Light: Medicine of the Future

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Overview

What this book is about

Liberman argues that the human body is a "living photocell" and that light is a nutrient, like food. His central claim is about the eyes. Light that enters the eyes does not only serve vision. Part of it goes to the hypothalamus, and from there to the pineal gland, the autonomic nervous system and the hormone (endocrine) system. So, he argues, the amount, timing and color of the light reaching our eyes regulate sleep, mood, hormones, immunity, growth and learning. Modern life starves us of the right light. We live indoors under cool-white fluorescent tubes and incandescent bulbs, behind window glass, and wear glasses, sunglasses and contact lenses that block ultraviolet (UV) light. He calls the result "malillumination," a term coined by the photobiologist John Ott. He compares it to malnutrition. His remedy is daily sunlight without lenses, full-spectrum lighting indoors, timed bright light, and specific colors of light shone into the eyes.

The book has three parts and five appendices. - Part 1, "Let There Be Light" (Ch 1–5), builds the foundation: the eye as an extension of the brain, the pineal as the body's "light meter," the physiological effects of color, and the case against indoor and fluorescent lighting. - Part 2, "Light: The New Medicine" (Ch 6–12), covers the 19th- and 20th-century pioneers (Babbitt, Finsen, Dinshah's Spectro-Chrome, Spitler's Syntonics), Liberman's own syntonic cases, classroom lighting studies, light in cancer (photodynamic therapy), bright light for seasonal depression (SAD), jet lag and PMS, a long defense of UV light, and a "Rainbow Diet." - Part 3, "Light Years Beyond" (Ch 13–15), turns personal and spiritual. Liberman tells his own story of divorce, anxiety and back injury. He then describes his own method: shining the colors a patient finds most uncomfortable into the eyes, to bring buried emotional trauma to the surface. He calls this "human homeopathy." - The appendices list full-spectrum light products, College of Syntonic Optometry practitioners (including Liberman himself), wall colors for classrooms, cancer phototherapy centers and SAD clinics.

The evidence is mixed in kind. Liberman cites some published controlled studies: - Gerard's 1958 color study - Wohlfarth's school studies - the NIMH trial of bright light for SAD - Neer's calcium study - the 1982 Lancet melanoma study - Hollwich's hormone work

Much of the rest comes from John Ott's time-lapse experiments, popular press (Brain/Mind Bulletin, newspapers, the Swannanoa Health Report newsletter), personal correspondence, and Liberman's own case reports from his practice. He says openly that Dinshah's color theories "have not yet been scientifically validated." Part 3 relies on chakras, auras and a quotation from a "channeled entity" (Bartholomew). The book is a 1990 snapshot. Its predictions about photodynamic therapy, lasers and the end of cancer are written from that date.

Conflicts of interest. Liberman sells what the book recommends: he runs a light-therapy device company, sells "products for personal healing," practiced syntonic therapy, and lists himself in the practitioner directory. His main controlled evidence is his own study. Several endorsers are also key sources or sell listed products. The full list is at the end of Practical Takeaways. The book names no specific device of his; the later EYEPORT is not mentioned.

Eyes. As an optometrist, Liberman keeps returning to the eyes: - light entering the eyes - sunglasses, prescription lenses, contact lenses and UV-blocking "UV 400" lenses - eye strain from fluorescent light - visual fields that shrink under stress - nearsightedness (myopia) as a stress response - reducing eyeglass prescriptions

The book says nothing about dry eyes as a condition. Its only mention of the tear film is one sentence about bacteria living in it (Ch 7).

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Key Ideas

The core frameworks and findings

Light entering the eyes runs the body's control centers

Liberman says the link between the eyes and the hypothalamus was suspected in the late 1800s, observed from the 1920s to the 1950s, and proven in the early 1970s. He cites anatomical studies by Hendrickson, Wagoner & Cowan (1972), Moore (1973) and Hartwig (1974). The hypothalamus controls the autonomic nervous system and, through the pituitary, the endocrine system. It also passes light information to the pineal. He leans on Fritz Hollwich, a retired professor of ophthalmology at Münster. Hollwich's studies of blind patients and of cataract patients before and after surgery concluded that absent or reduced light perception disturbs physiological and emotional stability. Liberman's figures for the eye (Ch 2):

The pineal gland is the body's light meter

It takes light information from the eyes, by way of the hypothalamus, and releases melatonin in darkness. In humans and all "hairy creatures," light reaches the pineal only through the eyes. Liberman's speculation is that humans once received light through the top of the head. Figures he gives (Ch 3):

Malillumination: indoor light is the wrong "diet."

