Colour
and Everyday Living
Colour and Everyday Living is a
rather long course generally taken over many weeks however I will try and
condense it some and hope that you will persevere with me as you may gain some
insight to colour and everyday living.
The
visible spectrum consists of seven colors. They are: Red, Orange, Yellow,
Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. There are 3 primary light colors: Red, Green
and Blue.
All
colors are psychic; they are realities, not actualities. There is no color in
nature.
Colors
can excite, or subdue consciousness; can be successfully used in our mystical
experiments. Colors can be seen, felt, heard and created in consciousness.
Color
has memory, can aid in recalling past events.
Red
is the color for concentration. Green is the color for contemplation. Blue is
the color for meditation.
The
aura does not have any color.
Color
effects are always temporary.
All
colors are psychologically therapeutic.
Colors
change the environment.
Color
and Everyday Living
Color
is such an everyday part of our lives it is hard to imagine that it can have
any effect other than to please or irritate. But there‑in lies the
clue‑all of us are aware that there are some colors we like and some we
don't; some make us feel calm, while others are energizing. And if, as recent
biochemical research indicates, for each psychological event there is a
psychological reaction, the premise that color might actually influence our
well being sounds not so wild after all.
The
use of color as therapy has been attempted in one form or another since the ancient Egyptians. The healers divined which color the patient was deficient in and put
him in a room of that color. Gems of various hues were also employed, and
could either be worn, held, or used to treat water: You soak the gem in the
water, which "charges it" with the color of the gem, and drink the
water. Pythagoras experimented with color therapy, basing his methods on the
notion that color could be "fed" through the eyes.
The
idea behind the gems as talismans of health is that the various stones which
are minerals vibrate at different frequencies and act as condensers of energy
from the sun.
Now considering that light and color are frequency vibrations, the thinking that gems could alter the energy field around you is not so farfetched. Furthermore, some of the latest research in nutrition suggests that minerals are exceedingly important to health. The difference here is that proponents of gem therapy advanced the concept that it is not necessary to ingest the mineral; merely keeping it in contact with the skin was thought to be sufficient.
Different nutritive effects
Color therapists today generally believe that when the body is in balance it filters out of white light the colors that it needs. When something's amiss hues applied in a variety of ways even wearing a light blue sweater on a day when you have a sore throat‑ are supposed to help. Green, for instance is thought to build muscle and tissue and likewise they attest eating green foods will also help. Considering that green vegetables are a rich source of vitamins and minerals needed to build strong tissues the color therapists have a point there.
Suggesting that limited lighting may be related to some forms of cancer.
At least a half dozed animal studies have come up with a similar conclusion:
reduced
spectrum lighting influences the growth and incidence of some types of
cancer.
Incandescent lights, while they lack the full spectrum of natural
sunlight, do not appear to cause the same problems, as limited fluorescence.
Nevertheless, incandescent bulbs emit little or no ultraviolet and have
graduated continuum which is slanted toward large amounts of red and infrared.
John Ott, former chairman and executive director of the Environmental Health and
Light Research Institute in Fort Lauderdale, developed full‑spectrum
fluorescents after nearly 40 years observing the effects of lights .upon plant
growth. Ott created the full
spectrum by adding the proportionate amount of non‑visible
"black light" to the blend of phosphors currently used in a
fluorescent tube.
Electric Chroma 50, DuroTest Optima, Philips Verd
A
Ray and Vita Lite. They cost a bit more than the limited‑spectrum
tubes, and the black light burns out in approximately a year with normal use.
although the tube will still appear to be going strong, making it necessary to
replace the fixture before you can "see" that it needs to be.
Garcy
Lighting of Chicago is manufacturing a system using regular tubes with a small
black light tube that can be changed when necessary during the normal life of
the larger tubes. Called Spectralight, it also eliminates the usual flicker of
fluorescence, which is recognized as a contributing factor to headaches,
eyestrain, skin blemishes, fatigue and has even been known to cause spasms in
some epileptics. Fluorescent tubes have also been found to emit radiation at the
terminals and any type of fluorescent should have shields over the ends of the
tubes. In addition, the whole tube should not be enclosed under plastic or glass
since any covering prevents the full spectrum from coming through.
