Dinshah Ghadiali – Spectro-Chrome Therapy
Dinshah Ghadiali 1872-1966
A book on Radionics would be incomplete without a chapter on colour. I have therefore chosen the work of a quite remarkable man, born in Bombay to a family of Zoroastrian faith, who lived a life of astonishing scope and enterprise. His work and the depth of his researches are phenomenal. A few items of his achievements gives an idea of his qualifications.
“He was appointed Superintendent of Telephone and Telegraph for Dholpur State; Made his first visit to America in 1896 where he met Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and other noted scientists; Lectured on radio-activity and X Rays; Campaigned for a number of civil reforms throughout India; Developed a medical practice; Became Stage Manager of Bombay Theatre; Received a commission as the Captain in the New York Police Aviation School; Wrote the three volume work Spectro-Chrome Metry Encyclopaedia-, Was awarded prizes for proficiency in English, Persian and religion and eventually eight oriental and eight occidental languages”.
This gives a picture of the broadness and humanity of the man. I do not propose to write about his healing techniques, for there is an excellent exposition of his application of Colour Therapy by his son, Darius Dinshah in The Spectro-Chrome System. (See Bibliography.)
There is one aspect, however, that I feel should be more widely known. His approach which led up to his experimental research and eventual writing of his Three Volume Encyclopaedia.
“Darts of Ridicule”
1. “The pages of history are studded with the experiences of pioneers. On January 19, 1736, in the family of a Scotsman of Grenock, Scotland, was born a son. This boy, James Watt, had a taste for mechanics and one morning, as he was drinking his tea with his parents at the breakfast table, suddenly the dome of the teapot flew open. This was nothing singular, and the boy asked his father why the teapot dome flew open and when his parent answered by the word ‘steam’, the mind of the youthful would-be engineer started on the trail, until after a deep study of the properties of steam and the crude steam engines of New-comen, he perfected in 1765, his idea of the condensing steam engine, which gave to the world the prime impulse in mechanical civilisation.”
2. “On June 9, 1781, in the house of Robert Stephenson, an English collier engine fireman of Wylam, near Newcastle, a son was born whom he named George. This product of a lowly cottage, became assistant fireman to his father at the age of 14. He was unable to read, but, energised by the desire to study the inventions of James Watt, attended a night school. He became engineer of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1822 and in October 1829, ran on the tracks of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway the locomotive ‘Rocket’ which won the prize of $ 2.500. This machine is now in the Kensington Museum in London, England, and is the progenitor of the later locomotives run by steam.”
3. “Think of the first locomotive run in this country! It was built by Peter Cooper and styled the ‘Tom Thumb’. Small as it was, it could pull forty people at a speed of 18 miles per hour and was run on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1830. It created quite a stir in those days. The scientists and the Misters Tainte shook their heads in doubt. Eighteen miles per hour was too terrible a speed for the Human Body to endure! The chest walls would most certainly cave in with the enormous pressure of the atmosphere! In spite of much silly conjecture, nothing happened and now we can fly in the air over 450 miles an hour without giving the chest walls a second thought.”
“What happened to Alexander Graham Bell? Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on March 3, 1847, he moved with his father to Canada in 1870. In 1876 he exhibited his Electro-Magnetic Telephone, but, none countenanced it except as a curiosity. At the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Bell showed it to Emperor Dom Pedro, of Brazil who dropped the receiver as soon as he heard the human voice through the wire, saying, “My God! It talks!” It took Bell nearly 8 years to have the financial stage reached by making the public believe in the value of the Telephone.”
“Thus goes the World in all cases. When George Westinghouse invented the Air-Brake in 1869, he wrote to Cornelius Vanderbilt asking for an interview and received the laconic reply, ‘I have no time to waste on damned fools!’ Later, when Westinghouse became a successful business man and a millionaire, the same gentleman wrote to him asking to see him and received the retort, ‘I have no time to waste on damned fools!'”
“Tribulations and trials of pioneers in the Healing Arts have been varied and many.”
“When in 1796 Samuel Hahnemann, dissatisfied at the principles underlying Allopathy, promulgated his doctrine of ‘Similia similibus curatur’ or ‘Like cures like’ i.e. diseases are cured by those drugs which produce symptoms similar to them in the healthy severe hostility of established interests commenced. This raged so high in 1821, that he was compelled to leave the city of Leipzig in Saxony, Germany and went to Gothen, whence in 1835 he moved to Paris, France; the Allopaths chased bitterly practitioners of the new school of Homeopathy, but, finally were forced to yield; at present, the status of Doctors of Homeopathy is practically the same as the Allopathic Doctors.”
“Osteopathy, established by Dr. Andrew Taylor Still, of Kirkville, Missouri, went through many troubles when it butted against the orthodox hierarchy of organised Medicine.”
“This short glance at the history of scientific progress will show that the life of the radical researcher is not enviable and by no means a bed of roses. Were Spectro-Chrome a system of so-called ‘scientific’ jargon, a compilation of switches, buzzers, bells, condensers, spark-gaps, induction coils, thermostats, electrodes, motors, dynamos, lights, sounds, raptaps and a chosen other monkeydoodlers and were given as an auxiliary to existing ‘Medical Sciences’, it would have been acclaimed as the ‘most marvellous healing organisation’.”
“As it is, to state that an electric Bulb and only five pieces of ‘Coloured Glass’ can be made to remove all disorders of the Human Beings, appears so preposterous on the face of it, that even the most optimistic of students and believers in the integrity of researchers stand aghast at the assertion.”
“May be, but, thirteen years of the use of the system throughout the United States of America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast failed to indicate a single flaw either in its theory or practice and wherever it was given due investigation, it came out victorious, proving the soundness of the system.”
