Editing Kirlian photography (section)

==History==
In 1889, Czech {{interlanguage link|Bartoloměj Navrátil|cs}} coined the word "electrography". Seven years later in 1896, a French experimenter, Hippolyte Baraduc, created electrographs of hands and leaves.

In 1898, Polish-Belarusian engineer Jakub Jodko-Narkiewicz<ref name=Ciesielska>{{cite journal|last=Ciesielska|first=Izabela L.|title=Images of Corona Discharges as a Source of Information About the Influence of Textiles on Humans|journal=AUTEX Research Journal |date=March 2009 |volume=9|issue=1|pages=36–41 |url=http://www.autexrj.com/cms/zalaczone_pliki/6.pdf|access-date=26 August 2012|location=Lodz, Poland|doi=10.1515/aut-2009-090106 |s2cid=56388931 }}</ref><ref group="note">Alternatively transliterated ''Narkevich-Yodko''. It is spelled Narkevich-Todko in some sources; In Russian: Наркевич-Йодко. Some sources state that he was Polish, rendering his name Jacob Jodko-Narkiewicz</ref> demonstrated electrography at the fifth exhibition of the Russian Technical Society.
[[File:A Kirlian Photography, male 1989.jpg|120px|thumb|Kirlian photograph of a fingertip, 1989]]In 1939, two Czechs, S. Pratt and J. Schlemmer, published photographs showing a glow around leaves. The same year, Russian electrical engineer [[Semyon Kirlian]] and his wife Valentina developed Kirlian photography after observing a patient in Krasnodar Hospital who was receiving medical treatment from a high-frequency electrical generator. They had noticed that when the electrodes were brought near the patient's skin, there was a glow similar to that of a [[neon lamp|neon discharge tube]].<ref>Kirlian, S. D. (1949) Method for Receiving Photographic Pictures of Different Types of Objects, Patent, N106401 USSR.</ref>

The Kirlians conducted experiments in which photographic film was placed on top of a conducting plate, and another conductor was attached to a hand, a leaf or other plant material. The conductors were energized by a high-frequency high-voltage power source, producing photographic images typically showing a silhouette of the object surrounded by an aura of light.

In 1958, the Kirlians reported the results of their experiments for the first time. Their work was virtually unknown until 1970, when two Americans, Lynn Schroeder and Sheila Ostrander, published a book, ''Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ostrander |first1=S. |last2=Schroeder |first2=L. |title=Psi Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain |publisher=Prentice-Hall |year=1970}}</ref> High-voltage electrophotography soon became known to the general public as Kirlian photography. Although little interest was generated among western scientists, Russians held a conference on the subject in 1972 at [[Kazakh State University]].<ref name=MMM>{{cite book|title=Man, Myth and Magic|date=1994|publisher=Marshall Cavendish|location=New York, NY|isbn=978-1-85435-731-1|volume=11|page=1481|editor=Richard Cavendish}}</ref>

Kirlian photography was used in the former [[Eastern Bloc]] in the 1970s. The corona discharge glow at the surface of an object subjected to a high-voltage [[Electric field|electrical field]] was referred to as a "Kirlian aura" in Russia and Eastern Europe.<ref>Antonov, A., Yuskesselieva, L. (1985) Selective High Frequency Discharge (Kirlian effect), Acta Hydrophysica, Berlin, p. 29.</ref><ref>Juravlev, A. E. (1966) Living Luminescence and Kirlian effect, Academy of Science in USSR.</ref> In 1975, soviet scientist Victor Adamenko wrote a dissertation titled ''Research of the structure of High-frequency electric discharge (Kirlian effect) images''.<ref>Adamenko, V. G. (1972) Objects Moved at a Distance by Means of a Controlled Bioelectric Field, In Abstracts, International Congress of Psychology, Tokyo.</ref><ref>Kulin, E. T. (1980) Bioelectrical Effects, Science and Technology, Minsk.</ref> Scientific study of what the researchers called the Kirlian effect was conducted by Victor Inyushin at Kazakh State University.<ref>Petrosyan, V., I., et al. (1996) Bioelectrical Discharge, Biomedical Radio-Engineering and Electronics, №3.</ref><ref>Inyushin, V. M., Gritsenko, V. S. (1968) The Biological Essence of Kirlian effect, Alma Ata, Kazakhstan, State University.</ref>

Early in the 1970s, [[Thelma Moss]] and Kendall Johnson at the Center for Health Sciences at the [[University of California, Los Angeles|UCLA]] conducted extensive research<ref name=MMM/> into Kirlian photography. Moss led an independent and unsupported [[parapsychology]] laboratory<ref name="Moss1979">{{cite book|author=Thelma Moss|title=The body electric: a personal journey into the mysteries of parapsychological research, bioenergy, and Kirlian photography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hocQAQAAIAAJ&q=Kirlian|date=December 1979|publisher=J. P. Tarcher|isbn=978-0-312-90437-1}}</ref> that was shut down by the university in 1979.<ref name=Greene>{{cite web|last=Greene|first=Sean|title=UCLA lab researched parapsychology in the '70s|url=http://www.dailybruin.com/index.php/article/2010/10/ucla_lab_researched_parapsychology_in_the_70s|work=News, A Closer Look|publisher=UCLA Daily Bruin|access-date=25 August 2012|date=27 October 2010|archive-date=27 April 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110427130120/http://www.dailybruin.com/index.php/article/2010/10/ucla_lab_researched_parapsychology_in_the_70s|url-status=dead}}</ref>