Edwin D. Babbitt

Edwin D. Babbitt, 1828 – 1905, was one of the most influential American pioneers and writers in the field of color research and color therapy. He was known and revered by many as the “Color Prophet,” yet despised by the medical institution in his time, even branded a charlatan or quack. His book The Principles of Light & Color, the Classic Study of the Healing Power of Color (1967), was edited and annotated by Faber Birren author of Color Psychology & Color Therapy (1961). Birren paints Babbitt, in his foreword to The Principles of Light and Color, as a brilliant man and his book a classic work in its field. Edwin Babbitt advocated changes in the past system of therapeutics by replacing the crude drugs he considered relics of barbarism which still prevailed in his time by the use of pure elements of nature. Judging by the record healings through chromotherapy, colored water, sunshine and air as evidenced in the many case histories recorded in his book, he was very effective in his applications. As Birren states in his introduction: If Edwin D. Babbitt on the one side is praised as a redeemer and on the other side condemned as a charlatan, what remains indubitable is that his book and his life’s work have marked one of the most amazing events in the fascinating history of color.”