Color is the
visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, blue, yellow, green and others. Color derives from
the spectrum of light interacting in the eye with the spectral sensitivities of
the light receptors. Color categories and physical specifications of color are
also associated with objects, materials, light sources, etc., based on their
physical properties such as light absorption, reflection, or emission spectra.
Individual colors have a variety of cultural associations
such as national colors. The field of
color psychology attempts to identify the effects of color on human emotion and
activity. Chromo therapy is a form of alternative medicine attributed to
various Eastern traditions. Colors have different associations in different
countries and cultures.
It's a proven fact that colors have an effect on our
intellect and they invoke different emotional responses. Use them in candles, cloths, rooms or anywhere you are doing work or just relaxing. Colors used in magic
are similar in that they evoke a response, but keep in mind, response to color
in an individual matter, so go with your instincts. The colors must have
meaning to you.
Black
Black is not a color, strictly speaking. It is the absence of all color. Black is the color of coal, ebony and of
outer space. It is the darkest color, the result of the absence of or complete
absorption of light. It is the opposite
of white and often represents darkness in contrast with light.
Black was one of the first colors used by artists in
Neolithic cave paintings. In the Roman Empire, it became the color of mourning,
and over the centuries it was frequently associated with death, evil, witches
and magic. In the Western World today,
it is the color most commonly associated with mourning, the end, secrets,
magic, power, violence, evil and elegance.
The German and Scandinavian peoples worshipped their own Goddess
of the night, Nott, who crossed the sky in a chariot drawn by a black horse.
They also feared Hela, the Goddess of the kingdom of the dead, whose skin was
black on one side and red on the other.
They also held sacred the crow. They believed that Odin, the
king of the Nordic pantheon, had two black crows, Huginn and Muninn, who served
as his agents, traveling the world for him, watching and listening. It was new
beginning (as night and winter herald the birth of day and summer), all
potential, the root of all things, knowledge of hidden things, concealment and
the container of light.
Elemental earth, deities of the Underworld. It is linked to
the unknown or the unseen. Repel and
banish evil and negativity, protection, breaking free from bad habits and
addictions, deep meditation, opens up deep unconscious levels.
The Blue color ray is assimilated by the spiritual center in
the head. It awakens within a knowledge
of divinity. We will in blue - intention.
Blue is the color of the clear sky and the deep sea. On the optical spectrum, blue is located
between violet and green. Surveys in the
U.S. and Europe show that blue is the color most commonly associated with
harmony, faithfulness, and confidence. In U.S. and European public opinion
polls it is overwhelmingly the most popular color, chosen by almost half of
both men and women as their favorite color.
Blue was a latecomer among colors used in art and
decoration, as well as language and literature.
Beginning in about 2500 BC, the ancient Egyptians began to produce their
own blue pigment known as Egyptian blue, made by grinding silica, lime, copper
and alkalai. The earliest known blue
dyes were made from plants - woad in Europe, indigo in Asia and Africa, while
blue pigments were made from minerals, usually either lapis lazuli or
azurite.
Blue was the color of working class clothing; the nobles and
rich wore white, black, red or violet.
It was considered the color of mourning and the color of
barbarians. Julius Caesar reported that
the Celts and Germans dyed their faces blue to frighten their enemies and
tinted their hair blue when they grew old.
It is the all encompassing, all penetrating and omnipresent mystical
force of men, a sign of restless motion, the color of Odin's cloak.
Elemental water and elemental air. Using blue to relax will
encourage feelings of communication and peace. Deities of the sea and sky, truth and wisdom.
Peace and tranquility, calmness, truth, wisdom, justice, counsel, guidance,
understanding and patience, loyalty and honor, sincerity, devotion, healing,
femininity, prophetic dreams, protection during sleep, astral projection.
Brown
is the color of dark wood or rich soil. It is a composite color made by combining red,
black and yellow. The color
is seen widely in nature, in wood, soil and human hair color, eye color and
skin pigmentation. Brown is the second
most common color of human hair, after black.
Culturally, it is most
often associated with plainness, humility, the rustic, and poverty. Some shades of brown create a warm,
comfortable feeling of wholesomeness, naturalness and dependability.
Brown has been used in art since prehistoric times.
Paintings using umber, a natural clay pigment composed of iron oxide and
manganese oxide, have been dated to 40,000 BC. Paintings of brown horses and other animals
have been found on the walls of the Lascaux Cave dating back about 17,300
years. The female figures in ancient
Egyptian tomb paintings have brown skin, painted with umber. Light tan was often used on painted Greek
amphorae and vases, either as a background for black figures or the reverse.
In the late 20th century, brown became a common symbol in
western culture for simple, inexpensive, natural and healthy. Bag lunches were
carried in plain brown paper bags; packages were wrapped in plain brown paper.
