2026-10-04 Internet Archive (archive.org)
Queries
- Chrome: advanced search API
q=kilner aura(11 hits). - curl (same public API):
(bagnall aura) OR (dicyanin) OR (kilner screens) OR (creator:kilner AND date:[1870 TO 1925]). - Item metadata checked: aurakilnerscreen00bodd, bwb_W9-DJE-156.
Downloaded (OCR text only; PDFs were not downloaded)
- research/files/kilner-1920-human-atmosphere-2nd-ed_djvu.txt: OCR of Kilner, The Human Atmosphere (The Aura), London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner; New York: E. P. Dutton. "First Edition published September, 1920; Second Impression, May, 1926"; 64 illustrations. Item https://archive.org/details/bwb_W9-DJE-156 (PDF 14 MB available there).
- research/files/boddington-1931-aura-kilner-screens_djvu.txt: Harry Boddington (ed. David Gow, editor of Light), Aura. Kilner Screens (Aurospecs) and All About Them: practical, explanatory, evidential, London Psychic Educational Centre, Handbook No. 4, 1931. https://archive.org/details/aurakilnerscreen00bodd
Other items found (not downloaded)
- 1911 first edition, two scans: humanatmosphereo00kiln and humanatmosphere00kilngoog (the second is the project's own PDF).
- Kilner, The Human Aura (Citadel 1965: humanaura00kiln, humanaura0000kiln); The Aura (Weiser 1973: aura0000kiln). These are reprints of the 1920 edition [memory, medium].
- Bagnall, The Origin and Properties of the Human Aura, editions 1970 and 1975 (originproperties0000osca, originproperties00bagn); access not checked; likely borrow-only.
- US Bureau of Standards papers on dicyanin as a red/infra-red photographic sensitiser: "Application of dicyanin to the photography of stellar spectra" (1919; app144875051919318318unse) and "Wave-length measurements in spectra from 5600 Å to 9600 Å" (1918). Related work (priority 3): they document the dye's red and infrared sensitising action, which bears on Kilner's own account that the screen idea came from infra-red/N-ray work (claims 1-2).
Findings in the 1920 edition (priority 1, the inventor's own later work)
Read from the saved OCR (preface, contents, and grep hits only; the full book should get a digest and deep read in a later step): - Preface, signed "W.J.K., Hatter Street, Bury St. Edmunds": "I feel positive that we are dealing with an ultra-violet phenomenon." Some women can change the colours of their auras at will ("no man or boy has as yet been found to possess this faculty"), and "these hues unquestionably do not belong to the ordinary visible solar spectrum", which he takes as a "second and higher spectrum having shorter wave lengths". This changes claim 2 from "outside the visible spectrum" to a specific ultra-violet hypothesis, and extends claim 6. - Preface: the aura "can be influenced by external forces such as electricity and chemical action". How dicyanin acts on the eye "remains incomplete". - Preface on photography: "occasionally the aura has been photographed to a slight extent but not by any means satisfactorily, nor have the necessary conditions for obtaining the impressions been determined." Compare the NYT headline of 5 Feb 1911 ("has at last been photographed"; see nytimes note) and the 1911 book's statement that photography failed. - Contents add a chapter "The Effects of the Different Forces upon the Aura" and "Optical Problems". - Static electricity experiments (1915): a patient on an insulated stool was "electrically charged by means of the large Wimshurst machine"; "The auras vanished in the usual manner", then slowly returned, and the outer aura was then 3 in wider (12 in to 15 in). The case of the artist's model (Case 11) was repeated in June 1915 (OCR lines 2276-2360). Bears on claim 2 (the aura as a force acting on the surrounding medium) and gives dated experiments up to 1915. - Discrepancy to note: the 1920 preface gives Bury St Edmunds as Kilner's address; Wikipedia says he died in June 1920 at his residence on the Isle of Wight. The record is unresolved.
Findings in Boddington 1931 (priority 2/3; interested party)
Interest: Boddington offers "Aurospecs" goggles for sale (one guinea), says he registered the name and "provisionally patented the combination", and the book carries his advertisements. His statements are a seller's characterisation. - On the gap after Kilner: "Unfortunately the war put an end to his labours ... The manufacture of dicyanine was the principal difficulty as it was superseded by cheaper substitutes after the war. But supplies are now being made to our order" (OCR lines 431-436). One published account of why the work went quiet (absence-of-evidence lead): wartime loss of the German dye, then lack of demand. - Says he contacted "the scientist who had compounded Kilner's dicyanine", who made screens for him but asked not to be named "lest his association with the uncanny thing injured his professional reputation" (OCR line 866ff.). This is one published claim of reputational pressure; no second source yet. - Dr Drysdale Anderson bought Aurospecs in 1929; the Daily Chronicle of 14 March 1930 carried "a long article on his work" said to confirm Kilner (OCR line 457). Record to obtain. - Heading "DICYANINE CURES SHORT SIGHT" (OCR line 943): compare Kilner's own myopia-shift paper (HathiTrust note A1), which reports the opposite direction (temporary myopia). - Also cites Scatcherd and Baraduc film "photographs" exhibited at "the French Academy" (OCR line 709); related work, priority 3.