A considerable number of consistent, reliable mystical and scientific reports provide evidence that layers of electromagnetic energy exist within the human aura. The seven layers of the aura generally correlate with the energies of the seven chakras, with some differences and additional functions. In this section, I describe the function of each auric layer, which you should visualize as a three-dimensional holograph, and provide additional information about that layer. I begin with the sheath of energy next to your physical body and move outward to the seventh layer, which is farthest away from your body, at the edge of your auric field.

The first auric layer, closest to the body, indicates the immediate health or disease of the physical body and may indicate the need for aura cleansing and healing. For most people, this layer seems to be the easiest one to see and feel. This layer is the auric anchor to the physical earth, which metaphorically and literally shows the strength of the life force. When you are ungrounded or “out of your body,” this layer is diffused or does not hug your skin. In people who are about to die, whether by accident or disease, I usually read this first auric layer as a dull, flat black, devoid of any pattern or movement. Conversely, I had a client who had a brilliant, full, sapphire-blue first layer, which I saw gave him great physical prowess. I later learned that he was an Olympic gymnast. A healthy first layer supports the vitality of the immune system as well.

The second layer of the aura flows concentrically and holographically around the first layer. This second layer is an emotional security blanket, wrapping the body with a feeling of safety and well-being. When this layer of the aura reads as healthy, your inner relationship with your sexuality is harmonious, which gives balance to your sexual expression with others. This is the layer where you display your feelings of attraction or rejection toward others — your energetic pheromone! When people are engaged in chaotic emotional or sexual relationships, this layer appears riddled with pebbled patterns or ripped lines indicating the need for aura cleansing and healing. I once had a client who was happy in her profession as a prostitute; her second aura layer read as radiant with a rainbow of pleasurable colors. Another client, who was experiencing an agonizing divorce, had bloody rips in her second layer, from her angry husband. A healthy second layer supports a balanced sexual identity and emotional body.

The third layer of the aura displays how you interface with your environment and society in general, as well as your expression of personal power in the world. A low pulse or diffuse layer shows a tentative, weak, or introverted interaction with the world and indicates the need for aura healing and cleansing. I often read this aura layer as huge and gaily loud in performers, and delicate and pristinely quiet in monks and nuns. A healthy third layer shows a clear, purposeful attitude about yourself as a participant in your environment.

The fourth layer of the aura is where people display their hearts. It indicates whether they are humanitarians or Scrooges, beatific souls or miserly louses. This layer indicates the interactive emotions of your primary relationships with friends, partners, coworkers, and pets. Often the most recent interactions with others are held in living color in this layer.

I once had a client who had an image of a crocodile in this layer; I was confounded until she spoke excitedly about having spent the morning at an aquarium, where she had been lovingly watching a pool full of crocodiles. Because auric layers often report that which is about to transpire, I have sometimes seen in this layer the images of an impending divorce. A healthy fourth layer embodies and develops a heart-centered, compassionate disposition.

The fifth layer of the aura field indicates creative force and communication skills. This layer is a linking and transfer area, reflecting the transformation of spiritual perception and altruism into expressions of creativity and communication. Your satisfaction or disappointments with the creative forces in your life are displayed in this layer. When people are happy with their career choices, this is an ebullient and buoyant layer; those who are languishing in a boring occupation often have a sandpaper pattern, dull colors, and slow movement of energy through this layer and require aura cleansing and healing. I have read the aura of stellar speakers rainbowed with a glowing, burnished fifth layer while giving presentations. Conversely, timid people and those who do not trust their creative force have quite narrow bands of energy in this layer.

A healthy fifth layer contributes to embodied inspiration.

The sixth layer of the aura field is the immediate depiction of intuitive development and intelligence. This layer shows the development of the doorway to the subtle realms of the world — the mystic’s portal to what most people call the unseen world. When this mystical sense is integrated, the sixth layer is broad and full of light. Those who perceive the world from a linear and analytical viewpoint, on the other hand, have a small, brittle-patterned layer which indicates the need for aura cleansing and healing. A convicted felon who I observed in a police lineup had a shriveled, black sixth layer. I had the privilege of reading the aura of and studying with a Hindu master who had a crystalline, diamond-blue sixth layer. A healthy sixth layer supports heightened intuitive perception and respect for life.

The seventh layer of the aura is the cloth woven of your spirituality.

