Christina Lonsdale’s mother was a perceiver and painter of auras. The younger Lonsdale—quick to say that she is an artist, not a psychic or healer—carries on the tradition with her nomadic photography project Radiant Human, which is based in Portland, Oregon, but makes regular stops in L.A., New York and other cities. To capture invisible energy fields on film, she uses a specialized camera in her portable studio, a silvery, lunar-module-–like dome that she packs up every few days and moves to a new location in a hip shop or art space somewhere around the country. For my portrait, Lonsdale led me into the studio tent, positioned me on a stool and placed a metal box fitted with biofeedback sensors in my lap. If you’ve noticed that the aura photos in your Instagram timeline look like tie-dyed versions of daguerreotypes, with subjects throwing dreamy middle-distance stares, it’s because it takes 10 seconds for the camera to produce an image, during which you have to sit straight and still with your hands pressed firmly on the sensors. The idea is that body temperature, pulse rate and other physiological information combine with something mystical to reveal the energy surrounding an individual. The finished portrait comes out like a small Polaroid, which Lonsdale interprets. Most of my aura is approximately the color of the label on a Veuve Clicquot bottle, a blend of optimistic yellow with creative-yet-aloof orange; off to the side is a distinct little smudge of the grassy green of perfectionism. It all feels accurate, if a bit vague. As art pieces, Lonsdale’s photographs are beautiful—splashed with vibrant colors—and interesting as formal, staged portraits in the era of quickly captured selfies. They may also provide insight into the energy each of us releases into the world, whether we’re conscious of it or not.—Brittany Martin
For decades, Los Angeles has been at the forefront of the metaphysical, and now there’s a new crop of healers coming out of (or heading toward) the West. These "post–New Age" practitioners combine their healing work with their art, creating an experience that’s more hip than hippie and is helping drive the exploration of self away from the fringes and into the mainstream. The new metaphysical movement is attracting followers that would never have gone to an old-school crystal-ball–wielding palm reader. We decided to take L.A.’s latest New Age offerings for a spin: How would the staff of Time Out Los Angeles, a group of open-minded but fact-and-thought-led journalists, find these varied experiences?
