I Shoot The Body Electric

"In living things, we see the signals of the inner state of the organism reflected in the brightness, dimness, and color of the flares. The inner life activities of the human being are written in these 'light' hieroglyphs. We've created an apparatus to write these hieroglyphs. But to read them, we're going to need help."
-- Semyon and Valentina Kirlian

Take a picture, they say, it'll last longer. That's especially true (using the term with our traditional laxity) of the paranormal; without blurry photographs of everything from Bigfoot to triangular UFOs, we'd barely have a hook to hang a scenario on. What we need, then, is a superior method of pseudoscientific photography, one that combines Tesla, chakras, the KGB, and anything else our little hearts desire. Fortunately, the vasty deeps of Communist claptrap provide just such a mechanism for us all, through the miracle of Kirlian photography. So lure your player characters into high-frequency electrical fields, twiddle those top-line Soviet-vintage Bakelite dials, and say "cheese." Just be sure to pronounce it "Kirlian."

"I studied the picture with pain, excitement, and hope all combined. Did I have a discovery? An invention? It wasn't clear yet."
-- Semyon Kirlian

It all began in 1937 (or, according to other sources, 1939), when Armenian electrician Semyon Davidovitch Kirlian noticed a powerful spark-gap discharge from a medical diathermy machine in a hospital . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.

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Article publication date: November 3, 2000

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