Egg‑crate designs (with a small grid) cover the tubes but retain open
spaces thus reducing glare but passing ultraviolet and the rest of the spectrum.
School behavior affected
Just
how bad limited‑spectrum lighting is was markedly demonstrated with a
group of first graders during the 1973‑74 If we consider light a source of
energy it is reasonable to assume that each kind of light‑‑each
color‑‑might have a different nutritive effect.
Generally,
foods of a certain color tend to have the same vitamins: Reddish foods (such as
meat and beets) frequently are high sources of B vitamins;
yellow‑‑green foods (lemons, greens) are rich in vitamin C.
At this stage
of knowledge our concept of color is a combination of two theories and the
reality is probably somewhere in between. Light seems to act like a wave with a
crest and trough. When two beams of light hit each other crest to crest, their
brightness increases, and when a crest of one wave touches a trough of another, the brightness
is diminished. Yet light remains a mystery, even to physicists, because
sometimes it behaves like particle and not like
•
wave system. Sir Isaac Newton passed light through a prism and
•
single white beam was dispersed into red, orange, yellow, blue, indigo, and
violet. He attempted to relate these colors to the seven notes in an octave, and
while critics derided that connection as mystical nonsense, we know that sound,
in fact has an effect on our perception of color. Low‑pitched sounds tend
to make color appear to deepen: red moves toward blue, orange appears more red.
The opposite is true of high‑pitched tones, which make colors seem lighter. Light affects us in more ways than simply allowing us to see. Anything other than the full spectrum of natural sunlight has been shown to produce abnormalities in plants and animals. Light in addition to being necessary for vision, stimulates both the pituitary and pineal glands and possibly other regions of the midbrain which control the production of hormones and have a great deal to do with how we feel. it is simply that portion of the spectrum which we can see that is important, but also the bands of long wave ultra violet that are present but not visible to the naked eye.
Are we light
starved?
Several
studies over the last few decades link ordinary fluorescent lights, which
contain only a part of the spectrum of light waves, to a host of general ills
far beyond tired and aching eyes‑from hyperactivity to cavities. And there
is some data school year in Sarasota, Fla. The four classrooms in the trial were
windowless, and thus all lighting was artificial. Two classrooms kept their
conventional fluorescents, and two had full‑spectrum lights installed,
with shields to reduce radiation at the terminals. Under the normal lighting
some first‑graders demonstrated nervous fatigue, irritability, lapses of
attention and hyperactivity. Yet, when full‑spectrum lighting was
installed, these same children settled down and paid more attention to their
teachers, who reported improved overall classroom performance. Before the
lighting was changed students were photographed by concealed camera fiddling
around. leaping from their seats, flailing arms and paying little attention.
After two and three months these children were filmed again. Their behavior was
entirely different. The children were calmer and more interested in their work.
one little boy stood out in the earlier photographs because of his extreme
hyperactivity. After the lighting was changed he became much quieter and was
able to sit still long enough to concentrate. His teacher reported that he now
was capable of doing independent work, had overcome what appeared to be adverse learning disability and learned how to read in a relatively short time. In those rooms where
the lighting was not changed from standard fluorescence, there was no
improvement in behavior. Although this experiment appears to connect conventional fluorescents and possibly some leaking radiation to hyperactivity, it is
likely that they are only one of the many cases.
In
San Francisco, allergist Dr. Ben Feingold has cured some hyperactive children
simply by removing all synthetic additives from their diet and some of these are
artificial colors. It appears that the ingested color reacts with certain
wavelengths of light in the environment and in some children produces adverse
reactions. Even a single hot dog can cause a tantrum. What is probable is that
some youngsters are more susceptible to certain conditions than others, and
these tendencies are exacerbated by limited‑spectrum lighting.
Continued
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