Hudson wasn’t the only post copy write author I came across on my last Amazon shopping spree (where my new book can be bought as well – just sayin’). More famous in the spiritual world is Rudolf Steiner, who bubbled up with Theosophy and Gurdjieff in the cross-cultural rush of spiritualism at the turn of the 19th century. This one, How to Know Higher Worlds (1909 ed.), means pretty much what the title says. There are some troubles in it from my perspective, as it instructs one to contact beings of all sorts in the invisible realm, but it largely avoids the horrible pitfalls of another spiritualist of the time, Allister Crowley, whose flirtation with Satanism was as ugly as it sounds. No – with Steiner we are to expand our love for humanity and all things as we grow, in no way transgressing conventional morality along the way. We are to avoid the demonic realm. Just how, I will have to find out on later nights as I finish the book, but there is one peculiarity in his writings that seldom arises in my own contemplation of the spiritual – the importance of colors.
Some time ago I wrote a blog about an anthropological paper that speculated that the ancient Greeks could not see the color blue, so much so that they did not have a word for it. In the Iliad, for instance, the sky is only said to be “bright” – not bright blue, just bright. Behind the article is the linguists’ theory that one sees or notices only those things that are named. How new things come into the cultural conscience happens by intercultural contact or changes in perception of a notable personality – that is, a breakthrough by a local genius. I have argued against this theory in part, but let’s go with it in general, for it is probably true to an extent: we do notice things much more when they have been previously brought to our attention, and most certainly after they have been named.
Steiner takes this much further. In fact, he may have been the one who popularized the notion of auras – that each one of us (and all things) have an aura of color depending on our – or its - level of consciousness. Humans would share in some colors, as we take up a particular niche, but also differ in others, as our personalities and levels of consciousness vary.
As with so many things, once we open the box of an idea, it always gets bigger. For the linguists, they must have at least toyed with the idea that the perception of certain colors might have to do with the level of consciousness of the people in a certain culture. That is, that a certain intellectual or spiritual capacity must first be reached before a color can come to notice. This goes beyond what the researchers stated, and for good reason, as it drags one relentlessly toward the spiritual dimension. But we have to ask: for a people to see blue, what thought process has to change? The change would not be technological, but an interior one that shaped the conscious itself. It would have to emanate from some deep realm that those of us unafraid of materialist ridicule call the spiritual realm. It just might be that Steiner was on to something with his colors.
What, then, of the color blue? What might have changed in the Greek mind for them to be able to perceive it?
I would have to pour over the ancient literature and current ethnologies of the world in depth to be able to answer this question with assurance, but the color blue has a very prominent place in our own civilization, which is partly based on ancient Greek culture. What makes us so different in thought from the Greeks and Romans, however, was the introduction to the West of Judaism and Christianity. And what is prominent in early Christianity is the color blue.
Blue is the sky, and the Judaic concept of Jehovah was as a sky god. But the Greeks had sky gods as well, sitting way up high on Mt Olympus. What changed? I believe it was the concept of women and of the feminine itself – or rather, the recognition of their, and its, importance. Mediterranean cultures in general had, and still largely have, a deification of the mother coupled with a deprecation of the feminine. Mom is a saint, but all you other women, pah! This culture area has long been strongly patriarchal, emphasizing the toughness and strength of the man. That changed with Christianity. Suddenly, it was all about love, about understanding, about peace – all the traits of the perfect mother. It seems to me that Christianity brought femininity out of the house and into the street. It was Mother Mary herself who was publicly deified for these traits, and her color was…blue. Virgin blue. Sky blue; perfect, pure blue.
More facts are needed to prove this particular notion of blue, but since both spiritualists and social scientists agree that color is culturally important and contingent, let’s take the next logical step: that consciousness filters how we perceive the world in general, and in big ways. If our perception of colors is contingent, then so might be our notion of shapes, of natural cycles, and of humans ourselves. Certainly dogs don’t see us as we see ourselves; could, then, our self-perception and our perception of the fundamentals of the universe change with consciousness?
The Roman Catholic apologist Tertullian stated that we were more or less “angels in training.” Could this be our higher, more spiritual form? And could our vision be so altered that the lion will really lay down with the lamb? To what degree might consciousness actually alter what we can see and do, and decide just how we and the whole world will interact?
