Chromotherapy, sometimes called color therapy, colorology or cromatherapy, is an

alternative medicine method, which is considered pseudoscience.[1] Chromotherapists

claim to be able to use light in the form of color to balance "energy" lacking from
a person's body, whether it be on physical, emotional, spiritual, or mental levels.

Color therapy is distinct from other types of light therapy, such as neonatal
jaundice treatment[2] and blood irradiation therapy which is a scientifically
accepted medical treatment for a number of conditions,[3] and from photobiology,
the scientific study of the effects of light on living organisms. The potential
risk of retinal damage linked to chromotherapy LED lamps has been discussed by
French skeptic and light physicist Sbastien Point.[4]

History[edit]

Avicenna (9801037), seeing color as of vital importance both in diagnosis and in

treatment, discussed chromotherapy in The Canon of Medicine. He wrote that "color
is an observable symptom of disease" and also developed a chart that related color
to the temperature 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.[5]

American Civil War General Augustus Pleasonton (18011894) conducted his own
experiments and in 1876 published his book The Influence Of The Blue Ray Of The
Sunlight And Of The Blue Color Of The Sky about how the color blue can improve the
growth of crops and livestock and can help heal diseases in humans. This led to
modern chromotherapy, influencing scientist Dr. Seth Pancoast (18231889) and Edwin
Dwight Babbitt (18281905) to conduct experiments and to publish, respectively,
Blue and Red Light; or, Light and Its Rays as Medicine (1877) and The Principles of
Light and Color.[6]

In 1933, Indian-born American-citizen scientist Dinshah P. Ghadiali (18731966),

published The Spectro Chromemetry Encyclopaedia, a work on color therapy.[7]
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. Ghadiali 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 functioning or condition. Dinshah P. 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 book Let There Be Light.[8]

Science writer Martin Gardner had described Ghadiali as "perhaps the greatest quack
of them all". In 1925, Ghadiali was accused of rape and arrested in Seattle and
sentenced under the Mann Act for five years at the United States Penitentiary,
Atlanta. According to Gardner, photographs of Ghadiali at work in his laboratory
are "indistinguishable from stills of a grade D movie about a mad scientist".[9]

Throughout the 19th century "color healers" claimed colored glass filters could
treat many diseases including constipation and meningitis.[10]

Colored chakras[edit]
 A New Age conceptualisation of the chakras of Indian body culture and their
positions in the human body
Practitioners of ayurvedic medicine believe the body has seven "chakras", which
some claim are 'spiritual centers', and which are held to be located along the
spine. 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 diseases,
but application of the appropriate color can allegedly correct such imbalances.[11]
The purported colors and their associations are described as:[12]

Color

Chakra

Chakra location

Alleged function

Red First Base of the spine Grounding and Survival

Orange Second Lower abdomen, genitals Emotions, sexuality
Yellow Third Solar plexus Power, ego
Green Fourth Heart Love, sense of responsibility
Blue Fifth Throat Physical and spiritual communication
Indigo Sixth Just above the center of the brow, middle of forehead Forgiveness,
compassion, understanding
Violet Seventh Crown of the head Connection with universal energies, transmission
of ideas and information

Scientific reception[edit]

Chromotherapy is regarded by health experts as quackery.[13][14]

According to a book published by the American 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".[3]

Photobiology, the term for the contemporary scientific study of the effects of
light on humans, has replaced the term chromotherapy in an effort to separate it
from its roots in Victorian mysticism and to strip it of its associations with
symbolism and magic.[10] Light therapy is a specific treatment approach using high
intensity light to treat specific sleep, skin and mood disorders.