Light/Color Therapy

Light is a known requirement for good health. Although it is well known that sunlight’s striking our skin enables the production of Vitamin D, few realize that about 50 times as much sunlight enters our bodies through our eyes as through our skin. Some of this light entering the eyes is actually routed to the hypothalamus region of the brain, which is connected to the pituitary gland, and the light is then converted into vital messages that are transmitted and retransmitted throughout the body. These messages tell the billions of cells what to do. Depression, fatigue, stress, low immune function, joint pain, carbohydrate craving, hyperactivity, and moodiness are some of the common problems associated with a person’s receiving insufficient sunlight, but beneficial light is required for all manner of bodily functions, and it is now being realized that many people whose symptoms seem unrelated to the seasons are, in fact, suffering from insufficient sunlight exposure.
Not just any light will satisfy the body’s needs. Color is really just our body’s way of labeling various frequencies of light for us to identify, and then, only within the visible range, of course. Sunlight has a somewhat even distribution of amplitudes across the visible range of frequencies, as well as in some adjacent, non-visible regions. Apparently, different frequencies of light (including the infamous UV) benefit different bodily processes.
The man most associated with the study of the effects of light on health, both good and bad, is John N. Ott. Originally a banker, Ott began delving into time-lapse photography in his spare time, becoming a pioneer in that field. Eventually, though, he began investigating the effects of light on plants and animals. He wrote some very influential material on his findings, but harmful indoor lighting is still the norm. In fact, with the massive move to install fluorescent lights in homes, things are getting worse. Also, the kind of sunglasses one uses can have considerable influence on one’s health, and most coated glass corrupts sunlight.
Ott devised various lighting products (often called full-spectrum lights) that approximate sunlight in their emissions. There is no such thing as artificial lighting that accurately duplicates sunlight, but by using carefully chosen phosphors in a fluorescent tube, for instance, the light bulb’s light signature can be made considerably closer to that of sunlight than by just using conventional phosphors. Such lights are often used by people who realize that they are ill due to a shortage of sunlight. The full-blown condition is called SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). This, and more marginal cases, are actually quite common amongst the population (estimated at well over 10%), although many sufferers are unaware of the source of their problems. Dr. Norman Rosenthal is famous as one of the pioneers who developed the understanding that artificial light could be used to ameliorate the symptoms of SAD by simulating a person’s exposure to ideal daylight, even if the afflicted is living far from the equator. People who suffer because of jet lag or shift-work can also often find relief by using a light box.
Light therapy is also beneficial for some sleep disorder sufferers. For instance, ASPS (Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder), which is where a person tends to fall asleep early and awaken early, is sometimes treated by using a light box for some 30 minutes every evening. On the other hand, DSPS (Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome) is where the sufferer cannot fall asleep when he should, and has great difficulty awakening in the morning. In this case, the light box is used in the morning. The relationship between SAD and either ASPS, or DSPS, is not clear, but SAD patients can often benefit from light treatments in both the mornings and the evenings.
Negative-ion generators have also been found to help some SAD patients.
Be aware that some companies manufacture relatively inexpensive incandescent light bulbs that are supposed to provide a better balance of light than ordinary lights, but beware. You can probably find these items in your local supermarket, but you’re probably better off just buying ordinary incandescent bulbs. However, ordinary fluorescent bulbs can be disastrous for your health. Even the better full-spectrum lights have issues, as seen near the bottom of the page on the Dinshah Health Society website.

