In 132 CE, the Han dynasty astronomer Zhang Heng presented a bronze instrument to the imperial court in Luoyang. Eight dragons circled its sides, each holding a bronze ball above an open-mouthed toad. When the ground moved, a dragon released its ball. The Book of the Later Han records a day when one dragon dropped its ball while no one in the capital felt any tremor. The scholars found it strange. Several days later a messenger arrived with news: an earthquake had struck Longxi, hundreds of kilometers to the west.
Zhang Heng's instrument sensed something people could not feel. The question of whether an aura can be measured belongs to that same long story of detecting what our senses miss. Here is what science can measure around the body today, how measurement differs from visualization, how people across the world have learned to measure the invisible, and where a See Your Aura biofield scan fits.
What does it mean to measure something?
A measurement begins with a clear question: what property are we detecting, and with what instrument? An ECG detects voltage changes on the skin as electrical impulses move through the heart. A thermal camera detects infrared radiation and translates temperature into a color scale. Each instrument is built for one defined signal, and decades of study connect that signal with what it means.
A visualization works differently. It creates an image that lets you see a pattern, compare it and return to it. Maps, weather charts and medical illustrations are all visualizations, and they help people understand things far too large, small or subtle to see directly. Both approaches have value, and knowing which one you are looking at helps you use it well.
Measuring the invisible: lessons from around the world
Many of humanity's great leaps came when someone found a way to measure what no one could see or touch.
The Islamic Golden Age: measuring the Earth from a mountaintop
In the early eleventh century, the Central Asian scholar Abu Rayhan al-Biruni set out to find the size of the Earth without traveling around it. He first calculated the height of a mountain using angles taken from the plain below. Then, from its summit, he measured how far the horizon dipped below level. With trigonometry, he turned that small angle into a radius for the whole planet of about 6,340 kilometers, within one percent of today's value. A single careful angle revealed something far beyond what the eye could take in.
Hungary: weighing the pull of hidden rock
In 1890, the Hungarian physicist Loránd Eötvös built his first torsion balance, a delicate arm suspended from a thin wire that responds to tiny differences in gravity. His instrument could sense the pull of dense or light rock hidden deep underground. From the 1920s to 1967, surveyors recorded more than 60,000 measurement stations across Hungary with torsion balances in the search for oil and gas. Hungarian researchers still use the principle today in geodesy and physics.
Russia: making measurement trustworthy
In 1893, the chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, famous for the periodic table, founded Russia's Main Chamber of Weights and Measures in St Petersburg. Its founding purpose was to preserve uniformity, accuracy and agreement among measures across the country. Mendeleev understood that a measurement becomes meaningful when others can repeat it and compare results. The institute he founded carries his name today.
Al-Biruni, Eötvös and Mendeleev each show a different part of the craft: an ingenious method, an instrument sensitive enough for the task and shared standards that let others build on the work.
What science can measure around the body
The human body is electrical and magnetic, and several of its fields can be measured with precision.
- Heart: an ECG records the electrical rhythm of each heartbeat from electrodes on the skin.
- Brain: an EEG records electrical activity from groups of neurons through the scalp.
- Muscles: EMG records the electrical signals that accompany muscle activation.
- Heat: thermal imaging maps the infrared radiation the body releases.
Detecting the body's magnetic fields beyond the skin
Electrical currents in the body also create magnetic fields that extend outside it. These fields are extraordinarily faint, so detecting them took a new generation of instruments. In 1968, the physicist David Cohen recorded the magnetic field of the human brain. In 1970, at MIT, working inside a magnetically shielded room with James Zimmerman's superconducting quantum interference device, or SQUID, Cohen and his colleagues recorded clear magnetocardiograms, the magnetic signature of the beating heart measured from outside the chest. Magnetoencephalography, or MEG, grew from that work and now helps doctors map brain activity.
These discoveries confirm something energy traditions have long described: the living body produces fields that reach beyond its surface.
Where energy medicine meets measurement
Scientists have measured specific signals from the heart, brain and muscles. The aura, as spiritual and wellness traditions describe it, is a larger idea: a whole field surrounding the person, connected with energy, emotion and wellbeing. Research into the biofield as a whole is a young and growing field, and science has not yet agreed on one standard instrument for measuring it.
That places biofield technologies in the same position many discoveries once held. Zhang Heng's seismoscope sensed distant earthquakes centuries before seismology became a formal science. Eötvös's balance was a curiosity before it transformed oil exploration. Instruments often arrive before the full framework that explains them.
It helps to recognize three kinds of tools:
- Direct measurement detects a defined physical signal, such as an ECG or MEG.
- Indirect measurement reads one signal and uses it to represent another, such as aura cameras that turn hand-sensor readings into colors.
- Technology-generated visualization creates a structured image of a field for you to see, compare and interpret.
A See Your Aura scan belongs to the third group.
