ALTHOUGH personal character determines certain prevalent and more or less permanent colors, the human aura expands and varies in colors and hues according to the nature and the intensity of man’s thoughts and emotions, every thought having its effect. Thus the aura reflects absolutely what is transpiring within. In-deed, Occultists say, ” The astral man, whose color is determined by his evolutionary progress, is the real man.” The clearness of the thought-form depends upon the thinking; if one is vivid, so will the other be; and the purity and beauty of the colors depends upon the purity and virtue of the thought. Indefinite thoughts make forms as cloudy and vague as the forces whence they emanate. In such cases, the colors blend indistinctly. The dreamer to ” dream true must picture clearly. No effect is greater than its cause.
Of all psychic conditions no other is so infectious as depression, which grays all colors till indigo absorbs them. Worry, anxiety, and irritation also degrade the colors; vicious passions and vices pollute them. All degradation of colors by graying and browning changes and lowers their signification and coarsens their atomic structure. In every color this change is the seal of intense egoism, and usually of absorption in things material, in sordid and selfish interests.
Remember that Nature works the same on all her planes. God placed in her hands the implement of vibratory Force, and through the varied character of these vibrations she chisels all forms, making fine forces visible through their color which proclaims their character and effect. We have the reflection of all the ” Forty-nine Fires within us. It is a comforting thought that the possibility of every color, every hue, every tone therefore of all perfection is within. Verily a bewilderingly complex creature is man.
It is this variety of color which makes possible such a range of vocal power especially influenced by spas, the water vibration for every modulation of tone is the effect of a distinctive modification of form through Tattvic permutations; and hence has its special shade, tint, or hue of color. Different tints are produced by mingling a color with white; shades, by darkening or deepening with indigo or black; and hues, by the blending of color with color, which gives us green-blues, yellow-greens, and reddish-blues. Râma Prasâd says, ” Various diseases may be cured, and good and bad tendencies imprinted on the Prana ,by the power of sound;” because sound imparts to the vital force its own colors, modified only in degree by the individual Prâna upon which susceptibility depends. Do you realize when listening to music that every tone has its distinguishing color and throws the ether and the air into vibrations of exquisite form, and thereby affects for good or ill the hearer?
Thus, a Tejas-colored song rouses heat and excitement (as witness the effect of all patriotic songs), and may provoke intense emotion. The Akasha-colored song deepens melancholy and may cause fear and forgetfulness; and as every emotion of the human heart has its color, the sound of that color tends to rouse its corresponding emotion. The important science of color therapeutics, or chromopathy is based upon this fact, as also all musical therapeutics, or ” medical music ” as the cult was called when first revived a hundred years ago.
The part that sound plays in our lives is so de preciated, so profoundly misunderstood, that too great emphasis cannot be given to these particulars; and repetition must be pardoned, for some minds can be reached only by such reiteration.
Here is a good maxim to be given a prominent place in the home :
Sound is ever creating something. Shall it be evil or good?
A few years ago, when the National Society of Musical Therapeutics was formed in New York, the newspapers took the usual lively interest in developing a ” sensation,” and interviewed many prominent physicians to obtain ” views” on the subject. The ignorance developed was amazing. One of the most noted nerve-specialists ( ?) in town said: ” I have found music attractive to idiots, degenerates, and persons of abnormal temperaments; but I do not regard it as a therapeutic agent. . . . A sonata of Beethoven’s may benefit a lunatic, but in that case so would the rattle of elevated railroad trains.” Thus this so learned specialist is unable to distinguish between building and disintegrating sounds between harmony and disrupturing discord and is absolutely deaf and blind to their corresponding effects upon the nerves, man’s sound-register !