Light sources compared (Ch 5, Ch 11): The evidence he cites:

Full-spectrum lighting improves children's behavior, health and learning

Each color has measurable effects on the body

UV light is a nutrient in trace amounts. Blocking it may be "one of the biggest blunders science has made in the last fifty years"

(Ch 11, drawing on Ott and the Swannanoa Health Report). Liberman lists ten benefits, each with a cited study: He attacks the studies used to show UV harm. In one, monkeys had their eyelids clamped open and their pupils dilated, then were exposed to a 2,500-watt xenon lamp for 16 minutes. He calls this abuse, unrelated to real life. He cites the 1982 Lancet study (London School of Hygiene and the University of Sydney): melanoma was higher in office workers than in people who worked outdoors. Helen Shaw found the lowest risk in people whose main outdoor activity was sunbathing, and twice the risk in office workers under fluorescent lights.

Sunglasses, glasses and contact lenses may starve the eyes and body of light

Liberman's points (Ch 11, Ch 13):

Timed bright light treats seasonal depression and resets the body clock

Syntonics: colored light through the eyes

Harry Riley Spitler developed it in the 1920s–1930s and founded the College of Syntonic Optometry in 1933. The method: Liberman's own controlled study (published 1986) treated children with reading difficulties for 20 minutes, four times a week, for six weeks, against an untreated control group. He reports: Parents and teachers reported that 75% of the children did better at school and 40% wrote more neatly, and the two children on Ritalin stopped taking it. The book gives no sample size.

Vision problems are often stress responses, not fixed defects

Light against cancer

Light as food, and the Rainbow Diet

Disease as blocked receptivity; uncomfortable colors as medicine

This is Part 3, Liberman's own method.

The "medicine of the future."

Liberman predicts the following (Ch 15):

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Chapter by chapter — click to expand

§ Front matter ▾

Endorsements from Christopher Bird, Gabriel Cousens, Christopher Hills, Dana Ullman, John Ott, Norman Shealy, Fritz Hollwich and Bernard Jensen.
Acknowledgments to Spitler, Dinshah and Ott. Dr. Larry Jebrock "convinced me to purchase the initial equipment" for Syntonics. The publishers were Barbara and Gerry Clow.
Foreword (John Ott, Sarasota, June 1990): heliotherapy was replaced by drugs. Light is the "ignition system" of metabolism, and vitamins cannot replace missing wavelengths. A New York cancer research center returned a newsletter editor's check and refused to send him its publications, because his newsletter on the benefits of UV had been "discounted by M.D.s."
Preface (Liberman):
1974: Aileen, aged 7, had a "lazy eye" seeing 20/200. He flashed light into her better eye. It reached 20/25 in 30 minutes and a lasting 20/20 after five sessions.
1974: Kirlian photography of his hands. 1975: the "open focus" vision method, giving up his glasses, and seeing auras.
1977: Syntonics. His first patient was his mother, who had lost the sight of her left eye to optic nerve disease after six months of top-level treatment. He used turquoise light (which he believed anti-inflammatory) for 20 minutes a day. Improvement appeared on day 4. By day 20 she read a 4-inch letter at 20 feet and had regained 80% of her side vision.
Introduction: a road map of the three parts. Products and practitioners are listed "to support your own further investigation."

§ Ch 1 — The Human Photocell *(Part 1: Let There Be Light)* ▾

Sunlight sustains life. About 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum is visible. Day and night, sunrise and sunset colors, and the green "neutral" flash.
Seasons, fertility and mood. In Norway and Finland, less sunlight goes with irritability, fatigue, insomnia, depression, alcoholism and suicide. In Finland more children are conceived in June and July (about 20 hours of sun a day).
Heliotherapy: Egyptians, Greeks, Heliopolis, and a Herodotus quotation on sunbathing the sick.
Hufeland (1796): light deprivation makes people "pale, flabby, and apathetic." "Fluorescent dungeons."
Szent-Györgyi: colored, light-sensitive enzymes and hormones. Martinek & Berezin (1979): some colors make enzymes up to 500% more effective.
Zane Kime's Sunlight: repeated sun exposure lowers resting heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate and blood sugar, and lactic acid after exercise. It raises energy, strength, endurance and stress tolerance, like physical training (Fig. 3).

