Mental Color Therapy: Part I

by Lily Cornford

This is a transcript of an informal workshop, which included a question and answer period.  The questions were inaudible but the responses, we felt, stand on their own and so we have included them.

Before I start I would like to say the Gayatri.  In London we always start all of our talks and conferences with the Gayatri.  It is almost now, part of our very being. And so, if you know it, please say it with me.

O Thou Who givest sustenance to the universe.

From Whom all things proceed

To Whom all things return

Unveil to us the face of the true spiritual sun

Hidden by a disk of golden light.

That we may know the truth and do our whole duty.

As we journey to Thy sacred feet.

When it comes to a consideration of healing, particularly color healing, the important thing to keep in mind is the underlying motive is pure; then healing can take place.  I studied color healing with a group during the last war.  But like the rest of you I was in the business world and I had to earn a living. It wasn’t until I reached the age of 65, and had a small pension, that I was free to start full time healing. I have never looked back. Life has expanded so fully that I can honestly say I’ve never been dull—there isn’t enough time to be dull and the work is wonderful.

I first started out with a colleague.  We had joined a group some years previously and I was asked to go to a weekend seminar on healing to give lectures on the subtle bodies which, being an esotericist, a knew a little about. And I was so horrified at the lack of substance that was given at that weekend on healing, when I met my colleague next time I said, “Look, I think we have sufficient substance between the two of us to start a school of healing.”  He was very interested in color and I had the esoteric side and so together we meditated and we came up with a thirteen week course, once a week. And that went through the physical, the etheric, the astral, the mental, color, absent healing, cleansing and sealing, protection (because in this world we have to have protection against the dark forces) and death. We had a whole thirteen week curriculum that we had worked out in about two hours. 

We didn’t know what we should call ourselves but we meditated and the name Maitreya came through, so we are called the Maitreya School of Healing. So many people asked us the meaning of Maitreya and eventually we came across a beautiful understanding of it and I would like to read it to you.  “It is understood that Maitreya is the name of the future enlightened one.  Maitreya, he whose name is kindness. He is said to have been predicted by the Buddha.  A few of his characteristics will be great knowledge, wisdom, and friendliness. The Maitreyan life is necessarily intense, variegated, its balance can only be a dynamic balance through continual flexibility in its maintenance.  The range of its attachment requires completion by the non-possessiveness inherent in detachment.  Such a life finds its appropriate expression in the cardinal Maitreyan virtue—Maitreyan friendliness.  For to be a friend requires restraint, sympathy and severity, frankness and flexibility, challenge and consideration, giving and withholding.  The Maitreyan life is as difficult, as complex, and as vital as the finest friendships.” These are the concepts that we try to uphold in our clinic in London.

We are very practical, so the first thing our students are taught is a basic understanding of the physical body. Because when anybody comes to you with a pain in their stomach, or in their spleen, or in their liver, or their pancreas--and you don’t know where that is—you’re at a loss and so is the patient. And so we do insist that students have an understanding of the physical body. 

The next need is to have an understanding of the etheric body.  Now, many of you who have read Esoteric Healing, or any of D.K.’s books, will have an esoteric understanding of the etheric body but not necessarily a physical understanding.  The etheric body is the foundation or, if you like, the scaffolding upon which the physical body is built.  When a person has an amputation of a leg, or an arm, or an organ, the etheric counterpart still remains. Our etheric body stays with us until the day we pass over.  The medical profession states that when they have amputated something--a leg or arm--a patient has phantom pains. They do not understand that those pains are real because within the etheric body is a replica of the nervous system, known as the nadis.  Without our nervous system, we would not feel pain. This is why the dentist will dull the nerves of your mouth when he is going to extract or do anything with your teeth.  So the nadis still being there in that etheric arm that has been amputated, the pain is still there.

Many years ago I was rushed into hospital. And I don’t want you to just believe this story but I would like you to experiment with it yourself. And I did hear that one of the students had done just that because she had had a nose operation and she found that what I said was true. I had an appendectomy, I was in and out of hospital in ten days. It was simple, it was straight, and there was no trouble whatsoever.  A month after, I began having a pain in that area, a physical pain. But no power on this earth was going to get me to a doctor or a hospital. I had had enough. So I went round to the then known complementary medicines and nobody did anything for me. 

