Last week, I met up with some friends downtown to do normal downtown stuff – go to shops I can’t afford, wait 15 minutes for the B train, and, er, get our auras read? I am normally quite skeptical to anything that falls somewhere under the umbrella of a wellness craze (crystals, etc.) but whatever, I shop at Whole Foods and listen to Florence and the Machine, so it was inevitable that I would go to an aura reading. Originally my interest in the aura photo was purely aesthetic; I like how they’re very beautiful but also kind of spooky! It started when I saw this photo of Tavi Gevinson and Lorde’s aura readings, and since many of my decisions are based on WWTGALD (What Would Tavi Gevinson And Lorde Do, of course), I decided to give it a try. Because I am a professional Journalist with a capital J, I knew I had to document my experience.
My friends and I went to Magic Jewelry on Canal Street, a tiny Chinatown shop conveniently located a few blocks from Glossier if you want to kill all your Instagram birds with one stone. When we arrived, there was already a line to get your aura read (a line that steadily built behind us as well, a testament to the place’s popularity) but we didn’t have to wait very long. When it was our turn, one by one we each sat in front of a black backdrop, placed our hands on two metal plates, and looked into a very bizarre camera. Said bizarre camera uses a photographic process discovered by Russian electrical engineer named Semyon Kirlian and his wife, Valentina, in the 1930s. A Kirlian photograph ionizes the air around the object in the photo, whether the object be alive or not, and any water in the air will be visible as layers of glowing colors. When this process is used to take a photo of a human, many believe the result shows the person’s aura.
The concept of the aura dates far back in history, and is present across religions and cultures. The colors are meant to represent a person’s energy, which is what the metal plates are supposed to read. After the photos develop, one of the women who works in the shop explained to each of us what they meant. Mine, not to brag, was described as “perfect;” having a wide range and bright colors. It’s was thinner than those of my friends, which she said had something to do with clarity or vulnerability. She continually referenced a laminated chakra chart in front of us, and explained the colors and lights to your right represented your emotional state from the week, the colors and lights over your head and torso represented the current week, and those on the left represented the week to come.
She said my colors represented creative energy, stress, and more. More specifically, she said the colors surrounding my neck and shoulders meant I held a lot of tension in that area, which has been true my whole life. Sure, lots of people are creative and stressed because of finals and hold tension in their neck and shoulders, but in the moment it felt pretty accurate.
Am I a believer? Maybe. Did it look nice on Instagram? Absolutely.