§ Ch 2 — "The Eyes Are the Windows of the Soul" ▾

The eyes as a mirror of health ("about 3,000" conditions visible). Iridology (von Peczely; a 1989 Soviet Life report of 100% agreement in 150 subjects; Bernard Jensen's chart).
The eye's numbers and nutritional demands: oxygen, vitamin C and zinc (see Key Idea 1).
Visual problems and mental illness (9% against 66%). After 16 years of "functional optometry," Liberman sees mind patterns reflected in eye patterns.
Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) eye-accessing cues (Bandler & Grinder): looking up-right means constructing images, up-left means remembered images, and down-right means feelings.
Rods and cones. Signals travel about 234 mph. The visual and non-visual routes.
The autonomic nervous system (sympathetic and parasympathetic), the hypothalamus as "chief executive officer," and the pituitary as master gland.

§ Ch 3 — The Pineal: "Seat of the Soul" ▾

Descartes, Herophilus, the "third eye." Pineal size grows with latitude; in the elephant seal it is 50% of the brain at birth.
Light reaches the pineal only via the eyes in humans. Melatonin rhythm, the McIntyre lux figures, the blind, Hollwich (see Key Idea 2).
Pierpaoli & Maestroni's mice on melatonin. Melatonin levels by age (Fig. 14): high from birth to age five, falling to age fifteen, and much reduced over 85.

§ Ch 4 — Color: The Rainbow of Life ▾

Visible light is 400–700 nm. Seasons and life stages. Goethe's Farbenlehre (1840), Steiner, Lüscher's color preferences.
Hill & Marg (1963): rabbit brain cells on the eye-to-pineal pathway respond to each color differently. A chakra chart (Fig. 16, after Christopher Hills).
Studies by Krakov, Gerard (including eye-blink frequency), Wohlfarth, Aaronson and Plack & Schick.
Blue light for jaundice (found in over 60% of premature infants). In 1900, over 75% of Americans worked outdoors; by 1970 it was under 10%.
Blue light for arthritis (McDonald). Liberman used a similar filter on his mother's hands.
Red blinking goggles for migraine (Anderson): 72% stopped within an hour; of the rest, 93% felt better.
Baker-Miller pink (Alexander Schauss), with a claimed loss of muscle strength within 2.7 seconds. Red light raised athletes' strength 13.5% and muscle electrical activity 5.8%.
Ott's chloroplast films (Elodea) and University of Freiburg plants. Retinal pigment cells under color filters. "The habitual wearing of sunglasses could be causing serious problems."

§ Ch 5 — Malillumination: Fact or Fantasy? ▾

Ott's term "malillumination." Edison (1879) and the indoor life.
Incandescent, fluorescent and high-intensity discharge (HID) light sources, with spectral charts (color plate 20).
Harmon's "Coordinated Classroom" figures.
Ott's work: Disney pumpkin time-lapse, mouse life spans, the Duro-Test Vita-Lite (the first full-spectrum fluorescent tube), the 1973 Sarasota classrooms, and cavities.
Chickens under full-spectrum light: live twice as long, lay more eggs, are calmer, and their eggs have about 25% less cholesterol. Sunshine lowers blood cholesterol.
Hollwich's ACTH and cortisol findings. A claimed German hospital ban on cool-white tubes.
Anecdote: in the 1970s energy crisis, half the fluorescent banks in an employment office were switched off, and staff and applicants grew quieter, less hostile and less tired. Full-spectrum light at work lowers stress and sick days.
Orie Bachechi's "Kiva Light," claimed to "structure" water and energize food. Liberman says he has not used it himself.

§ Ch 6 — The Enlightened Pioneers *(Part 2: Light: The New Medicine)* ▾

Early figures: Herodotus, Celsus, Galen, Avicenna; Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy, Newton (1672), Roemer (1676).
Pleasanton, Blue and Sun-Lights (1876). Pancoast, Blue and Red Lights (1877). Babbitt, The Principles of Light and Color (1878), with the Chromo Disk and sun-"potentized" water. UV as a germicide in the 1880s–90s.
Rickets and vitamin D. Liberman claims sun-made vitamin D3 has "never been found to be toxic," while dietary D2 can be.
Niels Finsen: carbon-arc light for skin tuberculosis (lupus vulgaris), from 1892, and red light against smallpox scarring. Nobel Prize 1903, "father of photobiology."
Spectro-Chrome (Dinshah Ghadiali): twelve filters "tonated" onto the body:
green as the equilibrator; lemon for chronic and turquoise for acute conditions
purple, scarlet or magenta for the heart, circulation and reproductive organs
indigo for pain, bleeding and abscess
Syntonics (Harry Riley Spitler):
light therapy in his sanatorium from 1909, applied through the eyes from 1919
the colored-light rabbit experiments of 1923–24
the first eye instruments in 1927
about 31 filter combinations, 20 in common use, labeled with Greek letters
the College of Syntonic Optometry founded in 1933; The Syntonic Principle (1941)

