(41) When the perturbations of the psychic nature have all been stilled, then the consciousness, like a pure crystal, takes the colour of what it rests on, whether that be the perceiver, perceiving, or the thing perceived.

(109) But when the light, which is the Son of God, shineth into this sea of nature, then it getteth its yellowish and whitish colour, which I cannot compare to anything; you must be content to stay or tarry with this aspect or vision, till you come into the other life.

(171) But as they rise, so they go away again, for they are not incorporated or compacted together, as the angels are: for these figures are so formed in the birth of the rising qualities, in the spirit of nature or nature-spirit.

(27) O nobly-born, listen. If thou desirest to know what those six lights are; there will shine upon thee a dull white light from the Deva-world, a dull green light from the Asura-world, a dull yellow light from the Human- world, a dull blue light from the Brute- world, a dull red light from the Preta-wovid, and a smoke-coloured light from the Hell-world. At that time, by the power of karma, thine own body will partake of the colour of the light of the place wherein thou art to be born.

(29) But- keeping to our illustration, by which the body is warmed by soul and not merely illuminated by it- how is it that when the higher soul withdraws there is no further trace of the vital principle?

For a brief space there is; and, precisely, it begins to fade away immediately upon the withdrawal of the other, as in the case of warmed objects when the fire is no longer near them: similarly hair and nails still grow on the dead; animals cut to pieces wriggle for a good time after; these are signs of a life force still indwelling.

Besides, simultaneous withdrawal would not prove the identity of the higher and lower phases: when the sun withdraws there goes with it not merely the light emanating from it, guided by it, attached to it, but also at once that light seen upon obliquely situated objects, a light secondary to the sun's and cast upon things outside of its path ; the two are not identical and yet they disappear together.

But is this simultaneous withdrawal or frank obliteration?

The question applies equally to this secondary light and to the corporeal life, that life which we think of as being completely sunk into body.

No light whatever remains in the objects once illuminated; that much is certain; but we have to ask whether it has sunk back into its source or is simply no longer in existence.

How could it pass out of being, a thing that once has been?

But what really was it? We must remember that what we know as colour belongs to bodies by the fact that they throw off light, yet when corruptible bodies are transformed the colour disappears and we no more ask where the colour of a burned-out fire is than where its shape is.

Still: the shape is merely a configuration, like the lie of the hands clenched or spread; the colour is no such accidental but is more like, for example, sweetness: when a material substance breaks up, the sweetness of what was sweet in it, and the fragrance of what was fragrant, may very well not be annihilated, but enter into some other substance, passing unobserved there because the new habitat is not such that the entrant qualities now offer anything solid to perception.

May we not think that, similarly, the light belonging to bodies that have been dissolved remains in being while the solid total, made up of all that is characteristic, disappears?

It might be said that the seeing is merely the sequel to some law , so that what we call qualities do not actually exist in the substances.

But this is to make the qualities indestructible and not dependent upon the composition of the body; it would no longer be the Reason-Principles within the sperm that produce, for instance, the colours of a bird's variegated plumage; these principles would merely blend and place them, or if they produced them would draw also on the full store of colours in the sky, producing in the sense, mainly, of showing in the formed bodies something very different from what appears in the heavens.

But whatever we may think on this doubtful point, if, as long as the bodies remain unaltered, the light is constant and unsevered, then it would seem natural that, on the dissolution of the body, the light- both that in immediate contact and any other attached to that- should pass away at the same moment, unseen in the going as in the coming.

But in the case of the soul it is a question whether the secondary phases follow their priors- the derivatives their sources- or whether every phase is self-governing, isolated from its predecessors and able to stand alone; in a word, whether no part of the soul is sundered from the total, but all the souls are simultaneously one soul and many, and, if so, by what mode; this question, however, is treated elsewhere.

