OT - Theo Gimbel

[Guest guest]

Sad loss...brought much interest to colour therapy. But his books are

*terribly* hard to read.

Love, light and peace,

Sue

" It is not unfair to conclude that medicine is the only branch of science

that has based its structure on opinions and suppositions rather than on

laws and principles. " - Vithoulkas, " The Science of Homoeopathy " .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,60-1235803,00.html

Theophilus Gimbel

Anthroposophical scientist and innovator in colour therapy

FOR more than thirty years of his diverse and unorthodox life, Theophilus

Gimbel was the principal of the Hygeia Institute for Colour Therapy, an

institution he founded in 1968 in Avening, Gloucestershire. Colour therapy

is a branch of holistic complementary treatment which derives from Eastern

traditions, the writings of Goethe and the principles set forth by Rudolf

Steiner, the mystical philosopher and founder of the Anthroposophical

Society.

Though he agreed with Steiner’s dictum that “Colour is the soul of nature,

the soul of the whole cosmos, (and) by experiencing it, we participate in

this soul”, Gimbel attempted to fuse scientific principle with the abstruse

tenets of his mentor. He originated a vast range of lamps and instruments

with which he claimed to demonstrate the healing effects of light and

colour: his use of blue light, for example, to treat neonatal jaundice and

to accelerate the healing of burns, is now recognised by medical practice.

Traditionally, colour therapy is based on the belief that each of the seven

colours in the spectrum is associated with one of the body’s seven chakras,

or energy centres. Gimbel taught a form of diagnosis based on the belief

that there are eight colours in the spectrum, each linked with one of the

four octaves of eight vertebrae in the spine, and that each vertebra has a

nerve link with certain organs of the body.

He was born in 1920 in Eichstätt, Germany, and his childhood was spent in

Switzerland. Rudolf Steiner was a family friend, and Gimbel was drawn to the

eclectic principles of his philosophy. His mother played in the theatre of

Steiner’s Goetheanum building, while his father, a stage designer, worked

with Steiner on productions. Gimbel remained a lifelong member of the

Anthroposophical Society.

At the beginning of the Second World War he was an unwilling conscript to

the German Army and, captured outside Danzig at the end of the war, he was

interned in a Russian PoW camp. He remained there until 1949. Gimbel

maintained that prayer and mystical insight saved him repeatedly from death

by firing squad. Periodically, he recalled, he would be taken from the camp

for interrogation by a constantly-rising hierarchy of Soviet officials.

Gimbel would later relate that he maintained his silence under interrogation

by entrusting himself to a golden light which he saw suffusing the room. At

the final hour, he said, a vision of Christ on the Cross came between him

and his chief interrogator and prevented the man from passing sentence of

death.

Released in 1949, he came to Britain to continue his interest in Steiner’s

Waldorf schools, the curriculum of which was designed by Steiner in

accordance with his teachings. Gimbel taught for some time at Hall

in Forest Row, Sussex, the first Steiner school in the English-speaking

world. In 1950 he married his first wife, Honor Simpson, a concert cellist.

They moved to Brook House in Avening, Gloucestershire, where in 1968 Gimbel

set up the Hygeia Institute for Colour Therapy. Sir Trevelyan,

another Steinerian and an elder statesman of the New Age movement, was a

friend and confidant.

Gimbel’s projects, which took shape in his books from his work at Hygeia,

included studying the use of illumination and colour in infant and primary

schools, hospitals and prisons, and the role of colour in treating problems

with sight. He developed, for example, a chart to help eyesight which

required the patient to focus on a patch of deep colour, then one of

expanding colour. Though no technocrat, he was well aware of current light

technology and work with monochromatic light and lasers; much contemporary

work in light and colour takes its inspiration from his own.

As well as teaching and working on his own theories and inventions, Gimbel

recruited a staff of specialists in the field for the institute. He was a

member of the Parliamentary Group on Complementary Therapy and gave many

lecture tours in Europe and Japan. He ran courses in colour therapy in

Vézelay in France, the ancient capital of his ancestors from Burgundy, and

in Paderborn, Germany, with his second wife, Carmel Dunleavy, whom he

married in 1998.

She survives him, with a daughter and a son from his first marriage.

Theophilus Gimbel, colour therapist, was born on October 9, 1920. He died on

June 20, 2004, aged 83.