§ Ch 7 — A New Vision for Vision Specialists ▾

Sulfa drugs and penicillin pushed light therapy "underground." Liberman's view is that lifestyle, not bacteria, causes most disease: "approximately fifteen different kinds of bacteria live within the tear film of the eye" and cause no problems unless the tear film is imbalanced. This is the only mention of the tear film in the book.
Brombach (blind spot) and Eames (constricted visual fields). Stress constricts perception (Shipman; Anderson & Williams). Noise narrows the visual field (1931).
The visual field as a tree's root system (Figs. 22–24). A self-test using your thumbs at arm's length.
Case of Harry (14½, nearsighted, astigmatic, 20/200): a visual field so narrow that both thumbs were seen together only within 4–6 inches. He had 20 minutes a day (10 minutes yellow-green, 10 minutes ruby), five days a week for four weeks. Afterward his myopia was down 33%, he saw 20/40 without glasses, and his memory scores rose sharply.
After Spitler (died 1961): Jenkins, Becraft and Butts. The 1970s practitioners: Robert Michael Kaplan (larger visual fields in children with learning disabilities) and John Downing (flickering light sources).
Liberman's controlled study: see Key Idea 9.
Case 1, Robert (37, advanced glaucoma): a mask with a blue-green filter, worn while sitting in the sun for 30 minutes daily. After 3 weeks his eye pressure was lower and his field better. After 4 months his pressure had dropped "substantially" and his field had widened.
Case 2, Anthony (84, about 14 strokes, unable to speak or walk): two 20-minute Syntonics sessions a day for three weeks, plus sunshine and TV glasses. He began to speak, read the paper and eat normally (his daughter's letter).
Case 3 (47, retinitis pigmentosa): a visual field of 8–10°. After 14 days of self-treatment at home it was 33° in the right eye and 42° in the left.
Liberman says these cases are "not presented to prove" the method works in all such cases.

§ Ch 8 — Light, Color & Learning ▾

Wohlfarth's Edmonton (1981) and Wetaskiwin (1982–83) studies (see Key Idea 4). The wall colors are in Appendix C.
Barbara Meister Vitale's seven classroom observations:
colored felt in a child's work space reduces hyperactivity; red works best
clothing color affects behavior
colored paper or markers improve reading
some people do well reading under blue light
a colored overlay helps with reversals and losing one's place
nonreaders who visualize a favorite color can begin reading
the effective color is the person's favorite or its opposite
Helen Irlen's tinted lenses for "Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome" (60 Minutes, 1988; about 140 tints). Liberman notes that Syntonics did similar things 58 years earlier, and that psychiatrist Richard Frenkel uses tints. He raises concerns about tolerance and long-term effects of a restricted "light diet." He cites a Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine report that people without eye disease who wore tinted glasses were more likely to be psychopathic.
"Are we treating a cause or an effect?" Liberman was a nonreading, hyperactive child himself. He says every child with learning difficulties he has seen shows fear. Labels scar children, and early reading demands may cause the problem.

§ Ch 9 — A New Light on Cancer ▾

Light and longevity: Ott and the NIEHS mouse tumor timings; Spitler's rabbits; Smith-Sonneborn's UV-A repair of paramecia.
Photodynamic therapy: the 1900 eosin discovery, porphyrins, porphyria ("werewolves"), tumors that fluoresce, the Mayo Clinic, Dougherty's first tumor (1973) using a slide projector, Photofrin and its 24–72-hour wait, 630-nm argon-pumped laser light through fibre optics. About 70 centers were testing it (45 in the US and Canada). Approval was expected in 1990–91. Also in trials for genital warts and arterial plaque.
"Light: the blood cleanser" (Lester Matthews, Baylor). Tunable lasers from the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars") program. A speculative "annual light bath" to clear cancer.

