Healing using light was the first type of therapy that man used. It was nature’s method for keeping the organism balanced and rhythm (Amber 1983).

The ancient Egyptians knew of the power and influence of light. In their magnificent temples were color halls, such as Karnak and Thebes, where the light treatments were practiced and researched (Anderson 1977). The rooms were designed to break the sun’s rays into seven spectrum colors. In this way, the light was used to aid healing and worship (Lacy 1989). The Egyptians were specific about their use of light. They related the colors to the various gods that they worshipped. Blue, yellow, and red were the activating forces of man’s being. An Egyptian’s religious duty was to bathe in the sun’s spectral light daily. The Egyptians also used the technique of having the patient drink solarized water. All people of ancient times practiced this, including the Indians, Chinese, South American Indians, etc. (Amber 1983).

In Asia, the Persians practiced a form of color therapy based on the emanation of light. Buddhists in India used the same principles in the early days (Birren 1961). An old Indian theory of light healing tells us that disease lacks color in the energy field surrounding each person – the aura. The aim is to rebalance the energy field and add the missing color. The theory is related, to some extent, to yoga Sastra and reaches back at least to the 3rd century A.D. (Jain 1978).

The Zuni Indians used prismatic colors and sound in their healing arts. First, they used shells found in Corn Mountain and polished them to paper-like thinness. Then, they painted each shell with one of the spectrum’s colors and held them between their ear and the sun. The combination of color and sound produced a specific healing effect (Hunt 1956a).

While the ancient people of Egypt, India, and Persia practiced color healing, the Greeks attempted to take another direction in medicine. Modern medicine traces its ancestry to Hippocrates in the fourth century B.C. At this point, the history of light in medicine split into two paths: the mystics and the clinicians. More thought was given to the physical rather than the metaphysical nature of light (Birren 1961).

Paracelsus, the fifteenth-century Swiss scientist, sometimes referred to as one of the greatest healers, reintroduced light as a healing method. He was not only concentrating on the use of light but also used many other therapies. He was a man ahead of his time and taught that disharmony caused disease and that color and light were vital in curing illness.

Paracelsus relied upon the vibrations of music and light and diet regulation in his treatments (Birren 1961).

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Isaac Newton (1642-1727) presented his great discoveries in optics. In his work Opticks from 1704, he gave innovations like light and color. Using a wedge of glass or prism, Newton found that the white light can be refracted into the light of different colors. Through this, he took the first steps toward a theory of color vision. Furthermore, he showed that white light could be divided into seven colors according to wavelength: violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red (Newton 1952). It was the first significant step toward the electromagnetic theory of light, which James C. Maxwell later put forward.

Rudolph Steiner (1861-1925) was an Austrian regarded as a social philosopher, educator, occultist, and religious leader. He declared that life radiates color. He said that out of illness comes a new state of consciousness. It means that the experience of the disease itself will eventually lead to conscious clarity, balance, and health. Steiner expressed that color would unlock the door to healing. He taught two kinds of color treatments; one acts directly on the physical body, and the other through man’s consciousness (Mayer 1963). Steiner stated that man has an inner faculty for spiritual perception independent of the five senses. He developed an educational system and a way of life based on color and rhythm (Walker 1991). There are many schools throughout the world based on his philosophy.

Steiner was influenced by the German philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). In contrast to Newton’s theory, Goethe created a physical science of color based on understanding colors through our five senses and our subjective approach to nature (Goethe 1976). In addition, Goethe taught that man is a part of life and could never be separated from it (Lübcke 1988, Langlé 1989). Steiner gave several lectures on color based on Goethe’s work and research (Steiner 1971).

Franz Mesmer, an Austrian often called the father of magnetic healing, lived in the early nineteenth century. He showed that the inviting atmosphere around an individual, the aura, indicated the individual’s physical condition. Mesmer taught that the energy sent forth by the sun had to be drawn into and distributed to the energy centers (often referred to as chakras) in the physical body. As the light enters the body, it divides itself into the seven colors of the spectrum. The proper color reaches and energizes the corresponding center. The physical body’s health depends on this light (Hunt 1956a). 

Brook Simpson of the nineteenth century became known for his discoveries of light’s healing power by projecting it into the patient’s eyes. He successfully treated cataracts by the application of appropriate beams of light. He said that the eyes need the energy of sunlight to sustain their activity as the body needs food to keep it alive. Simpson indicated that colors have a therapeutic value, which is particularly potent when applied to the eyes. The visible rays of light are natural medicine for the physical body’s organs (Amber 1983).

