W.E. Butler wrote How to Read the Aura over 40 years ago.
     He was a British occultist and esoteric writer shaped by experiences with mystics in India.
     His work retains a convincing sense of practical and common sense authority, giving the reader confidence in Butler’s routine and nuanced assertions about the character of the aura and his own personal understanding of it.
     There is no sense of exaggeration or strain, just a matter of fact account of the practical challenges encountered in reading the aura.
     In not pretending to offer shortcuts or special insight into reading the aura, How to Read the Aura and Practice Psychometry, Telepathy, and Clairvoyance may disappoint some.
     Butler more than makes up for this, however, by the sense he gives of being knowledgeable, experienced and competent in what he writes about.
     Butler also has an active imaginative approach to understanding the aura, as captured in the following words:
     “The aura is usually seen as a luminous atmosphere around all living things, including what it used to be the custom to regard as inanimate matter. Advancing knowledge begins to suggest to the scientist that even in this so-called ‘dead’ matter there are living forces at work, thus supporting the old Persian poet who wrote of life as ‘sleeping in the mineral, dreaming in the plant, awakening in the animal and becoming conscious of itself in man’.”
     Quantum physics has provided a respectable theoretical foundation from which to address questions relating to the aura.
     Some writers, like Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, the prolific and imaginative activist whose concern with science, society and sustainability drives the London based Institute of Science in Society, have made this type of thought central to their work.
     Dr. Ho’s writing suggests that human bodies have long been best understood not as material objects but as complex interacting energy fields.
     From this perspective, Butler’s work is a modern exploration of the character, structure and energies of the aura emanating from material objects, completed with reflections on the manner in which emotions interact with the human aura and the best means to develop the capacity for auric sight.
     His language blends the insight of the psychic and scientific researcher without showing a strong preference for one over the other. In this way Butler gently highlights the uncertainties that still reign over our scientific certainties and encourages the reader to rely on his own efforts, understanding and discoveries.
     Opening chapters on the character and structure of the aura recount the language and concepts used to identify the auric phenomena, including the etheric and spiritual auras, emanations, the silver cord, etheric leakage, parasites and vital energy.
     One is reminded of the reality that language is often deficient in capturing important experience.
     Butler is both thorough in covering his field and honest in the deferential manner of his writing, never exaggerating the authority of his own understanding.
     His chapter on The Circuit of Force, which occupies more than a quarter of the book, gives particular authority to Indian tradition and wisdom.
     It then provides a broad survey of issues ranging across mental and emotional stimulus: tree and mineral energies; etheric, biblical and magnetic healing; oil cures and depletion of personal energies. In this manner the reader is provided with insights from many cultural traditions and is left with the freedom to choose where true authority rules.
     The chapter on The Emotional-Mental Aura is also eclectic in providing a range of cultural references. It offers the view that both spirit and matter are the expressions of a supreme reality, opposite poles between which the universe is spun.
     The positive quality of Butler’s writing is captured in passages like the following:
     “The truly spiritual aura appears as a pervading radiance which informs both the etheric and emotional mental auras and streams beyond them….”
     The final chapter, Developing Auric Sight, explores the use of goggles, touch, intuition, direct vision and other approaches.
     It emphasises the importance of sensitivity to qualities like focus, luminosity, experimentation, patience and humility and offers no simple formula.
     The book concludes with brief cautionary tales about adverse criticism, commercial use of psychic faculties and religious organisations.
     Overall, Butler provides a sober and sympathetic introduction to some enchanting wonders of this world.
     These are often dismissed or disparaged by those who adhere to narrow notions of rationality or science.
     He reminds of eternal qualities of humility, patience, sensitivity and curiosity that are necessary to make the most of human life and invites the reader to approach reality with body, mind and spirit that are open to the full range of human potential.