§ Ch 10 — Light: Nature's Miracle Medicine ▾

Seasons as times for activity and for turning inward. Winter as a time for inner healing that has turned into depression.
SAD: symptoms (overeating, oversleeping, carbohydrate craving, low sex drive), the NIMH work (Rosenthal, Wehr, Lewy), Cauvin (1815). Treatment parameters are in Practical Takeaways. Morning usually beats evening; half an hour to four hours a day; effects within 2–4 days, gone about 2 days after stopping. Side effects include eyestrain, headaches, edginess and trouble sleeping. Terman's dawn-and-dusk simulator. "Seasonal energy syndrome": red glasses for fall and winter depression, polarized blue-green glasses for spring and summer agitation.
Other uses of light:
Kripke's 3 hours of evening light for non-seasonal depression
bulimia
20 Austrian alcoholics in withdrawal, who needed only 10–20% of the usual anti-anxiety drugs after two days of bright light
Geller's rats (1971), which drank alcohol when kept in darkness or given melatonin
Sexual function:
high melatonin depresses sex hormones
early puberty in brightly lit countries
melatonin is lowest at ovulation and highest during menstruation
Liberman's female patients' menstrual cycles normalized during vision treatment (anecdote)
melatonin and breast tumors
Resetting the body clock: Czeisler, jet lag, shift workers, and Alzheimer's patients, who get half the bright sunlight of healthy elderly people. The jet-lag protocol is in Practical Takeaways.
Light-cured dental fillings (silver fillings "considered toxic by many"). Laser acupuncture.
Hazel Parcells (over 100 years old): color for stroke paralysis and during childbirth.
Richard Frenkel: stress stored as colors; "color refraction," tinted glasses and a patented "imagescope." He claims results in anxiety, depression, phobias, migraine, suicide prevention, "computer fatigue," obesity and addiction.
PMS: two hours of evening bright light (Parry). A woman's essay on "moon-time."
Liberman's questions: is light treating symptoms, or helping people override nature until they burn out? Repressed emotions resurface at night, during menstruation and in winter. Tolbert McCarroll's poem "Seasons."

§ Ch 11 — UV or Not UV: That Is the Question ▾

The scale of UV avoidance: more than 50% of Americans wear UV-blocking lenses; UV 400 lenses; experimental eye drops that block 98% of UV ("liquid sunglasses"); SPF 25–30. The FDA's radiology labs sleeve their fluorescents against UV.
UV-A (320–380 nm, tanning), UV-B (290–320 nm, vitamin D), UV-C (100–290 nm, germicidal, mostly blocked by the ozone layer).
Heliotherapy: Rollier at Leysin (5,000 ft), La Cure de Soleil; sunglasses blocked the cure; George Sperti's "tuned" UV. Penicillin ended the era.
The ten benefits of UV (Key Idea 6). Ott: "Trace amounts of ultraviolet radiation are as important to people as trace amounts of vital nutrients." Calls for a recommended daily allowance of UV.
Problems with indoor lights:
incandescent bulbs: no UV, peaks in red and infrared. Ott linked orange-pink-red light to hair loss, calcium deposits in the heart and tumors in animals.
fluorescents: mercury-vapor spikes (Ott claims they are "100 times" higher than charts show, and wants a food-allergy warning), x-rays from the tube ends (wilting geraniums and beans, cured with lead foil), and radio-wave emissions.
avoid deluxe warm-white and cool-white tubes
"UV studies that created a climate of fear": the xenon-lamp monkey study and cataract and skin-cancer animal studies. An ethical critique of animal research.
"Are we creating our own blindness?" John Marshall's "Light and the Ageing Eye" against Ott's dividing retinal cells. Lack of UV as a possible cause of macular degeneration.
Skin cancer, current beliefs: burning and free radicals; more cancer in fair skin and in the tropics.
Changing beliefs: the 1982 Lancet melanoma study, Helen Shaw, NYU confirmations. FDA biophysicist F. Alan Anderson estimated unshielded fluorescents give about 5% of a person's weekly radiation dose. "Moderation is the key."
The six recommendations (see Practical Takeaways). Zane Kime: UV is "absolutely critical for optimal health."

§ Ch 12 — Getting Well with the Rainbow Diet ▾

Blood through the eyes every two hours; "biological combustion"; each substance needs its own wavelength (bilirubin needs blue, vitamin D needs UV).
Ott's "humans are also photosynthetic" and Bonghan corpuscles. Liberman: photosynthesis in plants equals metabolism in humans.
"Frozen light": eat low on the food chain. The most light-filled foods are blue-green algae and organic produce.
Gabriel Cousens's chakra-color diet (vegetarian). Example day: fruit in the morning, a green salad at lunch, purple vegetables, golden grains and beans at dinner.