Brown bread and brown sugar were viewed as more natural and healthy than white
bread and white sugar.
Elemental earth, stability, grounding, conservation,
protection of household, family and pets, healing animals, finding lost
objects, buildings, material increase, to make relationships solid, to increase
decisiveness and concentration, to attract help in financial crisis.
Gold, also
called golden,
is one of a variety of yellow-brown color blends used to give the impression of
the color of the element gold. The first
recorded use of golden as a
color name in English was in 1300 to refer to the element gold and in 1423 to
refer to blond hair.
The American
Heritage Dictionary defines the color metallic gold as "A light
olive-brown to dark yellow, or a moderate, strong to vivid yellow." The visual sensation usually associated with
the metal gold is its metallic shine. This
cannot be reproduced by a simple solid color, because the shiny effect is due
to the material's reflective brightness varying with the surface's angle to the
light source.
This is why, in art, a metallic paint that glitters in an
approximation of real gold would be used; a solid color like that of the cell
displayed in the box to the right does not aesthetically read as gold.
Especially in sacral art in Christian churches, real gold (gold leaf) was used
for rendering gold in paintings, e.g. for the halo of saints. Gold can also be woven into sheets of silk to
give an East Asian traditional look.
In Ancient Egypt, the skin and bones of the Gods were
believed to be made of gold. The Egyptians used yellow extensively in tomb
paintings; they usually used either yellow ochre or the brilliant orpiment,
though it was made of arsenic and was highly toxic. A small paint box with
orpiment pigment was found in the tomb of King Tutankhamen. Men were always
shown with brown faces, women with yellow ochre or gold faces.
Statues of Buddha are usually painted metallic gold, are
made of the metal gold or have gold plating.
It is the light of the sun and spiritual light shining from the sun, the
force of the universe and a symbol of honor, reputation and power in all
realms. In all world religions, the golden rule is promulgated as a basic
standard of human conduct.
Sun-deities, solar energies, and masculine energy. Abundant
self confidence, creativity, perfection, wealth, success in investments,
luxury, health, magical power, overcoming bad habits and addictions.
Green is the
color of growing grass and leaves, of emeralds and of jade. In the continuum of colors of visible light,
it is located between yellow and blue.
It is also one of three primary additive colors, along with red and blue,
which, combined in different combinations on a computer or television display,
make all the other colors. Green is the
color most commonly associated with nature, the environmental movement,
Ireland, Islam, spring, hope and envy. You
should eat raw green foods for good health.
Neolithic cave paintings do not have traces of green
pigments, but Neolithic peoples in Northern Europe did make a green dye for
clothing, made from the leaves of the birch tree. It was of very poor quality, more brown than
green. Ceramics from ancient Mesopotamia show people wearing vivid green
costumes, but it is not known how the colors were produced. The
Apache tribe consider the colors green, white, yellow and black to be important
as they also represent four sacred mountains.
For the ancient Egyptians, green had very positive
associations. The hieroglyph for green represented a growing papyrus sprout,
showing the close connection between green, vegetation, vigor and growth. In
wall paintings, the ruler of the underworld, Osiris, was typically portrayed
with a green face, because green was the symbol of good health and rebirth. It is an organic life, the manifested force
of fertility in the earth and in the sea, a sign of earth and nature, passage
between worlds.
Animals typically use the color green as camouflage,
blending in with the chlorophyll green of the surrounding environment. Green animals include amphibians, reptiles and
some fish, birds and insects. Perception
of color can also be affected by the surrounding environment. For example, broadleaf forests typically have
a yellow-green light about them as the trees filter the light. Humans have imitated this by wearing green
clothing as a camouflage in military and other fields.
Elemental earth and elemental water. Nature and fertility
deities, Mother goddesses. Nature, fertility, growth, rejuvenation, recovery,
healing, harvest and abundance, prosperity, harmony, balance, peace, hope,
home, plants and animals. It also often
symbolizes money.
Orange is a color
located between red and yellow on the spectrum of light and in the traditional color
wheel used by painters. Its name is derived from the orange fruit. In Europe and America, orange is commonly
associated with amusement, the unconventional, extroverts, fire, activity,
danger, taste and aroma, the autumn season and Protestantism. In Asia, it is an important symbolic color of
Buddhism and Hinduism.
In ancient Egypt, artists used an orange mineral pigment
called realgar for tomb paintings and other uses. It was also used later by
Medieval artists for the coloring of manuscripts. Pigments were also made in
ancient times from a mineral known as orpiment. Orpiment was an important item
of trade in the Roman Empire and was used as a medicine in China although it
contains arsenic and is highly toxic. It was also used as a fly poison and to
poison arrows. Because of its yellow-orange color, it was also a favorite with
alchemists searching for a way to make gold, both in China and the West.
