CHAPTER. SIXTH. CHROMO-THERAPEUTICS, OR CHRO- MOPATHY. I. The Healing Power Of Color. This must be quite evident to the reader by this time, especially as, in the last chapter, we saw the wonderful power of color repulsions and color affinities, and saw also that all things manifest their potencies by means of color. This being true, then, we may construct a more exquisite and exact Materia Medica, and erect a standard of medical practice based on principles of almost mathematical precision. Not only may we, by means of the principles already laid down, judge of the medical potencies of the coarser mineral elements, but of the finer potencies of the vegetable world, of water, air, electricity, and magnetism, and the still finer forces of the sunlight. Sunlight constitutes a truly celestial materia medica which, according to principle XV of Chap. First, must be more safe, effective and enduring than the cruder elements, in case we know how to control it. II. Comparative Fineness Of Healing Elements. Minerals are at the bottom of nature's scale of forces, being so crude that the most of their particles are unable to float in the atmosphere, and consequently are held down in the midst of earthy substances. The vegetable world which constitutes the direct food of man, is sifted of the coarser mineral elements by a beautiful and ingenious process, the carbon and some other of the finer elements of the sunlight and atmosphere being received into the plant or vegetable from the sky, while the elements that come from the earth are strained of their coarser ingredients by the spongioles of the root and absorbed only in a liquid state. It may readily be seen why cereals and fruits, growing, as they do, above ground and drinking in the refined...
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Wikipedia in English
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Edwin D. Babbitt resurrected alchemical theories of the healing properties of certain colors. Like Avicenna, the arab philosopher of the early Middle Ages, Babbitt found a relatinship between the color and the efficacy of a medicine. For example: 'Red LIght, like red drugs, is the warming element of sunlight, with an especially rousing effect upon the blood.'
The most striking fact about this new edition is that Faber Birren, the renowned industrial consultant on color, provides it in a form which retains those parts of the much longer original text which, Birren believes, are still well worth study and which gives us important knwledge about color.
'Color may not be as directly therapeutic as men once believed,' says Faaber Birren, 'but, as a psychic or psychological force in healing, it is certainly efficacious.
Contents
Introduction by Faber Birren
Preface by Edwin D. Babbitt
Chapter Rist through Chapter Fifth (abridged and annotated by Faber Birren)
Chapter Sixth Chromo-therapeutics
Chapter Seven Chromo culture
Chapter Eighth Chromo philosphy
Chapter Ninth Chromo dynamics
Chapter Tenth Chromo menalism