Spirituality is your connection to God, Goddess, the Divine, Source — whatever that means to you. Highly developed, evolved individuals radiate a notable light in this layer, an almost ethereal glow. This layer, coupled with the sixth layer, is what most people see around the head and describe as the “halo of light” or “corona of color.” Most young children have the light of this spiritual glow from birth, but unfortunately it diminishes with immersion in the physical and mental world and indicates the need for healing and cleansing of the aura. Your aura glow and your connection to the Divine can be cultivated and strengthened by filling this layer with your spiritual light.

Our 4 Energy Bodies

#1: Physical Body

What it is: Just as it sounds: Our skin and everything under the skin, the brain, the organs, and everything between the ears. It is the skeletal system, fascia, organs, and blood, veins, and ligaments. We usually know when our physical body is full or not, hurt or not, happy or not, healthy or not. The signs are visible and generally recognizable. Our western medical culture places a lot of emphasis on this body and that it not experience pain or discomfort.

What it represents: Our physical experience in the world, our physiology, our ability to heal.

How the physical body should behave when balanced: We feel open, flexible and healthful, our vitamin and mineral elements should be balanced, and we should be free of pain, toxicity, and acidity.

Quality of someone under-balanced toward physical: The body ages more rapidly, breaks down more easily, and loses elasticity. Organ function is disrupted, there are issues with absorption and elimination, and there’s a feeling of tightness, heaviness, and stress on our skeletal frame.

Qualities of someone over-balanced toward physical: There’s too much focus on physical strength, beauty, and anti-aging. There’s also doubt that the body can heal itself, and an over-reliance on outside factors like drugs, surgeries, and injections to bring the body’s radiance and worth back. There’s a tendency to bypass elements of nature (whole food, water, air quality, yin time, quiet, physical touch, uninhibited sexual experience, balanced movement) for the sake of the fast and immediate.

How to bring the physical into balance: Simple movements and slow, balanced repetitive sequences, Qigong is excellent for this, meditation, walking, massage, barefoot or bare hand earth play (dirt, water, soil, sand), yoga, stretching, and weight bearing exercises that let you feel the strength in your own body and the union of all things physical.

#2: Emotional Body

What it is: The nervous system, hormones, touch, water and water release (tears), and water absorption (bloating or clutching from not letting go, feelings of lack, and trying to hold onto/control things too closely). Some believe that the emotional body extends a few millimeters or inches around the body. How we are doing emotionally is represented by how calm or rough the waters are in our thoughts and our dream state.

What it represents: As the bridge between the physical and the mental, it is where our experience of the world is synthesized and interpreted. It represents our feelings and relationship to all things (i.e., how we react, interpret, and respond to situations and outside energies, particularly anything that’s not factual—like how we feel when people look at us in a certain way, or how we respond to something they might say, etc.). The connection between the mental-emotional body is the reason why there are always different sides to a story or situation—if the bodies are unbalanced, those situations can be greatly misread and misunderstood. When balanced, it represents centering and acting from the heart space.

How the emotional body should behave when balanced: Inclusive, empathetic, open, honest, less or non-judgmental toward others, and generous with help. There is a desire to give without expecting or wishing to receive something in return. Cortisol, insulin, estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone will be more balanced and even, blood sugar is more regulated, the heart beat even and slow, and blood pressure balanced. The body does not retain water, nor is the body over-dehydrated.

Quality of someone under-balanced toward emotional:  A general lack of emotional intelligence, trust, and very little intuition or ability to read and understand people. There’s also a lot of fear and neuroses, as well as concern for the self and less empathy for the experience of others. This can manifest physically as holding water in the limbs, joints, and face (especially from hormone imbalance), dehydration or bloating, inflexibility, and joint stiffness. Lack of sleep from emotional stress presents similar symptoms. Mentally, it manifests as self-doubt, projection, and thinking others have a better life, which again, causes us to lose sleep and increases the physical symptoms of imbalance. Ultimately, it means that we are not using the mental or physical body, either by talking ourselves down to a point of being rational, or using the lungs and breath to calm the heartbeat.

Qualities of someone over-balanced toward emotional: Oversaturated, passive then quickly aggressive, obsessive, irrational, extremely irritated, depressed, overly anxious, often with feelings of drowning or hopeless conclusion of relationships or situations. This can manifest as weight gain (even while dieting) and too much water in the aura and system, where the body is behaving like a sponge. Alternately, if someone over-fires their nervous system, one can dry out the emotional body, which also manifests as being under-weight, dehydrated, or desiccated. Hormones are key to our health. The heart might feel heavy and the menstrual cycle might be heavy as well. The throat may feel closed, which also adversely affects hormones.

