COLOR-!J~'lOW/. .

PiJe
What color is a man's eye attracted to most? What color is a woman's eye attracted to most? Do you know the color preference women have for packaged merchandise? Learn the traditional color symbolism used for centuries by the Hindus for their funeral ceremonies. Do you know what color instincts man has carried over from prehistoric times? Do you know what colors in television and motion pictures most affect your emotions? What color is best for comedy, for tragedy, or relaxation?

ESOTERIC ESSAYS consist of a simple presentation of particularly interesting subjects in the realm of metaphysics and mysticism. The essence of these age-old subjects is introduced for brevity, and yet they are prepared in a manner which, it is hoped, will stimulate the reader to a more extensive inquiry and study of such channels of knowledge.

Issued by Permission of the Department of Publications Supreme Grand Lodge A.M.O.R.C.

Copyright 1973 By Supreme Grand Lodge of A.M.O.R.C.

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380

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IN U.S.A.

COLORIn Your Lile

Wyour thinking, acting, and feeling by the colors that impinge on your mind and consciousness. Colors enter

HETHER

you know it or not, you are influenced in

intimately into all your daily activities. They are used to increase efficiency, promote safety, influence social life and buying habits. Variety is now the trend: Where one color did before, a variety will do better now. The Portland, Oregon, Chamber of Commerce proposed that its city's eight bridges be repainted red, yellow, pink, light gre~, and so on, not alone to beautify them but also to make them tourist attractions. In Worcester, Massachusetts, an arms manufacturer introduced shotgun stocks colored red, green, blue, and yellow to increase their visibility and to make for hunter safety. A Chicago decorating expert advised girls that rooms where red predominates are more exciting and foster romance. According to some psychologists, a woman's eye is most quickly attracted to red; a man's to blue. Package Designer Frank Giannanoti has a unique theory. His opinion is that women shoppers-a large majority of them-refuse to wear glasses in public because they mar their appearance. A package, therefore, to be noticed must stand out from the blurred confusion.

In an experiment carried out by the Color Research Institute, housewives were given sthree different boxes filled with detergent. They were requested to try the samples for a few weeks and then report which was best for delicate clothing. The women were under the impression that they had been given three different types of detergent. Actually only the boxes were diferent; the detergent was identical. The design for one package was predominantly yellow because some merchandisers were convinced that its pronounced visual impact was most effective. Another package was predominantly blue without yellow in it. The third was blue with splashes of yellow. The experiment was effective in establishing women's color preference. The housewives reported that the detergent in the yellow box was too strong. Some even claimed that it ruined their clothes! The detergent in the predominantly blue box, they complained, left their clothes streaked and not too clean. That in the third box-the blue one with splashes of yellow-most felt was the best: It cleaned their clothes and left them in good conditionl According to Color Expert Louis Cheskin, people with many emotional outlets tend to favor muted and neutral colors. They are mainly of the higher educational and income levels. In contrast, the poor and relatively unschooled favor brilliant colors, chiefly orange and red. For people living in slums, colors are the more enticing the closer they are to the rainbow. To promote highway safety, colors are now being used with greater frequency. O. William Schultz, safety engineer and director at West Point, and Gerard C. 2

Deane, who held a similar post at Fort Hamilton, employed by the army, developed a new idea: yellow and red sections of pavement in advance of intersections. The colors are synchronized with caution and stop signs at the edges of the road. A test installation was in use at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, and others were set up at West Point, New York, and on Governor's Island. In accordance with recognized formulas for stopping, the yellow and red segments are set at predetermined distances in advance of intersections. The type of highway surface and the maximum legal speed are some of the main controlling factors. The test installation at Fort Hamilton uses a twelve-foot section of yellow pavement and a twenty-four-foot strip of red road, a fraction of the footage that would be necessary on a main highway. n Interesting Color Theory An interesting color theory advanced by Walter A. Woods, an industrial psychologist, is that the more normal and mature you are, the more sensitive you will be to color and the more you will prefer toneddown combinations. On the other hand, the more disturbed and immature you are, the more you will go for strong colors and contrasts. Mr. Woods finds woman less constant in her color tastes than mano While girls never lose their fascination for drama tic colors, they prefer subtler hues as they grow older. Among men, lifelong colors likes and dislikes tend to be fixed either before or during the period of adolescence. Colors are seen differently in relation to the position of the viewer. When matching colors, you should do

so in an upright position. According to Dr. J. N. Aldington, the way you see colors is affected by the position of your body. Standing upright, you see colors in about the same way with both eyes. Fortunately, this is the usual posture when matching color samples. When you le on your back, your color vision in both eyes is also alke. If you roIl on one side, however, the lower eye is more sensitive to red than is the top one, Dr. Aldington states. The upper eye is more sensitive to blue. If you turn over, the color sensitivities of the two eyes are reversed. The color research laboratory of Sun Chemical Corporation of New York has made extensive studies of the dimension of colors, among them what causes colors to seem to vary in size and distance. Because the focus of the eyes is not the same for aIl colors, the hues of the spectrum appear near or far, large or small. Red, for example, focuses normaIly at a point behind the retina. To see clearly the lens of the eye becomes thick (convex), pulling the color nearer and thus apparently giving it larger size. Conversely, blue is focused normaIly at a point in front of the retina, causing the lens to flatten out and push the color back. That is why blue is sometimes referred to as a "receding" color, and red an "advancing" one. One of the effects of color on apparent size is that the feet look smaIler in black shoes than in white. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Institute for Cooperative Research found that the hue and vividness of an object and the amount of lght it reflects may