How See Your Aura describes its technology
See Your Aura creates a 360° biofield visualization with specialized technology, using your recent full-length photograph and intake information. In the image, a blue grid traces your energy field and pink marks where field strength is reduced. You receive:
- a full 360° visualization, with front, right, left and back still views;
- a remote energizing stage completed by Yvette;
- a second visualization and a before-and-after comparison;
- a personal written interpretation from Yvette.
The before-and-after changes are genuine shifts generated by the technology, and they let you see how your displayed field responded. The service is technology-generated, personally interpreted and offered as a wellness reflection. It is not a psychic reading, it is not produced by artificial intelligence, and it is not a medical test.
What Yvette brings to the reading
A clear image becomes more useful in experienced hands. Yvette brings over thirty years of holistic health practice to every scan. She studies the overall shape of the field, where pink appears and how far it reaches, how the front, sides and back compare and how the field changes after energizing. She reads those patterns alongside what you shared in your intake and writes an interpretation in clear, warm language, offering reflections and questions for you to explore.
How to approach any biofield technology with curiosity
Curiosity and discernment work well together. Before choosing any aura or biofield service, ask:
- What does the technology use as its input: a photograph, hand sensors, a selfie or something else?
- Is the image recorded directly or generated by the system?
- What do the colors represent?
- Can I see a genuine sample before I buy?
- Who interprets the result, and what experience do they bring?
- How does the provider describe what the service is designed for?
A trustworthy provider answers each of these clearly. Our guide How to Choose an Aura or Biofield Practitioner explores this in more depth.
Frequently asked questions
Can scientists measure the human electromagnetic field?
Yes. ECG, EEG, EMG and MEG each measure specific electrical or magnetic signals from the body, and some of those magnetic fields can be detected outside the body.
Is there one standard instrument for measuring the whole aura?
Not yet. Biofield research is a growing field, and no single instrument has become the accepted standard for the complete field.
Is a biofield visualization the same as an EEG or MEG?
No. EEG and MEG record defined signals from the brain. A See Your Aura scan is a technology-generated visualization of your whole field, interpreted personally by Yvette.
Are the before-and-after changes real?
Yes. They are genuine shifts generated by the technology, showing how your displayed field responded after the energizing stage.
Can a phone camera photograph an aura?
An ordinary photograph records visible light. In a See Your Aura scan, your photograph serves as the individual reference from which the technology creates your visualization.
Can an aura scan diagnose disease?
No. It is a wellness visualization for reflection. Health concerns belong with a qualified medical professional.
Where this leaves us
Zhang Heng's dragons, al-Biruni's mountaintop angle, Eötvös's balance, Mendeleev's standards and Cohen's shielded room all tell the same story. People keep finding new ways to detect what the senses miss, and each instrument opens a wider view of the world and the body.
Science already measures the electrical and magnetic fields of the heart and brain, and research into the biofield as a whole continues to grow. A See Your Aura scan offers a clear, rotating visualization of your field today, with before-and-after images and a personal interpretation to help you reflect on what your energy may be showing. If you could see your field from every side, what would you want to understand first?
Sources and further reading
These references cover historical instruments for measuring the invisible in China, the Islamic world, Hungary and Russia, and the scientific discovery of the body's magnetic fields.
Measuring the invisible
- Fan Ye. Book of the Later Han, "Biography of Zhang Heng" (《后汉书·张衡传》), with commentary in 漫谈张衡地动仪 (On Zhang Heng's seismoscope). Enjoy Physics. enjoyphysics.cn
- Tomé C. (2020). Historia del radio terrestre (History of the Earth's radius). Cuaderno de Cultura Científica, University of the Basque Country, 29 December 2020. culturacientifica.com
- Meléndez Tercero R. (2020). Cómo se midió en el siglo XI el radio de la Tierra (How the Earth's radius was measured in the eleventh century). Bembibre Digital, 23 April 2020. bembibredigital.com
- Völgyesi L, Szondy Gy, Tóth Gy, et al. (2024). A torziós ingák jelentősége Eötvös Loránd születése után 175 évvel (The significance of the torsion balance 175 years after the birth of Loránd Eötvös). Magyar Tudomány, 2024/3. doi:10.1556/2065.185.2024.3.4. mersz.hu
- Учреждена Главная палата мер и весов (The Main Chamber of Weights and Measures is established). Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library. prlib.ru
The body's magnetic fields
- Cohen D, Edelsack EA, Zimmerman JE. (1970). Magnetocardiograms taken inside a shielded room with a superconducting point-contact magnetometer. Applied Physics Letters, 16, 278–280. nist.gov
- Cohen D. (1968). Magnetoencephalography: evidence of magnetic fields produced by alpha-rhythm currents. Science, 161, 784–786. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/5663803
- The David Cohen MEG Laboratory. David Cohen biography: introduction. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging. meg.martinos.org