I always start by referring to this quote by physicist, David Bohm when explaining the power of using colored light as a treatment medium:
“Light is energy and it is information. It is content, form and structure.
It is the potential for everything. Therefore, when you deal with light,
you come to the fundamental activity in which existence has it’s ground.”
David Bohm, Theoretical Physicist
Bohm has described light’s role perfectly. Light, and it’s “children,” the colors, are the fundamental building blocks of our existence. We are made of light and we are swimming in light! For this reason, it makes perfect sense to use light as a therapeutic medium.
I explore this topic extensively in my book, Energy Psychology Using Light and Color. In this blog post, I’ll summarize highlights from that discussion, and throw in a few additional research findings. Perhaps, you find it difficult to imagine that a tiny bit of colored light applied to points on the skin could ease physical pain and tension, support the body in its recovery from various illnesses, improve our moods and outlook on life, stimulate dreaming, deepen our connection to inner guidance and so much more. Hopefully, the evidence I’m about to describe, coming from scientific research and clinical observations, will help you appreciate light’s amazing potential to support the healing of body and mind.
Why Light Works as a Treatment Media
To understand why light works as a treatment medium, it is helpful to understand that light is considered by scientists to be a source of information. Webster’s dictionary defines information as an “attribute inherent in and communicated by … sequences … of something that can produce specific effects” on dynamic systems. This is, of course, assuming those systems are capable of receiving the information. Light travels through our universe in the form of both wavelengths and tiny particles called photons. As it does so, light steadily conveys very specific signals, depending particularly on the wavelength size (hence the color). These signals affect us physically, psychologically, and I believe, spiritually. What is more, research has also proven that we humans are designed to receive and transmit light’s messages at every level.
How Light Affects Our Cells
Next, with regard to the many ways that light affects us physically, we must start with the research of Dr. Fritz Albert Popp, a German biophysicist and longtime colleague of Peter Mandel, the originator of Esogetic ColorpunctureTM. Popp was the first scientist to conduct an extensive physical analysis regarding the functions and properties of what he called “biophotons,” the ultra weak light emissions found in the body. In the 1970’s, Popp developed a photomultiplier device capable of identifying and measuring these faint light emissions. From, his studies, he concluded that biophotons provide extremely distinct and coherent signals and that they are responsible for the transmission of information between all our cells. He also found that, when our bodies become unhealthy, these ultra-weak biophoton emissions become increasingly chaotic and incoherent. And, he concluded that our DNA actually stores and releases biophotons, whenever they are needed to oversee and support intra-cellular metabolic activities. Popp’s research is what originally inspired Mandel to begin experimenting with ways to introduce corrective light frequencies into the body for the purposes of restoring healthy cellular communication.
Ma Wan Ho, a biochemist, molecular geneticist and author of The Rainbow and the Worm, also explains that our cells operate according to “recognition by resonance.” It seems that light-sensitive molecules in our cells absorb light, especially at certain frequencies and then send out specific light frequencies to neighboring cells. In this way, cellular molecules are able to “see and hear” each other and coordinate their functioning, both within a cell and across different parts of the body.
How Light Affects Our Organs & Body Systems
Going beyond the cellular level to the organs and systems of the body, we know that light frequencies enter our eyes and travel along the optic nerve to the visual cortex. From there, this light information is relayed to various parts of the brain, where it influences the functioning of the brain and body in countless ways. For example, light frequencies conveyed to the pineal gland influence our circadian rhythms and the production of melatonin, a powerful hormone and antioxidant.
What may be less widely known is that scientists have discovered that human photoreceptor molecules are not limited to the eyes. Rather they are found in virtually every tissue of the body. We humans have light sensitive cells in our skin, our brains, our cerebral spinal neural system, and even in our cranial-sacral fluid. The meridian pathways of Chinese medicine have also been shown to transmit light and the acu-points, located along those meridians, have been found to be particularly responsive to light stimulation. In fact, according to all this research, our bodies appear designed to function as antennae for the reception and transmission of light’s information. And this information plays a vital role in ensuring the healthy functioning of our bodies.
