It was so odd— eight students sitting around the classroom, apparently just staring at each other. It looked like we were all in detention. Actually though, this was our second day of practicing seeing auras.

At least we weren't giggling. The first day there was a lot of that going on, because come on, who can stare at somebody for 20 minutes without giggling? The teacher had to stop us after that long, because no one was making any progress.

Today, he asked us to each stare at a different person, so nobody was staring at a person who was looking back at them. It was so much better.

For me, I kept confusing auras with after-images, which is the negative color image you see when you look away, after staring at something for a long time. For a dark-haired person, the after-image of the hair was white, and the opposite for a blonde.

However, I started noticing the color of the after-image was different than I was expecting. I had been staring at Jett, actually looking past him, with unfocused eyes. He has dark brown hair, so the after-image was a light green. But now I was seeing some red.

Maybe I'm going crazy, after two days of doing this?

But then I remembered that Mr. Whitaker had explained that auras can have many different colors. After-images move with the direction of your eyes, but auras should stay around the person you are looking at. That's what I was seeing.

He had a red aura!

I wonder what red means? I know the internet said something about different colors meaning different things, but I hadn't memorized it.

I decided to look at somebody else for a minute, and picked Binda. She has blonde hair, done up in a braid. After staring at her for a while, I could see that her after-image was kind of dark blue. I was nearly there but then I blinked. The teacher, and the web sites I had looked at, warned us to try not to blink, because the aura will usually disappear if you do. So, I kept at it. Eventually, I started to see a slight pink haze around her head.

Her aura was pink! What does pink mean?

About that time, Leif groaned. “I’m never going to get this!” He put his head down. “My eyes are hurting.”

“Ok, class,” Mr. Whitaker said, as he stood up from the chair where he had been sitting on the corner. He walked to the front of the class. “That’s probably enough for our aura exercise today. I can see most of you are ready for something new. But before we get into that, did anyone have success in seeing an aura?”

Everyone looked around the room, but no one raised their hand. My face and ears were flushed with heat. I hated to stand out or be ridiculed, but slowly raised my hand.

“Keyva, care to share with us what you saw?”

“Well, I was really struggling with seeing after-images and blinking. But eventually I started seeing a red glow around Jett’s head. Then I tried it again with Binda, just to be sure. It took a while again, but I started seeing a pink glow around her. I really don’t know if I was seeing their auras, or if I was just imagining them.”

“So, class, how can you tell if you see an aura or not? What did I tell you?”

Olivia spoke up. “It is an after-image if it moves with the direction of your eyes. If it stays around the person, then it is an aura.”

“That is correct. Keyva, I can verify you were seeing Jett’s and Binda’s auras, because I also saw them as red and pink. There are some interesting theories as to what each of the colors mean. You can look them up if you want, but I haven’t found them to be always accurate.

“We’ll keep practicing seeing auras in class, but we will spend less and less time on the exercise. So I want each of you to practice this on your own. Try it with different lighting and varying backgrounds. Some people learn to see them, but not everyone. It is not a requirement, but if you can learn to see them, it will really help you in the future.

“Now we will discuss the various steps you need to take to manipulate the aether. You may want to take notes.” Then he wrote the following on the board:

Faith

Focus

Emotion

Authority

Target

Intent

Command

Effect

“The first three are for preparation. Let’s start with ‘faith’. Who knows what this means? And, no, I’m not talking about religion.”

“Does it mean belief?”

“Yes, Kevlin. But faith is a much stronger word than belief. How about a quick demonstration? But I need a volunteer.” Kevlin stood up as the teacher walked around to the front of his table.

“Stand here next to me, but facing the window.” Kevlin moved to the spot he indicated.

“Don’t do it yet, but I’m going to ask you to close your eyes and let yourself fall backwards. But first, do I have your permission to catch you?”

“Sure.”

“Do you trust that I am able to catch you?”

“Of course.”

Then the teacher walked to his chair in the corner of the room, far away from Kevlin, and sat down.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Do you trust that I am able to catch you?” he asked again.

“Um… not now. You’re too far away.”

“Even if I assure you that I am still able to catch you?”

“Well, maybe?” He didn’t seem very sure, though.

“I understand. Please go back to your desk. Is there anyone else who actually believes I am able to catch them, even from over here?”

“I do.” Binda jumped up and went to where Kevlin was.

“Do I have your permission to catch you?”

“Yep.”

“Alright. Please close your eyes and fall backwards.”

She did, but started slowly. Just before she hit the floor, though, she screamed and broke form, bending at the waist and trying to catch herself with her hands. Carli screamed too, and Jett jumped up. She wasn’t on the floor though.

She was hovering a foot above it, her eyes huge, but she had a big smile!

I looked down at my Doon’i, which was sitting on my desk. Some of the sides were glowing, as I expected.

“You said you believed I could catch you. Yet you still mistrusted, right at the end.” He paused.

“Having faith means you have complete trust. You would have had no doubt. In order for you to manipulate the aether, you must have faith, not just belief.”

Slowly she descended to the ground, where she stood up.

“Thank you, Binda. Please take your seat.

“Step 2 is to ‘focus’. By this we mean you must have total concentration on what you're about to do. If you are distracted at all, you will fail.

