a healthy green glow. Uh. 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:09.320 So I was wondering, does exposure to radiation actually have 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:13.520 the potential to make people glow? Unfortunately, it seems the 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:19.480 answer is no. Ionizing radiation is generally invisible itself, and 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:22.160 being exposed to it can of course wreck your body, 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:25.640 but it won't make you glow. This myth actually probably 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:29.000 comes from a combination of facts, the first of which 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:33.600 would be about radio luminescence. So there are some materials 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:38.240 that do glow in the presence of ionizing radiation. For example, 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:42.080 the paint that was once commonly used for radium dials 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:45.400 on clock faces and and is sometimes still used for 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:48.240 like um instruments that are made to be viewed in 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.720 the dark, for example, in in spacecraft. You know, so 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:54.760 you want a dial or an instrument that will glow 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:56.880 in the dark without having to have any kind of 0:10:56.920 --> 0:10:59.720 power supply to it or you know, uh, or an 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:03.280 elle de inside it or anything like that. Uh. This 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:07.240 radio luminescent paint actually had to have a combination of 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:10.600 two major elements in order to make it glow. Uh. 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:12.839 In in the old school kind that was used by 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:16.840 like the company Undark or you know that was tragically 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:20.360 the cause of the death and sickening of the Radium girls. 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:23.079 This was a paint that was made with radium, which 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:27.040 is the radioactive element that's applied the ionizing radiation. But 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:29.160 then it also had to have an element that is 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:31.840 known as a phosph four, which is a chemical that 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:36.400 glows when it's stimulated by alpha and beta particles and 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:40.400 gamma rays from the from the radioactive element. And in 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:42.839 the case of the radioluminescent paint that was used by 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:45.000 Undark in companies like that in the first half of 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:49.200 the twentieth century, the phosphour was usually zinc sulfide that 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:51.839 was then laced with a metal like copper to give 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:55.280 it a green color. And so because of the specific 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:58.480 nature of this material, this phosphour, when the atoms in 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:01.480 it are struck by ionizing radiation, they get excited, their 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:04.319 electrons jump up to a higher energy level, and then 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:06.600 they fall back down to their ground state. And when 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:08.920 they fall back down to their ground state, they emit 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:11.600 a photon of light. As they do that, they release 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:14.640 the energy back out and this is the glow we see. 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:16.520 And of course the color of the glow can be 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:19.360 determined by what kind of metal it's laced with. Again, uh, 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:22.120 copper tends to give a green color. So I think 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.920 this is the source of the belief that radiation will 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:28.840 cause something to have a green glow. Won't cause anything 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:31.120 to have a green glow. It will specifically give a 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:34.160 green glow to paint with a phosphour in it, and 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:38.440 something to make that glow the color green, like copper. So, 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:42.640 long story short, exposure to ionizing radiation can absolutely kill you, 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:45.360 but it will not make you glow, I guess, unless 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:48.520 you coat yourself in a phosphour. Okay, so that this 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:51.600 that one episode of The Simpsons where Mr Burns has 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:58.360 been found to be wandering through the woods. Yeah, no, 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:02.360 no, no no, unless yeah, maybe he somehow paints his body 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:05.760 and zinc sulfide or something zinc sulfide and copper and 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:09.440 then just get some plutonium in there. Maybe I don't 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:12.040 know how long he would survive that though well, as 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:14.960 we and I think was explained on the show, Mr 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:18.360 Burns is imperil from so many different causes of death 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:21.400 that they're they're stuck in the door right right three 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:28.080 Stooges syndrome. So even the ionizing radiation is going WHOA. 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:31.040 So anyway, you know you're not going to have a 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:34.000 situation where I don't know, an ancient a person in 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:37.559 the ancient world came across a stash of uranium or 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:40.640 and then somehow ended up glowing green, so everybody would 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:43.240 see him and think, wow, you know that guy's god 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:47.040 or something that that just wouldn't happen. But I came 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:50.320 across another fact that is pretty weird, which is that, 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:54.920 in a qualified sense, the human body actually does just 0:13:55.240 --> 0:14:01.360 naturally glow, meaning it doesn't only reflect light from external sources, 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:05.320 but the body actually does emit electromagnetic radiation in the 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:10.200 visible spectrum. Visible light comes out of your body. But 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:13.400 before you get too excited. The amount of light that 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:16.960 our bodies put out on average is really really tiny. 