About the book
The Human Aura: A Study is Auguste Jean Baptiste Marques’s 1896 exploration of the human aura within late-nineteenth-century Theosophy. Writing as A. Marques, the president of Honolulu’s Aloha Branch of the Theosophical Society, he gathers Theosophical vocabulary, claimed clairvoyant observation, illustrations and period scientific language into a compact attempt to classify the invisible human being. The book considers the physical, psychic and spiritual portions of the aura, as well as thought-forms, emotions, subtle bodies, Prana, Kama, Manas and the “Auric Egg.”
Marques also sets out a five-part Tatwic system, associating elemental forms with colours, senses and currents. The appendix extends his scheme to plants and magnets, then offers exercises intended to train psychic sight. These are historical Theosophical claims, not established scientific findings or medical advice. The reader’s edition preserves the original argument while helping readers place its language, sources and ambitions in context.
Clearly labelled Editorial Reader’s Guides follow the prefaces and each of the three chapters, with orientation, key ideas and reflection questions. A vocabulary for reading, linked contents, an illustration list, original notes and historical plates make this short but dense book easier to navigate without rewriting its nineteenth-century voice.
What this edition includes
Includes the historical prefaces, three chapters, appendix, bibliography and original notes; a vocabulary for reading; four Editorial Reader’s Guides; linked contents and illustration list; restored historical plates; and linked endnotes. The historical text was newly typeset rather than paraphrased. New vocabulary pages and reader guides are clearly identified as HIPS Books editorial material.
Inside the book: selected contents
A reading overview, not the complete text.
- Prefaces and introductory chapter: Marques and Marie A. Walsh explain the claims and expectations behind the investigation.
- Descriptive chapter: material, psychic or soul, and spiritual portions are arranged into Marques’s proposed classification.
- Conclusion: the argument returns to the meaning of this layered account of the human being.
- Appendix: plants, magnets and training psychic sight extend the discussion beyond the human aura.
The illustrations record a historical interpretive system; they are not diagnostic images or independently established evidence of invisible bodies.
Key concepts for reading
HIPS editorial explanations of the historical text.
- Aura: the complex field Marques claims surrounds living beings.
- Principles: components of human nature in his Theosophical framework.
- Psychic sight: the claimed ability to perceive what ordinary sight cannot; the claim is not a substitute for scientific testing.
- Concordance: an arrangement of correspondences linking layers, forces and symbols.
- Sheaths: the bodies or coverings described in the spiritual model he uses.
A sample from the reader’s guide
Modern HIPS editorial material — not the historical author’s words.
Marques introduces the aura as a complex field made from physical, psychic, mental, and spiritual components. He combines religious art, Theosophical doctrine, reports by sensitives, and contemporary experiments into a twenty-one-part classification.
Excerpt: HIPS Reader guide, “Defining a layered human aura,” page 20 of the supplied 61-page edition.
Before you buy
How is this different from an archive scan?
An archive scan preserves photographed pages. This is a prepared reading edition: reset text and modern reading support, with the historical author’s words kept distinct. The edition details and preview pages above show what is included in this particular book.
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