Colour Therapy (Chromotherapy)
Healing With Color, and the Light Therapy It Isn't
Evidence grade 1 of 5, Refuted. Read how the Atlas grades evidence.
Chromotherapy as a treatment for disease has no scientific support, it is widely regarded as a pseudoscience, with no good evidence that colored light or color exposure treats medical conditions. Crucially, it must not be confused with genuinely evidence-based light-based therapies, which are entirely separate and real: bright-light therapy for seasonal affective disorder and circadian/sleep problems, blue-light phototherapy for newborn jaundice, and specific medical photo-therapies (e.g., for some skin conditions, or red/near-infrared in certain wound and dermatological uses). Those work through established photobiological mechanisms and specific wavelengths, not through the symbolic "healing colors" of chromotherapy. The color one perceives can genuinely influence mood and ambiance (a real, if modest, psychological effect), which is the kernel of truth chromotherapy overextends. The honest framing: color and light do affect us, and real light therapies treat specific conditions, but chromotherapy's claim that assigned healing colors cure disease is unsupported, and its value, if any, is mood, aesthetics, and placebo.
Reference only. Not medical advice.
What can go wrong
Colour therapy is physically harmless in itself; exposure to colored light or colored surroundings carries essentially no direct risk, which is part of why it endures. The risk is indirect and conceptual. Relying on chromotherapy to treat a real medical or mental-health condition instead of effective care can delay needed treatment, and confusing it with genuine light medicine could lead someone to use a color gadget for a condition, such as seasonal affective disorder or newborn jaundice, that requires specific, properly dosed medical phototherapy under clinical supervision. Newborn jaundice and mood disorders in particular are situations where a qualified clinician should direct care, and any device used for them should be a real medical phototherapy device on medical advice, never a symbolic color product. Used purely as a mood or ambiance tool with realistic expectations, and never as a substitute for real care or real phototherapy, colour therapy is benign.
Colour therapy, also called chromotherapy, holds that specific colors applied as light, water or surroundings can heal the body and mind, blue to soothe, red to energize, and so on. It builds on a real and near-universal human tendency to attach emotion to color, and in the modern era it fused with the seven-color chakra scheme. Health authorities and reviewers regard the disease-healing claim as pseudoscience, with no credible evidence that colored light cures illness. The distinction that matters most is that chromotherapy is not the same as genuine light medicine. Bright-light therapy for seasonal affective disorder, blue-light phototherapy for newborn jaundice, and dermatologic phototherapy are real, separate and evidence-based, working through specific wavelengths and known photobiological mechanisms rather than symbolic colors. Color does shape mood and ambiance, and used with realistic expectations it is a harmless aesthetic tool, but its value there is psychological rather than medical.
The claim that specific colors heal disease, an unsupported pseudoscience not to be confused with real, evidence-based light therapies for jaundice, SAD, and skin conditions.
What people take it for
These are the reasons people give for taking it. They are not effects it has been shown to have.
How it is supposed to work
There is no scientific basis for the claim that specific colors heal disease. Color is simply visible light of different wavelengths; while light and color genuinely affect mood and physiology in some ways (bright light affects the circadian system; environments and colors can influence emotion and perception), there is no mechanism by which shining a particular color on the body or "balancing" color energy would treat illness. The real effects of color are psychological, associations, mood, and aesthetics, and, in the case of actual light therapy, specific photobiological effects, not a healing property of the color itself. Chromotherapy's claimed mechanism (colors resonating with the body's energy or chakras to heal) is not supported.
What people get wrong
Often saidShining specific healing colors on the body treats or cures disease.
ActuallyHealth authorities regard this as pseudoscience. The American Cancer Society states that available scientific evidence does not support claims that alternative uses of light or color therapy are effective, and scrutiny of the best-known device, Ghadiali's Spectro-Chrome, found an ordinary lamp whose reported cures were placebo. Color genuinely affects mood and ambiance, but that psychological effect is not a healing property.