How to bring the emotional into balance: Anything that releases emotion, tension, stress, and anxiety—this will create clear, running waters with fewer rocks or less damning of the stream. Depending on the person this might require something like meditation, dance cardio, a comedy club, or breathing techniques. Ultimately, the emotional body comes into great balance when we learn how important it is to balance our hormones. Yoga, especially restorative and hatha, sauna, light detoxing or fasting (with adrenal and liver support), more touch and intimacy are key. Forgiveness and acts of forgiveness are also crucial. Learning the value of emotional intelligence and not only mental intelligence is central to empathetic and adrenal wellness.

#3: Mental Body

What it is: Our thoughts, attitudes, judgments, and prejudices—also how we perceive our worth and value in the world. Some believe it is about a foot out in diameter from the physical body, some feel it is inches.

What it represents: All things intellectual, including analytical thought, how we process information, how we learn in school, and how we use our words. Also includes focus, clarity, direction, and contributions to creation and society. It is a key element in thoughts becoming reality.

How the mental body should behave when balanced: Proactive problem solving, concise communication, innovations coming into fruition with clarity and ease, and the ability to solve emotional or physical issues in a direct and supportive way. There’s very little waste, nonsense, or going around in circles. Instead, a balanced mental body offers direction that points true north (and benefits everyone).

Quality of someone under-balanced toward mental: Confusion, brain fog, ideas lost quickly, lethargy, lack of purpose, neuroses, doubt, a lack of work ethic, feelings of low esteem and low worth. Physically, it manifests as a lack of a menstrual period and little self-care.

Qualities of someone over-balanced toward mental: Ego-centric, excessively driven, sociopathic, narcissistic, and having little or no empathy especially when it comes to work or success. In a less extreme way, it’s doing too much or frequently being on overdrive. This manifests physically in headaches and jaw aches.

How to bring the mental into balance: Kundalini yoga, moderate cardio, talk therapy with an emotionally intelligent leader, and being in touch with emotions and spirituality for balance. The type of person living mostly in the mental body tends to overthink and overdrive, and doesn’t let go of emotional strife or forgive easily or often. They might need to re-root (i.e., work through old emotional issues from the first years of life) and often need a mental release, which most frequently comes from strong emotional support or handing the reins over to a mentor who can lead them through positive thought mantras or positive stress releasing actions.

#4: Spiritual Body

What it is: Connection to all things, including the earth/self, to what we call God, the universe, the beyond, the divine, or higher self. This provides protection, union, help, and guidance from an outside source as well as from those who have passed on. It connects us to all that is. Many do not understand or acknowledge this aspect exists. It has little to do with what we believe culturally when it comes to religion or spirits—it is more the element that no one and no situation stands alone, that there is no one fault, that we are all connected, and that it always takes more than one body to create all that exists in life. It is the most outside ring in our aura or energetic field.

What it represents: The unity of all living things, including the union between our soul, life experience, and destiny. This is not about going to church. In fact, it has little to do with religion.

How the spiritual body should behave when balanced: Calm, fearless, highly creative, and operating without limits—paired with the fortitude and support to create action from ideas. Along with this comes the acknowledgement that there’s a higher force guiding and protecting the project, and that there is something bigger at play than you. The spiritual body represents the synthesis and balance of the other three—it is very similar to the idea that we are greater than the sum of our parts.

Quality of someone under-balanced toward spiritual: Disconnected from the understanding that we are all one and feeling or thinking that we can do things on our own or alone. That we are not co-creating our existence, that we are victims of fate (or the health care system, the government, or the media) and most often (or entirely) dismissive of listening to the gut. This person generally separates from being an active or conscious member of community or society, and feels deserving and expectant of others’ energy or time. They also feel left out, or like they have not been seen or heard. There’s also a tendency to put a high emphasis on how things look or how they appear instead of focusing on transparency and honest heart communication. There’s also a heavy focus and over-reliance on doing, controlling, and the grasping of an exterior reference or relationship.

Quality of someone over-balanced toward spiritual: Head in the clouds, not turning ideas into reality, a false god complex, a lack of unity between action and behavior, a lack of connection to interpersonal responsibilities (relationships, physical health and wealth, respecting other people’s bodies, paying bills, debts). There is generally a feeling of entitlement and being overly deserving.

How to bring the spiritual into balance: Meditation, meditation, meditation. Breath work. Gratitude, humbleness, generosity and the act of giving—seeing others as you see (or wish to see) yourself, and acting accordingly. Also it’s key to connect personal gain with universal oneness, and to understand that heaven is within, that you are always in caring company, and no one physically holds your key to ultimate, consistent joy.