I had that pain for literally twelve months and some of you may know the books of David Tansley. Well, I knew David Tansley very well. Whenever we met we were always talking about esoteric things. His wife must have got fed up with it.  And this time I went to dinner with him and we were talking about the old Chinese doctors. Before they operated, they would put their patients into a semi-trance. Then they would speak to the etheric body and tell that etheric body exactly what they were going to do.  If it was going to be a stomach operation, they would say to the stomach, “we are going to operate and so will you now divert your energies away from the stomach.” And this would happen and their rate of success in operations would be 100%.  Well, we chatted about this for some time and I went home and got into bed.  On my bedside table was the very book that we were looking at (and you know how books have the habit of opening at the right page), and there it all was.  So I thought, “I’ll try an experiment. I’m here alone and if I’m a fool, what does it matter?”  So, with my thoughts, and only with my thoughts, I picked up a scaffold, went down my scar, opened it up, and went right to where the etheric appendix had been, nipped it, blessed it, apologized to it for the trouble I’d given it, folded it all over. Blessed it, turned over and went to sleep.  I went to sleep, woke up the next morning, and no pain.

I told this to the class last week and this girl was having a nose operation and she did the same thing and her operation was 100% successful. Now I’m not telling you to believe me, but I am asking you to experiment.  When you know of anyone who is going into hospital for an operation, try it out. You’ve only got to use your thought and there’s nothing greater in this world than the power of thought, nothing greater.  But we only use it for negative things, not positive. So just try this out.

So you see, the etheric part of our bodies is a vital part of our healing. I’ll tell you, I’m always learning, something new is always coming up. About six weeks ago we had come to the clinic a man who is an alcoholic, and an alcoholic of many years.  And he came for healing, and one of my colleagues and I gave him healing. And afterwards, he made a strange remark. He said, “It seems as though I’ve had a withdrawal.”  The next time we gave him healing the same thing happened. And then after that, two or three times, it was just ordinary. He was persuaded to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. He has been going now for about six weeks. He has had no withdrawal symptoms whatsoever and I think that is astounding. I’m longing to get another alcoholic to see if we can really prove it.  I wondered if it would work with smoking.

We work by using our hands but we only treat the etheric part of the body--the etheric stomach, the etheric liver, etc. At first we didn’t realize this, we didn’t realize what was happening.  This is the experimental nature of our work, you do something and suddenly you hit a jack pot. So you see, the etheric body is as integral part of the whole of our existence and those of you that wish to do any healing, please study the importance of the etheric body. The Tibetan tells us how important this study is but sometimes we’re so stupid, we don’t take notice.  So that is our first lesson.

Now we come to color.  I’ll go through the bits and pieces but I want to give you what I think would be the most interesting to you.  Color is part of our very existence.  If you look at the organs of your body, they are color. And so we felt that here was something that we could use ourselves. We have many groups in London that are using color but they use slides. They are successful on their particular vibration but we train ourselves to be our own instrument, which means that we have to be as purified as we possibly can. We’re not holier than thou, at all. We have a lovely sense of humor and we work very much down to the ground. But we do, as far as is humanly possible, prepare ourselves for the work that we are going to do.  And the colors that we use are the colors of the flowers--the alive, vibrating colors of flowers. We say, whereas the medical profession changes the chemicalization of the body through drugs, we change it through color.  And it is as simple as that and it is magic.

Color healing is an ancient technique that has come down to us from the beginning of time.  In the ancient temples of Egypt, Greece, and in Atlantis they had temples that contained a healing block made of marble. The patient would lie down on it and over the roof would be all the colors of the rainbow. As the hours went by and the sun changed so would the colors change that came down onto the patient.  And so, what we are doing is only reviving what took place hundreds and thousands of years ago. 

Now I’ll discuss the colors that we use in our healing center. The first color is a soft rose pink--not a light pink. It is applied to the heart chakra when there is need of love.  It is the color that we always use for love or if we want to awaken the qualities of love. The quality of the rose is love and love is what the world is crying out for at the moment—unconditional love. And the rose color is what we use.

Then we come to the colors orange, gold and yellow.  These are the sunlight colors and their healing function is akin to that of sunlight—stimulating, life giving, growth promoting.  Now we’ll take each color, and the first is orange.  We’ll take the marigold, that beautiful gold color that is like the marigold petals in sunlight. It is stronger than gold or yellow and it is always applied to the spleen to give life and vitality when this is low. It is given as a general tonic and a boost. It is also given when a patient has severe rheumatism or arthritis. It is applied to the spleen to help break up deposits; it also has an effect on the bony structures of the body. 

