1) Cayce on Color

[Guest guest]

_Color and the Edgar Cayce Readings_, by Roger Lewis, A.R.E. Press, 1973

 

Chapter One

WHAT IS COLOR?

 

Many theories have been expounded on the subject of how to use color

for healing, for personality identification, and for effective color

harmony in wearing apparel and in our environment. Medical science tends to

discount the possibility of any value in color as a healing agent.

Psychologists and psychiatrists, on the other hand, have made extensive use

of color in the analysis of mental illness. However, their findings, based

on the continued observation of patients, deal basically with the negative

or destructive personality traits and emotions.

We canndt live without color. This essence of the life force is all

about us. It can make chills run up and down the spine or quicken the soul.

If we step into an air-conditioned room which has been painted gray we will

undoubtedly complain because it is too cold; yet if the color is orange we

will feel most comfortable. Psychologists say that tasks which require

muscular effort will be best performed in an environment of warm colors

which stimulate and speed up the pulse. If a task involves mental

concentration, the calm atmosphere of tranquil blues and greens will serve

best.

We can separate the color spectrum into two basic groups: the

exciting, vibrant red-orange-yellow group; and the passive, calm blue-green

group. Individuals who favor the first group are more likely to be

extroverts - easily influenced, impressionable and social. There is a great

possibility that those who favor the second group will have an attitude of

detachment, showing greater interest in themselves than in the world about

them. Naturally quiet, they will probably be deliberate and introspective.

Blue is preferred more often by introverts and conservative people,

red by extroverts. Yellow is the choice of the intellectual, while

well-balanced individuals choose green. Faber Birren, in his book, _Color

in Your World_, suggests that there may be a third personality type,

"ambiverts." Artistic persons usually thrive on purple.

We react to color at an unconscious level and acknowledge color

symbolism in the idioms of our language. Some people paint the town red,

become entangled in red tape, must read only red-hot news and may turn

purple with rage if they can't find a red cent in their pockets. A novice

may be green even though he is a blue-blood and once in a blue moon he may

feel blue. Through it all he may even be true-blue.

A policeman in anything but blue wouldn't seem the same. Red is

universally accepted as a danger or stop sign while yellow means caution or

quarantine. We mourn in black, identify red and green with Christmas, green

with medicine and purple with law. Color is undoubtedly one of the most

dominating influences in our day-to-day existence and yet it is an

influence we take very much for granted.

Scientists tell us that we receive all knowledge of the universe

through electromagnetic radiation. What we see with the eye alone - visible

light - comprises only a very narrow band of that electromagnetic spectrum.

There is a dual property to the nature of light: it acts in a pattern of

long and short waves and in a particulate or corpuscular form.

Generally, there is a very close relationship between electromagnetic

radiation and the atomic structure of matter. The atom is made up of a

series of electrons revolving about a central nucleus. Now and then one of

these orbiting electrons is released, or there is a radical alteration of

the nucleus itself, thereby creating waves of energy. The direction of this

electromagnetic radiation, or light, which fills the vacuum of space, is

affected by powerful gravitational fields. It is also capable of being bent

or refracted.

When visible light - that almost infinitesimal segment of energy waves

out of the total spectrum of electromagnetic radiation - is passed through

a prism, or is refracted (bent) or is reflected from a grating which has

been marked with a series of fine lines, it is spread into rainbow-like

colors - a spectrum sequence ranging from short wavelengths to long

wavelengths: violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red.

This field of energy is all about us. What we perceive as a result of

this energy is illusion - only the energy itself is real. Color does not

exist in actuality. It is only a sensation in our consciousness. In other

words, what we see with our eyes is not the object itself but is a series

of various wavelengths of light, traveling at the same rate of speed, being

reflected from the object. The object itself is colorless. Some wavelengths

are absorbed by the object while others are reflected. The atomic and

molecular structure of a yellow object, for instance, is such that it

absorbs all wavelengths except yellow, which is reflected to the eye. We

are affected by these wavelengths of light, or color, as the vibration is

passed on to the brain or to that portion of the cerebral cortex at the

back of the head that is known as the striate area.

The only colors recognized as "real" for three centuries have been

those that Sir Isaac Newton saw and reported in 1672 when he passed a

narrow stream of sunlight through a prism. Since then each of the seven

spectral colors he saw, from violet to red, have been assigned to a

definite segment of the spectrum, whose wavelength is commonly measured in

millimicrons.

Newton identified and called what he saw the seven "homogeneal"

colors: violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. The

cornerstone of all color theory today has remained essentially the same as

his proposition that "Light consists of rays differently refrangible. To

the same degree of refrangibility ever belongs the same degree of

refrangibility."

More simply, then, every red-colored light, when passed through a

prism, will be bent to the same degree characterizing all red light, having

a definite range of wavelengths. Each color, consequently, has its own

wavelength, with violet having the shortest visible wave-length and each

color in order being longer, down to red, which has the longest visible

wavelength.

Newton went on to show that objects appear to be colored because they

absorb certain wavelengths and reflect others, and that it is the reflected

rays that reach the eye, indicating shape, form and color. He demonstrated

further that there is a complementary color for each color and that the

approximation of white light could be achieved through the combination of

any two complementary colors. Newton, himself, was unable to produce a pure

white, but others who continued to experiment with his theories were able

to do so.

