Kilnascrene Closeup

Kilnascrene Closeup

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Kilnascrene is the trade name of a kind of aura goggle made by Harry Boddington, an English Spiritualist. They were manufactured beginning in the mid 1930s to emulate the spectrum of dicyanine A, according to Mr. Boddington's statement in University of Spiritualism. The Kilnascrene are made of a modified form of cobalt glass, and are a dark blue with a red tinge. They have a particular and peculiar transmission curve that lets very deep blue, violet, and near ultra-violet light, combined with very deep red, shading into near infra-red



The Kilnascrene are by far the best aura goggles I have tried. They give immediate, astonishing results. They are worth every bit of study and analysis we can give them.






A colleague loaned me an authentic pair of Kilnascrene, circa 1937. Here are some images and other information related to the Kilnascrene that I was able to create using that pair. As far as I know, this is the only place on the web where any sort of detailed technical information about the Kilnascrene can be found.



The goggles themselves are simple round glass filters fitted into holders such that external light can be excluded easily. The sides are of a stiff cardboard or pasteboard, of a flat black color.



Note the pitted side of the glass, probably some leftover of a processing step.



The edges of the eye cups are lined with a fur of some type to cushion the skin, and make the seal against light better. The Kilnascrene is affixed to the head in the obvious way by the elastic strap around the back of the head, using the little hook and eye. The elastic is still good, not bad for 1937.



The eye cups are cut to fit the contour of the human head, emphasizing the importance of excluding ambient light. The glass lens and pasteboard eye cup are fastened together by a sturdy crimped metal band.



This is an image of a 60 watt incandescent light bulb shot through a Kilnascrene filter. Note the strong blue / red color. The Kilnascrene displays an almost ideal blue / red color balance of 50 / 50.



Another macro image of the Kilnascrene lenses. Note the high quality of the smooth, flat surface. Contrast this with the quality of the surface on the reverse side.



This is a macro shot of the edge of the metal band crimping the Kilnascrene lens to the pasteboard eye cup. There is a trademark KILNASCRENE REGS impressed onto the metal band where the elastic headstrap is attached.



Here are transmission spectra of this pair of Kilnascrene. They were taken on a Jenway 6320D spectrophotometer, using custom scanning software which I wrote.

We see from the first curve that the Kilnascrene has two bands of admittance, one in the blue region and one in the red. The maximum transmittance is 25%, so this is a pretty dark filter. The blue peak is similar to the red peak, although not quite as high.



In this detail section, we see that the blue passband has the following critical transitions:

Transition	Wavelength	%T
Blue low	345 nm	0%
Blue peak	400 nm	16%
Blue high	465 nm	0%

We further see that the red passband has the following critical transitions:

Transition	Wavelength	%T
Red low	700 nm	0%
Red high	745 nm	19%

We see that the extinction zone extends throughout the greens and yellows, and that only the deepest blues, violets, and ultra-violets, and the deepest reds, and violet-reds are presented to the eyes of the wearer.

In the next image, we see a magnification of the blue transition. Note how deeply the Kilnascrene admits light down into the ultraviolet region. This makes additional ultraviolet protection when using the Kilnascrene highly recommended.



This final image shows the Kilnascrene transmission relative to 100 %T. We see just how dark a Kilnascrene is! Fully 9 photographic stops of loss.



Click any of the spectrum images to download the generating dataset in Excel format.