“Step 3 is ‘emotion’. What we mean is, you have to be in the right frame of mind while still remaining focused. The stronger the emotion you are experiencing, the stronger the effect you can have.

“But let me ask you a question. Which emotion is stronger, hate or love?”

“Hate?”

“Why do you say that, Aislin?”

“Because hate is such a strong emotion. When you feel hate, there's also anger and rage. I know, I've seen it destroy my family. Besides, love isn't all that it's cracked up to be.”

“I'm truly saddened that you've had to deal with that in your life.

“The word love in English has many different meanings, so let me clarify. Greek and other languages break these out into different words.”

On a new section of the board, he wrote the following words: Agápē, Érōs, Philia, Ludus, Pragma, Philautía, Storgē. He explained how each was a little different, but that mainly agápē, but also pragma, and storgē were the strongest of the types of love.

“But my main point is that, even though hate can be a very strong emotion, true, unconditional love, agápē, is so much stronger. The sad truth, however, is some people have never experienced that kind of love.

“So for these first three, there is another way to think of and remember them. For ‘focus’, think of engaging your whole mind. For ‘emotion’, you can think of applying your whole heart. And for ‘faith’, think of committing your whole soul. By ‘soul’ we mean your inner being or living spirit combined with your physical body.

“Okay, let's move to the next step, ‘authority’. You each have authority over your own body. Even though your parents or guardians may have legal authority over you, you are the ultimate ruler of yourself. Does everyone follow me so far?” Everyone nodded.

“Did you notice, however, before I caught Binda, I asked for her permission to catch her?” We all nodded at that too.

“By giving her permission, she was giving me temporary, conditional authority which I used to catch her. The lesson is you must have authority over the thing you're going to affect with the aether. This means yourself, or something you own. Indirect or assumed authority also works, but it can be more difficult. What do you think I mean by indirect or assumed?”

“Do you mean, like, your family owns something, or your friend?”

“Yes, very good. Okay, what if your school owns something, or the city or the government?”

“I guess you could look at it in different ways,” Olivia said. “You don't own your school. But you go to that school, and you pay for the school through tuition or your family's taxes, so indirectly maybe you do?”

“But even the teachers and principal of the school don't own the school,” Kevlin said.

“Very good, Kevlin. I levitated the pen yesterday, but I don't own it. The school does. I work here at the school, and the school, via the headmaster and my employment contract, has given me permission to teach. Which gives me indirect authority over the things that I am using in the school.

“As enrolled students, you have permission to learn, which gives you permission indirectly to use things that the school owns, as long as you are not abusing that permission. Does that make sense to everyone?”

We nodded, but Kevlin held his thumb up and grinned.

“Having authority does not require ownership if you have permission. But if you have ownership, or can indirectly claim some form of ownership, then you have sufficient authority, and do not need permission.

“You can also think of ‘authority’ as answering the question of why. In other words, why should the universe or the aether even obey you?” He wrote ‘Why’ on the board next to ‘Authority’.

“Let’s move on to ‘target’. This is what or whom you are targeting for the action. For instance, this marker or Binda, as she was my target earlier. The closer the target is to yourself, the easier it is to target. So, if I wanted to target a person on the other side of the world whom I had no connection to, other than seeing their picture, it would be practically impossible. If, however, I had an active view of the person, somehow, then the impossible becomes slightly more possible, but still very difficult. If the person was in the same building as me, but I couldn’t see them, it becomes a little easier. And if I could see the person, even easier, and so on. The more experience you have, the more likely you will be able to target difficult things.

“So ‘target’ answers the question of where, which, or whom will be affected.” He wrote those on the board next to ‘Target’.

“The next step to using the aether is ‘intent’. By intent, we mean we are applying our will to produce the effect you want, along with applying the various aspects of the aether. This is where you decide exactly how you want the effect to happen. For instance, when I lifted the marker yesterday, I could have only used a vertical force to do it. But that would have been very unstable and would have made a very poor demonstration. So, instead I lowered its effective mass, reversed gravity, which was easier because of the lowered mass, and then applied a tiny force to levitate it.

“So ‘intent’ answers the question of what change to apply and how to effect the change.” He wrote ‘What’ next to ‘Intent’.

“The last step is ‘command'. This is the trigger to launch the effect. When I levitated the pen or caught Binda, you may have noticed I didn't say anything out loud. That's because the command step does not need to be audible, it can just be in your mind. While you're in this class, however, I want you to always state the command out loud. Also, the language you use doesn't really matter, as long as the meaning is clear to you.

“As with the others, command answers the question of when, as in right now.” Again, he wrote ‘When’ next to ‘Command’.

Kevlin raised his hand and asked. “So, is there any way to have something happen later, instead of right now?”

“Good question. Yes there is, but we won’t be covering that in this class. You can expect to learn about several ways to do that in years 2 and 3.”

“Let’s end our discussion today with ‘effect’. By this, we mean that you watch, sustain, adjust and control the action as it is happening. This still requires focus. Once you have finished, you release your focus and the effect stops.

“Is it possible to create effects which last beyond your focus?” I asked.

“Yes, your augments are examples of this. But that is another advanced topic, which we won’t cover in this class.”