Light seems to be a trigger for the re-arrangement of cellular metabolism.
The exact photobiological effects depend on the wavelengths, dose and
intensity of the light. Although light penetration may seem superficial,
deeper physiological processes seem to be stimulated by light.
Although almost nothing is yet understood about the interplay of light
frequencies, some research has been done on individual colors
(monochromatic light). Using color is just as age-old as the use of sound
to achieve many different health effects and purposes. Certain colors were
worn for specific reasons. Painting the walls of your home certain colors
also affects mood. Red is energizing, while green is calming, for
instance.
The use of
colored light, however, is newer. Light's various wavelengths penetrate
the skin to very slightly different depths. The shorter the wavelength,
the higher its energy and - counterintuitively - the less far that
wavelength goes. So UV and blue light don't go quite as far as red light
or, for that matter, infrared. One reason is that photons from
higher-energy UV and blue waves excite charged particles called electrons
in the skin more than longer wavelengths do. This means electrons 'play'
with blue photons longer than with red ones. As a result, blue light bends
more in the skin than red and orange light, and so doesn't travel as far.
Crystal and Gem
Healing:
Researchers are also working on ways of delivering light-energy radiation
directly to affected tissues via machines using "excited" gem substances
such as diamond and sapphire.
An
English electronics engineer Jon Whale has designed a machine called the
Lux Caduceus III, which uses electronics transducers incorporating emerald
and blue sapphire components. Gems deep inside a chamber in each lamp are
electronically excited by a precision electronic instrument. The
frequencies used promote rapid healing and have proved successful in the
treatment of disease and injury.
The essence of the concept is that light can be imbued with the
characteristics of the gems at a quantum level, and that our bodies can
sense this at a subliminal level.
Focused, filtered light is beamed on to the patient from the machine,
which contains gems in the path of the light. Just as your hand is clearly
irradiated right through by an electric torch (you can see this at any
time in the dark), so the beams from the high-intensity bulbs in this
machine will penetrate deep into the body tissues. Light is shone on the
appropriate area of the body for 10 to 20 minutes.
Whale's patients have
recovered from breast lumps, arthritis, eczema, and other disorders. The machine has
also been used with great success in the treatment of psoriasis and
cystitis.
Color therapist Theo Gimbel offers a torch, which shines through a crystal
needle in a somewhat similar way. His instrument, the CoCrysto torch, uses
filters rather than gems, but the oxides incorporated in these filters are
the same as one might find in a gem. Wear something white, hold the torch
2.5 centimetres (1 inch) away from the body and focus it on the chakras.
The effect will depend on which chakra is awakened, but the consequences
can be powerful.
Theo Gimbel has also designed a lamp for healing cataracts, glaucoma, and
other severe eye disturbances. It is also said to improve long and short
sight by mobilizing the muscles of the iris. The Eye Healing lamp
incorporates red or turquoise filters, depending on the condition, and can
be used at home under instruction.
LightMask:
One simple instrument is a device called the LightMask developed by Dr
David Noton at Hammersmith Hospital in London. The mask looks similar to
the sleep masks issued on aeroplanes, except that it contains flickering
red lights.
When worn for 15 to 30 minutes a day the mask has proved to be extremely
effective in the treatment of migraine and premenstrual syndrome (PMS).The
results of Noton's study with the LightMask on PMS were reported in the
Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology
in 1998. PMS sufferers were treated with the LightMask for three months.
Of the 17 women in the trial, 12 no longer suffered PMS by the end of that
time, three more showed improvement, one dropped out, and the last showed
no change. A similar study on migraine patients had equally dramatic
results.
The research shows that in PMS sufferers the body's internal clock becomes
disrupted from the normal external rhythms of day and night. The mask's
light appears to help the clock to re-synchronize. (This obviously has to
do with light and energy rhythms.)
Syntonics:
This technique, using colored filtered light, was one of
the first that treated problems by shining light directly into the eyes.