How Light & Color Affect Us Psychologically
When it comes to how light affects us psychologically, there is also considerable evidence supporting this idea. First, the same research that shows how light affects the brain and nervous system is obviously also relevant psychologically. For example, light signals received by the hypothalamus, both via the visual cortex and the more recently discovered non-visual photoreceptor cells within the hypothalamus itself, help this brain organ perform important it’s function in regulating our endocrine and autonomic nervous systems. Neuroscientists and trauma specialists now know that psychological trauma and stress leaves its mark on us by chronically dysregulating these same bodily systems. Therefore, it seems reasonable to consider whether light frequencies might actually used to restore healthy functioning of our endocrine and autonomic nervous systems and thus, relieve the physiological effects of trauma. In fact several colorpuncture treatments are designed to do just that!
Next, we know that different colors or frequencies of light influence our psychological state or moods differently. For example, several studies have shown that blue light tends to calm and red light tends to stimulate the autonomic nervous system, and thus can moderate our fight or flight responses to threat. One study used MRI’s to show that, during emotional processing work, the functional connectivity between the voice area, the amygdala, and the hypothalamus was selectively enhanced when that processing was done in an environment illuminated with blue light (http://www.pnas.org/content/107/45/19549). Environmental psychologists have also proven that certain color frequencies improve our ability to concentrate and learn (eg., yellow), while other frequencies are better for reducing stress and emotional upset (eg., blue & green). These findings are currently influencing lighting choices in numerous schools and offices around the world. They even inspired Japanese police to install blue lights at the end of platforms on Tokyo’s railway line, whereby they were able to reduce suicide and petty crime rates at those stations (https://psychcentral.com/blog/can-blue-colored-light-prevent-suicide/)
In the neurosciences, the therapeutic use of colored light frequencies has recently led to the development of a new field called Optogenetics. This is a technology that “renders individual, highly specific brain cells photosensitive and then activates those cells using flashes of light conveyed through a fiber-optic wire.” In a 2015 article entitled “Lighting the Brain,” New Yorker magazine observed that this new technology was generating considerable excitement because of its potential use in the treatment of chronic depression (https://www.questia.com/magazine/1P3-3691855171/lighting-the-brain). My own perspective is that introducing light frequencies via the acu-points offers a less invasive way of lighting up the brain. Still this research once again shows that colored light frequencies can be used to improve both psychological and physical well-being.
How Light Reveals What is Hidden in Us:
For me, the most fascinating thing about working with light is that light has a truly unique capacity to activate and restore the flow of suppressed or
even long-forgotten subconscious information. This fact is absolutely confirmed by psychologists who work with various light therapy methods. For some mysterious reason, colored light has a most unusual ability to gently, yet quickly surface what is hidden in a client’s subconscious. Some psychologists have even hypothesized that our memories may be color-coded or associated in the brain with specific light frequencies. Whether this is true or not, it has certainly been my own clinical experience, and the experience of everyone I have trained in Esogetic Colorpuncture, that the particular treatments Mandel designed to surface and release subconscious stresses that often underlie symptoms of physical pain and disease work very effectively!
Why Esogetics Delivers the Information of Light So Effectively
Esogetics was created as an “information medicine.” It’s aim is to use the information of colored light frequencies in a precise and targeted manner to support bodymind healing. Mandel chose to use acu-points on the skin as the best way to introduce light into the body. This choice was based in part on his training in Chinese medicine and his appreciation for the therapeutic precision these acu-points provide. Treatment of different points and point sequences enable the practitioner to address very specific issues in the body and mind. Mandel was also influenced by his collaboration with Fritz Popp, who proved that ill-health in the body is always reflected on the skin in the form of chaotic and incoherent ultra weak biophoton emissions. As Mandel puts it, “everything about you is written on your skin.” More recently, the research of developmental biologist Bruce Lipton further confirmed Mandel’s belief that the skin operates as a type of “brain,” sorting and relaying information between the body and it’s environment. The result of this is an “information medicine” that consists of a large body of treatments in which particular sequences of points on the skin are treated with specific frequencies of colored light in order to relay precise or targeted light messages into the bodymind.
I really could go on and on about why light is such a worthy medium for therapeutic use. If you would like to learn more, I recommend that you read my book. In the meantime, I will leave you to contemplate another remarkable quote by physicist David Bohm. For me, Bohm’s comment points toward an even greater role that light may play in our life journeys:
“The role of light in the natural universe is to act as a bridge between the
objective world and the infinite realm beyond space and time.”
David Bohm