Natural Magic - Doreen Valiente 1998

Magic of Colours

Why do some people so delight to surround themselves with drab, depressing colours? There is no need of it these days, now that we have emerged from the era when ’good taste’ was synonymous with dullness. Moreover, there is much more in colour than people think. It is not a mere decoration. Each colour is a vibration, with an effect that may be beneficial or otherwise.

Pure, clear colour is an uplifting influence. We can see this in the glorious colours of nature, the green of sunlit grass, the blue of the sky, the soft, glowing hue of a deep red rose, or the subtle shades of purple on distant hills. And what a variety of colours can be seen on the sea—jade greens, translucent blues, delicate purples and violets and the strange, sinister greys of the impending storm. Then, at sunset and at dawn, everything is again transformed by rosy fire and burning gold. With these wonderful colours all around us, we should never dress in dreary or inharmonious shades, or have ugliness in our home surroundings, however simple the latter may be.

In fact, artistic simplicity is much preferable to lavish bad taste. There can be expensive ugliness and dreariness, as well as that which results from poverty. But the home of a person who has true magic in them, whether they be rich or poor, will have a kind of subtle atmosphere, an intriguing attractiveness—even if it is not very tidy!

The old time witches, of course, knew all about this question of atmosphere. The cottage of the village witch, or the magician’s house in the side-street of some quaint old town, would be deliberately adorned with such objects as would strike the imagination of a visitor and put them in the right mood for a magical consultation. The smell of old leather-bound books and parchments mingled with that of jars of spices and bunches of drying herbs; the sight of strange objects, half-hidden, half-displayed—such as, for instance, a stuffed alligator hanging from the ceiling, or a skull upon a shelf in some dark corner, while shining silver witch-balls reflected the flame of a scented candle; all these things were deliberately used to act as suggestions to the mind. And in the days when all classes believed implicitly in magic, their effect must have been potent.

In these more sophisticated times, such a display might seem merely theatrical. Nevertheless, the effect of deliberately created atmosphere is not to be despised; only the present day magician sets about it in a less crude way than our ancestors did.

Soft lighting, for instance, is more pleasing and conducive to meditation than a bright overhead light. Certain colours have a soothing effect; others are warming and exciting. This, indeed, is a fundamental principle of the use of colour. We can divide colours, in a sense, into masculine and feminine.

The masculine colours are those which have a warming, stimulating effect—the fiery tones of red and orange, while the calming and soothing colours are the shades of blue and green. Yellow holds a midway place between the two; while the shades of purple are mysterious, and often favoured by those interested in the occult.

It will be seen how the three primary colours, red, blue and yellow, demonstrate what occultists call the Law of the Triangle, the two opposites with the uniting and harmonizing principle between them. Red is the active, stimulating colour; blue is the passive, soothing colour; while yellow holds the balance of harmony between the two.

Magicians of olden time regarded red as the colour of life, probably because of the redness of blood. Hence they often used red ink to inscribe magical signals, in order to give them symbolic life. This idea goes back a very long way into human history. Men of the Stone Age used to cover the bones of their dead with red ochre, presumably in order to give them a new life. Our great-grandparents put their faith in red flannel underwear to protect them from colds and chills; and the fact that the flannel had to be red was, whether they realized it or not, a remnant of a lingering belief in red as a magical colour.

Too much red in one’s surroundings, however, can be over-stimulating to the nerves and make one irritable. Soft, rosy reds are more gentle in their effect, more subtly warming, than the bright scarlets and vermilions.

While red is the colour that stimulates the physical body, orange stimulates the more subtle forces. It is the colour of the sun, the source of vitality, as well as of light and heat. Upon the glorious golden sun, the life of our solar system of planets depends.

We see before us the countryside on a grey day. The landscape looks dull and lifeless. Then the sun comes out and immediately there is a wonderful transformation. All at once, the colours seem brighter. The air has a new freshness. The water sparkles with diamond drops. No wonder the ancient pagans worshipped the sun as the symbol of the divine source of life.

Thy dawning is beautiful in the horizon of heaven,

O living Aton, beginning of life!

When thou risest in the eastern horizon of heaven,

Thou fillest every land with thy beauty;

For thou art beautiful, great, glittering, high over the earth;

Thy rays, they encompass the lands, even all thou hast made.

Thou art Ra, and thou hast carried them all away captive;

Thou bindest them by thy love.

Though thou art afar, thy rays are on the earth;

Though thou art on high, thy footprints are the day.

So sang Akhenaton (Amenhotep IV), who was Pharaoh of Egypt over three thousand years ago. Still today, the orange ray will help to restore vitality and will-power to those who feel weak and depleted. Wear the colour when you can in your clothing and use it in the furnishing of your surroundings. If it seems too strong a colour, however, to be used like this—though thank goodness even men today are beginning to overcome the convention of darkness—then get a piece of orange-coloured material, preferably silk, and wear it around the middle of your body, next to the skin. This method can be used for any colour whose vibration you wish to attune yourself to.

