Chromotherapy
Science
of Light
Lesson Two
Sunlight and Climate
To quote a doctor native to
“In olden days the wise mothers used to massage
their children with pure cow’s melted butter (“ghee”),
and used to expose them to morning sun.
Even today, this folk medicine works wonderfully if
used regularly.”
In temperate zones there is more latitude in the time
of day when the skin may be exposed, but even so, around 10
a.m. is usually quite fine, and safer for small children.
Sunlight is the simplest and most natural way to
insure vitamin D in the body, and this vitamin is necessary
to the utilization of calcium in the system. Therefore
sunlight, along with foods which are adequate in calcium
content, helps insure proper bone growth and good teeth.
It has been claimed by some physicians that sunlight
is the only thing, externally applied, that can be
physically absorbed by the unbroken skin.
In sunbathing, one should expose the skin only a few
minutes the first day out, slowly increasing the amount of
time each day, until at length an hour, or two at the most,
can be safely enjoyed.
Sunshine includes not only the visible portion of
radiation from the sun, but also the invisible, such as
ultraviolet and infrared rays.
Ultraviolet
Ultraviolet light can cause sunburn.
At the beach on a hazy day, when the sun does not
appear to be very bright, a person can get a particularly
bad sunburn because so much ultraviolet light is scattered
in all directions by the tiny water droplets in the air.
Fortunately, the earth’s atmosphere absorbs the
short ultraviolet waves more strongly than it does those
waves we see with, and so protects us somewhat from them.
The higher up one goes in the atmosphere, the more
likely he is to be sunburned.
At even five or six miles up in the air, the risk of
sunburn and damage to the eyes is very great.
Because ultraviolet waves do not go through ordinary
glass, however, goggles and window panes give good
protection.
The invisible ultraviolet radiation which causes
tanning comprises only a very small portion of the total
radiation. Nevertheless,
it is very important to health, producing vitamin D by its
action on substances in the skin and in plants.
The commonly used artificial source of ultraviolet
light is the mercury arc.
Ultraviolet and near-ultraviolet rays also comprise
the so-called actinic rays which are potent in effecting
chemical changes on photographic films.
“Aktinos” is a Greek work meaning “ray”.
Ultraviolet waves are important because they kill
bacteria. Dishes
and drinking glasses can be sterilized by proper exposure to
a beam of light from a mercury lamp or some other source of
strong ultraviolet rays.
But while it is an important germicidal agent, the
contaminated atmosphere over large cities robs radiation of
practically all the shorter wavelengths in such areas.
The use of a home ultraviolet lamp is not encouraged,
unless under skilled supervision.
Lesson
two, page 2
Radiation from the sun is the ultimate source of
nearly all energy that is essential for the maintenance of
plant and animal life on the earth, and the operation of
most natural phenomena on the surface of the earth.
It is the electromagnetic energy in sunlight that
warms the earth. On
the way, the energy is all electromagnetic.
When the light hits the earth, part of it changes to
heat.
If the steady stream of sunlight ever stopped, the
temperature of the earth would drop to around 450°
below zero. Then
nothing could live here.
Visible radiation is commonly termed light; however
the word “light” now has a broader meaning and includes
the ultraviolet or that invisible portion immediately
adjoining the shortest wavelength of visible radiation.
The visible portion comprises nearly one-half of the
total radiation from the sun which is actually received at
the surface of the earth, and the infra-red radiation,
chiefly known for its heat-producing characteristics,
accounts for almost all of the other half.
An excess of radiation, due to factors such as atomic
explosions which rupture the earth’s outer layer of ozone,
are thought to be responsible for some skin cancer.
We can appreciate the importance of keeping the
earth’s atmosphere intact, without holes, when we learn
that the sunshine reaching the outer edge of earth’s
atmosphere has a radiation closely equivalent in temperature
of between 5800°
to 6000° C, or about 10,500°F to 10,800°
F.
However, in traveling through to reach earth’s
surface, this radiation is absorbed and weakened by various
constituents of the atmosphere.
It is also scattered by air molecules, and this
scattering occurs in the short wave-lengths, giving the sky
its blue color, as seen from the surface of the earth.
To an observer in the stratosphere with fewer air
molecules above him, the sky appears dark.
Why do clouds look white?
A cloud floating in the air is made up of many small
drops of water. Each
drop has a curved surface, so it scatters the sunlight that
strikes it, scattering all colors in the sunlight equally,
so when our eyes receive this light with all colors mixed in
it as they are in sunlight itself, we see the cloud as
something white. When
larger particles or droplets of water in the form of mist or
fog are suspended in the atmosphere, the visibility is much
reduced, and thus results in a loss of the blue color of the
sky.
Particles or drops that float in the air scatter all
colors equally only if they are much larger than the wave
length of the light that strikes them.
If they are about the same size as the light waves,
then the scattering is unequal, and the resulting appearance
is not white, as with clouds.
On a clear day, the atmosphere consists of air molecules, dust particles and water droplets, most of them small in size compared to the wave length of visible light. The sky appears blue to us because although sunlight passes freely through the ordinary thickness of atmospheric gases, these small particles scatter part of the light. Violet light, whose wave length is much shorter, is scattered about nine times more effectively than the longer red waves. Therefore the blue range becomes more visible.
Lesson
two, page 3
At sunrise or sunset, the angle of the sunlight has
less effect on the short-wave lengths, as the sun’s rays
travel a long path through the turbid lower atmosphere.
