By Manohar Croke, CCP, Boulder, CO

Sam was a 50-year-old self-employed business man who had suffered from chronic insomnia for over 15 years. As a result, he frequently experienced periods of depression, found it difficult to put sufficient energy into his business and felt a lack of direction in his life. Despite his problems, Sam was reluctant to take prescription sleeping medicines for fear of developing a dependency. He was also skeptical of alternative methods, not wanting to spend time and money on therapies that might not work. When a friend bought him a treatment in a new alternative therapy called Esogetic Colorpuncture^TM acu-light therapy, Sam had gone out of curiosity but still feeling skeptical. Now Sam found himself sitting in the office of his Colorpuncture therapist, listening as she described how light could be used to balance Sam's energy flow and restore the communication between his cells. She also told him that the light treatments were designed to clear any underlying emotional stresses that might be related to his insomnia and bring him more in touch with his inner guidance as a part of the healing process.

First, the therapist took a Kirlian photograph of the energy around Sam's fingers and toes, explaining that the irregularities and missing radiation they saw in areas of the photo were signs of stress and conflict which gave clues as to which Colorpuncture treatment would be most effective. Then, using what looked like a small flashlight, she proceeded to focus colored light on points on Sam's skin. After the treatment, they took another picture. Sam and the therapist could both see that the treatment had caused more energy to show in Sam's picture. Then Sam, feeling quite relaxed, went home to rest.

Over a series of Colorpuncture treatments, Sam's insomnia steadily decreased to the point that he was able to sleep soundly through most nights. As a result, his depression lifted, he was able to approach his business with new vigor and creativity, and he felt less worried about his direction or purpose. At the same time, Sam was surprised to discover that he was having some powerful insights and memories. The youngest child in a large, chaotic family, Sam had always felt at the mercy of his older siblings whims and demands. After a few Colorpuncture treatments, painful childhood memories surfaced about times when he had compromised himself for his siblings. Now, he felt compelled to set new boundaries in these relationships. In fact, Sam found that "boundaries" were becoming increasingly important for him to set and attend to in all his relationships. Over time, as he developed confidence in his ability to protect his boundaries, Sam discovered a new sense of inner relaxation and safety.

Through Sam's story, we enter the mysteriously interrelated realms of body, mind and spirit. Sam's experience with Colorpuncture is actually not unusual. Many clients have described similarly powerful shifts in emotions and consciousness, increased dreaming and insights while receiving Colorpuncture treatments.

Peter Mandel, the German naturopath who developed Colorpuncture, believes that our physical pains and illnesses are only the final link in a very long chain, and that the root cause of illness and pain must be eliminated before any real or lasting cure is possible.

That root cause, he declares, is unresolved conflict; it is the consequence of not dealing with the emotional and/or psychological stresses that are currently occurring or that may have taken place in childhood or even in the womb. The lifetime accumulation of unresolved emotional conflicts causes us to lose touch with our life's purpose and direction, until eventually, we become ill. Says Mandel, "Disease is losing life's meaning. Disease always is only the upside-down unreality of life's manifest."

Colorpuncture has been loosely described as an "extended form of acupuncture" using colored light instead of needles. In fact, Mandel started with the use of acupuncture concepts and points, but has moved on to evolve his own very unique system of bodymind therapy. According to Jack Allanach, the author of Colour Me Healing (published by Element Press in England and distributed in the United States by Penguin), "Colorpuncture uses light and its component colors to reintroduce the correct "informative energy" into the mind/body complex wherever wrong "information" has been lodged -- through traumas like childhood abuse, unshed tears, thwarted self- expression, repressed anger, relationship breakdown, or any myriad of influences that can contribute to the misshapping of our lives. It is somewhat eradicating viruses in our biocomputer's software. As proper information flow is restored, a patient is able to get back in touch with who he or she really is and why he or she is here (life purpose). As all this happens, physical health improves.

In Colorpuncture, the colors are the message, and the medium is light ... focused on specific point combinations on the skin via colored rods of hand made quartz glass inserted into a small, stainless steel battery operated flashlight. Colorpuncture's system for energetic diagnosis is Mandel's Energy Emission Analysis^TM (EEA) system. A Kirlian camera is used to capture, on black and white photographic paper, the energy emitted by fingers and toes, the terminal points of the traditional Chinese acupuncture meridians. After examining over 800,000 of these Kirlian photographs and comparing them with the medical reports of his patients, Mandel was able to decipher the 'information' carried in these emissions. Now, when a Colorpuncture practitioner reads the photographs, he or she can clearly pinpoint any energetic imbalances which may be related to the client's sickness or pain. Moreover, the Kirlian photos, Mandel says, also point the practitioner towards the root cause of the imbalance ... in the bodymind.

