Page 5 - Broschuere_Metallfarblicht_engl

A New

Form of

Therapie

With this brochure I would like
to present an outline of metal colour
light therapy and its development,
a new therapy based on an
anthroposophic approach.

The impulse to develop the metal colour the sunlight shone intensively through
light therapy emerged out of the 14- the single-colour etched glass panels
year period that I worked with patients and experienced how my gaze was led
at the Herdecke Hospital in Germany, from motif to motif, and I came to the
where I noticed some patients seemed realisation that this was what I had been
to need colour in the form of light seeking.
rather than of paint. These included, for
example, hyperactive children, patients But how had these colours been made?
with respiratory difficulties or hardening In Rudolf Steiner’s instructions on how to
illnesses, such as cancer. make the windows of the first Goetheanum,
which had been destroyed by fire, I found
To address this need, I initially created an the answer: gold for red glass, iron and
arrangement with electric light passing chromium for green, cobalt and copper
through coloured gels, with the patient for blue, and manganese for violet glass.
lying on a couch. As I worked with it I So the colours were derived from metals,
noticed that some patients would seek a and the sun conveys to the observer the
hold or orientation for their gaze. Over qualities of the metals transformed into
time, it became increasingly apparent colour!
that the colour quality of the gels was
inadequate, and I began to ponder on the There and then I made the decision to
differences between the effect of electric develop that art of making windows into a
light and sunlight. new colour light therapy as a part of metal
therapy.
Ten years into this process, one day, whilst
standing in front of the windows of the
large auditorium of the Goetheanum, Spring 2011
in Dornach, Switzerland, I noticed how Marianne Altmaier