Ghadiali, Dinshah Pestanj (1873-1966)

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Ghadiali, Dinshah Pestanj (1873-1966)

Dinshah Pestanji Ghadiali, an Indian American, pioneered vegetarianism and chromotherapy (healing with color) in twentieth-century America. Born November 28, 1873, into a Zoroastrian family in Bombay, India, he developed an early interest in chemistry and trained himself through his reading. He was only 11 when he became an assistant in math and science at Wilson College.

During his teen years Ghadiali became a rational materialist, then in 1891 he encountered the Theosophical Society. At the time of his initiation he had a visionary experience of one of the mahatmas, the superhuman entities who are believed to guide the work of the society. Ghadiali studied with a Hindu neighbor and gave up meat and alcohol. Through the society, he was introduced to the world of religion, and for a time became a student of Hindu guru Swami Murdhan Shastri.

After finishing college, Ghadiali practiced medicine. He moved to the United States in 1911 and was naturalized in 1917. His medical degree was not recognized in the United States, and he was also alienated from medicine as it then existed. He had adopted the Hindu virtue ahimsa, harmlessness, as a basic principle of living and was led to naturopathy, which had developed out of older natural schools of healing. In 1919 he became vice president of the National Association of Drugless Practitioners and actively participated in efforts to have the government recognize alternative medical practices.

In 1920 Ghadiali announced that he had perfected the techniques of spectro-chrome therapy, a method of healing using attuned color waves. The machine he developed could project beams of light upon the body of an ill person. In addition, Ghadiali received his medical degree in chiropractic, naturopathy, and several other healing practices, and two years later he purchased land in Malaga, New Jersey, and opened the Spec-tro-Chrome Institute. He wrote several books over the next few years, but his primary text, the three volume Spectro-Chrome Metry Encyclopedia, was finished in 1933. Meanwhile, Ghadiali faced a series of court actions as the government moved against his healing practices. He was arrested for fraud in 1931 but was acquitted. In 1934 an attempt was made to strip him of his citizenship, as had happened to so many Indian Americans under provisions of the 1924 anti-Asian immigration law. He argued that though he was an Indian, he was of Persian ancestry, and thus was able to retain his citizen's status.

During the next decade, Ghadiali was able to train more than 100 students in the techniques of spectro-chrome therapy, but in 1945 the government acted again. Ghadiali faced charges that he had made false claims about his spectro-chrome healing device. In 1947 he was convicted but not sent to prison on the condition that he cease practicing chromotherapy. His books and unsold devices were destroyed, and those that had been sold were confiscated from their owners. In the 1950s he resumed his healing practice and operated quietly until his death on April 30, 1966. His son, H. Jay Dinshah, continues Ghadiali's work, but concentrates on veganism, a strict form of vegetarianism. Dinshah founded and heads the American Vegan Society.