Orange has a warming and invigorating effect. It is more a stimulant to the emotions than to the physical body. It can be used in cases of paralysis due to emotional reactions. It should be avoided by the extremely emotional type whose balance can be obtained through its complementary color blue. Orange can be applied to the crown center in cases of epilepsy. Its quality is that of strong sunlight.

Then we come to gold. And here we depict daffodils; particularly, do you have the King Alfred daffodils here, those beautiful large ones?  Do you have Buttercups? This color can be applied to the brow center or the crown center. It is used to arouse an embittered or depressed patient. It improves the mental condition of most patients. It can also be applied to the spleen.  Gold has a reaction similar to that of orange, in giving vitality to the system and also has a beneficial effect on the bony structure of the body again, helping to break up deposits that cause rheumatism and arthritis. Gold is used very much down the spine to give vitality. In fact, the color of gold is that of vitality. 

Then we come to the yellow. The quality of yellow is stimulation.  Now in England we have gorse and broom. Do you have them here? They are bushes.  You must have their equivalent. It is not so bright as the other two colors but it does have a wonderful effect. Now this color is applied in healing to the brow center in the head. It stimulates the nerves in the brain and the body and it clears stagnation. You will recall that the Buddha clothed his priests in yellow, the color that has stood throughout the ages for wisdom.

Now we have had quite a lot of patients who take dope.  And this is a great tragedy because it afflicts the younger ones. They start out experimenting and then they get to a state where they can no longer do without it. What we do is we massage their brain (their brain gets dull) with our hands, thinking of this color and believe me we have had wonderful effects. One girl came to us without any space left for a fix on either arm. She has been with us now three or four years and she has passed through a drama college and she is out teaching drama. She has had other help but it has been primarily the healing and most of all the massage of the brain that brought back her vitality. These are the things that you can do with people and it is hard work—but it is wonderful work. 

Next we come to green.  It is said that epilepsy is the personality slipping out of the body. The weight and intensity of the personality is so great that the individuals have to escape for a while and so they flip out of their bodies. And by using this color green and by gently calling them back.  They know that they have slipped out of their bodies and we just tap them on the shoulder and tell them to come back. We say, “come on, back in your body, we can’t work with you until you come back,” and they do.

Schizophrenics are out of their body and if you can get them back inside their body and secure them there, they are as normal as what we are. We have certain ritual that we do to secure them. If the doctors could only join in the experiments we are doing for suffering humanity, there would be a lot less suffering.

We sometimes send color to the etheric body and sometimes to the organs, the physical organs. We have been very successful with what we call MS. We call that, purely, the starvation of the life force of the body.  And as the life force comes in through the five centers, if you view the spine and go down the spine with the colors, you have particular colors for that.  And our success rate (and I say this very humbly), is phenomenal.  We had a young boy that came to us who had spent three years in bed.  He was 15 when he came to us and he couldn’t learn. He had a private tutor. His brain wouldn’t take anything and eventually he gravitated to us.  Within nine months the whole family went on a holiday, which they hadn’t done for three years.  He was back one day at school.  And for Christmas this year I had the great joy of saying, “Off you go, I don’t need to see you anymore.”  And this happened again and again with just the colors and the energies and the work that goes into it. 

If you look out at nature there are hundreds of different shades of colors of green.  But we work specifically with spring green.  That beautiful green that is coming through now, with a touch of yellow with the purity and beauty, after a long winter when everything has been dead and dark and suddenly, those little green shoots come out.  That’s spring green. We use spring green always first for cleansing, to cleanse the aura and next we cleanse all the organs.  My colleague and I we say if we were only permitted two colors we would use spring green and sapphire blue, but the others do add.  Spring green is very, very useful and necessary. 

There are also many different varieties of blue. We have sapphire blue, bluebells, and all the shades of delphiniums. Sapphire blue is used in cases of great pain. It can be applied to the chakra controlling the cause of the pain and also to the pain itself.  We have a contact where we take a handkerchief or tissue, if someone has acute back pain and you really want to concentrate right deep upon it, you take a tissue and you place it over a pain. Then you purse your lips and you breath out the color blue.  And many times we are asked, what instrument we are using, because people are usually lying on their backs and they can’t see and they ask us what we are using. And we say we are using nothing but our breath and color and that has a wonderful effect.  And, of course, we use a lot of blue to the solar plexus.  The solar plexus is the most overworked nervous system of our bodies.  It is where every emotion—good, bad or indifferent—impinges first.  People having a shock say, I’ve got a pain, and they immediately hold their solar plexus.  So the solar plexus needs a tremendous amount of healing. 

