The idea that our repressed or unlived emotions and our disconnection from our deeper life purpose could actually affect our physical health may be new to some people. Perhaps newer is the idea that colored light applied to the body can be a powerful key to unlock the mysterious interactive connection between body mind and spirit. We've often read in spiritual or religious writings about light as a metaphor for the highest potential in human development (enlightenment] or a symbolic destination in all our lives (toward the light). The possibility that light and color can actually assist wholistically with our personal evolution, as well as our physical healing, is motivating new developments in the field of light therapy. In fact, light and color are being used in many of today's foremost mindbody healing technologies.

The use of light and color for healing is not new. History records their use in many ancient medical systems. Egyptians designed special healing temples which captured and split the sun's rays into its component colors which were focused into light-bathing rooms used by Egyptian physicians. Indian healers and spiritualists identified specific energy centers in the body called chakras which were thought to be stimulated by exposure to different colors. The ancient Chinese Taoists believed that perfect health and spiritual enlightenment could both be achieved when one mastered the art of internally circulating the "golden light".(1)

In the late 1800s and early 1900s there was renewed interest in using color and light for healing purposes. In the healing systems developed at this time, light was used primarily to relieve physical symptoms without as much consideration for its emotional and spiritual impact. In 1920, an Indian immigrant to the U.S. named Dinshah Ghadiali pioneered a system of healing in which precision color filters were placed over a light source and used to irradiate specific areas of the body according to set color prescriptions. Ghadiali proposed that the body is surrounded by an electro-chemical emanation or aura which interacts with the body's cells.(2) He believed that when the aura is strengthened with colored light radiation, it actually transmitted this strength to the cells' Around the same time, another pioneer, optometrist Harry Spitler, developed his color therapy system using a visual screen device to focus different colors of light into the eye in order to effect the brain and restore balance in the autonomic nervous system. Another researcher. Dr. Edwin Babbit, used a method of focusing colored light on areas of his patients' bodies and prescribed curative solar elixirs of water that had been irradiated with sunlight (3).

Over the centuries, methods for applying light have included bathing the whole body in sunlight or colored light, irradiating specific areas of the body with specific colors in prescribed patterns, drinking elixirs infused with light, wearing colored cloth or gems, and more. Today's most advanced light healing technologies also include specialized equipment which projects colored light into the eyes or focuses this light on acu-points on the skin.

How do color and light affect the human body?

One way that light and color enter the body is through the eyes. The different wave length frequencies of light (or colors) entering the eye are immediately transformed into electrical nerve impulses by the eye's light sensitive photoreceptors. These impulses are then relayed along the optic nerve to various parts of the brain where they have widespread influence on its functioning. For example, light impulses travel to the hypothalamus, a small portion of the midbrain which is involved in the regulation of our autonomic nervous system, as well as our endocrine or hormonal system. The light sensitive hypothalamus converts light signals into neurochemical substances which are then sent out to all its areas of regulation. Via the hypothalamus, light appears to influence the body's life sustaining functions, regulation of moods, the onset of puberty, sexual functioning, aging, the immune system and more. Light generated nervous impulses received by the brain's visual cortex also travel to the limbic system, a primary emotional and learning center in the brain. Here we find one explanation as to why light may activate the release of feelings, as it so often does when used to heal the body.

Light also enters our bodies through the skin. According to Dr. Orm Bergold, M.D. "the human photoreceptor molecules are not limited conveniently to the retina {of the eye] but rather are ubiquitous, being found in virtually every tissue." Like the eye, Beigold believes that the skin converts the light vibrations that touch into electro-chemical impulses.(4) More recently, Russian researchers at the Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine demonstrated that acupuncture points on the skin are sensitive to light and that light vibrations are transmitted along the acupuncture meridians. The flow of chi or energy through the meridian system of the body can thus be influenced with light.

The research of a German biophysicist. Dr. Fritz Albert Popp comes closest to proving that we are, as the spiritual teachers have always told us, light beings. Popp has proven in a number of experiments that all the cells in our bodies are always emitting low level light radiation which he called "biophoton emission." Popp's experiments further suggest that this light emission is the way in which cells communicate. Accordingly Popp has concluded that "light can initiate or arrest cascade-like reactions in the cells, and that genetic cellular damage can be virtually repaired within hours by faint beams of light. We are still on the threshold of fully understanding the complex relationship between light and life, but we can now say, emphatically that the function of our entire metabolism is dependent on light." Popp's findings further prompted an associate. Peter Mandel, a German naturopath, to theorize that "Light is life... Specifically, light is present in the communication between the cells in the body and disease occurs when this communication is broken, when the cells can no longer speak the same language. Giving light has a resonance effect, bringing the cells into the same language again and healing the body."

Today, most light practitioners are taking a more whole person approach to healing and new light therapy technologies are addressing the relationship between the body, emotions, and spirit. This has come about because many people who undergo colored light treatments report that old memories and feelings gently surface and release, or that their thought processes and dreams are enhanced even as their bodies are healing.

"Light has a way of bringing up to the surface old, unresolved, unexpressed emotional trauma, which I feel are the roots of the weed we call disease," says optometrist, light therapist and author, Jacob Liberman. Using a device to shine color into the eyes, Liberman intentionally evokes subconscious material as a way to promote improved vision. Psychotherapist and light practitioner, Stephen Vasquez, found that colored light acted as a catalyst to bring unconscious material to the surface. In his therapy sessions treating psychological issues, he regularly combines colored light (shone in the eyes) with more traditional psychotherapy to enhance and quicken the healing process.

The renowned physicist. Dr. David Bohm speaks of an all-encompassing background or field out of which all life and consciousness unfold, a field of light vibrations. Bohm reminds us that we, like all material forms, are made up of light and that "light is energy and it is also information - content, form and structure. It is the potential for everything." In the light healing work of practitioners like Peter Mandel, the spiritual or soul development potential of light is strongly emphasized. Mandel believes that light and color can be used to support personal evolution or unfolding and that colored light systematically applied to acu-points on the skin can facilitate the exchange of information between the person's conscious, unconscious and superconscious. "On the level of the material world," says Mandel, "we humans, in our wholeness, are light beings. We must and always will develop toward the absolute light, which we call God. In this process, we are accompanied by light on the outside and, if we allow it, light on the inside."(8) For each of us, the journey toward our healing and self-discovery will be unique.

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Manohar Croke, C.C.P. is the founder and co-director of the Institute for Esogetic Colorpuncture,USA which offers professional certification trainings in color acu-light therapy. She maintains a private light therapy practice in Boulder, Colorado. Contact her at the institute for Esogetic Colorpuncture, 1705 14th Street, Ste. 198, Boulder, CO 80302, or phone (303) 443-1666. E-mail at rosemary@colorpuncture.com

This article was originally published in Spirit of Change Magazine—not to be confused with OfSpirit.com Holistic "Internet" Magazine & Resource. We thank Spirit of Change, New England's Premiere Holistic "Print" magazine, for allowing us to give new life to this article and share it with OfSpirit.com visitors for education, entertainment and empowerment.
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