§ Ch 13 — A New Paradigm for Health & Healing *(Part 3: Light Years Beyond)* ▾

Germs don't cause disease; stress "opens the door." Change consciousness, diet and environment rather than kill microbes.
The eye-care treadmill: stronger glasses each year, and "hereditary" as a non-answer. Doctors who detach from patients.
"Doctor, heal thyself": Liberman's own story. An immigrant from Havana who struggled to read (high school at 19½); private practice from 1973; divorce (1978–79) and six years of anxiety attacks and depression, with two knee surgeries he links to wanting his ex-wife to feel guilty; a second doctorate and the sale of his practice in 1986; Aspen in 1988; a back injury in 1989 (three months in bed); a 45-page manuscript cut to 12 pages that became this book.
"Biological receptivity: the body's radar":
Fritz-Albert Popp's biophotons (cells give off light) and Herbert Pohl's radio signals from cells
colors seen during Rolfing; fingertip aura patterns in more than 1,000 patients in Madras
held breath and blocked energy flow as the start of disease
fear restricts eye movements, which over time produces astigmatism
"Decreased receptivity": artificial light, sunglasses (with tint effects) and trauma. Dhavid Cooper measured light reflected from eyes: narrow bands in himself and his wife, a "full spectrum" in Liberman's eye (anecdote).
"Human homeopathy":
abuse patterns repeat in adult relationships
a crying baby triggers our own unfelt pain, so we plug its mouth, which teaches addiction
Hahnemann's and Hering's principles, restated as five rules of healing
"we may in fact be each other's homeopathic remedies"

§ Ch 14 — Becoming Illuminated with Light ▾

Syntonics as taught: reduced from about 20 filters to about 5. Yellow-green for chronic conditions (for example an old head injury), blue-green for acute conditions (fevers, inflammation), magenta as emotional stabilizer.
How well it worked: Liberman treated crossed eyes, nearsightedness, "visual discomfort" and reading and attention problems. Most crossed eyes and nearsightedness were not hereditary, in his experience.
Exploring further:
filter "rules" did not apply to everyone; magenta calmed some patients and disturbed others
pairs of colors (red/blue, yellow/violet, lime/turquoise): the color a patient preferred was usually the opposite of the one Liberman felt they needed
New methods:
Royal Rife's virus "colors"
disturbing colors raised addicts' cravings; Liberman's theory is that addiction numbs fear
colors given in order from least to most uncomfortable
a patient relived a rape in her eleventh session
colleagues "thought my approach was crazy"
"the interaction between the patient and the facilitator is primary"
Color receptivity and the chakras: see Key Idea 13.
Case of Nancy (47):
after a breakdown she had depression and arthritis-like pain
eyes: severe nearsightedness, "constant discomfort in her eyes," could not read for long, three failed eye-muscle surgeries, "totally addicted to her glasses"
treatment: home phototherapy with a device Liberman lent her (yellow-green with red-yellow, then turquoise and indigo, 10 minutes each, twice a day), plus glasses 20% weaker and vision therapy
she recalled childhood sexual abuse; Liberman ties the onset of her myopia to "a situation she couldn't bear to look at"
her symptoms worsened first, including a bout of hysteria
within two weeks of wearing the weaker glasses, "her eyes felt more comfortable, even while driving"
after about 3 months: pain down as much as 85%, unaided vision from 20/200 to about 20/40, and glasses at 50% strength; she read without glasses
Kay, "a miracle story" (41):
she came for worsening eyesight (bifocals; could focus only a few inches from her nose)
severe childhood abuse; immune collapse, chronic sinusitis, bronchitis, asthma; classed as disabled
red and yellow light brought up flashbacks
after 3 months: she saw clearly at 10–12 feet without glasses; her asthma, sinus and bronchial problems were gone, her lung x-rays had healed, and she stopped all medication
all of this is from Liberman's report and her letter

§ Ch 15 — Light: The Final Frontier ▾

Each color is a nutrient. Our state of consciousness sets which colors we can take in.
"Bringing in the light" exercise (Fig. 31): see Practical Takeaways.
Predictions for medicine, schools, workplaces and psychotherapy (Key Idea 14). Closing lines: "The eyes were meant to see with. Give them a chance. Let them go. Let them see."
A later-edition note: the appendix listings are out of date. It points to the websites of the College of Syntonic Optometry, the College of Optometrists in Vision Development, the Optometric Extension Program and the American Holistic Medical Association.

§ Appendix A — Full-Spectrum Light Sources & Other Related Products ▾

The definition of "full spectrum": color-rendering index (CRI) of 90 or above, and color temperature of about 5,000–7,500 K. The Vita-Lite has a CRI of 91; standard cool-white has 68.
Product makers: Duro-Test (Vita-Lite), GE (Chroma 50), Philips (Colortone 50), GTE (Design 50), Ott Light Systems (Ott Light), LCI (Spectralite) and Verilux.
The Ott Light's features: a separate UV bulb, lead-shielded tube ends, and a grounded UV-transmitting diffuser.
Food and water lights: the Thea-Lite (Hazel Parcells; light plus a magnetic field said to remove spray residues) and the Kiva Light (Orie Bachechi).
Tips for full-spectrum fluorescents: see Practical Takeaways.