The high visibility of orange made it a popular color for
certain kinds of clothing and equipment. During the Second World War, U.S. Navy
pilots in the Pacific began to wear orange inflatable life jackets, which could
be spotted by search and rescue planes. After the war, these jackets became
common on both civilian and naval vessels of all sizes, and on aircraft that
flew over water. Orange was also widely worn by workers on highways and by
cyclists to avoid being hit by cars, and for the flights suits of the crews of
the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station.
Orange is a power color. It is one of the healing colors and
is said to increase the craving for food. It also stimulates enthusiasm and
creativity. Orange means vitality with endurance.
Deities of good luck and good fortune. Charm, kindness,
encouragement, stimulation, optimism, success, abundance, prosperity, feast and
celebration, achieving business goals, investments, success in legal matters.
Purple is a
range of hues of color occurring between red and blue. The Oxford
English Dictionary describes it as a deep, rich shade between crimson
and violet. Purple was the color worn by
Roman Emperors and magistrates and later by Roman Catholic bishops. Since that
time, purple has been commonly associated with royalty and piety.
Purple was one of the first colors used in prehistoric art.
The artists of Merle Cave and other Neolithic sites in France used sticks of
manganese and hematite powder to draw and paint animals and the outlines of
their own hands on the walls of their caves. These works have been dated to
between 16,000 and 25,000 BC.
Beginning in about 1500 BC, the citizens of Sidon and Tyre,
the citizens of two cities on the coast of Ancient Phoenicia, (present day
Lebanon), began to exploit a remarkable new source of purple; a sea snail
called the spiny dye-murex. This deep, rich purple dye made from this snail
became known as Tyrian purple, or imperial
purple. The process of
making the dye was long, difficult and expensive. Thousands of the tiny snails
had to be found, left to soak and then a tiny gland was removed and the juice
extracted. Tyrian purple became the
color of kings, nobles, priests and magistrates all around the Mediterranean.
In the 20th century, purple retained its historic connection
with royalty, but at the same time, it was becoming associated with social
change. Purple, green and white were the
colors of the Women's Suffrage movement.
Purple Rain Protest was a protest against apartheid that took place in
Cape Town, South Africa.
Elemental spirits, angels, and Gods of divination and
prophecy. Purple is the color of good judgment and the color people seek for spiritual
fulfillment. Psychic abilities,
divination, counter-acting negativity and black magic, reversing curses,
psychic healing, psychic power, inspiration, meditation, spirituality,
spiritual power, astral projection, third eye.
The Red color ray provides sustenance for the physical body,
gaining entrance by way of the breath. We feel in red - activity.
Red is the color of blood, rubies and strawberries. Next to orange at the end of the visible
spectrum, red is commonly associated with danger, sacrifice, passion, fire,
beauty, blood, anger, Christmas, socialism, communism, and in China and many
other cultures, with happiness.
Late Stone Age people were scraping and grinding ochre, a
clay colored red by iron oxide, probably with the intention of using it to
color their bodies. Red
hematite powder was also found scattered around the remains at a grave site in
a Zhoukoudian cave complex, near Beijing.
The site has evidence of habitation as early as 700,000 years ago.
But, like many colors, it also had a negative association,
with heat, destruction and evil. A prayer
to God Isis said: "Oh Isis, protect me from all things evil and red."
The ancient Egyptians began
manufacturing pigments in about 4000 BC.
Red ochre was widely as a pigment for wall paintings, particularly as
the skin color of men. An ivory
painter’s palette found inside the tomb of King Tutankhamen had small
compartments with pigments of red ochre.
It is for magical might and main, protective power,
spiritual life and vigor, aggressive force. The principal color of the runes
also a sign of death and blood. Red and
blue were common colors in Nordic lands, and red was commonly used on the sails
of the ships (at least those from Scandinavia).
Red is the color most commonly associated with love,
followed at a great distance by pink. It the symbolic color of the heart and the red
rose, is closely associated with romantic love or courtly love and Saint
Valentine's Day. Both the Greeks and the
Hebrews considered red a symbol of love as well as sacrifice.
Elemental fire, deities of love, passion, sexuality and war.
Courage, will-power, determination, speed, assertively, aggression,
masculinity, independence, physical strength, sports, competition, conflicts,
health, sexual attraction and potency, love and passion, fertility.
Silver
Silver is a
metallic color tone resembling gray that is a representation of the color of
polished silver. The visual sensation
usually associated with the metal silver is its metallic shine. This cannot be
reproduced by a simple solid color, because the shiny effect is due to the
material's brightness varying with the surface angle to the light source. In art one would normally use a metallic
paint that glitters like real silver.
Like turquoise, orange and purple, silver has no common rhyme.
The first recorded use of silver
as a color name in English was in 1481.