Filtered Light

There’s a distinction between Light Therapy and Color Therapy, but the most popular of such methods belongs to both categories, and that’s what we’ll introduce here. The central figure in Color Therapy is a man named Dinshah Ghadiali (1873-1966). Although many others before him had helped to develop Color Therapy, Dinshah brought a fervor and concentration to the subject not seen before. Dinshah left us a system called The Spectro-Chrome System. In this system, a colored light is projected onto parts of the body, for an hour at a time, and this is called a tonation. After his death, his son, Darius Dinshah, took over the work. This is now done under the umbrella of a not-for-profit organization, Dinshah Health Society.
A possible explanation, put forth by Dinshah, for how Color Therapy works (but not in his words), is that the colored light resonates with the appropriate natural frequency of a given part of the body. This effect is known to work in other circumstances. For instance, if a 60 inch aerial is ideal for receiving a particular radio frequency, then a 30 inch one should probably work fairly well, being as 30″ is an inverse multiple of 60″. But, again, this explanation is just speculation.
The book Let there Be Light (currently in its ninth edition), which is sold by the Dinshah Health Society, and is sometimes available from Amazon.com: Let There Be Light, has a history of the Spectro-Chrome System, as well as going into considerable detail about the colors needed for various health problems. As an example, here is treatment #256 (of 331):

256. Polio (acute anterior poliomyelitis), multiple sclerosis, progressive bulbar paralysis, primary lateral sclerosis, diffuse sclerosis, degenerative myelitis, infantile hemiplegia (palsy), muscular dystrophy, Werdnig-Hoffman muscular atrophy, etc.

1. Green ||31-32|| systemic to include affected areas.
2. Blue ||39|| systemic front when there is fever.
3. Motor nervous system schedule (#276) systemic front and back to include affected areas.
4. Scarlet ||71|| systemic to include affected areas, in muscular atrophy or dystrophy.

Note: An adequate natural (unrefined) diet with many raw foods is of utmost importance. Eliminate sugar, white flour, and other “junk-foods” from the diet. A regimen of physical therapy, massage, exercise, etc., should be implemented when appropriate.

The numbers following the colors are indexes into a list of reasons for each item. The tonations should be done at specific times of the day. The local schedule for these times is called a Variant Breath Forecast, and it comes each year with an annual membership to the Dinshah Health Society. At the time of this writing, for $20 you will get the book Let There Be Light, a video tape on Spectro-Chrome Therapy, one year’s membership in the Dinshah Health Society, and shipping in the U.S.A. After that, membership is $3/year. You can’t beat that.
Although you can get plans for making a projector from the society, the easiest thing is just to buy a small stage light. These are fairly inexpensive, and they can be easily mounted on a camera tripod using a ¼-20 nut. The main thing, though, is the color filters. Dinshah’s book lists the specific filters required. This is no small matter, as they have to be carefully selected, and the filter manufacturer sometimes changes them. Also, some of the colors have to be made up of multiple filters. The Roscolene filters come from the manufacturer in 20″ by 24″ sheets, and at about $10/sheet, they can add up. Since you only need 6.5″ squares for a PAR-38 stage light, it’s cheaper just to buy the filters already cut to size. You can find these if you do a search on the Internet for “Dinshah Filters.” For instance, Stage Gear, Inc offers a Dinshah Starter Pack, or a Dinshah Starter Pack II. The only difference between the two is one of convenience, as the latter one has enough filters so that you don’t have to pay attention to which filters are required for a particular color. By the way, Dinshah will not sell you the lights or filters, for legal reasons.
Since Dinshah put Color Therapy on the map, many other researchers have delved into the promises of this approach to achieving health. No longer in print, the book Light Years Ahead: The Illustrated Guide to Full Spectrum and Colored Light in Mindbody Healing compiles the contributions of many practitioners, inventors, and researchers to Color Therapy. Some of the specific disciplines or terms used include Phototherapy, Ocular Light Therapy, Photostimulation, Cranial-Sacral Therapy, and Colorpuncture. Also, many elaborate phototherapy devices are pictured and described.

Color Therapy

Although light is usually used to deliver the chosen light frequencies to our bodies in Color Therapy, another method is to first use light to transfer the color signature to water, and then to drink it. This method is described in Dinshah’s book. One way to do it is to just use an electric light with filter (as above), but another is to let sunlight shine through a color filter wrapped around a glass of drinking water. Also, you can find on the Internet colored glasses specifically for this use, although it’s unlikely that the colors are carefully selected or controlled.