§ Appendix B — College of Syntonic Optometry Practitioners ▾

About 150 listings in the US, Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands and Canada. They include Liberman himself (Aspen, Colorado) and many people thanked in the acknowledgments (Downing, Jebrock, Rosenfeld, Wallace, Cooper, Robertson).

§ Appendix C — Wohlfarth's Colors for Walls ▾

Glidden paint codes: warm light yellow 73-85 on the three walls students face; warm light blue 77-30 on the rear wall and desk fronts; blue 77-81 for "blackboards"; warm golden-gray 78-69 for carpets. Yellow stimulates slow students; blue relaxes hyperactive ones. The colors are copyrighted by Wohlfarth.

§ Appendix D — Clinical Investigators Utilizing Phototherapy and Photofrin in the Treatment of Cancer ▾

Ten North American centers (1990).

§ Appendix E — Partial Directory of Practitioners Working with SAD ▾

The Society for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms, and university and private clinics (NIMH, Columbia/Terman, Scripps/Kripke, UCSD/Parry, and others).

§ Endnotes, Suggested Reading, About the Author, Index ▾

The endnotes mix journals (Science, Lancet, American Journal of Ophthalmology, Archives of General Psychiatry) with Brain/Mind Bulletin, the International Journal of Biosocial Research, newspapers and personal conversations.
The suggested reading includes Ott, Hollwich, Kime's Sunlight (cited throughout), Dinshah, Gerber's Vibrational Medicine, Rosenthal's Seasons of the Mind and Cousens.

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Practical Takeaways

What to actually do with this

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Spend at least one hour outdoors every day, whatever the weatherShade or a screened porch counts. Do outdoors anything that can be done outdoors; walking is ideal.

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Outdoors, take off sunglasses, prescription glasses and contact lensesunless the day is so sunny that it feels too bright. He says this lets in the full spectrum and "may also improve your natural eyesight, as long as you don't strain to see."

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Build up time in the sun graduallyAvoid 10 a.m.–2 p.m. Never look directly into the sun.

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If you take a drug that reacts to light, check with your doctorbefore going out in the sun.

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Indoors, sit by an open window(for full spectrum including UV), or at least by an unshielded window. The view of the outdoors also relaxes the eyes.

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If you need sunglasses, choose neutral grayIt cuts all wavelengths evenly. Avoid pink, blue, red, yellow and brown tints, which he says unbalance the light.

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Ask your eye-care specialist about UV-transmitting prescription lenses(special order). Not after cataract removal; with other eye diseases, ask your doctor.

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Avoid tinted and colored contact lenses(brown and pink are worst). Most contact lenses block UV-B. He says many lens wearers become light-sensitive because their lenses block near-UV.

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Question ever-stronger glassesFor nearsighted patients he prescribed a second, weaker pair (20% weaker, later 50%), worn more and more of the time, alongside vision therapy (Ch 14, Nancy). This was done under his supervision, as an optometrist.

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Practice relaxed, "open focus" seeingLet the eyes see passively, without effort, like watching a movie (Preface; Ch 15). He does not give a structured exercise.

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Replace cool-white and deluxe warm-white fluorescentswith full-spectrum light: CRI of 90 or above, 5,000–7,500 K.

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If you use full-spectrum fluorescent tubes:

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Consider UV-transmitting plastic windows (UVT acrylic)instead of glass.

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Less overhead fluorescent light may calm a roomThis is an anecdote, not a study (Ch 5).

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Push for daylight and full-spectrum lighting in classrooms,and warm colors on the walls: light yellow on the walls children face, light blue at the back (Wohlfarth's Glidden codes, Appendix C).

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Try colors in schoolwork(Vitale's observations):

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Don't label childrenLook for fear behind learning problems, and avoid pushing early reading (Ch 8).

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Newborn jaundice:Liberman considers sunlight or full-spectrum light "safer and more natural" than intense blue lamps. He questions windowless nurseries (Ch 4). (See Becker under See Also for a contrary concern about nursery phototherapy.)

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Winter depression or "winter blues":bright full-spectrum light through the eyes daily, preferably in the morning. Use 2,500 lux for longer sessions, or 10,000 lux for about 30 minutes, every day while daylight is short. Possible eyestrain, headache, edginess or trouble sleeping. He points to the SAD clinics in Appendix E.