By mixing the light from any two colors in his spectrum, Newton was

able to produce a color which was intermediate, i.e., yellow, by mixing red

and green light; cyan (blue-green) from blue and green light; and purple (a

color not thought to be in the spectrum at all) by mixing red and blue

light. The primary colors used in this experiment are referred to as

_additive_ primaries: red, blue and green. On the other hand, the mixing of

pigments which produce the reflected

light of _subtractive_ primary colors - red, blue and yellow - creates

purple from red and blue, green from blue and yellow, and orange from

yellow and red.

We note, in reference to Newton's producing a yellow by mixing red and

green, that this has to do with mixing red and green "light" rather than

pigment. The sensation of yellowness is somewhat of a phenomenon and is

thought to be due to a simultaneous stimulation of both the red- and

green-sensitive cones in the retina. This is based upon the three-color

theory of vision, a theory developed by others from Newton's reverse

prismatic experiments attempting to produce white by combining the light of

all seven colors of the spectrum, and then by combining the lights of

complementary colors. When light touches the eye, each separate cone reacts

in accordance with its sensitivity as well as the make-up of the

light-waves, and there is complete color sensation produced in the brain as

a result of the three responses. This is illustrated in the production of a

yellow sensation through the mixture of pure red light (containing no true

yellow light) with pure green light (likewise containing no yellow light).

This theory assumes that the eye contains no actual yellow-sensitive cones.

This is similar to what happens when one stares at a spot of red for a

moment or two. When the red spot is removed, a green spot seems to take its

place.

The conditions under which we see color is the first question that

must be dealt with in any theory of color. Newton's explanation,

embellished through continued theorizing by others, is the basis of our

understanding of color today, but Newton, the physicist, had very little

concern for the physiological activities of the organs involved in the

sensation of color - the eye and the brain.

Thomas Young, the English physicist and physician, came up with a

hypothesis in 1801 that there are three types of receptors, or nerve

endings, in the eye and that each is sensitive to one of the three primary

colors: red, green and blue. His idea was lost for fifty years, however,

until the great German scientist, Helmholtz, picked it up and made it an

integral part of classical color theory even though it was unproved.

Another brilliant physicist in the mid-1800s, J. Clerk Maxwell, developed

and demonstrated a mathematical formula for mixing the primary colors to

produce any desired hue. He also produced the world's first color

photograph in 1855 by combining individual black and white plates which had

been exposed through red, green and blue filters. His original

demonstration led to the development of modern color photography techniques

and to color television.

It was further suggested that there must be some sort of "fatigue"

mechanism, within the eye or its nerve connections to the brain, which

reverses itself in order to effect a complementary afterimage. An easy way

to see this color in an objective sense is to concentrate on a brightly

colored spot for about three minutes. The afterimage of the spot will

_appear_ as its complementary color when the spot is removed. For example,

if the spot is red, the afterimage will be blue-green. Although this

concept was acceptable, color experiences that could not be made to fit

into the Newtonian concept were considered to be psychological distortions

or untrue.

Edwin Land, of Polaroid-Land Corporation, challenged classicai color

theory at its very foundations around 1955. He took up Maxwell's

three-color system and was immensely astonished to find that there was no

need of the blue record of the original scene. He discovered that he could

project the shorter wavelength, green, without a filter and yet come up

with a most satisfactory color picture. After his successful demonstration,

Land learned that his system had been discovered as early as 1914.

Evidently disbelief had caused the method to be ignored and forgotten, for

classical color had no provision for such a phenomenon.

Since Newton, many theories as to how vision and color operate have

been expounded. None of them is conclusive. Dr. Max Luscher, the eminent

Swiss psychologist, differs somewhat from the Cayce readings when he

discounts instinctive and reactive response to color and attributes it

entirely to development and education. Birren writes that "color

preferences are innate in most individuals. In other words, you were born

with a liking for particular colors, and what you feel about them will

probably last throughout your life."

Man is not only surrounded with color but also has a love for it. He

expresses his emotions through color and has made it an almost commonplace

aspect of his life. Whether he realizes it or not, contemporary man has

assimilated, with historical consistency, the character and whim of color

as it relates to both divine and human meaning, mysticism, the riddles of

life and death and the puzzling ways of creation.

There is little, if any, doubt that all living things are affected

by visible light and color in one way or another. We all know from simple

observation that visible light is necessary for the growth of plant life,

and numerous experiments indicate that growth is restrained by ultraviolet

and infrared wavelengths. Most medical scientists on the other hand, may

not admit that wavelengths or vibrations visible to the human eye have any

useful purpose to the human organism other than sight, although it does

make use of infrared and ultraviolet radiation in the treatment of certain

physiological conditions.

The Edgar Cayce readings, in addition to confirming scientific

theories insofar as they have gone, pick up where the scientists have left

off and tell us what happens to color vibrations within the physical body,

whether these vibrations are received from an external source or are

generated by the cells within.

Later chapters discuss the individual colors in relationship to each

of the seven endocrine glands and suggest that with each of the seven

colors, as with every action we take, we have a choice: we can use each

color vibration constructively or we can use it destructively. We can use

it in harmony with the Creative Forces or we can use it for selfish or

self-satisfying purposes.

> As has been indicated, these are channels, these are

>opportunities. For

> what purpose? For fame or fortune alone? or that ye may be a helpful

> influence? If the motives are selfish, little success. If they are for the

> universal forces or sources, that God may be the greater glory in the

>lives

> of others through thine own feeble effort, then success. For know, ye

> alone with the Lord are a _great_ majority!

>1494-1