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Rudolf Steiner – How to Know Higher Worlds

The [aura] is perceptible only to the clairvoyant.  It can be compared to a more or less spiritually and psychically luminous cloud, in the centre of which the physical body is found.  In this soul organism, impulses, desires, passions, ideas and so forth become visible spiritually.

Sensual desires, for example, create the impression of a dark red radiation, with a definite form. A pure and noble thought has its expression in a reddish-violet radiation. The clear-cut concept of a logical thinker is felt as a yellowish figure with sharply defined outlines. The confused thought of a muddled mind appears as a figure with vague out-lines. The thoughts of people with one-sided, obstinate views appear sharply outlined but immobile, while the thoughts of personalities who are open to the views of others are seen to have mobile, changing outlines, and so on and so forth.

The further the individual advances in his inner development the more clearly differentiated in structure will his soul-organism become. In a man with an undeveloped life of soul this organism is confused, relatively formless.  But even in a confused soul-organism the clairvoyant can perceive a form which stands out distinctly from its environment.  It extends from the interior of the head to the middle of the physical body. It appears as a kind of independent body possessing certain organs. These organs, now to be considered, are perceived spiritually near the following parts of the physical body: the first between the eyes, the second in the neighbourhood of the larynx, the third in the region of the heart; the fourth near the so-called pit of the stomach; the fifth and sixth are situated in the abdomen.

These organs are called by occultists 'wheels' (chakrams) or also ‘lotus flowers’,  they are so called because of their likeness to wheels or flowers, but it must of course be clearly understood that such expressions are not much apter than when the lobes of the lung are called 'wings'. Just as there is no question of 'wings' in the case of the lungs, so in the case of the lotus-flowers the expression must be taken as a figurative comparison.  In undeveloped persons these lotus flowers are dark in colour, motionless and inert.  In the clairvoyant, however, they are in movement and shot through with luminous shades of colour…………………….

The spiritual organ situated near the larynx makes it possible to perceive clairvoyantly the character of another being's thoughts, and also to gain deeper insight into the true laws of natural phenomena. The organ situated near the heart brings clairvoyant knowledge of the sentiments and outlook of other souls. When developed, this organ also makes it possible to recognise certain deeper forces in animals and plants. By means of the organ in the so-called pit of the stomach, knowledge is acquired of the faculties and talents of souls; by its means the part played in the household of Nature by animals, plants, stones, metals, atmospheric phenomena and so on can be discerned.

The organ in the vicinity of the larynx has sixteen 'petals' or 'spokes'; the one in the region of the heart has twelve, and the organ near the pit of the stomach, ten.