HBM128: Seeing Auras

Here Be Monsters

Here Be Monsters Podcast

Science, Society & Culture, Social Sciences, Personal Journals, Documentary

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2020

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Colby Richardson’s mom got leukemia when he was young. He has trouble remembering her. Soon after her death, Colby and his siblings wound up at a house in Hope, BC where he met Santo, a childhood friend of his mom’s. Colby remembers that Santo’s voice to be soft and extremely calm.

Santo told Colby that he had a beautiful, green aura, a glow that surrounded his body. Back when his mother was alive, Santo had been able to see her aura too, the same green, but with a deep purply violet mixed in.

That afternoon, Santo and Colby sat in a living room with their eyes closed. Santo led him in a visualization exercise where they breathed slowly together until a door emerged in their minds’ eye. They opened the door and let light shine down. And when Colby opened his eyes, he could see auras floating around too.

Colby only saw Santo that one day, but it made an impression. In middle school and high school, Colby would sometimes stare to see the moving shapes of light around people. Eventually the ability faded.

But even today, Colby still sees clouds of green and purple before he falls asleep. He says it makes him feel connected to his mom, like she’s watching over him. But he also worries that he was tricked into believing in magic while he was in a susceptible state, grieving the death of his mother.

So, these days, Colby is uncertain about how to reflect on that afternoon in 2003. In the intervening years, he’s thought about getting in touch with Santo, but never found the right time. Just recently, he finally reached out. He found that Santo’s health has degraded, and he may have missed his chance to get clarity about his experience with auras.

Producer: Jeff Emtman

Editor: Bethany Denton

Music: The Black Spot

Transcript

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0:00.0	I used to do this thing, one of my favorite things to do was to burrow my head into the corner of this really fluffy couch we had
0:16.0	and to cover my eyes with my palms. From KCRW, this is here be monsters.
0:31.0	I would stick my head as deep into the couches I could to get the darkest possible place for my head and for my eyes.
0:41.0	And I would start to press on my eyes.
0:45.0	I think a lot of kids have realized when you press on your eyes,
0:50.0	when they're closed, you start to see colors and patterns, swirling, blooming colors that you see
1:01.5	when you press on your eyes in the dark.
1:05.0	I was a little embarrassed about what I was doing in the corner of the couch and I would do it when I was alone.
1:12.0	I knew no one was watching.
1:17.0	Why is it hard to talk about your mom?
1:27.0	I really struggle to remember concrete moments with my mother,
1:37.1	my mother's voice or places that we would go
1:40.3	or I don't remember her way of talking.
1:45.0	Maybe it's hard to talk about her because I don't have a concrete idea of who she was?
1:55.0	Sometimes when I'm trying to remember something or someone or some place
2:02.0	that I don't have access to in the immediate moment that's
2:04.8	unacceptable through time or distance or death or what have you. I feel like I kind of create
2:10.4	like dictionary definition entries for them where it's like not
2:13.6	encapsulating of someone's full person but I have like one one memory that I can
2:18.2	jump to to to represent them close enough so I can remember who they are. Do you have a dictionary definition of your of your mother or is it more complicated than that?
2:29.0	I think I have sort of a fantasy dictionary of my mother in the sense that because so much of who she was I don't I don't seem to remember I can kind of latch on and choose the best parts or choose what parts of my mother I wish I wish I wish I wish I You know, she was loving. She was weird. She was angry, but she cared so much about me and my sister and my brother.
3:11.0	I think maybe the idea of my mom that I hold on to the most
	...

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