International Kirlian Research Association

Founded in 1975 with a membership of physicists, electrical engineers, psychologists, parapsychologists, physicians, graduate science students, interested individuals with advanced degrees, and those engaged in scientific research. The association hoped to advance research on Kirlian photography (electrography) through multidisciplinary research or electromagnetic interactions in biological and medical functions.

Kirlian photography is named for its inventor, Semyon Kirlian, a Russian electrical engineer who developed a technique of photographing objects without the use of cameras through a high-voltage, high-frequency, low-amperage electrical discharge, thus showing an aura around objects. The Kirlian aura was frequently identified as the aura reportedly seen around individuals by psychics and that was seen by Walter J. Kilner through various optical effects.

The work of the association was blunted in the early 1980s by a negative laboratory opinion on the more interesting Kirlian effects that suggested they were caused by flawed experimental controls. The association maintains a speakers bureau and publishes Communications and Acta Electragrafica quarterly. Address: 2202 Quentin Rd., Brooklyn, NY 11229.