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PMS:about two hours of bright light in the evening (Parry's study).

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Jet lag, an adjustment of up to 3 hours a day, whether flying east or west:

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Respect the seasonsLiberman suggests that winter and menstruation are natural times for rest and inner emotional "cleansing," not disorders to override (Ch 10).

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Sunbathe in moderation;burning is the problem.

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Moderate to dark skin:no sunscreen.

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Fair skin, or more than 30 minutes in bright midday sun:use a sunscreen without PABA. He cites an FDA report that 14 of 17 PABA lotions could be carcinogenic in sunlight, and Zane Kime's view that the fat in lotions is the problem.

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Eat fresh, colorful, minimally processed food, low on the food chainAvoid irradiated, frozen and junk food.

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The "Rainbow Diet" (from Gabriel Cousens, a book endorser):

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Daily color visualization, "bringing in the light,"especially in stressful periods:

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Notice which colors you dislikeLiberman treats these as clues to unresolved emotional issues. He advises staying with uncomfortable feelings in the presence of a supportive person, rather than numbing them.

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This is Liberman's own paid modality. Appendix B is a directory of College of Syntonic Optometry practitioners, including himself.

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The method: about 20 minutes of a prescribed filter several times a week for 4–6 weeks, at the clinic or with a home device.

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His evidence is his own case reports and his own study (no sample size given).

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He warns that his trauma-focused method makes symptoms worse before they get better. He sees that as a sign of progress.

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Device maker:Liberman is president of Universal Light Technologies, Ltd., which develops phototherapy devices. The book ends with a toll-free number for ordering "products for personal healing."

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Practitioner and teacher:he is the immediate past president of the College of Syntonic Optometry. He lists himself among its practitioners, and lent or supplied home treatment devices (Nancy, Case 3, Robert's filter mask).

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His own evidence:the "controlled study" for Syntonics is his own and was the basis of his Ph.D. The case histories come from his practice, and no failures are reported.

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Endorsers who are also sources or sellers:

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People featured in the text who sell listed products:Hazel Parcells (Thea-Lite) and Orie Bachechi (Kiva Light, which Liberman says he has not used).

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Newsletter source:much of Ch 11 is adapted from the Swannanoa Health Report, a commercial health newsletter (Sam Biser).

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Competing method:he questions Irlen's commercial tinted lenses while promoting Syntonics as the older, deeper method.

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Light habits for the eyes:an hour a day outdoors without glasses, sunglasses or contacts; neutral gray if you need sunglasses; never look at the sun; sit by an open window (Ch 11, "Recommendations").

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Lenses that block light:UV 400 lenses, tinted lenses, colored and ordinary contacts, light sensitivity in lens wearers, "liquid sunglasses" eye drops (Ch 11). Tint effects (Ch 13). The Irlen-lens caution (Ch 8).

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Artificial light and eye strain:cool-white fluorescents and stress hormones; fluorescent flicker, x-ray and radio-wave claims, and fixes (Ch 5, Ch 11, Appendix A). Bright-light therapy can cause eyestrain (Ch 10). Frenkel's colored glasses for "computer fatigue" (Ch 10). These are the book's only links to screens; it does not discuss computer screens or reading screens as such.

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Blinking:red light raised eye-blink frequency, and blue and white light lowered it (Gerard, Ch 4). This is the book's only data on blinking.

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Eye discomfort from glasses that are too strong:Nancy's "constant discomfort" eased within two weeks of wearing weaker glasses (Ch 14). "Open focus," effortless seeing (Preface).

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Inflamed eyes and Syntonics:blue-green or turquoise filters are used for "acute" problems and inflammation, and Liberman calls turquoise anti-inflammatory (Preface, Ch 6, Ch 14). Baldwin's 1926 claim that Spectro-Chrome color relieved eye inflammation and corneal ulcers (Ch 6). These are his or his predecessors' paid modalities, and the evidence is anecdotal.

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The eye's nutritional demands:oxygen, vitamin C and zinc (Ch 2). The blood passes through the eyes every two hours (Ch 12).

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Circadian and pineal effects through the eyes:melatonin, the lux thresholds, morning light (Ch 3, Ch 10).

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Stress and vision:narrowed visual fields, myopia and astigmatism as stress responses (Ch 7, Ch 13).

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UV and eye disease:the lack of UV as a possible cause of macular degeneration, and Liberman's critique of the animal studies used to link UV to cataracts and retinal damage (Ch 11).

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Overview

Key Ideas

Contents

Practical Takeaways

See Also