Semyon D. Kirlian a Russian technician was repairing equipment in a hospital when he noticed something unusual. He later found that through the interaction of electric currents and photographic plates, imprints of living organisms developed on film.

Kirlian and his wife developed the process in 1939. They call it the "Kirlian Effect" (pronounced keer-lee-an) In the late 1940's the Russians began serious research, but it was not until the 1970's that Kirlian photography research began in the United States.

Kirlian photography involves the transferring of a high frequency charge through a metal plate attached to a Polaroid film camera base. The finger tips are lightly placed on the film which is encased in a light-tight bag, and an electric exposure is made. Sixty seconds later, after the film develops, the Kirlian photograph is complete and the subject's energy field is revealed.

Kirlian photography is a collection of photographic techniques used to capture the phenomenon of electrical coronal discharges. It is named after Semyon Kirlian, who, in 1939 accidentally discovered that if an object on a photographic plate is connected to a high-voltage source, an image is produced on the photographic plate. The technique has been variously known as "electrography","electrophotography", "corona discharge photography" (CDP),"bioelectrography" "gas discharge visualization (GDV)", "eletrophotonic imaging (EPI)" and, in Russian literature, "Kirlianography".

Semyon D. Kirlian a Russian technician was repairing equipment in a hospital when he noticed something unusual. He later found that through the interaction of electric currents and photographic plates, imprints of living organisms developed on film.

Kirlian and his wife developed the process in 1939. They call it the "Kirlian Effect" (pronounced keer-lee-an) In the late 1940's the Russians began serious research, but it was not until the 1970's that Kirlian photography research began in the United States.

Kirlian photography involves the transferring of a high frequency charge through a metal plate attached to a Polaroid film camera base. The finger tips are lightly placed on the film which is encased in a light-tight bag, and an electric exposure is made. Sixty seconds later, after the film develops, the Kirlian photograph is complete and the subject's energy field is revealed.

Kirlian photography is a collection of photographic techniques used to capture the phenomenon of electrical coronal discharges. It is named after Semyon Kirlian, who, in 1939 accidentally discovered that if an object on a photographic plate is connected to a high-voltage source, an image is produced on the photographic plate. The technique has been variously known as "electrography","electrophotography", "corona discharge photography" (CDP),"bioelectrography" "gas discharge visualization (GDV)","eletrophotonic imaging (EPI)" and, in Russian literature, "Kirlianography".

Kirlian photography has been the subject of mainstream scientific research, parapsychology research and art. To a large extent, It has been co-opted by promoters of pseudoscience and paranormal health claims in books, magazines, workshops, and web sites.^[7][8]

Konstantin Korotkov developed a technique similar to Kirlian photography called Gas Discharge Visualization (GDV) Korotkov's GDV camera system consists of hardware and software to directly record, process and interpret GDV images with a computer. Although diagnostic medicine experiments conducted by Korotkov using GDV were deemed to be statistically unreliable, his web site still promotes his device and research in a medical context.

Izabela Ciesielska at the Institute of Architecture of Textiles in Poland experimented with corona discharge photography (CDP) to evaluate the effects of human contact with various textiles on biological factors such as heart rate and blood pressure, as well as corona discharge images. The experiments used the The GDV camera designed by Konstantin Korotkov to capture corona discharge images of subjects fingertips while the subjects wore sleeves of various natural and synthetic materials on their forearms. The results failed to establish a relationship between human contact with the textiles and the corona discharge images, and were considered inconclusive.  Galina Gudakova conducted biological research in Russia. She explored the growth of microbiological cultures using Kirlian photograph.

Around the 1970s, interest in paranormal research peaked. In 1968, Dr. Thelma Moss, a psychology professor headed UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute (NPI ), which was later renamed the Semel Institute. The NPI had a laboratory dedicated to parapsychology research and staffed mostly with volunteers. The lab was unfunded, unsanctioned and eventually shut down by the university. Toward the end of her tenure at UCLA, Moss became interested in Kirlian photography, a technique that supposedly measured the “auras” of a living being. According to Kerry Gaynor, one of her former research assistants, "many felt Kirlian photography’s effects were just a natural occurrence."

Kirlian believed that images created by Kirlian photography might depict a conjectural energy field, or aura, thought, by some, to surround living things. Kirlian and his wife were convinced that their images showed a life force or energy field that reflected the physical and emotional states of their living subjects. They thought these images could be used to diagnose illnesses. In 1961, they published their first paper on the subject in the Russian Journal of Scientific and Applied Photography.Kirlian's claims were embraced by energy treatments practitioners.

A typical demonstration used as evidence for the existence of these energy fields involved taking Kirlian photographs of a picked leaf at set intervals. The gradual withering of the leaf was thought to correspond with a decline in the strength of the aura. In some experiments, if a section of a leaf was torn away after the first photograph, a faint image of the missing section would sometimes remain when a second photograph was taken. If the imaging surface is cleaned of contaminants and residual moisture before the second image is taken, then no image of the missing section would appear.

The living aura theory is at least partially repudiated by demonstrating that leaf moisture content has a pronounced effect on the electric discharge coronas; more moisture creates larger, more dynamic corona discharges. As the leaf dehydrates, the coronas will naturally decrease in variability and intensity. As a result, the changing water content of the leaf can affect the so-called Kirlian aura. Kirlian's experiments did not provide evidence for an energy field other than the electric fields produced by chemical processes, and the streaming process of coronal discharges.

The coronal discharges identified as Kirlian auras are the result of stochastic electric ionization processes, and are greatly affected by many factors, including the voltage and frequency of the stimulus, the pressure with which a person or object touches the imaging surface, the local humidity around the object being imaged, how well grounded the person or object is, and other local factors affecting the conductivity of the person or object being imaged. Oils, sweat, bacteria, and other ionizing contaminants found on living tissues can also affect the resulting images.

Qi

Scientists such as Beverly Rubik have explored the idea of a human biofield using Kirlian photography research, attempting to explain the Chinese discipline of Qigong. Qigong teaches that there is a vitalistic energy called qi (or chi) that permeates all living things. The existence of qi has been mostly rejected by the scientific community. Rubik's experiments relied on Konstantin Korotkov's GDV device to produce images which were thought to visualize these qi biofields in chronically ill patients. Rubik acknowledges that the small sample size in her experiments "was too small to permit a meaningful statistical analysis." Vitalistic energies, such as qi, if they exist, would exist beyond the natural world. Claims that these energies can be captured by special photographic equipment are criticized by skeptics.