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:19.920 It's roughly a thousand times too dim to see with 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:23.240 the naked eye. You need special scientific instruments in a 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:26.120 very dark room to pick it up. Uh. And but 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:28.440 you should know that this is different from like the 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:32.240 heat that we emit as infrared radiation. If this light 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:34.760 were bright enough, it would be light that would actually 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:36.720 have a color that you could see with your eyes. 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:39.680 It is that kind of light. Um And of course 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:42.840 it's not just us, most or maybe all other animals 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:46.240 would also emit a similar kind of light. Nevertheless, this 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:50.120 glow is kind of interesting. I was wondering, so what 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:53.520 what makes this glow happen? It appears to be chemical 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:56.920 reactions involving free radicals within the body. There was a 0:14:56.960 --> 0:14:59.920 two thousand nine study that tried to measure this photon 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:04.320 mission from the human body using special equipment. So this 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:09.440 was by Misaki Kobayashi, di suk Kikuchi, and Hitoshi Okamura 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:13.440 published in PLS one in two thousand nine called Imaging 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:17.120 of ultra week spontaneous photon emission from the human body 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:21.200 displaying diurnal rhythm. And so what the researchers did here 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:25.480 was they used a cryogenic CCD camera to image five 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:29.240 healthy male subjects in their twenties at different times throughout 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:31.640 the day. So the subjects would come in, they'd sit 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:33.920 in a chair. I think they were partially naked or 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:37.040 at least bare chested in the chair in a dark 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:39.560 room for at least twenty minutes. I think there was 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:42.320 a period of adjustment to the darkness, and then after 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:45.400 that they'd be photographed for twenty minutes with the special camera. 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:48.920 And they do this every day for every three hours, 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:52.240 from ten am to ten pm. And the researchers actually 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:55.360 found that the amount of light emitted from the body 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:58.960 varied significantly over the day, so people glowed the most 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:02.320 at about four p m and the least at ten am. 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:05.720 And they hypothesized that this probably has something to do 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:09.240 with how energy metabolism changes throughout the day according to 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:13.120 our circadian rhythms. But also interesting, or at least I 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:15.400 thought this was interesting, Rob. I've attached a picture for 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:18.040 you to look at down here. The body did not 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:24.160 glow equally everywhere. In fact, faces tended to glow more 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:27.040 than the rest of the body, it seems like and 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:29.920 and there were other kinds of differences, like upper shoulders 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:32.280 seemed to glow a little bit more than down lower 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:35.760 around like the chest or the stomach, And different parts 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:38.080 of the face glowed more than other parts. So it 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:42.000 looks like the area around the mouth in particular, was 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:45.360 usually glowing more than say, like the forehead or or 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:48.120 around the eyes or the sides of the face. This 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:51.040 thing about the mouth especially makes me imagine an alternate 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:54.240 history of halo imagery where the glow is not just 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:57.320 surrounding the crown of the head but emanating from the 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:01.560 mouth and jaw. Kind of glory beard okay, also kind 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:04.520 of a low Pan effect, right, Oh, yes, when we 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:07.080 first encountered low Pan and he has light coming out 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:09.360 of his eyes and then out of his mouth. One 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:12.280 of my favorite line deliveries there is the incredulous way 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:15.200 that Kurt Russell says that he had light coming out 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:19.920 of his mouth. Yes, big trouble, Little China for anyone 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:23.199 who's not familiar. But anyway, so I was reading an 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:26.160 NBC news report about this study from two thousand nine 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:29.440 by Charles Q. Choi and and he wrote that um 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:33.119 one reason that the face might glow more than the 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:36.000 rest of the body is that is that usually faces 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:38.480 are more tanned than the rest of the body since 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:41.840 they get it more exposure to sunlight. And that he 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:45.880 said that the pigment behind that that tanning in the skin, melanin, 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:50.960 has fluorescent compounds that might might help the skin produce 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:54.959 even more light than other skin on the body does. Okay, 