The colour yellow is a sunshine colour also, and particularly stimulates the mind. The Buddhist monks of the East, some of the most deeply contemplative of men, wear yellow robes. Those sensitive enough to be able to see the colours of the human aura, have often testified to the nimbus of golden light which surrounds the head of a person whose mind is highly evolved. This is the origin of the halo, which has become the artistic convention for depicting saints or spiritual beings.

Green is the predominant colour of nature and its influence is restful and calming. For this reason, hospitals have adopted it in recent years for the garb of surgeons and the staff of operating theatres. Yet some people fear green as an ’unlucky’ colour. This feeling is a lingering relic of the belief that green is the colour of the fairies. In Sir Walter Scott’s poem, “The Lady of the Lake”, he refers to “The fairies’ fatal green” and he explains this in a note to the poem, as follows: “As the Daoine Shi or Men of Peace—i.e., fairies—wore green habits they were supposed to take offence when any mortals ventured to assume their favourite colour.”

However, people who love nature and are sensitive to the unseen often show a liking for green in their clothes and surroundings; and for them, green is not unlucky, because they have a natural affinity for it. To the occult philosophers of old, green had a spiritual meaning. It signified the secret immanence of the divine spirit in the life of all things. They had a mystical saying in Latin, Linea viridis gyrat universa, which is explained by a passage in the writings of Thomas Vaughan (1621—1666):

“It compasseth the heavens and in them the earth, like a green rainbow or one vast sphere of viridity, and from this viridity the divine influences are showered down like rain, through the ether, into the globes of the fixed stars.”

Vaughan’s book, Lumen de Lumine, is an account of a mystical dream, in which he journeys to a waste and desolate land. This strange country of the mind is brought to life when the goddess of nature appears, “attired in thin loose silk but so green that I never saw the like, for the colour was not earthly.”

There are many people today who need this redemption of nature. Modern so-called ’civilization’ has forced them to lead frustrated, unnatural lives, cut off from the true sources of vitality and happiness, which are to be found in nature. The real joy of living is not to be bought with money, or found in so-called ’getting on in the world’ or ’being a success’, as many who have spent their lives in pursuit of these things have learned to their cost.

To see the sunlight through the green leaves of a forest in summer, or to walk upon the turf of green hills, to rest the mind from thinking intellectually and just feel intuitively, this is medicine for body and soul. There is plenty of green available for us in nature; the vibration of the green ray is there in every leaf, in every blade of grass, if we will but attune ourselves to it.

Nature has given generously, also, of the spiritual and healing colour, blue, in the great expanse of the sky. Wilhelm Reich, the famous psychologist, believed that all nature is permeated with a subtle energy which he called ’organ’, because it is the energy which is present in the sexual climax, or orgasm—the basic energy of life itself. The prevailing colour of this energy, according to Reich, is blue-violet and it is this energy, permeating the atmosphere, which gives its glorious colour to the sky.

Whether or not we accept Reich’s ideas, it is a fact that spiritual healers make much use of blue and healing sanctuaries are often hung with drapes of this colour. In the East, clear bright blue is believed to be a protection against black magic and the evil eye; and necklaces containing bright blue beads are often worn for this purpose.

Blue is the colour of the symbolic garter bestowed by the Order of the Garter, Britain’s senior order of chivalry; it is also used in the Masonic tradition, where it signifies fidelity, friendship and universal sympathy. The three degrees of Craft Masonry are sometimes called ’Blue Masonry’, because of the prevalence of the colour blue in their regalia. Blue is both literally and symbolically a heavenly colour.

One way in which the benefits of the blue ray can be attuned to is by using light which has filtered through blue glass. Glass has always taken the colour blue with particular richness and deepness. Antique Bristol glass has long been famous for its wonderful blue colour; but much less expensive glass than this can be bought which comes in beautiful shades of blue. If, then, one can obtain a stoppered bottle or decanter of richly-coloured blue glass, it can be used to get the benefit of this healing colour. Fill the bottle with water and stand it in a sunlit place for a couple of days. To drink this water will be beneficial to health and psychic sensitivity.

Alternatively, get a piece of deep blue glass and frame it so that the sharp edges are covered. Hold this glass so that the sun shines through it and the coloured ray is directed upon any part of the body affected by illness, preferably upon the bare skin. Do this for as long as you conveniently can, up to about half-an-hour at a time. Many beneficial results have been claimed from this practice. Electric light is sometimes used to shine through the glass; but warm natural sunlight is best, if available.

Indigo and violet are closely akin to blue; the latter colour in fact shades into them. The glorious amethyst violet is a colour connected with mysticism and deeply religious feeling; yet it is also a sensual colour, emphasizing the deep psychological connection between the instincts of religion and those of sex. Aleister Crowley said of it that it is “a vibration which is at the same time spiritual and erotic”. It is a colour of richness, royalty and opulence.

Indigo is the colour of the midnight deeps of space; making one think of the beyond, of infinity. It is the colour of things tremendous and remote and hence up to now has been little used on its own for magical purposes.