Often saidColour therapy and light therapy are the same thing.
ActuallyThey are separate. Real light medicine works through specific wavelengths and photobiological mechanisms: blue light isomerizes bilirubin in newborn jaundice, bright light acts on circadian and mood pathways in seasonal affective disorder, and dermatologic phototherapy treats defined skin conditions. Chromotherapy's symbolic healing colors do not share those mechanisms and should not be confused with them.
Often saidThe Spectro-Chrome device was suppressed medical science that actually worked.
ActuallyGhadiali was convicted of misbranding by a U.S. federal jury in 1945, and the FDA secured a permanent injunction against his institute in 1958. The science writer Martin Gardner described him as perhaps the greatest quack of them all. The device was found to be an ordinary lamp.
Often saidChromotherapy is dangerous and toxic.
ActuallyExposure to colored light or colored surroundings is essentially physically harmless, which is part of why the practice persists. The real hazard is indirect: relying on it in place of effective care for a medical or mental-health condition, or mistaking a color gadget for properly dosed medical phototherapy.
Who profits, and who pushes back
Science-based medicine
Regard colour therapy as a pseudoscience with no good evidence that colored light or color exposure treats medical conditions.
Photomedicine
Distinguish genuine, evidence-based phototherapies, bright light for SAD, blue light for jaundice, medical skin treatments, from symbolic chromotherapy, as separate and real.
Chromotherapy practitioners
Hold that specific colors carry healing properties and "treat" by exposing people to corresponding hues, often linked to the chakra color system.
Environmental psychology
Acknowledge color genuinely influences mood, perception, and ambiance, a real psychological effect distinct from any claim that color cures disease.
Where the research comes from
Most of the published research on this comes from one place. 75% of it is from Global (color symbolism). Findings that no unrelated group has reproduced are weaker than the study count makes them look.
| Place | Share of published research |
|---|---|
| Global (color symbolism) | 75% |
| Western New Age chromotherapy | 65% |
| Wellness & spa settings | 62% |
How we got here
Color carried healing meaning long before it had a Western name. Physicians in ancient Egypt, Greece, China and India worked with sunlight, colored garments, stones and oils, and Indian scriptural traditions describe healing through sunlight. The Persian physician Avicenna, writing around 1025 in The Canon of Medicine, treated color as a diagnostic sign and proposed that red moved the blood while blue or white cooled it. The modern version took shape in 19th-century America and Britain. Augustus Pleasonton praised the blue ray of sunlight in 1876, Seth Pancoast published Blue and Red Light in 1877, and Edwin Babbitt laid out an elaborate color-healing system in The Principles of Light and Color in 1878. The Indian-American promoter Dinshah Ghadiali built the best-known apparatus, the Spectro-Chrome, marketing it from 1920 onward. In the later 20th century chromotherapy was absorbed into New Age and wellness culture and linked to the rainbow chakra colors.