Every tone of the human voice, whether in speech or song, shares with the thought it expresses in the effect upon the vital currents and their emanations in the auras. It affects instantly the aura of the speaker, then influences those of his hearers. Therefore is the training of the speaking voice of highest importance in the perfecting of the individual. ” If the words we utter bear the color of the Agni Tattva [Tejas] — anger, love, lust our Prâna is colored red, and this redness turns upon ourselves. It may burn up our substance, we may look lean and lank, we may have ten thousand other diseases. Terrible retribution of angry words ! If our words are full of divine love and adoration, kindness and morality, words which give pleasure and satisfaction to whosoever hears than – the colors of the Prithivi and the AA pas we become loving and beloved, adoring and adored, kind and moral, pleasing and pleased, satisfying and ever satisfied (Nature’s Finer Forces).
As I quote the above, there is brought to my attention a most interesting result from experiments in chick-breeding in a great hennery which is con-ducted strictly upon psychological principles. From the hour the eggs (over 400) are placed in the incubator, the same attendant cares for them, turning and cooling them; and as he handles the eggs, he talks to them, telling them the germ of life is there, they must be good little chicks, and will come out of their shells in so many days, whatever it be. Like clock-work, on the twenty-first day, every chick peeps forth from its shell; and here is the point that bears upon our study: If the attendant be changed and a strange voice greet these just-hatched babies, they are panic-stricken and flee about wildly for refuge; but the voice that has talked to them through the shell for twenty- one days, has power to reassure them and restore confidence. Hearing it, every baby-chick turns toward the voice, begins to ” cheep” happily, and to pick up food.
The hens in this model hennery are played to violin music on wet and gloomy days to keep up their spirits; and the record of egg-laying proves that it is an effective stimulant. It is well-known that hens are greatly frightened by disturbing noises, the barking of dogs, thunder, fire-works, and other explosives. Is not want of care in this respect a fruitful source of the many failures in chicken-raising?
When told that the color of a tone affects the nerves, hold in mind the fact that color and sound are the visible and audible effects of particular energies. It is the vibration which produces the given effect, whether it be our eyes or our ears which receive it and transmit it over our nerves; and the varied effects produced upon human beings by the same color or music are due to the modifications of individual idiosyncrasies, the peculiar colors active within and hence pulsating through-out every person’s aura. Nature’s seal, determining the key, modifies the response to external stimulants.
While the ability to distinguish the varied colors in the auras of our fellows is still an exceptional gift, it is at the option of all to test the power of visible color to affect, favorably or unfavorably, the whole complex human being; that is, to act upon him physically as a stimulant or sedative of organic functions; and to affect him mentally and spiritually as well.
The benefit derived from surrounding yourself with a certain color or wearing it is, that the objective presence of the color aids greatly in visualizing it internally, and by thinking the color till it is vividly present to your mental consciousness, you connect yourself with the Tattvic currents of that color and draw them to you to furnish the right substance for subconscious activity, which you by this means consciously direct. Thus you actively accelerate the beneficent work of the needed Tattvas; and in this way, rightly applied, color becomes a powerful aid in mental therapeutics.
The colors most commonly seen in the so-called Tattvic aura (really a misnomer, because all is Tattvic) are, from the skin outward, luminous pearl-white, blue, violet, yellow, red; or in reversed order from the luminous band. But there are many variations, as, orange-yellow, bright line, blue, orange-yellow, and red ; or dark line (indigo?), red, yellow, blue, and lavender-violet, and these changes in order and in colors are of course indicative of characteristic activities. With every change of Tattvic and Prânic currents the intensity of the colors varies; the physical condition of vitality or fatigue is also plainly marked, and this whole chromatic band pulsates in rhythm with the breathing; broadening with expiration, and de-creasing with inspiration. I think myself, though I have neither seen nor heard the fact conjectured, that this one phenomenon proves the ” Tattvic aura ” to be the psychic breath between the dense and subtle bodies (the Sthula-and Sûkshma-shariras).
The Tattvic currents split at the pulse and run up the fingers separately in the regular order, from thumb to little finger, of Akasha, Vâyu, Tejas, Apas and Prithivi. The air (Pâyu) Tattva dominates the whole hand as the index-finger does its mates, and gives to it its remarkable tactile delicacy, its suppleness and dexterity. By examination of the pulse-vibrations and the finger auras, the Hindu physican discovers which Tattva is disordered and diagnoses the consequent disease accordingly. His index-finger is sensitive to any preponderance of ” wind ” in the body; his middle-finger (Tejas), to an excess of bile, and his ring-finger, to the condition of the phlegm.