Colorpuncture and Kirlian Energy Emission Analysis are part of a singular approach to healing Peter Mandel calls Esogetics, which he describes as the merger of esoteric (eso)wisdom with the energetic (getic) principles of life's processes. On the one hand, Mandel's concepts are firmly grounded in the oldest philosophies and teachings of human wisdom, on the other, in the findings of modern biophysics.

Colorpuncture is based in part on Mandel's insights into the healing properties of light and color -- something known to and practiced by ancient Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Hindu and Chinese cultures, yet largely ignored in the evolution of Western allopathic medicine. Color therapy, on its own, is not all that new. What is new is that Colorpuncture is also based on the concept of "informative energy" and on the physics of cellular communication.In Color Me Healing, Jack Allanach refers to Dr. Fritz Albert Popp, "a renowned biophysicist and the father of modern biophoton theory," as having discovered that normal living cells emit a regular stream of photons, or quanta of light radiation. Popp has documented evidence from years of experiments to prove that living cells pass on biological information through photons, through the language of light. From his research, Dr. Popp has drawn some fascinating conclusions about light, such as the following:

"We know today that man is essentially a being of light. And the modern science of photobiology is presently proving this. In terms of healing, the implications are immense. We know, for example, that light can initiate, or arrest, cascade-like reactions in the cells, and that genetic cellular damage can virtually be repaired, within hours, by faint beams of light. We are still on the threshold of fully understanding the complex relationship between light and life, but we can now say, emphatically, that the function of our entire metabolism is dependent on light."

Popp's experiments point to two conclusions: one, cells communicate bio-information; and two, they do so via the medium of light. And this, in essence, is the basis for Colorpuncture. This system beams precise colors of light to afflicted cells with the harmonizing information inherent in color -- and the healing news then travels from cell to cell.

After 30 years of experimentation in his own clinic in Bruchsal, Germany, as well as more than a decade of collaboration with Popp, Mandel reasoned that, "Our cellular structure is based on light, as Popp has proven, and colors are also light. That's why I can use this medium, colored light, to repolarize imbalances, to make disharmonies harmonious." And harmony, in terms of natural medicine, is synonymous with health.

In our efforts to heal, Mandel believes there is another reason why light can be a powerful ally. Colored light, properly applied to the body, not only supplies the necessary bioinformation to the cells, it also facilitates the exchange of information between the subconscious, conscious and superconscious mind. By gently releasing the energetic residue of trauma and psychological stresses and giving us a more direct understanding of our issues and our inner voice, through dreams, memories and insights, light supports the expansion of our consciousness.

Moreover, healing with light is a uniquely respectful and individual process. As Mandel points out, light never imposes a particular direction on the client. Rather, it gently supports the discovery of one's own truth. In Sam's case, what literally came into his consciousness as the therapist treated his sleep disorder were the long unresolved issues with his siblings and his strong need to create a sense of deeper relaxation and safety by setting some personal boundaries. For each of us, the journey towards our healing and self-discovery will be unique.

Mandel believes that no one can tell you what your true direction in life is. This is something that you can only discover for yourself through inner exploration and clearing. He also feels that if we were able to listen to our illnesses and pains as signals of a deeper malaise in our beings, we could begin to discover their deeper meaning. In so doing, we would reconnect with the inner wisdom that can carry us toward our evolution. And light can be a powerful ally in this process of self-exploration.

Although we experience light every day, as the language of the stars and the sun and the source of all life on this planet, until recently, there was very little inquiry into how to translate that language and use it for restoring health and overall wellbeing. Perhaps Colorpuncture offers us a bridge to a brighter future. In the words of Peter Mandel:

"We who are imprisoned in matter have to bring our 'I' out of matter and darkness and into the light. On the level of the material world, we humans, in our wholeness are light beings. We must and always will develop toward the absolute light...In this process, we are accompanied by the light on the outside and, if we allow it, the light on the inside."

Reprinted with permission by Conscious Living Magazine