He was an inveterate scholar and researcher and would accept nothing until he had proved, to his own satisfaction, that it was scientifically true and sound. At an early age he began experiments in chemistry at home, but started off by making one serious mistake. He describes what transpired.
“Since admission to the High School, I joined the Cowasji Dinshah Library, which was in the school building. A reading from the scientific magazines from the United States of America guided me into the study of chemistry, and goaded me to experimental research.
“In the Scientific American, I read the recipe of a wonderful efficacious remedy for headaches; it was said to be a ‘sure-cure’ and was composed of Menthol, Chloral, Cocain and Vaselin. I had a maternal grandmother who suffered from severe Hemicrania at New Moon and Full Moon periods. My thirst for research led me to try the ointment on her at her special request, to relieve her of the malady. The recipe stated that the ointment should be smeared only on the forehead and temples, but I thought that was for Americans and the Parsees needed more. My Grandmother’s case was very chronic and also she was my beloved relative. I took the whole pot of Unguent and slapped it onto her forehead and temples, covering the parts with a tight bandage for better effect. This was done as the Moon came into the proper position and I expected great results from that American ointment. I could hardly sleep that night because of the gleeful excitement in my mind of being the agent of doing so much good to my darling grandmother. The result proved far beyond my expectations and her bargain; the next morning, the headache being reported as totally disappeared, I removed the bandage — the entire skin of the affected part had disappeared also!
“This was a bad start in research, as my father in anger threw all my chemicals into the city drain; however I quietly continued studying Chemistry, Sound, Heat, Light, Electricity, Magnetism, Hypnotism, Mesmerism, Medicine, Watchmaking, Engineering and the like — in fact, anything on which I could lay my hands.
“The situation of Dadabhai Khurshedji Kateli, Professor of Mathematics in the Wilson College and Instructor in Chemistry in the Proprietary High School was drawn to my penchant for experimental research and I became his assistant at the age of 11; by 14, through his kind recommendation and encouragement, I attained the unique position of being a demonstrator in Chemistry and Physics in seven institutions of learning in Bombay. My services were in demand; they were honary services, without pay.
“Later a son of the landlord of the house where I was born — an intimate kind friend of mine — and I spent about two hours each evening together. One day, in reading the Times of India, he drew my attention to an article which spoke about some members of an organisation called The Theosophical Society, who claimed communication with some ‘Masters’ on the Hymalaya Mountains. I laughed at the statement saying, ‘Oh, there must be a telephonic connection! How can anyone talk otherwise, a distance of 1,300 miles away?’
“It was easy to laugh, but it robbed me of my sleep; the research spirit rebelled from within out of justice and instigated enquiry.
“The next day I went to the Blavatsky Lodge of the Theosophical Society in Hornby Row, where I met the Secretary Munchershah M. Shroff, a Parsee Zoroastrian. He was a serious looking, bearded man and greeted me with a peculiar Ahem—ahumphs that sounded like the neigh of a horse! To my questions he responded with many such Ahem—ahumphs, saying it was possible by occult processes to communicate, at a long distance, without telephone wires and recommended me to study. Study was a candy I never declined! He gave me a number of leaflets and I thanked him, went home and spent the night devouring that intellectual banquet like a famished person. A revulsion of ideas came into my mind.
“How could the testimony of the personal experience of so many people of respectability, like Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, Sir William Crookes, William Thomas Stead and others in high walks of life be ignored without due investigation? Not by me. I went to the Secretary of the Theosophical Society and received further information from him with some more Ahem—ahumphs. I was initiated as a fellow of the Theosophical Society on October 26, 1891. Barely was the initiation completed when I underwent an internal change. Things began to happen.” He then goes on to describe many startling occult experiences which came to him, and continues …
“Thus launched into a new life with a keen zest of a scientific researcher as background, I followed the Healing Sciences very carefully. However, the theories and practices on none appeared to be capable of giving anything beyond hit-or-miss results and none had the accuracy or precision so dear to my heart. Question after question came to my truth-seeking mind, without proper answers from any source available.
“It may interest you to know some of the headache-producers that racked my brain.” He then gives a list of 26, of which I give a few: —
(a) Why is a Tomato Red and a Cucumber Green?
(b) Why does a raw Green banana become Yellow when ripe and not Blue?
(c) Why does not the Gastric Juice which dissolves a piece of Beef, make holes in a live Stomach?
(d) Why does a Brown Cow eating Green Grass produce White Milk, which when churned makes Yellow Butter?
(e) Why does Light have seven Colours?
(f) Why is a Human Being made of Chemical Elements called the Image of God?
(g) Why does a good person receive punishment for something another did?
(h) Why do some Saints take birth in stables?
(i) What makes a seed grow?
(j) What is the purpose of the Frauenhofer Lines of Spectra? “I looked into effects to trace causes; I looked into causes to find the effects. Working on the foundation that all actions must have reactions and all reactions must be preceded by actions, I laboured with all the means at my disposal to obtain the answers to the questions, many of which were enigmas for centuries and by the time I solved the problems or cut the Gordian-Knots, Spectro-Chrome was born.
“Acting upon the outline scheme, I commenced to look into the Fundamental Principles of Light and Colour as based on Babbitt. Newton and successive researchers had followed the view of White Light being composed of 7 Colours; Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. It was proved, however, that three of these Seven Colours were Primary Colours, because any of the other Colours can be produced by the combination of the Three.” He continues to describe similar work by others in this line and ends by: —
“However, I am no face-worshiper; I know otherwise. Their conceptions are not supported by my experimental research and I discard them as scientifically erroneous. It is quite evident to me that all these opinions were from the standpoint of PIGMENTS and not of MATHEMATICS or RADIANT ENERGY, which are the basis of my work.”
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