Colour registers grades of vibration. Vibration registers grades of life. Life, esoterically considered, is ascent towards its source—the great First Cause, the celestial sun which lights universal creation.
If a ray of white light is passed through a triangular piece of glass, called a prism, it becomes separated into the seven colours known as the “solar spectrum.” Careful scientific analysis has proven that these colours are produced by different rates of vibration.
It has shown that the slowest vibrations are red, the quickest violet. The red ray of the spectrum gives 477 millions of millions (or billions) of vibrations in a second, the orange 506, the yellow 535, the green 577, the blue 622, Indigo 658, and violet 699.
Thus there is a regular ascent in the colour-scale from red to violet, and the trans-violet rays go on octaves higher, becoming invisible to the physical eye as their rates of vibration increase.
It has also been discovered that these seven prismatic rays of the solar spectrum correspond to the seven notes on the musical scale, the ray of slowest vibration, red, being a correlate of the base note of the musical gamut, and the violet ray answering to the highest musical note.
When the vibrations exceed a certain limit, the tympanum of the ear has not time to recoil before a succeeding impulse arrives, and it remains motionless. Darkness and silence are, therefore, equivalents for the cessation of vibrations on the retina of the eye and tympanum of the ear respectively. Incidentally it may be stated that cold is also considered to be the cessation of vibrations through the nerves of feeling.
Colour, therefore, is to light what pitch is to sound—both depend on length of vibrations.
The thought will immediately suggest itself in this connection that if colour and music are thus correlated, the perfect clairvoyant might see a concert as well as hear it. This is true, and there are instances on record of such transcendent views. In one case of this kind, it was not alone a poetical play of colour springing into life under the touch of a German professor’s hands, but a host of airy sprites clothed in the various rays which called them forth.
Isis declares that “sounds and colours are all spiritual numerals; and as the seven prismatic rays proceed from one spot in Heaven, so the seven powers of Nature, each of them a number, are the seven radiations of the unity, the central spiritual sun.”1
It is easy to follow along the lines of these suggestions, and trace the origin of chanting the seven vowels to one of their gods, among the Egyptians, as a hymn of praise at sunrise. In the so-called mythical Golden Age this must have been the mode of putting themselves en rapport or in tune with the Cosmic powers, and ensuring harmony while the vibrations were synchronous.
The third necessary correlation to be considered in this analysis is that of form. Scientific research has proven that not only are music and colour due to rates of vibration, but form also marshals itself into objective being in obedience to the same mysterious law. This is demonstrated by the familiar experiment of placing some dry sand on a square of glass, and drawing a violin bow across the edge. Under the influence of this intonation, the sand assumes star shapes of perfect proportion; if other material is placed on the square of glass at the same time, other shapes are assumed, varying in proportion to the power resident in the atoms to respond to the vibrations communicated.
It is noticeable, however, that the vibration makes the spaces, and the sand falls into the rest places.
We have now discovered a triangular key—light, music, form—which will disclose to us the exact relations which colour sustains to the interlaced triangles, the six-rayed star, universal symbol of creative force acting upon matter.2 This triangular key is simply three modes of one being, three differential expressions of one force—vibration.
That which causes the vibration we can only represent by the Ineffable Name, behind which burns the quenchless glory of En Soph, the Boundless.
Thus, in our symbology we start from the centre of a circle, which should be represented by white light.
The seven rays issuing therefrom, must first pass through the interior and invisible triangle of Akasa, the prism A.U.M., before they can flow outward, and by their action upon chaos, wheel the myriad forms of physical life into consonance with their rates of vibration. In this manner is the visible formulated from the invisible. By such subtle music is born the gorgeous flora of our tropics, drinking its wealth of colour from the yellow and warm rays of the sunlight; and in accord with the same harmony is produced the subdued vegetation of colder climes. The blue and violet beams carry the quick pulses of the parent flame deep within the earth, and by-and-bye she gives back that which she has received, transformed into a thousand brilliant hues woven in the magic loom of Love, presided over by the solar spectrum. Or, as Egyptian myth phrases it, Osiris (the sun) weds Isis (the earth), and the child, Horus-Apollo, glorifies all things as the product of this divine union.
The culmination of light resides in the yellow ray, and hence to that colour is given the East point in our symbolised centre of radiation.3 The others follow in the order of the solar spectrum.
But it is noticeable in this connection, that in that order, the coarsest and warmest of the visible rays—red—is placed next to the coldest and most refined ray, the violet. Here we have the analogy of contraries. The ray of lowest refrangibility and the ray of highest refrangibility become next-door neighbours in the divergent circle of necessity. What is the result? It is not hard to discover, when we know that the cooling colours are essential to the balanced action of the thermal rays. “A small amount of blue when combined with other rays will even increase the heat, because it kindles into activity its opposite warm principle, red, through chemical affinity.”