Syntonics was developed by an American
scientist, Dr Harry Riley Spitler, whose approach was to
treat the body by way of the eyes, thereby using the shortest pathway to
the brain. His research showed that different colors of light entering
the eyes can affect the balance of the body and its functions. Syntonics has been
shown to improve a patient's visual field and can also benefit
the immune system and emotional state.
During the 1920s in his work on light therapy, Dr Spitler conducted
experiments on rabbits, which he kept on the same regimens and in
identical cages but exposed to different colored lighting. Certain
lighting caused abnormalities in the rabbits and he concluded that
although heredity and environment are major factors in health, light can
also alter function, behavior and physiological response. Accordingly, in
1927, Spitler began to develop the first light-dispensing instruments for
ocular application. He called his new system "Syntonics", from
the word "syntony" meaning to balance, because it brought the
autonomic system into balance.
Spider's
College of
Syntonic Optometry still flourishes today, some 70 years later, with
hundred of US practitioners, as well as others in
Australia
and Europe. In a Syntonics treatment,
the patient
sits in a darkened room in front of a fixed lamp that delivers colored
light of specific frequencies. A treatment lasts about 20 minutes and is
generally repeated once a day for about three weeks.
One of the
more spectacular applications of Syntonics comes from the finding that
unsuspected visual loss limits learning capacity and that 69 per cent of
children with reading problems have a measurable enlargement of the blind
spot, where the optic nerve leaves the retina. Twenty minutes daily
treatment with yellow-green light and then ruby light can bring dramatic
improvements in auditory memory as well as in the eyesight itself. Jacob Liberman,
considered a pioneer in the therapeutic use of light and color and the art
of mind/body
integration, uses Syntronics for releasing unconscious traumas.
Photron:
Anther recent development is a device named the Photron. This issues a
gently flickering, colored strobe light into the patient's
eyes, using the color appropriate to the treatment. For recent
post-traumatic stress conditions, such as wartime experiences or car
accident, calm colors like green or blue have been found to be most
effective, whereas for deep or distant trauma orange and yellow are
preferable.
Monocrom Light Domes:
There are only ten Monocrom Light
Domes in the world. The dome is the brainchild of Swedish architect and
therapist Karl Ryberg. The dome uses mono-chromatic light — light in a
very narrow bandwidth of about 700 nanometres. The light is pure —
monochromatic green, for example, is not a mixture of blue and yellow but
a pure green, similar to laser light.
The
dome is a white structure, about 3 metres (10 feet 6 inches) high. The
client, dressed in an unbleached cotton robe, steps into the dome and lies
down. The doorway is sealed and the experience begins. Monochromatic light
is beamed into the dome via a powerful projector lamp and plays through
all colors of the spectrum. The therapist may control the colors used or
allow patients to select their own colors, depending on the type of
condition being treated and its seriousness. The dome shape makes
proportions seem infinite so clients feel as though they are floating in a
world of color. The eyes cannot focus because there is nothing to focus
on, the brain pulses slow and the brain reaches a calmer,
alpha
state. A normal session lasts 15
minutes and three or four weeks should elapse between sessions.
Research at the Laser Biology Institute in Moscow has shown that
monochromatic light reaches the very nucleus of the cells and so wakes up
the body at the deepest cellular level. Treatment in the dome has been
shown to be extremely effective for phobias, depression, SAD and other
stress-related disorders. It can also be a deeply pleasurable
and uplifting experience. I speculate that only the frequencies needed by
the body are absorbed by the skin, but by providing the entire visible
spectrum in the same way as full-spectrum lighting, any frequencies not
available before can be absorbed, thereby rebalancing the body's
energy.