In English heraldry argent (silver) or white signified brightness,
purity, virtue or innocence.
The disk of the moon, change transmutation, striving for
higher knowledge. A metallic version of white. In folklore, and now later in fiction, silver
is said to do many things, from channel magic, to stopping evil, making magic
mirrors, to turning water into a 'Healing Potion'. Silver, especially if blessed, was thought to
ward off or harm certain supernatural beings (including vampires and
werewolves) since the Middle Ages.
Moon-goddesses, female energy, cycles, rebirth,
reincarnation, healing of hormonal imbalances, emotional stability, remove or
neutralize negativity, intuition, dreams, psychic abilities and psychic workings.
Strictly speaking, white is not a color, but the
manifestation of the presence of all color - the complete energy of light. It stands for wholeness and completion. White is the color of milk and fresh snow. It is the color produced by the reflection,
transmission or emission of all wavelengths of visible light, without
absorption. As a symbol, white is the
opposite of black and often represents light in contrast with darkness.
According to surveys in Europe and the United States, white is the color most
often associated with innocence, perfection, the good, honesty, cleanliness,
the beginning, the new, neutrality, lightness and exactitude.
White was one of the first colors used by Paleolithic
artists; they used lime white, made from ground calcite or chalk, sometimes as
a background, sometimes as a highlight, along with charcoal and red and yellow
ochre in their vivid cave paintings. In
ancient Egypt, white was connected with the Goddess Isis. The priests and
priestesses of Isis dressed only in white linen, and it was used to wrap
mummies.
White is the color associated with ghosts and phantoms. In
the past the dead were traditionally buried in a white shroud. Ghosts are said
to be the spirits of the dead who, for various reasons, are unable to rest or
enter heaven, and so walk the earth in their white shrouds. White is also
connected with the paleness of death.
Seeing a white horse in a dream is said to be presentiment of death.
Today white is the color most associated with cleanliness. Objects which are
expected to be clean, such as refrigerators and dishes, toilets and sinks, bed
linen and towels, are traditionally white. White was the traditional color of
the coats of doctors, nurses, scientists and laboratory technicians, though
nowadays a pale blue or green is often used. White is also the color most often
worn by chefs, bakers, and butchers, and the color of the aprons of waiters in
French restaurants. It is the total
expression of light as the sum of all colors totality, purity, perfection,
nobility, the disk of the sun.
Always burn at least one white candle to symbolize and
reinforce the contact with pure spirit. Elemental spirits, Angels, Gods of
wisdom, divination and prophecy. Purification and cleaning on all levels,
contact with higher self and spiritual helpers, aura-healing, truth seeking,
consecration, spiritual enlightenment, protection against negativity, breaking
curses, exorcism, meditation, divination, inspiration, and clairvoyance. White
can be a replacement for any other color.
Yellow
The Yellow color ray stimulates mental growth by way of the
brain. We think in yellow - wisdom.
Yellow is the color of gold, butter or ripe lemons. In the spectrum of visible light, and in the
traditional color wheel used by painters, yellow is located between green and
orange. Yellow is commonly associated
with gold, wealth, sunshine, reason, happiness, optimism and pleasure, but also
with cowardice, envy, jealousy and betrayal.
Yellow, in the form of yellow ochre pigment made from clay,
was one of the first colors used in prehistoric cave art. The Cave of Lascaux has an image of a horse
colored with yellow estimated to be 17,300 years old. The ancient Romans used yellow in their
paintings to represent gold and also in skin tones. It is found frequently in
the murals of Pompeii.
Yellow was particularly valued in the 20th century because
of its high visibility. It is also often used for warning signs, since yellow
traditionally signals caution. It often
replaced red as the color of fire trucks and other emergency vehicles, and was
popular in neon signs, especially in Las Vegas and in China, where yellow was
the most esteemed color.
Yellow has strong historical and cultural associations in
China, where it is the color of happiness, glory and wisdom. Turmeric, is one of the rare dyes that is
also a spice and food colorant. Saffron
was used to dye the robes of the senior Buddhist monks, while ordinary monks
wore robes dyed with Gamboge or Curcuma longa, also known as Turmeric. The name of the legendary first Emperor of
China, Huang Ti, meant literally 'the Yellow Emperor.'
Yellow, as the color of sunlight, is commonly associated
with warmth. Yellow combined with red symbolized heat and energy. A room painted yellow feels warmer than a
room painted white, and a lamp with yellow light seems more natural than a lamp
with white light. It has Earthly power,
a sign of desire and lust in a will towards manifestation.
Elemental air. Deities for trade, travel, knowledge and
magic. Vitality, change, progress, contact, communication, and trade.
Confidence, joy, cheerfulness, learning, knowledge, mental clarity,
concentration, speaking and writing and visualization.
Blessed Be!
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