What is the least magickal colour?
By Psyche | December 10, 2010 | Print This Post | E-mail This Post | 19 Comments
A friend recently posed a similar question1 and various answers were given, but the least magickal colour seems, to me, to be white.
The white of a blank page suggests potential, which is nice, but not magickal.
There has never seemed anything particularly magickal about the “white lighter” side of things either, for that matter. Unattainable mystical aspirations and intangibles don’t strike me as useful. If an objective observer wouldn’t notice anything different, it’s mysticism or spirituality, possibly, but it’s not magick.
Magick is about getting things done, not about what could be. The dirt and splash of every other colour better suggest magickal action than an untainted white.
So, that’s my answer. What do you think is the least magickal colour, and why?
Footnotes:
- She asked which was the least mystical colour, but I’m more interested in magick than mysticism, so this is my variation on the question. [back]
Psyche is the editor of ahrfoundation.org and the curator for the occult resource SpiralNature.com, Psyche also operates a tarot consultation business, Psyche Tarot. She has been published in The Cauldron, Konton, Tarot World Magazine, among other magazines, and her essay “Strategic Magick” appeared in Manifesting Prosperity (Megalithica, 2008).
Psyche's website is http://www.ahrfoundation.org.
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I agree. In our circles, in addition to the four cardinal directions, we also address “up,” and “down.” Down represents the past, the foundations, the shoulders of giants upon which we stand. We use the color, white, to represent down, because it is that which has already come to light. Black represents up, that which is above us, our goals and star toward which we are reaching and moving. Black represents magic, the night sky, and infinite possibilities waiting to manifest.
I was going to suggest polka dots, but the Golden Dawn has found uses for that, too. Hehe.
Oh, no doubt at all: dull, plebeian, rainy day grey. The colour of a sky that has been pouring down in a continuous stream for eighteen hours straight without a hint of sun peeking through the whole time. The colour of boredom and sheer no fun misery, where nothing can cut through the aura of despair that hangs over everything, sapping all the life and joy out of the world.
Grey is a corpse colour; a vampire colour; a Borg colour, and it lives to assimilate you and everything bright and colourful. Resistance is futile.
Also a good answer. I like grey, I like its mist and obfuscation, but for those very reasons it’s certainly in the running.
I’m a fan of the dull-winter-gray. To me it speaks of endurance magick, of vigil magick.
For myself I’d have to go with dull browns. Great for decorating a study maybe, but “earthy” magick has never really done anything for me. Weirdly enough, this is separate in my mind from the “green” magick of plants, which I’m rather fond of =)
Hmm… I honestly can’t think of a non-magickal colour. Why not use white to bring things back to a blank slate? That sounds like it could work some pretty potent magick, actually…
Not a non-magickal colour, the least magickal colour.
(And yes, that does sound like a good idea…)
Ahh, yes… Alright, it just came to me! I’ll go with some shade of beige.
Cubical beige, especially.
*Shudder* actually, thinking about it, beige has quite an effect on me.
Hmmm. The trouble with this question is, “least magickal for what purpose?” For the sake of the argument, let’s say that we use Golden Dawn-ish qabalistic color correspondences: grey can be associated with Chockmah magic (creativity, wisdom, male energy), brown with Malkuth (material goals, riches, construction), white with Kether (spirituality, God, divine spark). Of course, it’s a pearlym iridescent grey, rich browns, etc.; drab colors really are not very magickal… unless the purpose is some kind of camouflage.
It’s a fair point. I was thinking subjectively, what is the least magickal for you (or me, etc.)
Ahhhh. Well, subjectively for me, the least magickal color is cement gray.
Just to complete the argument: if you want a quick, rational mind and eloquence, orange (Hod/Mercury) will be the most magickal color, and the least magickal will be, I don’t know, purple (Yesod/Moon), which will be the most magickal color for dreams, imagination, sleep, etc.
I’m not sure I understand the point of this question.
Where do you define the boundaries between colors? If you go play with a prism and a sunbeam for a while, can you define where green ends and blue begins? If green is less magical than blue, where is that boundary drawn? Does it match the visual boundary?
All of that came from white light. Where is the boundary between the original white sunbeam and the prism’s rainbow?
Is there a meaningful distinction?
To step it up a notch, leave the prism inside, go out on a rainy day, and look for a thousand colors in the cloudy skies. If grey is “least” magical, is there no magic in the bringing of the rain?
There is no serious point. Just a frivolous question asked on a Friday afternoon.
Surprisingly no-one’s suggested octrine.
White seems magickal enough for me. Make it intense enough, and it can burn, cleanse, heal, blind (you know that Saramago novel?…), hurt, enlighten you or drive you mad.
I don’t know. I like Hierax’s answer; it’s a matter of what are you using it for. I don’t think there is a color more or less magickal than others.
@redsixwing: Your point looks excessively rational to me. Maybe you can’t define exactly where green ends and blue begins, but unless you’re colorblind, you have a mental picture of “blue” and “green”, and that will evoke diferent kinds of energies, emotions and associations. That is enough for a magickal purpose.
@Alex Ku: Good point; I’m probably drawing distinctions overly fine. *s*
Actually what you said is true, but we can do with the other side of the truth :)