make it appear as much as 13.5 percent larger than another object of exactly the same size. These scientists found that white makes an object look larger than a color would, even though white has no color. Red makes anything look larger than does green, even when the green is brighter. We have come to regard different colors as representing light radiations of different wavelengths. The waves in the air giving a "red" sensation as they strike our eyes are about 32-millionths of an inch from erest to crest. Those that we recognize as violet are about 16-millionths of an inch in length. Intermediate colors have wavelengths between these two. All light sensations come from the sun, a mixture of wavelengths embracing the entire visible spectrum. Sunlight itself is colorless. This is not because it does not stimulate the color cells of our retinas, but beca use it stimulates all of them at the same time. To see a definite color we have to isolate light radiations of the approximate wavelength, removing others from the sunlight mixture. The isolated radiations then stimulate the retina cells preferentially, and we -see the light as a definite color. The actual color-detecting processes that take place in the eye are little understood. It is believed that there may be three distinct types of receptor cells in the retina, each influenced preferentially by different wavelengths of light. Red light affects one type of receptor cell, violet light, another. Green light affects the third, but stimulates the other two as well. The effect of other wavelengths is to stimulate these receptor cells to different degrees. Yellow light, for

example, wilI tend to stimulate the red and green receptors, but the blue only sightly. BIue light favors the green and violet ceIls. Having three types of receptor ceIls, aIl stimulated to some extent by most wavelengths, means that the brain detects color in the form of different balances in the intensity of stimuli in the three types of ceIls. We therefore detect mixtures of light radiations in widely differing wavelengths as the same "color." Colors are not fixed and rigid things, but flexible and subtIe; yet they playa very important role in our everyday lives.

Miscellanea
In their tombs and temple decorations the ancient Egyptians used a variety of colors. Sir Gardner Wilkinson, noted Egyptologist, relates that the Egyptians used principaIly red, green, black, and yeIlow. Por a considerable time they did not have black. When they discovered how to produce it, they then used black extensively. YeIlow was often used to harmonize with it. Some of the races of mankind had no names for the colors which they used. There is, however, no doubt about their distinguishing such colors. Por example, the Assyrians had no name for green; certain East African tribes have no name for purple. Shiny objects, that which glistens, as a piece of metal or a pebble, wilI seem to please the aborigine. Perhaps this attraction was first due to the intensity of light as a stimulus of high importance. Shiny objects were

undoubtedly the first things that were considered beautiful. Even today modern man is influenced by this primitive urge for the bright and shiny in objects he purchaseseven if such are intended for utilitarian purposes. The chrome decorations on automobiles and many home accessories are examples of this primitive esthetic taste. The love of gems and glistening stones is likewise a primitive carry-over in addition to whatever significance custom attributes to them.

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There are, however, variables that must be taken into consideration where esthetics are concerned. Color preference is related to environment. For example, the Chinese do not react to the same colors as do the Americans or English. A story is told that before Communism prevailed in China, a gasoline station was painted white and did very little business. To the Chinese, white suggests death and sorrow. After a change in its color, the gasoline station increased its sales. Of course, we know the effect of color in advertising-how it arouses certain desires or reactions ...

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In India, and to Hindus in particular, yellow is a symbolic color. Marigold flowers are placed on corpses before they are immersed in the sacred Ganges and cremated. The Rosicrucian Camera Expedition filmed such a rite at Benares, the sacred city of the Hindus, where the placing of these marigold flowers on deceased Brahmans was common. In J apan, red is considered one of the most auspicious colors, and has for centuries been used on the exteriors of shrines and temples. 7

In a color therapy room in addition to other treatments given, certain patients are obliged to lie in this room for a time, exposed to colored lights which tint the room. Music is played which has an emotional relationship to the color used. Many patients find relief from tension under certain particular color combinations. Lectures and demonstrations on this subject are part of one of the fascinating courses that are given each summer at Rose-Croix University in Rosicrucian Park, San J ose, California. A few years ago, Stanford University in California, conducted experiments in connection with colors and their effects upon motion picture audiences and spectators at theaters. Dr. Robert Ross found that: "Gray, blue, and purple were associated with tragedies. Yellow, orange, and red complimented the comedy sense. Red was also suggestive of great, dramatic intensity; gray and purple were the next most effective." The motion picture director, William A. Welmann, had, it is related, an interesting theory in connection with the emotions induced by colors. He thought that color was related to "primitive environment association." Mr. Welmann made a chart of the emotional equivalents of colors. These color and emotional relations he used in some of his successful films. The following information is from his chart: Black-night, negative, glumness White-snow, uplift, purity Gray-rain, fog, old age, decadence Blue-sky, the sea, thought, inspiration Green-leaves, foliage, springtime, health, welfare Red-blood, sunrise, sunset, combat, life, vigor

The Rosicrucians

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to share the useful knowledge which makes life more enjoyable and free of much of the doubt and confusion that beset the average man and woman today. The Rosicrucians are a nonsectarian fratemity, devoted to an investigation of the high principIes of life as expressed in man and nature. The so-called mysteries of life and death, of the inequalities of people, and of the purpose of our existence here are removed by the sensible exposition of the Rosicrucian teachings. The age-old truths expounded by the Rosicrucians provide men and women with such useful knowledge of the cosmic principIes as makes it possible for them to master their lives instead of drifting with the years. You will be amazed at your own potentialities and the opportunities afforded you to realize your fondest hopes and dreams. No change in your personal or social affairs is required. Write today for the free booklet, The Mastery of Life, which explains who and what the Rosicrucians are and moreover how they can help you with your own life. Address: SCRIBE R. F. F.

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