- c. 1025Avicenna's Canon of Medicine discusses color in diagnosis and treatment, red to move the blood, blue or white to cool it
- 1876-1878Pleasonton (blue ray, 1876), Pancoast (Blue and Red Light, 1877) and Babbitt (Principles of Light and Color, 1878) found modern color healing
- 1903Niels Finsen wins the Nobel Prize for treating lupus vulgaris with concentrated light, founding real medical phototherapy, a separate lineage
- 1920Dinshah Ghadiali introduces the Spectro-Chrome color-light device in the United States
- 1945A U.S. federal jury convicts Ghadiali of misbranding; expert testimony calls the device an ordinary lamp with placebo-level results
- 1958Two separate events: the FDA obtains a permanent injunction against Ghadiali's institute, and Cremer et al. report in the Lancet that blue light lowers bilirubin, launching genuine neonatal phototherapy
- 1984Rosenthal and colleagues describe seasonal affective disorder and its response to bright light, establishing another evidence-based light therapy
- Late 20th-21st c.Chromotherapy spreads through New Age and wellness culture and is linked to the seven-color chakra system
How it is understood
Colour therapy, or chromotherapy, is the claim that specific colors can heal the body and mind, applied through colored light, colored water, colored visualization, or simply by surrounding a person with particular hues. The idea draws on the genuine, ancient, and near-universal human association of colors with emotions and meanings (red with energy or danger, blue with calm, green with nature) and on color symbolism in traditions worldwide, and it links closely to the modern chakra system, which assigns a rainbow color to each energy center. Practitioners assign healing properties to colors (blue to soothe, red to energize, yellow to uplift) and "treat" by exposing the person or affected body part to the corresponding color. Chromotherapy is offered in some spas, wellness centers, and alternative practices, often alongside other energy modalities, and color is sometimes built into devices and lighting marketed for wellbeing. It is important to distinguish this from genuine, evidence-based light therapies, which are something else entirely.
At a glance
- Claim
- Specific colors heal body and mind
- Kernel of truth
- Color really does affect mood/ambiance
- Not the same as
- Real light therapy (SAD, jaundice, skin)
- Evidence
- No support for color curing disease
What this entry does not yet cover
What follows is unfinished work on our side, not a finding about Colour Therapy (Chromotherapy). A short entry is not a safe entry.
- Cost and market. We have not documented what it sells for or who sells it.
- Supply chain. We have not mapped where it is made.
- Who uses it. We have not documented the user groups.
- What could change. No forward-looking summary yet.
- How it compares. We have not set it against the alternatives.
- Children and teenagers. We have not checked what is known about younger people.
Sources
Chromotherapy is a pseudoscientific alternative medicine considered quackery; ACS says evidence does not support color/light therapy; Martin Gardner called Ghadiali perhaps the greatest quack of them all
Ghadiali and the Spectro-Chrome; 1945 misbranding conviction and 1958 FDA permanent injunction; device was an ordinary lamp claimed to treat nearly any condition
Colorful Nonsense: Dinshah Ghadiali and His Spectro-Chrome Device, Quackwatch
Ghadiali's ideas were pseudoscience; Spectro-Chrome successes attributed to placebo; failed cases including a diabetic patient's death; distinction from real phototherapy (blue light for jaundice)
Colourful conman, McGill University Office for Science and Society (Joe Schwarcz)
Historical origins of chromotherapy: ancient Egypt/Greece/India, Avicenna's Canon of Medicine (red moves blood, blue/white cools), Babbitt, Ghadiali; field lacks empirical validation
A Critical Analysis of Chromotherapy and Its Scientific Evolution, PMC
No scientific evidence that colored light or gemstone therapy treats physical or mental disorders; chromotherapy is not a licensed health practice in North America; mood improvements often reflect placebo
Legitimate, separate light medicine: Niels Finsen won the 1903 Nobel Prize for treating lupus vulgaris with concentrated light, founding dermatologic phototherapy
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1903, NobelPrize.org
Legitimate, separate light medicine: Cremer et al. (Lancet 1958) showed blue/sunlight lowers bilirubin; blue-light phototherapy (peak absorption ~459 nm) is standard neonatal jaundice treatment; 60-year track record
Sixty years of phototherapy for neonatal jaundice, Journal of Perinatology
Legitimate, separate light medicine: bright-light therapy for seasonal affective disorder, first described by Rosenthal et al. 1984, now a recognized first-line treatment supported by RCT meta-analyses
Bright Light Therapy: Seasonal Affective Disorder and Beyond, PMC
Neonatal phototherapy is standardized clinical care under the 2022 American Academy of Pediatrics hyperbilirubinemia guideline (distinct from chromotherapy and from FDA-enjoined color devices)
Phototherapy to Prevent Severe Neonatal Hyperbilirubinemia, Technical Report, Pediatrics (AAP)