Colorpuncture: All light's
wavelengths except UV travel up to 3-4mm (1/8 inch) into the body, with
the longest wavelength, red, going furthest. Indeed, very bright light can
penetrate up to 7cm (2½ inches)! Normally,
however, only around 1 per cent of blue light reaches much over 3mm( 1/8
inch); 5 per cent of both green and orange light gets to 3.5mm(1/7 inch);
and 21 per cent of red light goes to 4mm (1/6 inch). In contrast, only 20
per cent of UV's UVA fraction travels anywhere near 1mm (1/25 inch), and
only 10 per cent of its UVB to 0.5mm (1/50 inch).
Techniques
have been developed, using this penetrative ability, by shining
different colors on a specific part of the body to heal certain
conditions. Colored lights, using colored light filters over spotlights or
strobe light sources, placed on the body over chakra locations can be very
effecting in balancing energy. Colored light stimulation directly to the
brain via the eyes and retina is perhaps even more effective. Shining
different colors of light into the eyes has been found to be useful for
emotional release.
What is currently known is that monochromatic light (individual colors)
increases oxygen and
blood flow, improves wound healing, stimulates nerve functioning, and
facilitates pain reduction and muscular relaxation. Monochromatic light in
the blue, red and far red regions enhance and speed up certain cellular
metabolic processes.
Much of the monochromatic light research has focused on isolating the most
potent frequencies for the relief of acute or chronic pain and wound
healing (including burns, where it is proving highly effective). Research demonstrates that cell tissue responds best to certain
frequencies in the red and infrared spectrum, such as 630 nanometers, 660
nm, 880 nm, 940nm and 950nm. The water and hemoglobin in the body's
tissues restrict the full absorption of light frequencies outside the
range of 600 to 980nam.
A
single wavelength within the middle of the red spectrum (eg 660nm) appears
to be the most resonant frequency to human tissue because it stimulates
the production of cell tissue and rapidly promotes the regeneration of
skin and blood tissue in the areas exposed to it. For example, on a
smallish wound the application of a 660nm LED or cold laser for several
minutes every two hours can, within one to two days, stimulate the
generation of new skin without either scabbing or the formation of scar
tissue.
One of the latest techniques is using a point of colored light for
acupuncture stimulation; generally the warm colors (red, orange and
yellow) add energy (tonify) or stimulate while the cool colors (green,
blue and violet) decrease (sedate) the life energy. Each color is
associated with a particular wavelength and photon intensity. The shorter
wavelengths, such as the light from the red end of the spectrum, have the
lowest photon frequency but the highest intensity. While violet's longer
wavelengths have the higher photon frequencies, they have a lower
intensity and are more subtle.
Called colorpuncture, this technique was originally founded and is still
being developed by Peter Mandel, a German naturopathic physician and
acupuncturist. Dr Mandel was aware that Chinese and Russian scientists had
demonstrated that the acupuncture meridians transmitted light. He
postulated that if organisms emit light via the acupuncture points
then it is likely that these same points may be the doors through which
organisms most effectively absorb light.
At
the same time, Mandel was influenced by Dr Fitz Albert Popp, a German
biophysicist, who made great contributions to the world's understanding of
how human cells communicate. Dr Popp described a constant level of light
radiation moving gently around the body (similar to the esoteric
descriptions of the auric field). Simply put, Dr Popp's experiments
demonstrated that all cells communicate by light within the spectrum of
visible light and microwave energy.
Furthermore, when a cell becomes disturbed in some way, the light
vibration around that cell becomes disharmonious. The disharmonious light
is thought to detrimentally influence the vibrational patterns of
neighboring cells. Mandel hypothesized that vibrational imbalances seen as
increased light emissions in cells could be brought into balance by the
application of light in complementary or balancing colors at the
appropriate acupoints.
Colorpuncture and all light therapies probably work by energetically
stimulating something that the individual has not been receptive to
because it's unfinished business. Putting sound, color and/or light
frequencies into the mindbody system enables the stagnant or crystalized
areas to be stimulated and to begin releasing. It is a detoxification of
emotions, if you will, and echoes physical detoxification. This
is possibly even the catalyst for physical detoxification.