We teach our students in our school never to work from their solar plexus.  I think nearly all the healers in London work from their solar plexus, hence they get ill.  My colleague and I have been working for 40 years in this field and never once have we taken somebody else’s illness.  Of course we have had our own illnesses because we’ve made our own mistakes, but we’ve never taken anybody else’s illnesses because we never work from the solar plexus.  Your patient has come to you in great distress.  Their solar plexus is working overtime and so you dare not work with yours.  You cannot have two blind people crossing your motorway. So you can’t have two people working on their solar plexus.  Our healers are taught that the energy for healing comes by working from the heart, the throat and the pineal gland.  If you use those energies via the power of thought (energy follows thought) you have a powerful way of working. 

Another rule we have that is never neglected is to wash our hands after every patient.  That takes away all the vibrations of the one that you’ve been working with and sometimes you are working with some pretty grim, dirty vibrations, I can assure you. It is very lovely to work from the heart center but you have to be careful, that is why we work through the three centers.  You have to be careful, you can overdo the energies that come from the heart center.  But if you work with the triangle of energies, you are safe, and you have to be safe, as well as making your patient safe.

The next color is indigo blue.  This is the color at night when there is no moon and when you can stand and look up at the sky, with all the millions of stars.  That is the color we use for the solar plexus and the thyroid gland, particularly the cranial nerves and the nervous system—which I believe to be the most important part of our bodies.  Indigo blue is the color of dignity and this is one of the qualities that we should bring to our healing—the quality of dignity.  Because in the last analysis, what we want to do, is to heal the soul.  The greatest healing is soul to soul, and believe me, when you can touch that, there isn’t anything greater you can experience. It is a wonderful experience.

Then we come to violet and amethyst. Do you have in America that lovely, tiny violet, with the beautiful perfume? That is the color violet that we use. We have so many African violets these days, but they do not have the same purity and the same exquisite perfume as that tiny, little violet.  And amethyst, is also a color that the majority of students don’t know.   And so in our center we have the amethyst stone and we show that to our students.  Now, violet is the stronger color. These colors have to be used with care but they are powerful builders and strengtheners.  They can be used in cases of heart disease, low blood pressure, and we use a lot of violet in cancer.  The colors we use principally for cancer are spring green, amethyst and violet. 

We have a lot of cancer cases--some of them we help, some of them we cure, and in some  we help the people to go over gently and easily, without pain. We had one patient who came to us with cancer of the lungs.  He had been opened up and when the doctors saw the state of the lungs they closed him up again, but they never told him anything about his condition.  He thought he’d had the lung removed but he hadn’t.  We took care of him and his life was prolonged reasonably comfortably for six months.  Then he went into hospital and died a painless death; he went over beautifully.  The medical establishment was so intrigued, they couldn’t understand it and so they had to open him up to see whether the cancer was still there--and it was.  But the healing had worked with the pain and the suffering so much that he went over easily and gently.  We can’t always cure--karma comes into it, but we can help when we are needed.  And so those colors, violet and amethyst, give spiritual strength and also can be used for cleansing the nerves. 

Then we have pearl, the quality of pearl is cleansing. It is somewhat akin to spring green but we use it primarily for the etheric.  When we are healing someone with cancer, and we are healing their throat, we use pearl because we are working with the etheric body.  One color we hardly ever use is red.  Red causes stimulation and if you have somebody with a lot of inflammation, you don’t want to add to the condition.  Red is the color of children. You ask a child which is their favorite color and they will say red. Simply because they have to be stimulated because they are growing but we never use it in healing. Then, of course, there is white. And white contains all colors.  So if you are not sure of what color to use, you can always use white because it contains all the colors.  Now they are all the colors that we use. 

Lily Cornford was the founder and director of the Maitreya School of Healing in London, England. Lily once said that by the age of 17 she knew that this lifetime was to be dedicated to a life of service.  She worked as an accountant until her retirement at the age of 65, when she embarked upon a full-time healing career and she never looked back.  She had tremendous energy and well into her eighties (until her death), she worked long hours in her healing work.  Lily has investigated many different aspects of healing but her primary area of interest was in direct, color healing—using her mind and her heart and her own hands directly with people.  This talk was given at the Seven Ray Institute/University of the Seven Rays Conference in 1989, in Mesa, Arizona.