It is my contention that we are here in the world as we understand it because we share a certain consciousness that forms our world. The color blue, or the lack of it, could alert us to how true this is. Somewhere, from a niche in a church or from a bathtub cut in half, the Virgin Mary might be telling us from the holy blue of her robe that we only have to redirect our minds to change the world. FK
Hudson wasn’t the only post copy write author I came across on my last Amazon shopping spree (where my new book can be bought as well – just sayin’). More famous in the spiritual world is Rudolf Steiner, who bubbled up with Theosophy and Gurdjieff in the cross-cultural rush of spiritualism at the turn of the 19th century. This one, How to Know Higher Worlds (1909 ed.), means pretty much what the title says. There are some troubles in it from my perspective, as it instructs one to contact beings of all sorts in the invisible realm, but it largely avoids the horrible pitfalls of another spiritualist of the time, Allister Crowley, whose flirtation with Satanism was as ugly as it sounds. No – with Steiner we are to expand our love for humanity and all things as we grow, in no way transgressing conventional morality along the way. We are to avoid the demonic realm. Just how, I will have to find out on later nights as I finish the book, but there is one peculiarity in his writings that seldom arises in my own contemplation of the spiritual – the importance of colors.
Some time ago I wrote a blog about an anthropological paper that speculated that the ancient Greeks could not see the color blue, so much so that they did not have a word for it. In the Iliad, for instance, the sky is only said to be “bright” – not bright blue, just bright. Behind the article is the linguists’ theory that one sees or notices only those things that are named. How new things come into the cultural conscience happens by intercultural contact or changes in perception of a notable personality – that is, a breakthrough by a local genius. I have argued against this theory in part, but let’s go with it in general, for it is probably true to an extent: we do notice things much more when they have been previously brought to our attention, and most certainly after they have been named.
Steiner takes this much further. In fact, he may have been the one who popularized the notion of auras – that each one of us (and all things) have an aura of color depending on our – or its - level of consciousness. Humans would share in some colors, as we take up a particular niche, but also differ in others, as our personalities and levels of consciousness vary.
As with so many things, once we open the box of an idea, it always gets bigger. For the linguists, they must have at least toyed with the idea that the perception of certain colors might have to do with the level of consciousness of the people in a certain culture. That is, that a certain intellectual or spiritual capacity must first be reached before a color can come to notice. This goes beyond what the researchers stated, and for good reason, as it drags one relentlessly toward the spiritual dimension. But we have to ask: for a people to see blue, what thought process has to change? The change would not be technological, but an interior one that shaped the conscious itself. It would have to emanate from some deep realm that those of us unafraid of materialist ridicule call the spiritual realm. It just might be that Steiner was on to something with his colors.
What, then, of the color blue? What might have changed in the Greek mind for them to be able to perceive it?
I would have to pour over the ancient literature and current ethnologies of the world in depth to be able to answer this question with assurance, but the color blue has a very prominent place in our own civilization, which is partly based on ancient Greek culture. What makes us so different in thought from the Greeks and Romans, however, was the introduction to the West of Judaism and Christianity. And what is prominent in early Christianity is the color blue.
Blue is the sky, and the Judaic concept of Jehovah was as a sky god. But the Greeks had sky gods as well, sitting way up high on Mt Olympus. What changed? I believe it was the concept of women and of the feminine itself – or rather, the recognition of their, and its, importance. Mediterranean cultures in general had, and still largely have, a deification of the mother coupled with a deprecation of the feminine. Mom is a saint, but all you other women, pah! This culture area has long been strongly patriarchal, emphasizing the toughness and strength of the man. That changed with Christianity. Suddenly, it was all about love, about understanding, about peace – all the traits of the perfect mother. It seems to me that Christianity brought femininity out of the house and into the street. It was Mother Mary herself who was publicly deified for these traits, and her color was…blue. Virgin blue. Sky blue; perfect, pure blue.
More facts are needed to prove this particular notion of blue, but since both spiritualists and social scientists agree that color is culturally important and contingent, let’s take the next logical step: that consciousness filters how we perceive the world in general, and in big ways. If our perception of colors is contingent, then so might be our notion of shapes, of natural cycles, and of humans ourselves. Certainly dogs don’t see us as we see ourselves; could, then, our self-perception and our perception of the fundamentals of the universe change with consciousness?
The Roman Catholic apologist Tertullian stated that we were more or less “angels in training.” Could this be our higher, more spiritual form? And could our vision be so altered that the lion will really lay down with the lamb? To what degree might consciousness actually alter what we can see and do, and decide just how we and the whole world will interact?
It is my contention that we are here in the world as we understand it because we share a certain consciousness that forms our world. The color blue, or the lack of it, could alert us to how true this is. Somewhere, from a niche in a church or from a bathtub cut in half, the Virgin Mary might be telling us from the holy blue of her robe that we only have to redirect our minds to change the world. FK
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