AURA CLEANSING

The concept of an aura – a sort of emanation from your body – was developed by spiritualists at the end of the 19th century, but the idea of giving it the once over was popularised in the 80s during the New Age movement. Aura cleanser Georgia Coleridge, who runs her own Chelsea-based clinic and recently published The Chakra Project, tells me that demand for her services has never been higher.

Arriving at her light-filled townhouse just off the King’s Road, I feel frazzled – the result of a toxic cocktail of a rush-hour Tube journey and a stressful work project – which makes me the ideal candidate for Coleridge’s services. ‘Think of your body as a house and your aura as a garden,’ she says. And for the second time this week, I’m picturing my body with walls and windows.

She tells me that those with blocked chakras tend to take on the emotions of others and find it difficult to say no, leading to feelings of lethargy and tiredness. ‘Like a room that’s not had fresh air.’ It sounds familiar.

I lie on a bed under a blanket while Coleridge holds my feet – ‘to get a sense of my energy’ – and asks me questions about my life. The result is a session that feels like part massage, part therapy. She hovers her hands a few inches above my body, and when she gets to my forehead – the location of my sixth chakra, or third eye – she winces with discomfort and starts to cough. ‘You’re not seeing things clearly at the moment,’ she tells me. She’s right, of course, but it’s a statement vague enough to ring true for anyone.

There’s more old, sludgy energy clogging up my throat chakra, apparently; I mime taking off a collar, which Coleridge takes from me and throws out of the window. At one point, she gets a message from my ancestors – ‘guides who look out for us’ – who tell me that I’ve come to the right place. How convenient.

Afterwards, I do feel energised, and I’m in a much better mood than I was when I arrived. But whether that’s because my aura has been cleansed or because I’ve spent an hour lying down for a chat with someone, I can’t be sure. That said, a few days on,

I feel a lot more positive.

I’m even using some of Coleridge’s techniques, such as imagining I’m inside a bubble of good energy before I leave the house, and seeing showers as cleansing me on the inside and out. £70 for a one-hour treatment; georgiacoleridgehealing.com