There is less scattering of the blue and violet rays,
thus causing colors to appear from the longer wave lengths,
or the red and yellow range.
Northern
lights or “aurora borealis”: Sometimes on dark
nights, especially in the northern part of
These lights occur when streams of electrons from the
sun strike the atoms in the upper part of the earth’s
atmosphere. There
the air pressure is very low and conditions are like those
inside a gas discharge tube such as a neon sign or a mercury
lamp.
Similar lights, called the “aurora australis”,
often flash above the earth’s south magnetic pole.
The reason these lights in the sky are brightest near
the north and south poles is that the earth is a giant
magnet. Its
magnetic forces send electrons from the sun spiraling in
paths around the magnetic poles, and these produce the light
when they strike atoms in the rarefied air.
Climate
The prime cause of weather and climate are the amount
and distribution in time and space of the solar radiation
which is intercepted by the earth.
The angle of the sun’s rays to the horizontal plane
of the earth is an important factor, as seen by the
difference in climate between summer and winter, and between
the poles and the equator.
The rays come in with more of a slant in winter
because the earth is then tipped away from the sun.
As a result, the same amount of energy is spread over
a larger surface in winter, and there is less heating.
Man is a very adaptable animal, and changes gradually
to cope with the environment in which he finds himself.
For example, in very high altitudes one finds persons
of large lung capacity and higher concentration of blood
corpuscles than at low altitudes, to regulate the oxygen
intake according to bodily needs.
But upon moving to a different altitude, these
characteristics can change in one generation, readapting to
the breathing requirements in his new environment.
Sunshine and Climate
There are essentially three skin types found in human
beings.
1) The
pinkish-white which burns when exposed to certain short-wave
lengths in the solar and sky radiation.
It is found in the descendants of tribes from
northwestern
2) The
second type is chocolate-brown or black, which is completely
unaffected by solar radiation.
Presumable this pigmentation was originally acquired
at the tropical margins of the deserts, and in the savannas.
Lesson
two, page 4
3) The third skin type is changeable, taking different shades in the individuals, variously described as creamy white, olive, yellow, red or brown. The primary distinction is that it can pale when covered, and darken or tan when exposed to the sun, an adaptation to the widespread climatic type where seasons alternate between cloudy rain periods and bright sky.
Another climatically-induced characteristic in man
and other warm-blooded animals is that individuals tend to
be larger in cold climates, and smaller in the warmer
sections of the earth.
Metabolism rates are higher in the cold climates than
in the hot. This
is due to the fact that heat produced by metabolism is
normally lost through the skin, but where the temperature
exceeds 83° F. the processes which
accomplish this become insufficient, and perspiration
starts, so that cooling by evaporation may take place.
At high temperatures and low humidity man loses large
quantities of water. This
causes not only a problem of replacement but also creates a
great strain on the circulatory mechanism.
Thus the wisdom of avoiding exertion at midday
becomes evident when living in hot areas.
It is better in such cases to work mornings and
evenings, and take a long midday siesta.
One need not be a scientist to observe the effect of
sunlight on growing things.
Anyone having house plants can notice how spindly and
pale most plants become after a time away from direct light.
They begin to bend toward the nearest window,
reaching to catch sunlight which is needed to convert
substances, which have been drawn from the roots up to the
leaves, into usable food energy.
The growth of seedlings indoors (or of animals) can
be promoted and speeded up by use of artificial light where
natural sunlight is insufficient, especially during periods
of shorter daylight hours.
At such seasons, the poultryman may turn on electric
lights for awhile in the morning and the evening, appearing
to lengthen the day and quicken the growth of his baby
chicks; while with laying hens also, egg production can be
increased by simulating the longer daylight hours of the
summer laying season.
Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis is the process by which green plants
harness the energy of sunlight, as absorbed by chlorophyll,
to build organic compounds from carbon dioxide, inorganic
salts and water. This
reaction is often called assimilation or fixation of
carbons. “Photosynthesis” means, literally, “putting
together with light.”
While there are many ways by which organic substances
are decomposed in respiration and similar reacting, there is
only one reaction, photosynthesis, that for millions of
years has counterbalanced death and decomposition.
If there were no vegetation on earth, animal life,
including man, would quickly disappear.
Among the many pigments appearing in the plant
kingdom, only chlorophylls are known to convert sunlight
into chemical energy. Chlorophyll
is the green dye whose color is so characteristic of meadows
and forests.
To recreate the processes of photosynthesis, light
energy may be used in various ways:
1. To speed up reactions that would proceed in the dark in the same way, but at much slower rates.
Lesson
two, page 5
2.
For reactions that will not occur unless light energy
is available.
3.
For a reaction in which the new products still hold
as potential chemical energy a part of the light energy
originally absorbed.
Remainder of lesson, and diagrams, as taught by Father Paul:
The invisible force which travels from the sun
curves toward the earth and passes through the earth, then
travels back as magnetic force,
The positive and negative.
Light does not travel, light exists, and hangs in big
globes around the bodies of sun and earth.
Chlorophyll travels in spirals of mist toward the
sun, the source of light.
The sun pulsates, and so does the self.
There has to be a return circuit.
Air also is not just air; air is big globes.
Light rays travel in a curved line due to the action of gravity or the gravitational fields.
The Sun energy flows out in a U.V. form and returns to it in another dimension – and then out again.