Having determined the law which should govern the symbology of colours at the centre of our circle, we come next to the interlaced triangles.
The truly Theosophical Pentacle should be made by the interlacing of a white triangle with a black triangle—the white representing pure spirit, the black, gross matter. This is the true symbology, for the reason that white reflects all colours, and black absorbs all colours. It is the face of the White Ancient looking into the face of the Black Ancient.
Absolute blackness appears to give back nothing; nor does it ever, save through processes of slow evolution, wrought by continued vibration upon its molecules from the Divine Centre of Light.
Continuous vibration polarizes these particles, so that at last rising from the lowest grade of refrangibility to the highest, into the invisible octaves of being, our planetary chain in its culmination will reach a point where every atom will give an answering thrill of resonance to the throbbing of the heart of the Universe—the Central Spiritual Sun.
As every substance in Nature has its colour, so the human family publish their grades of advancement to the clairvoyant eye by their astral colours; and seekers after the true Light may know what “ray” they are in, by a comparison of their own auras with the colours of the overshadowing soul.
The middle rays of the solar spectrum—blue, green, and yellow—give a very powerful triangle, a wonderful working triangle of forces; for green is Hermetic silver, yellow is Hermetic gold, and blue is a despatch-messenger from the “Lord of the Worlds,” Jupiter.
The blue and the yellow of this group, on account of their position—the third and the fifth reckoned both ways—have been chosen as the colours of our incense-holders, alternating on the points of the Pentacle. As odours are also correlated with colours, and as sandal-wood is the perfume which belongs to the sun, we use that incense to intensify the vibrations from the radiating points, in order to increase the volume of accord which will reach other centres at a distance; for the akasa is more sensitive than an Eolian harp—it registers the very aroma of our thoughts. It was, therefore, no exaggeration of the poet when he said:
“Guard well thy thought:
Our thoughts are heard in Heaven.”
But if colours and sounds are spiritual numerals, then the seven symbolical points of the Pentacle represent numbers of the greatest importance in world-building, and in soul-building also. For we must all build our own souls. And the symbology of the interlacing of the triangle of spirit with the triangle of matter, finds its correspondence in man, the little world, who, though a spiritual ego, yet dwells in a physical house, and whose business it is to merge himself completely into the region of the white triangle.
When Man has raised his vibrations into perfect harmony with the universal sun, he has then unbound himself from the wheel of re-birth—the Zodiac—and is ready to enter Nirvana.
The word “heaven” in Hebrew signifies the abode of the sun. When, therefore, the Nazarene said “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you,” he virtually declared that all the seven cosmic powers are resident within us.
Esoteric science recognises man as a septenary, working in conjunction with other orders of numerals which register divine vibrations.
All nature listens to that universal song, and the music of the spheres is no fable. The swarming zöospores in the protoplasm of plants hear it, and thrilled by that enchantment, fall into invisible rhythm, bringing up by quick marches into the region of Day the tiny dwellers in stem and leaf. How do we know that the mystery of the six-sided cell of the honey-bee may not find its solution here? Perhaps the bee is susceptible only to vibrations which fall into these lines, and faithfully obeys the master-musician in the construction of its hexagonal house. The great law of cosmic and microcosmic correspondence was revealed ages ago to the Sages who listened, and listening, heard the wondrous revelations breathed forth from the harp of Akasa. Sighing winds from other worlds passed over the delicate strings, and as they passed, uttered in soundless tones the profound mystery of near and remote planets. These Sages dwelt in that White Palace—the Lotus of the Heart—the sun-palace indeed. From centre to circumference their vast circle of vision was permeated by the reflected All, and from the White Palace they ascended the sacred mountain Meru, where dwelleth wisdom and love.
The key which opens the White Palace is held by the seven mystic children of the Royal Arch of the Rainbow, guarding the seven gates of the Sun, every gate of which answers to a musical note, and every note of which enfolds three tones.
Hence, if we understand the analogies of colour, we may open the six doors of Nature, and also the seventh, to Nirvana.
1. “Isis Unveiled,” Vol 1., p. 514.
2. Hence in Kabalistic symbolism the pentacle, or the six-pointed star, is the sign of the manifested “Logos,” or the “Heavenly man,” the Tetragrammaton. “The four-lettered Adni (Adonai, “the Lord”), is the Eheieh (the symbol of life or existence), is the Lord of the six limbs (6 Sephiroth) and his Bride (Malkuth, or physical nature, also Earth) is his seventh limb.” (Ch. Book of Numbers viii. 3-4.)—Ed. [H. P. Blavatsky]
3. It is the secret of the great reverence shown in the East for this colour. It is the colour of the Yogi dress in India, and of the Gelupka sect (“Yellow caps”) in Thibet. It symbolizes pure blood and sunlight, and is called “the stream of life.” Red, as its opposite, is the colour of the Dugpas, and black magicians.—Ed. [H. P. Blavatsky]