The Bewitchments of Love and Hate

The attribution of the seven rainbow or prismatic colours to the seven visible heavenly bodies of our solar system, according to astrology, is as follows (this is the attribution of western magic, as given by the famous Order of the Golden Dawn):

Red: Mars.

Orange: Sun.

Yellow: Mercury.

Green: Venus.

Blue: Moon.

Indigo: Saturn.

Violet: Jupiter.

According to the teachings of the same occult fraternity, the rainbow colours were shaded through the signs of the Zodiac as follows:

Aries: Scarlet.

Taurus: Red-orange.

Gemini: Orange.

Cancer: Amber.

Leo: yellow, greenish.

Virgo: Green, yellowish.

Libra: Emerald green.

Scorpio: Green-blue.

Sagittarius: Blue.

Capricorn: Indigo.

Aquarius: Violet.

Pisces: Crimson.

These attributions can act as a guide for those who wish to cultivate the powers of their particular sign or planet. It should be remembered that colours can always be modified and harmonized by the skilful juxtaposition of other shades; or enlivened by a touch of contrasting colour. Only experience can teach one to do this and achieve a pleasing effect; but experimenting with colours is a fascinating and truly magical thing, because colour knowledge played an important part in ancient magic.

As you become more sensitive to colour, you will be able to use it in specifically magical ways. One of these is the visualizing of colours in the aura, for purposes of strengthening and protection.

The aura has been called “the human atmosphere”. It is a field of force surrounding the human body, in which clairvoyant sensitives can see many different colours, according to the mental and emotional state of the person. The more clear and beautiful the colours of the aura, the more spiritually evolved the person is. The general shape of the aura is like that of an egg, as it radiates from the human body in all directions, extending outwards for a distance of some two or three feet, though in exceptional cases it may be more.

People are seldom able to see the aura today, largely because they have been conditioned not to believe in such things and taught that it is ’all imagination’; or worse still, frightened by tales that ’all that sort of thing is of the devil—and fear acts as a barrier to the free use of our natural innate powers. However, if one can view the naked human body in a dim light, against a dark background, with practice and perseverance one can learn to see the aura.

We are often conscious of the influence of other people’s auras, whether we can see them or not. They account for our instinctive likes and dislikes when meeting others, according to whether their aura harmonizes with our own or otherwise.

By visualizing a colour and picturing it mentally as surrounding us and filling our aura with its particular radiance and beauty, we can attune ourselves to the beneficial effects of that colour. Certain colours especially, are valuable for protecting us against various undesirable vibrations.

The clear, rosy reds will give us an influence of strength and confidence, when in the presence of lowering conditions, such as the danger of infection from illness, or the depleting effect that sick people sometimes have on others. Think of the glorious hues of red roses, and let their colour fill your aura, if you have to go somewhere on a miserable wintry day, for instance, where people are coughing and sneezing and everything looks depressing. The red ray will help to warm and protect you. I remember once using this method to make more bearable a wretched winter train journey in an unheated carriage and I suffered no cold or chill from the trip.

If you want protection for the mind, however, choose golden yellow. Charge your aura with this colour when you have to enter the presence of people who will try to overcome you in argument. Do this, and keep a positive mental attitude and their plausible tongues will be less able to talk you into something you may later regret. Golden yellow is the colour of highly developed intellect, and it will brighten your reasoning powers, especially if you picture it as a shining nimbus around your neck, repelling insidious arguments and suggestions.

Sometimes even more insidious, however, is the danger which attacks us through our emotions. The auric colour which will cool our emotional reactions and transmute them to a higher vibration, is the clear, bright, spiritual blue. When we are in danger of losing control of ourselves, we are said to :see red’. These old sayings often have a good deal of instinctive truth—though of course it is the impure shades of auric colour that are referred to when we speak of going green with envy, being yellow in the sense of cowardice, or depressed because we have got the blues. Dark, muddy blues really are the colours of depression, as sickly greens and yellows are of envy and cowardice, and harsh, glaring scarlet that of rage. The purer and more beautiful a colour is, the better is its influence; and the pure and beautiful blue will help us to rise above the lower types of emotion, if we will remember it and visualize it when we are tempted to give way to them. There is a great deal of nonsense talked about black magic; but nevertheless, black magic does exist. It is probably unlikely that you will ever be brought into contact with real disembodied evil, as most so-called black magicians have no power except to instil fear by the use of threats, working on their victim’s imagination. However, it is possible that at some time you may encounter a genuine evil influence; and you can protect yourself against it by concentrating upon the clear and shining white light, the divine white brilliance, which is the symbol of the highest spiritual power we mortals can visualize.

Picture this light as surrounding you with a shining aura of protection, which overcomes everything lower than itself. See it as the most brilliant and pure whiteness of the spirit, in which you take refuge. An aura which is strengthened in this way will repel evil and cause it to rebound upon the sender, if the influence has been deliberately launched against you. Once you have aspired towards the higher plane and made contact with its vibrations, the presence of the white light in your aura will cast out fear.