Chapter 60 of 151

Colours, Sounds and Forms.

To proceed:

The Point in the Circle is the Unmanifested Logos, corresponding to Absolute Life and Absolute Sound.

The first geometrical figure after the Circle or the Spheroid is the Triangle. It corresponds to Motion, Colour and Sound. Thus the Point in the Triangle represents the Second Logos, “Father-Mother,” or the White Ray which is no colour, since it contains potentially all colours. It is shown radiating from the Unmanifested Logos, or the Unspoken Word. Around the first Triangle is formed on the plane of Primordial Substance in this order (reversed as to our plane):

(a) The Astral Double of Nature, or the Paradigm of all Forms.

(b) Divine Ideation, or Universal Mind.

(d) Animal or Material Soul of Nature, source of animal and vegetable intelligence and instinct.

(e) The aggregate of Dhyân Chohanic Intelligences, Fohat.

(f) Life Principle in Nature.

(g) The Life Procreating Principle in Nature. That which, on the spiritual plane, corresponds to sexual affinity on the lower.

Mirrored on the plane of Gross Nature, the World of Reality is reversed, and becomes on Earth and our plane:

(a) Red is the colour of manifested dual, or male and female. In man it is shown in its lowest animal form.

(b) Orange is the colour of the robes of the Yogîs and Buddhist Priests, the colour of the Sun and Spiritual Vitality, also of the Vital Principle.

(d) Green and Red are, so to speak, interchangeable colours, for Green absorbs the Red, as being threefold stronger in its vibrations than the latter; and Green is the complementary colour of extreme Red. This is why the Lower Manas and Kâma Rûpa are respectively shown as Green and Red.

(e) The Astral Plane, or Auric Envelope in Nature and Man.

(f) The Mind or rational element in Man and Nature.

(g) The most ethereal counterpart of the Body of man, the opposite pole, standing in point of vibration and sensitiveness as the Violet stands to the Red.

The above is on the manifested plane; after which we get the seven and the Manifested Prism, or Man on Earth. With the latter, the Black Magician alone is concerned.

In Kosmos, the gradations and correlations of Colours and Sounds, and therefore of Numbers are infinite. This is suspected even in Physics, for it is ascertained that there exist slower vibrations than those of the Red, the slowest perceptible to us, and far more rapid vibrations than those of the Violet, the most rapid that our senses can perceive. But on Earth, in our physical world, the range of perceptible vibrations is limited. Our physical senses cannot take cognizance of vibrations above and below the septenary and limited gradations of the prismatic colours, for such vibrations are incapable of causing in us the [pg 479] sensation of colour or sound. It will always be the graduated septenary and no more, unless we learn to paralyze our Quaternary and discern both the superior and inferior vibrations with our spiritual senses seated in the upper Triangle.

Now, on this plane of illusion, there are three fundamental colours, as demonstrated by Physical Science, Red, Blue and Yellow (or rather Orange-Yellow). Expressed in terms of the human principles they are: (1) Kâma Rûpa, the seat of the animal sensations, welded to, and serving as a vehicle for the Animal Soul or Lower Manas (Red and Green, as said, being interchangeable); (2) Auric Envelope, or the essence of man; and (3) Prâna, or Life Principle. But if from the realm of illusion, or the living man as he is on our Earth, subject to his sensuous perceptions only, we pass to that of semi-illusion, and observe the natural colours themselves, or those of the principles, that is, if we try to find out which are those that in the perfect man absorb all others, we shall find that the colours correspond and become complementary in the following way:

A faint violet, mist-like form represents the Astral Man within an oviform bluish circle, over which radiate in ceaseless vibrations the prismatic colours. That colour is predominant, of which the corresponding principle is the most active generally, or at the particular moment when the clairvoyant perceives it. Such man appears during his waking states; and it is by the predominance of this or that colour, and by the intensity of its vibrations, that a clairvoyant, if he be acquainted with correspondences, can judge of the inner state or character of a person, for the latter is an open book to every practical Occultist.

In the trance state the Aura changes entirely, the seven prismatic colours being no longer discernible. In sleep also they are not all “at home.” For those which belong to the spiritual elements in the man, viz., Yellow, Buddhi; Indigo, Higher Manas; and the Blue of the Auric Envelope will be either hardly discernible, or altogether missing. The Spiritual Man is free during sleep, and though his physical memory may not become aware of it, lives, robed in his highest essence, in realms on other planes, in realms which are the land of reality, called dreams on our plane of illusion.

A good clairvoyant, moreover, if he had an opportunity of seeing a Yogî in the trance state and a mesmerized subject, side by side, would learn an important lesson in Occultism. He would learn to know the difference between self-induced trance and a hypnotic state resulting from extraneous influence. In the Yogî, the “principles” of the lower Quaternary disappear entirely. Neither Red, Green, Red-Violet nor the Auric Blue of the Body are to be seen; nothing but hardly perceptible vibrations of the golden-hued Prâna principle and a violet flame streaked with gold rushing upwards from the head, in the region where the Third Eye rests, and culminating in a point. If the student remembers that the true Violet, or the extreme end of the spectrum, is no compound colour of Red and Blue, but a homogeneous colour with vibrations seven times more rapid than those of the Red,815 and that the golden hue is the essence of the three yellow hues from Orange Red to Yellow-Orange and Yellow, he will understand the reason why: he lives in his own Auric Body, now become the vehicle of Buddhi-Manas. On the other hand, in a subject in an artificially produced hypnotic or mesmeric trance, an effect of unconscious when not of conscious Black Magic, unless produced by a high Adept, the whole set of the principles will be present, with the Higher Manas paralyzed, Buddhi severed from it through that paralysis, and the red-violet Astral Body entirely subjected to the Lower Manas and Kâma Rûpa (the green and red animal monsters in us).

One who comprehends well the above explanations will readily see how important it is for every student, whether he is striving for practical Occult powers or only for the purely psychic and spiritual gifts of clairvoyance and metaphysical knowledge, to master thoroughly the right [pg 481] correspondences between the human, or nature principles, and those of Kosmos. It is ignorance which leads materialistic Science to deny the inner man and his Divine powers; knowledge and personal experience that allow the Occultist to affirm that such powers are as natural to man as swimming to fishes. It is like a Laplander, in all sincerity, denying the possibility of the catgut, strung loosely on the sounding-board of a violin producing comprehensive sounds or melody. Our principles are the Seven-Stringed Lyre of Apollo, truly. In this our age, when oblivion has shrouded ancient knowledge, men's faculties are no better than the loose strings of the violin to the Laplander. But the Occultist who knows how to tighten them and tune his violin in harmony with the vibrations of colour and sound, will extract divine harmony from them. The combination of these powers and the attuning of the Microcosm and the Macrocosm will give the geometrical equivalent of the invocation “Om Mani Padme Hum.”

This was why the previous knowledge of music and geometry was obligatory in the School of Pythagoras.

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