Here we have to enquire into the nature and being of that vestige of the soul actually present in the living body: if there is truly a soul, then, as a thing never cut off from its total, it will go with soul as soul must: if it is rather to be thought of as belonging to the body, as the life of the body, we have the same question that rose in the case of the vestige of light; we must examine whether life can exist without the presence of soul, except of course in the sense of soul living above and acting upon the remote object.

(22) Black is really an absence of color, while White is really a harmonious blending of all colors. The blending of the Primary Colors in varied proportions produce what are known as the "hues" of color; and adding White we obtain "tints," while mixing Black produces "shades." Key to the Auric Colors An understanding of the basic character of the Three Primary Auric Colors, and of Auric Black and Auric White, gives the student the key to the whole range of auric coloring. For this purpose the following table is presented: The Red Group . Red represents the physical nature, and its presence always indicates the existence and activity of that part of the nature of man.

(27) The various combinations of the three Primary Annie Colors are formed in connection with White and Black, as well as by the blending of the three themselves. These combinations of course result from the shades of mental and emotional activity manifested by the individual. But not only is the blending caused by the mixing of the colors themselves, in connection with Black and White, but in certain cases the body of one color is found to be streaked, striped, dotted, or clouded by other colors. At times there is perceived the mixture of two antagonistic color streams fighting against each other before blending. Again we see the effect of one color neutralizing another. In some cases great black clouds obscure the bright colors beneath, and then darken the fierce glow of color, just as is often witnessed in the case of a physical conflagration. Again, we find great flashes of bright yellow, or red, flaring across the field of the aura, showing agitation or the conflict of intellect and passion.

(38) In those colours grow all manner of fruits, which rise or spring up in the Salitter, and the Mercurius or sound mingleth itself therewith, and riseth up in all the powers of the Father, and then sounding and tunes rise up in the heavenly joyfulness.

(3) Some become like the cloud of great light, and those people come who are sent out from the knowledge of the great eternal realms and the angels. They stand before Noah and the realms.

(12) "Yet," he adds, "the Elementals are not spirits, because they have flesh, blood and bones; they live and propagate offspring; they cat and talk, act and sleep, &c., and consequently they cannot be properly called 'spirits.' They are beings occupying a place between men and spirits, resembling men and spirits, resembling men and women in their organization and form, and resembling spirits in the rapidity of their locomotion." (Philosophia Occulta, translated by Franz Hartmann.) Later the same author calls these creatures composita, inasmuch as the substance out of which they are composed seems to be a composite of spirit and matter. He uses color to explain the idea. Thus, the mixture of blue and red gives purple, a new color, resembling neither of the others yet composed of both. Such is the case with the Nature spirits; they resemble neither spiritual creatures nor material beings, yet are composed of the substance which we may call spiritual matter, or ether.

(150) In such manner and colours the heaven of God's nature sheweth or presenteth itself in the rising up of the spirits of God: Now when the light of the Son of God shineth therein, then it is like a bright clear sea of the colours of the abovementioned precious stones or jewels. Of the wonderful Proportion, Alteration or Variation, and Rising up of the Qualities in the heavenly Nature.

(50) The ancients conceived the spirit of man to correspond with the color blue, the mind with yellow, and the body with red. Heaven is therefore blue, earth yellow, and hell--or the underworld--red. The fiery condition of the inferno merely symbolizes the nature of the sphere or plane of force of which it is composed. In the Greek Mysteries the irrational sphere was always considered as red, for it represented that condition in which the consciousness is enslaved by the lusts and passions of the lower nature. In India certain of the gods--usually attributes of Vishnu--are depicted with blue skin to signify their divine and supermundane constitution. According to esoteric philosophy, blue is the true and sacred color of the sun. The apparent orange-yellow shade of this orb is the result of its rays being immersed in the substances of the illusionary world.

