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Colour Therapy |
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Colour Therapy |
A Brief History:
Hippocrates was known as the ‘father of Western medicine’ and he treated patients using a blend of sound, colour and herbal remedies (see also the history of aromatherapy) (Chiazzari, 1998). The Egyptians however were the first civilization to use colour in a healing sense whilst the Greeks made written records of their experiments and findings of colour therapy (Liberman, 1991). The ancient Egyptians would put food and water in coloured vessels and expose them to sunlight so that the coloured energies would permeate the contents. The Greek City of the Sun was called Heliopolis and had temples where light was broken up into its component coloured rays and the colours were used for particular healing purposes (Chiazzari, 1998). Heliotherapy was used in ancient China and India before the Greeks utilised the power of the sun for healing. Crystals and herbal oils were often infused with the sun’s energies to enhance their healing powers (Iris International School of Colour Therapy, 2002).
During the 1800’s the healing power of sunlight became more widely recognised, with individual colours also being experimented with for their healing properties. In 1810 Goethe wrote a study on the ‘Nature of Colour and Light’ (Iris International School of Colour Therapy, 2002). In 1877, Dr Seth Pancoast published a book called ‘Blue and Red Lights’ that showed how blue light relaxed the nervous system and red light stimulated it. Dr Edwin Babbitt also published a book in 1878 called ‘The Principles of Light and Colour’ and detailed his use of different coloured filters with both natural and artificial light to treat illness. He also used solarised water in the same way as the ancient Egyptians (Liberman, 1991).
Rudolph Steiner (1861-1925) included the effects of colour from a spiritual and scientific perspective in his educational programmes, including a series of lectures that were bound together in a book called ‘Colour’ (Iris International School of Colour Therapy, 2002). In 1933, Dinshah Ghadiali examined the healing potential of the visible spectrum and in the late 1930’s Max Luscher developed a colour analysis test for personality profiling as a diagnostic psychological tool (Iris International School of Colour Therapy, 2002).
Between the 1950’s and 1980’s very little research went into the use of colour for health as drug development came on a pace. Theo Gimbel and Russian researchers however continued experimenting with the use of colour to make changes in the body on a cellular level (Iris International School of Colour Therapy). In the 1980’s John Ott helped with recognition of Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.) and Jacob Liberman, an optometrist, worked on light treatments through the eyes (Iris International School of Colour Therapy, 2002).
Colour Therapy is gradually re-emerging as a useful complementary therapy that works well with other vibrational therapies such as aromatherapy, crystal healing, spiritual and Reiki healing and sound therapy. It is a wide field that covers the use of colour in our environment as well as colours in clothing and as a psychological tool. Colour Therapy can be used in a very practical sense but also has a spiritual element to it - both aspects linked by the science of energetics.
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