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:58.400 but since this glow is not detectable with the naked eye, 0:17:58.480 --> 0:17:59.960 none of this is going to have anything to do 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:03.760 with the origins of of halo or nimbus or arial imagery, 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:12.919 though it is a nice thing to know, nonetheless, But 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:15.399 to come back to the place we started, people do, 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:19.160 of course, sometimes make various paranormal claims that they can 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:23.760 see a glow of colored light emanating from human beings. Again, 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:28.720 this is sometimes called like an aura or an energy field. Um, 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:32.080 so I have to be kind of circumspect here. The 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:36.000 belief in auras is I have discovered an exceedingly complicated 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:39.280 subject with a weird and interesting history. Maybe one will 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:41.639 have to come back to and explore more in the future. 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:44.280 Since this is one of those subjects, I'm sure you've 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:46.800 had this experience on the show before, Rob where like 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:49.440 I was trying to read into it so I could 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:51.639 give a brief overview. But it was kind of like 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:53.679 you go down into a basement and you open an 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:55.919 old chest to just like get the things out and 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:58.280 see what's inside it. But then something in there starts 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:03.160 moving and uh, and I'm like, okay, Uh, So I 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:06.680 I cannot I cannot get my brain fully around this subject. 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:09.680 I think I can only mention some aspects of it. 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:13.000 From what I can tell, the New Age belief in 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:16.560 seeing aur as seems to stem from a kind of 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:23.640 reinterpretation of the medieval tantric belief in chakras, so chakras 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:28.040 would have been a belief original to esoteric Hindu It's 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:31.520 also it's kind of hard to succinctly describe even what 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:33.560 these are, but I think you can think of them 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:36.399 as sort of a collection of nodes or channels that 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:40.800 are positioned at different points inside the body and correspond 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:44.920 to elements of an imagined subtle body, a second non 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:49.800 material energy based body, and the images of these channels 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.560 or nodes throughout the body would be used in some 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:57.320 kinds of tantric meditation. So you might focus mental imagery 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:00.640 on one of these nodes at various points. It's positioned, 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:03.200 often along the sort of vertical access through the middle 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:06.120 of the body, but also at a few other points. So, Rob, 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:07.920 I think you probably know more about this world. Is 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:11.720 that basically your understanding? Yeah, I think that's a good 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:16.359 basic summary of it. And I've I've engaged in yoga 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:20.359 and meditation that uses chakras as well. UM, And I 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:22.320 find that I guess one way that I like to 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:25.159 think of it is it is not it is not 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:29.000 the way the body actually works, but it is a 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:34.439 way that the body can be interpreted, uh, to aid 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:39.199 in meditation or yoga, like thinking about um, you know, 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:42.840 like this energy point moving from chakra to chakra, focusing 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:47.119 on say, like breathing through your third eye. You know, 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:49.600 obviously you're not really breathing through a hole in your 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:54.400 your skull, um, but somehow like focusing on that can 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:56.960 be very helpful. It gives you like a different physical 0:20:57.040 --> 0:21:00.600 focus to get out of your thoughts and and even 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:03.720 you know, sort of focused on the on the physicality 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:06.600 of that part of your body. Uh. So yeah, I 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:09.520 find it very helpful though though again I do not 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:11.199 engage with it in a way where I think of 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:13.480 this is like the actual way that the energy of 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:15.960 my body is working. Right, it might not correspond to 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:19.280 like physical anatomical realities, but can serve as a focal 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:22.080 point for mental imagery and in a way of directing 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:25.480 the thoughts. Yeah, but so that's that's chakras. I think 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:30.239 like within the the the esoteric Hindu tradition. Then in 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:33.280 the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, it seems this 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:37.480 idea somehow got sort of picked up and reinterpreted by 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:43.280 various people associated with new religious movements like Theosophy, and 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:45.800 a lot of the twentieth century New Age. Belief in 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:49.000 auras as an emanation from the body seems to trace 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:53.960 back to a British spiritualist and theosophist writer named Charles 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:57.400 Webster Leadbetter who lived from eighteen fifty four to nineteen 0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:00.720 thirty four. I was just again, I can only give 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:04.320