Edwin D. Babbitt (1825-1905) was born in New York, USA. He is known for his great work on light Therapy: The Principles of Light and Color, first published in 1876. The book created a common reaction to color healing. In the book, Babbitt created a series of relations between light and elements of nature and light and minerals. He classified colors as warm colors and electrical colors. He argued that all things manifest their potencies and qualities through light—the power of light constructs materia. The seven colors of the sunlight are composed of different attributes and vibrations. Each color has its individual properties and chemical powers (Babbitt 1956). In his theory on color and color healing, Babbitt describes a new philosophy of molecules, ethers, and the inner nature of things. His philosophy includes his interpretation of the structure of the universe, universal psychic forces, magnetism, chromo-mentalism, and chromo-therapeutics (Birren 1978). Babbitt developed special Chromo-lenses of different colors to solarize water. In his book, Babbitt describes several successful cases of healing with light Therapy.

In the early days of the twentieth century, Dinshah P. Ghadiali, a Hindu scientist, designed a theory explaining why and how the different spectrum colors have various therapeutic effects on organisms. Ghadiali’s approach taught that each organism and system of the physical body has a particular color that stimulates and another that inhibits the working of that organ or system. By knowing how different colors work on other body parts, the correct color application could correct the imbalance caused by afflicted organs. The disturbance caused by imbalances, therefore, created the occurrence of disease. Light healing aims to restore the healthy balance of the color energies within the body. Ghadiali’s most significant work on light Therapy is The Spectro Chromometry Encyclopedia from 1933. In this book, he explains light treatments’ theory and practice (Anderson 1977). Ghadiali lived in the USA and was known for the many color lamps used for healing.

S.G.J. Ouseley is one of the English light therapists of the twentieth century. In his work The Powers of the Rays from 1951, he describes his experience working with light in healing. In his theories on light, he claims that the occultists of the past had broadly the same basis of color science as we have today. The science of color rests on the laws of light manifested in the seven principal rays. These rays are intrinsically related to the seven planes of manifestation and the seven major glandular centers in the human body. Ouseley says that the basis of all treatment, whether physical or super-physical, restores and recharges the body’s cells with the correct color vibration through the glandular centers. (Ouseley 1976).

Faber Birren was an educator and a color researcher from Chicago, USA. He has written many articles and books about color healing and the psychology of color. In his work on Color Psychology and Color Therapy from 1950, he presents the most fundamental aspects of color and its effect on man and nature. For most of his life, he has studied the influences of color on people and their environment. Through his research, he has learned the duration of color effects on humans. He says that a standard and unforgivable error in most color research is that many practitioners must realize that color effects are always temporary. Exposure to color does not cause a reaction of any substantial duration. It is not unlike the response to alcohol, tobacco, or coffee, where the energy is first highly stimulated, only to decrease fast (Birren 1959). Birren pioneered using available color to promote human welfare.

 
Theo Gimbel was a well-known light therapist of our time. He was brought up and educated in Switzerland but moved to England. In 1956, he founded the Hygeia College of Color Therapy (Hygeia Studios), where his complimentary light Therapy is available. He became interested in the effects of light when working with mentally disabled children. In his work Healing Through Colour from 1980, he describes his methods in light healing and diagnoses. His work in the Hygeia Studios resulted in the development of the Color Diagnostic Chart, which he uses for diagnosing disease. The diagnosis technique is complicated and takes time, but it is accurate and valuable in counseling (Smyth 1988, Wills 1993). Gimbel has also developed a therapy room with stained glass to filter the appropriate colors onto the patient, one healing color, and one complementary color. Through his extensive experience of light healing, Gimble has found that using an additional color alongside the healing color prolongs healing results (Gimble 1987, 1991).

In Stockholm, Sweden, Karl Ryberg is a light therapist who works with counseling and light healing. He uses a specially designed projector with the lamp at the same temperature as the sun’s surface. He is a trained psychologist who always initiates his first treatment with a new patient by asking personal questions about upbringing, work, marital status, traumas, etc. Then, Ryberg chooses the treatment colors with the patient by picking out the “missing colors” of the patient’s environment. He then projects the missing colors onto the patient. Finally, he gives instructions on adding colors to their environment (Olsson 1987, Brattberg 1990).