(49) Consciousness, intelligence, and force are fittingly symbolized by the colors blue, yellow, and red. The therapeutic effects of the colors, moreover, are in harmony with this concept, for blue is a fine, soothing, electrical color; yellow, a vitalizing and refining color; and red, an agitating and heat-giving color. It has also been demonstrated that minerals and plants affect the human constitution according to their colors. Thus a yellow flower generally yields a medicine that affects the constitution in a manner similar to yellow light or the musical tone mi. An orange flower will influence in a manner similar to orange light and, being one of the so-called secondary colors, corresponds either to the tone re or to the chord of do and mi.

(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.

(22) The green color alludes to the vegetation which covers the face of the earth, and therefore represents the robe of Nature. The black represents death and corruption as being the way to a new life and generation. "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John iii. 3.) White, yellow, and red signify the three principal colors of the alchemical, Hermetical, universal medicine after the blackness of its putrefaction is over.

(27) Man has four vehicles (or mediums) of expression by means of which the spiritual Ego contacts the external universe: the physical nature, the vital nature, the emotional nature, and the mental nature. Each of these partakes in principle of one of the primary elements, and the four creatures assigned to them by the Qabbalists caused the cross to be symbolic of the compound nature of man.

(21) But adepts can only use the means of overthrowing the abysmal and the adhering (Li) when their purposes are sincerely in the work, otherwise a pure mixture is not produced. The true purpose is subject to the Earth. The colour of the Earth is yellow; therefore in books on the Life Elixir, it is symbolized by the yellow germ. When the abysmal and the adhering (Li) unite, the Golden Flower appears; the golden colour is white, and therefore white snow is used as a symbol. But worldly people who do not understand the secret words of the books of the Life Elixir, have misunderstood yellow and white in that they have taken it as a means of making gold out of stones. Is not that foolish?

(2) In the midst of primal becoming, the radiance of the Light (Yang Kuang) is the determining thing. In the physical world it is the sun; in man the eye. The emanation and dissemination of spiritual consciousness is chie ly brought about by this power when it is directed outward (flows downward). Therefore the meaning of the Golden Flower depends wholly on the backward-flowing method.

(35) What the sun is to the solar system, the spirit is to the bodies of man; for his natures, organs, and functions are as planets surrounding the central life (or sun) and living upon its emanations. The solar power in man is divided into three parts, which are termed the threefold human spirit of man. All three of these spiritual natures are said to be radiant and transcendent; united, they form the Divinity in man. Man's threefold lower nature--consisting of his physical organism, his emotional nature, and his mental faculties--reflects the light of his threefold Divinity and bears witness of It in the physical world. Man's three bodies are symbolized by an upright triangle; his threefold spiritual nature by an inverted triangle. These two triangles, when united in the form of a six-pointed star, were called by the Jews "the Star of David," "the Signet of Solomon," and are more commonly known today as "the Star of Zion." These triangles symbolize the spiritual and material universes linked together in the constitution of the human creature, who partakes of both Nature and Divinity. Man's animal nature partakes of the earth; his divine nature of the heavens; his human nature of the mediator.

(14) As light bears witness of life-which is its source-so the mind bears witness of the spirit, and activity in a still lower plane bears witness of intelligence. Thus the mind bears witness of the heart, while the generative system, in turn, bears witness of the mind. Accordingly, the spiritual nature is most commonly symbolized by a heart; the intellectual power by an opened eye, symbolizing the pineal gland or Cyclopean eye, which is the two-faced Janus of the pagan Mysteries; and the generative system by a flower, a staff, a cup, or a hand.

(35) The metals used in the building of the Tabernacle were all emblematic. Gold represents spirituality, and the golden plates laid over the shittim-wood were emblems of the spiritual nature which glorifies the human nature symbolized by the wood. Mystics have taught that man's physical body is surrounded by a series of invisible bodies of diverse colors and great splendor. In the majority of people the spiritual nature is concealed and imprisoned in the material nature, but in a few this internal constitution has been objectified and the spiritual nature is outside, so that it surrounds man's personality with a great radiance.

(82) In the third or inner circle is man, a tenfold creature, consisting of nine parts--three of spirit, three of intellect, and three of soul--enclosed within one constitution. According to Selenus, man's three spiritual qualities are thought, speech, and action; his three intellectual qualities are memory, intelligence, and will; and his three qualities of soul are understanding, courage, and desire. The third circle is further divided into three parts called ages: the Golden Age of spiritual truth in the upper right section, the Iron Age of spiritual darkness in the lower right section and the Bronze Age--a composite of the two occupying the entire left half of the inner circle and itself divided into three parts. The lowest division of the Bronze Age depicts ignorant man controlled by force, the central the partly awakened man controlled by jurisprudence, and the upper the spiritually illuminated man controlled by love. Both the second and third circles revolve upon the axis of law, but the divine source, of law--Heavenly Justice--is concealed by clouds. All of the symbols and figures ornamenting the plate are devoted to a detailed amplification of the principles here outlined.

(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.

(6) Thereupon, through the power of egotism, thou wilt beget a fear for the dazzling yellow light and wilt [with to] flee from it. Thou wilt be fondly attracted towards the dull bluish-yellow light from the human [world].

(23) The psychic nature, taking on the colour of the Seer and of things seen, leads to the perception of all objects.

(168) III. The earth signifieth or denoteth the heavenly nature, or the seventh spirit of nature, in which the ideas or images, forms and colours rise up.

(5) The origin of the Trinity is obvious to anyone who will observe the daily manifestations of the sun. This orb, being the symbol of all Light, has three distinct phases: rising, midday, and setting. The philosophers therefore divided the life of all things into three distinct parts: growth, maturity, and decay. Between the twilight of dawn and the twilight of evening is the high noon of resplendent glory. God the Father, the Creator of the world, is symbolized by the dawn. His color is blue, because the sun rising in the morning is veiled in blue mist. God the Son he Illuminating One sent to bear witness of His Father before all the worlds, is the celestial globe at noonday, radiant and magnificent, the maned Lion of Judah, the Golden-haired Savior of the World. Yellow is His color and His power is without end. God the Holy Ghost is the sunset phase, when the orb of day, robed in flaming red, rests for a moment upon the horizon line and then vanishes into the darkness of the night to wandering the lower worlds and later rise again triumphant from the embrace of darkness.

(3) Furthermore, the whole body feels strong and firm so that it fears neither storm nor frost. Things by which other men are displeased, when I meet them, cannot cloud the brightness of the seed of the spirit. Yellow gold fills the house; the steps are white jade. Rotten and stinking things on Earth that come in contact with one breath of the true power will immediately live again. Red blood becomes milk. The fragile body of the flesh is sheer gold and diamonds. That is a sign that the Golden Flower is crystallized.

(38) In the Pythagorean tetractys--the supreme symbol of universal forces and processes--are set forth the theories of the Greeks concerning color and music. The first three dots represent the threefold White Light, which is the Godhead containing potentially all sound and color. The remaining seven dots are the colors of the spectrum and the notes of the musical scale. The colors and tones are the active creative powers which, emanating from the First Cause, establish the universe. The seven are divided into two groups, one containing three powers and the other four a relationship also shown in the tetractys. The higher group--that of three--becomes the spiritual nature of the created universe; the lower group--that of four--manifests as the irrational sphere, or inferior world.