(18) In addition to the ordinary colors named above, there are several shades which cannot be named, for they correspond to colors outside of the field of human vision, such as "infra red" and "ultra violet." Without going deeply into this phase of the subject, it may be said that the "ultra violet" auric colors denote high spiritual powers manifested in the direction of the highest and most worthy aims and ends; while the "infra red" auric colors denote psychic powers employed in unworthy ways and for base ends—as for instance, that which the occultists know as "black magic." There are two other auric colors which are impossible to describe in words, for there are no terms adequate for such expression. These colors are as follows: (1) the true primary yellow, which indicates the highest spiritual illumination of the intellect; and (2) true pure white, or a peculiar brilliancy and transparency, which indicates the presence of the awakened spirit.

(9) (14) Over against that body, stands the principle which is self-caused, which is all that neither enters into being nor passes away, the principle whose dissolution would mean the end of all things never to be restored if once this had ceased to be, the sustaining principle of things individually, and of this kosmos, which owes its maintenance and its ordered system to the soul.

This is the starting point of motion and becomes the leader and provider of motion to all else: it moves by its own quality, and every living material form owes life to this principle, which of itself lives in a life that, being essentially innate, can never fail.

Not all things can have a life merely at second hand; this would give an infinite series: there must be some nature which, having life primally, shall be of necessity indestructible, immortal, as the source of life to all else that lives. This is the point at which all that is divine and blessed must be situated, living and having being of itself, possessing primal being and primal life, and in its own essence rejecting all change, neither coming to be nor passing away.

Whence could such a being arise or into what could it disappear: the very word, strictly used, means that the thing is perdurable. Similarly white, the colour, cannot be now white and now not white: if this "white" were a real being it would be eternal as well as being white: the colour is merely white but whatsoever possesses being, indwelling by nature and primal, will possess also eternal duration. In such an entity this primal and eternal Being cannot be dead like stone or plank: it must be alive, and that with a life unalloyed as long as it remains self-gathered: when the primal Being blends with an inferior principle, it is hampered in its relation to the highest, but without suffering the loss of its own nature since it can always recover its earliest state by turning its tendency back to its own.

(47) Moreover, it is the imaging or forming of all sorts of red colours in its own quality; in the sweet it imageth or formeth all sorts of white and blue; in the astringent, or harsh and sour, it formeth all sorts of green, dusky and mixed colours, with all manner of forms or figures and smells.

(37) For when the powers spring up in God they touch and stir one another, and move one in another, and so there is a constant harmony, mixing or concert, from whence go forth all manner of colours.

(16) Some are of the quality of heat, and they are the lightest and brightest of all, yellowish and reddish; and when the light shineth on them, they look like the flash or lightning of the Son of God.

(17) Zimon* saith: O Turba of Philosophers and disciples, now hast thou spoken about making into white, but it yet remains to treat concerning the reddening! Know, all ye seekers after this Art, that unless ye whiten, ye cannot make red, because the two natures are nothing other than red and white. Whiten, therefore, the red, and redden the white!* Know, also, that the year is divided into four seasons; the first season is of a frigid complexion, and thisis Winter; the second is of the complexion of air, and this is Spring; then follows the third, which is summer, and is of the complexion of fire; lastly, there is the fourth, wherein fruits are matured, which is Autumn. In this manner, therefore, ye are to rule your natures, namely, to dissolve in winter, to cook in spring, to coagulate in summer, and to gather and tinge the fruit in autumn. Having, therefore, given this example, rule the tingeing natures, but if ye err, blame no one save yourselves.

The Turba answereth: Thou hast treated the matter extremely well; add, therefore, another teaching of this kind for the sake of posterity. And he: I will speak of making lead red.* Take the copper which the Master ordered you to take at the beginning of his book, combine lead therewith, and cook it until it becomes thick; congeal also and desiccate until it becomes red. Here certainly is the Red Lead of which the wise spake; copper and lead become a precious stone; mix them equally, let gold be roasted with them, for this, if ye rule well, becomes a tingeing spirit in spirits.t So when the male and the female are conjoined there is not produced a volatile wife, but a spiritual composite. From the composite turned into a red spirit is produced the beginning of the world.

Behold this is the lead which we have called Red Lead, which is of our work, and without which nothing is effected!