"...seeing the aura in five minutes makes use of well known properties of our visual system..." I know what you mean. You can see that kind of aura around anything, so some of your subjects should see a screen-shaped aura, shouldn't they?

I'm expressing myself poorly in these posts. I have always assumed that the aura, if it exists, is not an optical phenomenon, but is seen in the mind's eye, perhaps "a mixture of feeling the body heat radiation (most times higher than the surrounding air) and perhaps some imagination in his pupils." or perhaps something else. The question to me is, can the aura-seer do anything useful with his/her aura-sight, whatever the explanation of it is?

If so, let him alone. If therapeutic touch only works without a screen, then don't use a screen. Don't say a man cannot light a match because he believes in phlogiston. It will be more useful in the long run for people to know about oxidation, but in the short run he doesn't need to change what he's doing in order to build a fire

I read of a man who had a terrible constant headache for days, and was finally cured of it --instantly-- by a chicken-sacrifice ceremony performed by a tribal healer of some kind. He said he told his doctor about it and the doctor wasn't surprised. The doctor said that sometimes pain can feed on itself and keep going through a kind of neurological feedback loop, and anything that breaks the cycle (like the shock of the bloody chicken-killing) will stop the pain. I think the doctor is right; I went through something like that once myself (no chicken, though). So:the doctor knew all about the condition, and why it happened, but he couldn't cure the victim. It took a superstitious medicine man to do that.

Art critics often know a good deal about color theory and the principles of composition, but few of them can do an outstanding painting.

My old Psych prof told me that Rorshach tests are not scientific at all. When I asked why bother with them he said "Because some people can use them." It took me a while to see he was saying it's an art, or a talent; you can't formulate the rules for it but some people can do it.

Maybe all I've been trying to say is that knowledge/science/intellect -only goes so far. There are other things as valid.

clint