Musical sounds affect the Tattvic aura, intensifying not so much the existing colors as their lines of conjunction, the neutral point and especially, the luminous band lying next the skin, which is mainly Akâshic. This effect is not emotional, but indicates the inevitable mechanical, rhythmic connection of sound vibrations. I believe all crashing, tumultuous, warring noise causes a similar but greater disturbance, and that the irritating effect upon the nerves begins right here, the shock tangling the vibrations and even loosening the connection between the gross and subtle bodies. Emotional influences from music are much more powerful than these mere rhythmic disturbances in the color-changes induced throughout the aura.
The lower auras, Tattvic, Etheric double, and Kinzie, extend farther out in the order named, and follow in shape all the outlines of the dense body. The three highest auras have the ovoid outlines of the Auric Envelope; and the aura of Lower Manas ” intermediate in form as in Nature”
while ovoid follows the sinuosities of the visible body, especially the movements of the head and shoulders. The Etheric double has its own Tattvic aura reflecting faintly the colors and geometrical figures of that playing upon the surface of the dense body. Any physical disturbance which is immanent can be seen in this form-body, which is literally a shadow of the future. Thus, a lady, having a fair complexion, sat for her photograph and was amazed to see that her face in the negative was covered with specks. The next day she fell ill with small-pox ! The camera had caught the Etheric-body.
It is in the Kamic and the two Manasic auras that color plays most vividly and proclaims unmistakably the man within; for these are the de-sire and thought vehicles wherein the influences dominating and swaying the man set their seal of energy. The color is the outward indication of the force either used within, drawn by desire, or generated in that mightiest engine for good or ill a man’s brain!
Dr. Marques says: ” Through the two Manasic auras expert observers can clearly see the fleeting impressions produced by the general thought-currents [universal prevalent opinions] ; impressions which vary according to the receptivity of man’s corresponding Principle.” It is in the Lower Manasic aura that the psychic reads the past events in the life of the subject, for the negatives are all imprinted here.
I think it is a mistake to speak of these auras as emanations from the different sheaths; for I believe they are the sheaths themselves, all together making up the aura, and filling the Auric Envelope. Thus instead of many auras, we have simply the sheaths of the Principles composing the septenary man, showing in the aura exactly how they interblend; which Principle is most active, and how through increasing refinement of the component elements, the sheaths extend farther out, manifesting the same increasing subtlety of structure from within outward that we see in the physical body from Prithivi, in the bones, to Vâyu in the skin. If we hold this picture in mind, we have an exact correspondence in form and activities between man within his Auric Egg and the minutest atom. The earth, from its core to its outer atmosphere, furnishes a like correspondence.
The Kâmic sheath of the undeveloped man is a cloudy mass of dense coarse atoms, ” fit to respond to all the stimuli connected with passions and appetites.” Brickish-browns, hot inflaming reds, and murky greens are the predominant hues, with a trace of dingy yellow about the head. Mrs. Besant says (Ancient Wisdom) : ” There is no play of light or quickly changing flashes of colors through this astral body; but the various passions show themselves as heavy surges, or, when violent as flashes; thus sexual passion will send a wave of muddy crimson, rage a flash of lurid red.
The centers of the organs of sense are definitely marked, and are active when worked on from without, but in quiescence the life-streams are sluggish.” At this stage, growth must come from outward stimuli, and often suffering, either physical or mental, is needed to rouse from a life of stupid inertia.
All good and unselfish emotions are steps in ethical and mental progress that improve this sheath by refining its constituent particles. Its outlines grow clearer and finer; characteristic colors be-gin to assert themselves as fixed factors; though changing, ebbing and rippling, under the impulse of consciously directed thoughts and activities. Sudden ecstasies of pure exalted affection fill the whole Kâmic sheath with whirling thought-forms of purest, luminous crimson, while a flush of translucent rose-color veils all the throbbing, pulsating hues beneath.