“Around a sick person [the aura] appears to be broken and darkened, especially around the affected part because its radiation goes through a change and does not vibrate at its normal frequency. Diagnosis and correction of these disorders are emphasized by changes in the aura and are integrated into what is called “healing through color.” However, it is unlikely that this method of healing exists on its own; it is more likely a part of spiritual and magnetic healing.”

The History of Color Medicine

See this first Analyzing the Master Monographs: Degree 7, Monograph 14.

Color therapies have been around for millennia. In Ancient Egypt, scholars utilized sunlight as well as the primary colors of red, blue and yellow applied through clothing, creams and oils for healing purposes. Their belief in these colors of healing came from myths centered on Thoth, the Egyptian God of Wisdom.  Later, Greek societies picked up on these teachings incorporating various stones, crystals and colored gems into a system of chromotherapy. For Greeks, these methods were helpful in bringing balance back to the physical body, although the exact effect of the remedies was never detailed.

Around 980 AD, noted Persian polymath Avicenna added his own insights to the growing lore of color therapies. Avicenna was the first academic to draw the conclusion that certain colors were indicative of the symptoms of disease. Based on his ideas, Avicenna concocted a diagnostic color chart which posited that red influences moved the blood, while white or blue cooled it, yellow meanwhile served to reduce pain and inflammation.

In a book entitled 19th Century Ideas and Practices, a man by the name ofAugustus J. Pleasanton narrowed down the focus of chromotherapy to the color blue.  Pleasanton claimed that plants grown under blue light would see significant increased in the quantity and quality of yield. He also claimed that he had successfully used blue lights to increase the fertility and physical maturation of livestock. However, Pleasanton produced no scientific evidence to support these theories.

Despite this lack of proof, by 1877 the blue glass craze had taken off. Over the course of the year sale of blue glass products rose by 50%, and the country firmly split itself into those who believed in Pleasanton’s tall claims, and those who actively mocked them.

Edwin Babbitt

For much of his life Edwin Babbitt was known as a philanthropist and reverend based out of New York. Prior to his involvement with chromotherapy, Babbitt’s biggest claims to fame were as the author of a well-received book on penmanship known as the “Babbittonian System”, and as the founder of Miami Commercial College in Dayton, Ohio.

Although Babbitt had a long-held interest in the arcane and occult, these beliefs only began to manifest in his 40’s. All of a sudden, Babbitt declared himself a psychophysican, founding a spiritual healing practice based around the administration of color therapies. Babbitt’s new therapies on color borrowed brought together influences from many ancient scholars in one unified theory.

Based on this theory, Babbitt identified the color red as a stimulant for blood while yellow and orange functioned as nerve stimulants. Blue and violet colors were thought to produce calming effects throughout the body’s systems. Armed with a unique diagnostics tool, Babbitt began to prescribe color treatments based on the specific illnesses he witnessed within patients.

Dinshah P. Ghadiali

Dinshah P. Ghadiali is perhaps one of the foremost quacks in medical history, not coincidentally he is also the inventor of a peculiar device known as the Spectro-Chrome. According to Dinshah’s own accounts, he began school at the age of two, finished high school by 10, and became an associate professor in Mathematics in his native Bombay College by 11. Unsatisfied by these academic accomplishments Dinshah turned to medicine at the ripe old age of 14.

It was his latest passion which gave birth to Dinshah’s enduring fascination with chromotherapy. Dinshah’s accounts of this period, reveal a story in which he supposedly cured a girl young girl dying of colitis within three days by exposing her to indigo-colored light filtered through a kerosene lamp. Inspired by this success, Dinshah set up a whole medical practice based around the concept. In 1933 he published a book which is considered to be the foundation of all chromotherapy today; it was entitled the “Spectrochromemetry Encyclopedia”.

According to this volume, every vital element in the human body (oxygen, nitrogen, carbon) consists of a mixture of red, blue and yellow light. While these lights are balanced within healthy people, they fall out of balance when disease or illness strikes. To assist in the correction of these imbalances, Dinshah developed his Spectro-Chrome, a simple box equipped with a 100-watt bulb and several colored filters. According to Dinshah this device could be used to heal any ailment short of a broken bone.

Dinshah’s tall claims were soon challenged by the American Medical Association, who dubbed the aspiring physician a fraud and charlatan. To escape the threat of legal censure, Dinshah cunningly changed the language of his treatments, now claiming to normalate patients, and restore their equilibrium rather than treat them.

However, Dinshah’s scams didn’t help him to evade the law for much longer.  By 1931 Dinshah was in jail on charges of Grand Larceny after a former student complained to authorities regarding the ineffectiveness of Dinshah’s device. The court proceedings which followed were something of a spectacle. Many of the defendants that Dinshah called to argue in his favor turned out to be completely ineffectual. A paralyzed man he claimed to have treated successfully was shown to be unable to walk, while a supposedly cured epileptic broke into seizures in the midst of his testimony.

“In previous monographs, you learned that the aura is closely related to the psychic body and to the Vital Life Force animating all the cells of our being. This is why it is a permanent reflection of the state of our health and why it reveals any momentary energy imbalances that we may be experiencing.”

After this exhaustive examination of color therapies across time, tell me does this fact stand out as a definitive truth or a shaky opinion at best? Nevertheless, let us give Rosicrucian Order  AMORC the benefit of the doubt and examine what they have to say about diagnosing and curing illness through color in the experiments that follow.