Emily Flanagan speaks to one North-East woman who teaches people more about the energy that surrounds them.

WE can feel blue, be green with envy or 'see red,' but there are some people who believe your mood and personality can be seen as a coloured energy field surrounding your body. Not only that, they also claim it can be photographed.

Singers and stars are often purple, doctors and social workers are usually green and entrepreneurs and salesmen are likely to be orange.

Joya Sarker estimates she has taken thousands of photographs of people's auras in the last five years at seminars and talks which she regularly holds in community centres, sports halls, churches, GP surgeries and health centres.

Using a piece of equipment known as a Kirlian camera, she creates pictures to provide people with compelling evidence that an energy field surrounds them and to teach students how to transform themselves from dull, stress-addled specimens to shimmering saints.

"I felt this was a way I could actually show people and verify what I teach people," she says. "This is like an introduction to how energy works, it gives people proof and helps them monitor their progress, so the things I teach can be verified with my technology."

Kirlian photography was discovered in 1939, by Russian amateur inventor and electrician Semyon Kirlian. He found that creating a high voltage electrical field around someone could produce an image on a plate like a coloured halo surrounding the object. This, he surmised, was an aura, although its critics claim the images are created by electricity being discharged, which can be produced in certain conditions.

Joya became interested in the New Age movement about 20 years ago, shortly after leaving Oxford University. She travelled to India to study Eastern philosophy and mysticism and met some of the country's most prominent gurus. She returned to Medomsley, near Consett, County Durham, a few years ago and now gives courses in personal growth and leadership.

Joya uses the photographs she takes with her specialist equipment to show how people's thoughts, feelings and environment affect their energy.

Although a number of colours can usually be found in an aura, a red energy field denotes vitality, orange, creativity and an ability to relate to others. Yellow signifies a sunny, enthusiastic personality, green tenacity and high ideals, often found with counsellors, teachers and doctors.

Blue represents loyalty, intuition and communication and can often be found in writers and philosophers. Violet or purple represents unconventional dreamers and is often the colour found in the aura of entertainers and visionaries.

White is the highest colour, showing wisdom and intense energy and is often found in the auras of young children.

But stress, overwork, tiredness, illness and even alcohol are said to manifest themselves as a muddy red aura. The colours to aspire to are serene golds, silver, white, pink or other luminous shades.

According to Joya, the area where a colour is concentrated can also tell a lot about a person. An intensity of colour on the left hand side may mean someone is focusing most of their attention in the future, whereas a lack of colour here indicates someone dwelling on past memories and events.

But Joya says she does not like making generalisations about people by looking at their photographs.

"I haven't gone into that, because that's more like fortune telling," she says. "I approach it more from a personal growth point of view and make people aware of their energy. So I'm not looking at a photograph and saying 'you work in this profession and have a boyfriend with blond hair', I just give an explanation of how they're managing their energy."

* Joya can be contacted on 01207 592560.