Every human being has an aura, or energy field, that surrounds and extends past the physical body, says Lyn Freeman, an Alaska researcher who explores mind-body connections.

Mystics report seeing halos of light emanating from humans. But for most of us, Freeman says, the energy of an aura is too subtle to see. No one has proved scientifically that auras exist.

Freeman and her husband, Derek Welton, recently purchased an unusual camera from Russia, a gas discharge visualization (GDV) device, or aura camera. They say it records the innermost layer of a person’s energy field.

That closest-in layer of seven is the one most connected to the physical body. It is known by those who study such things as the health aura and can give clues about a person’s health, according to Freeman.

By conducting scientific studies with the aura camera, Freeman, Welton and other researchers hope the camera will help to document the existence of auras and perhaps even validate the effectiveness of some forms of alternative medicine.

They also hope it might be used someday in the United States to help assess a person’s physical and mental well-being. Freeman says it is already being used in some medical settings in Russia to help screen for breast and lung cancer.

In this country, the aura camera is not approved as a diagnostic tool. But its effectiveness is being studied, even by researchers affiliated with well-known institutions such as the Mayo Clinic and the University of Virginia.

“We’re just getting our feet wet,” says Welton, an engineer and director of network engineering for a local telecommunications firm who cooperates with his wife in her studies.

The camera works essentially by creating a small, harmless electric charge that causes energy to emanate from a fingertip placed on the camera’s lens. The way that energy cascades out from the finger is believed to have significance, Freeman says.

The aura camera relies on the meridian system used in acupuncture (and based on ancient Chinese medicine), which connects points on a person’s finger to various organs within the body. After the energy of all 10 fingers has been recorded by the camera, a computer program melds them together to give an overall picture of a person’s aura, health and basic mental well-being.

A healthy aura will be depicted as a uniform glow of intensity and brightness surrounding a human figure. The aura of an unwell person shows a jagged halo around the figure, full of holes or spikes.

Locations of the holes or spikes in the aura correlate — again using the Chinese meridian system — to places in the body.

Freeman, who teaches at the Saybrook Graduate School, a San Francisco psychology school, has begun studies with the device to find out whether meditation, acupuncture and other alternative therapies affect a person’s health aura.

The idea of a device to photograph the aura is based on many years of experimentation and study into the human energy field, Freeman says.

Auggie Nelson, a Native healer from Kotzebue, Alaska, works with circulation problems and, through touch, tries to get the blood flowing correctly again. He says he would be curious to see the aura camera used on patients before and after treatments.

“I believe there would be a great difference in their auras,” he says. “It’s quite a project. I was in awe.”