| Alternative medicine | |
|---|---|
 Edwin Dwight Babbitt, an early proponent of Chromotherapy | |
| Claims | Colored light can balance "energy" in a human body. |
| Year proposed | 1876 |
| Original proponents | Augustus Pleasonton |
| Subsequent proponents | Seth Pancoast, Edwin Dwight Babbitt |
Chromotherapy, sometimes calledcolor therapy,colorology orcromatherapy, is a pseudoscientific form ofalternative medicine which proposes certain diseases can be treated by exposure to certain colors.[1] Its practice is considered to bequackery.[2][3][4][5] Chromotherapists claim to be able to uselight in the form ofcolor to balance "energy" lacking from a person's body, whether it be on physical, emotional, spiritual, or mental levels. For example, they thought that shining a colored light on a person would cureconstipation. Historically, chromotherapy has been associated withmysticism andoccultism.[2]
Color therapy is unrelated tophotomedicine, such asphototherapy andblood irradiation therapy, which are scientifically accepted medical treatments for a number of conditions,[6] as well as being unrelated tophotobiology, which is the scientific study of the effects of light on living organisms.
Avicenna (980–1037), seeing color as of vital importance both indiagnosis and intreatment, discussed chromotherapy inThe Canon of Medicine. He wrote that "color is an observable symptom of disease" and also developed a chart that related color to thetemperature and physical condition of the body. His view was that red moved the blood, blue or white cooled it, and yellow reduced muscular pain and inflammation.
Pioneer of photographyRobert Hunt performed experiments on the effects of different wavelengths of light on the germination and growth of plants, detailed in his 1844 bookResearches on Light.[7] Apparently influenced by this work,[8]: 214–215 from 1860Augustus Pleasonton started to conduct original experiments, and in 1876 published the bookThe Influence of the Blue Ray of the Sunlight and of the Blue Color of the Sky, detailing how the colorblue can improve the growth of crops and livestock and can help heal diseases in humans. This led to the birth of modern chromotherapy, influencing contemporary scientists Dr. Seth Pancoast and Edwin Dwight Babbitt to conduct experiments and publishBlue and Red Light; or, Light and Its Rays as Medicine (1877) andThe Principles of Light and Color (1878), respectively.[8]: 214, 222, 229
Pancoast's book has been described by historians as a confusing mix of color therapy, mysticism, and occultism.[2] He held a lifelong interest in theKabbalah and was a founding member of theTheosophical Society. Pancoast believed that God is light and "the one universal pathological agent" that could cure disease. He would expose medications to colored light before administering them to a patient and also utilized sun-baths fitted with colored panes of glass.[2] Throughout the 19th century, "color healers" claimed colored glass filters could treat many diseases, includingconstipation andmeningitis.[9] In Germany in the late 1890s, Georg von Langsdorff promoted Babbitt's ideas and mixed color therapy withpsychometry andspiritualism.[2]
The Buddhist monkBhante Dharmawara was a notable advocate of color therapy who promoted the use of green, blue, and yellow for health.[10] Other notable advocates includeAnthroposophist Theo Gimbel, who authored many books on the subject and founded the Hygeia Institute for Colour Therapy in 1968.[11]
In 1933, Indian scientist Dinshah P. Ghadiali publishedThe Spectro Chromemetry Encyclopaedia, a work on color therapy.[12] Ghadiali claimed to have discovered why and how the different colored rays have various therapeutic effects on organisms. He believed that colors represent chemical potencies in higher octaves of vibration, and for each organism and system of the body, there is a particular color that stimulates and another that inhibits the work of that organ or system. He also thought that, by knowing the action of the different colors upon the different organs and systems of the body, one can apply the correct color that will tend to balance the action of any organ or system that has become abnormal in its function or condition. TheAmerican Medical Association published refutations of Ghadiali's color therapy claims. In 1958, theFood and Drug Administration (FDA) facilitated a permanent injunction against Ghadiali's Visible Spectrum Research Institute.[12][13]
Ghadiali's son, Darius Dinshah, continues to provide information about color therapy via his Dinshah Health Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing non-pharmaceutical home color therapy, and his bookLet There Be Light.[14]
Practitioners ofayurvedic medicine believe the body has seven "chakras", which some claim are 'spiritual centers', and are thought to be located along thespine.New Age thought associates each of the chakras with a single color of the visible light spectrum, along with a function and organ or bodily system. According to this view, the chakras can become imbalanced and result in physical and mental diseases, but application of the appropriate color can allegedly correct such imbalances.[15]
Chromotherapy is a popular pseudoscience.[1] Its practice is regarded by health experts and historians as a form ofquackery.[2][4][5]
According to a book published by theAmerican Cancer Society, "available scientific evidence does not support claims that alternative uses of light or color therapy are effective in treating cancer or other illnesses".[6] Regarding Dinshah Ghadiali's work, science writerMartin Gardner had described him as "perhaps the greatest quack of them all". According to Gardner, photographs of Ghadiali at work in his laboratory are "indistinguishable from stills of a grade D movie about a mad scientist".[16]
HistorianDeborah Ascher Barnstone has noted that chromotherapy is "distinct from scientifically verified light treatments such as neonatal jaundice treatment. As, unlike chromotherapy, the light used in such therapies, whether scientifically proven or not, was not always colored, their particulars are not relevant in this context."[2]
Photobiology, the term for the scientific study of the effects of light on living tissue, has sometimes been used instead of the term chromotherapy in an effort to distance it from its roots in Victorianmysticism and to strip it of its associations with symbolism and magic.[9]Light therapy is a specific treatment approach using high intensity light to treat specific sleep, skin, and mood disorders.
A review of the existing research on chromotherapy found that there is no evidence to support a causal link between specific colors to health outcomes, there is not enough evidence to support a causal link between specific colors and emotional or mental states, and there is no research to suggest there exists one-to-one relationships between specific colors and emotions.[17]
Chromotherapy has been accused of oversimplifying psychological responses to colors, making sweeping statements based on myths or beliefs that lack empirical support. Guidelines for chromotherapy lack consistency and appear to be subjective judgements that have inconclusive and nonspecific applicability in healthcare systems. While twelve colors have been reported as beneficial for health and well-being, a rigorous definition of each of these colors has yet to be provided, making it impossible to know if all color therapists are using the same wavelengths for these colors.[17]
More recently, concern regarding the theory has questioned the risks associated with the emergence of light-emitting diode (LED) based lamps that have been created for use in chromotherapy. These lamps are classified as low risk for exposure and do not require any warnings to accompany the products. However, certain chromotherapy procedures require the individual to place the lamps near their eyes, which is not the recommended use for these lights and may alter the exposure duration to a level that can cause risk ofretinal damage. With no consensus or regulation regarding how these products are to be used and whether eyewear is required, this treatment puts participants at risk for serious eye damage.[18]
Color topics | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Color science |
|  | ||||||||
| Color philosophy |
| |||||||||
| Color terms |
| |||||||||
| Color organizations | ||||||||||
| Names |
| |||||||||
| Related | ||||||||||
