Color in Your Life

8/12/2019 Color in Your Life

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O LOR~ l O W / P i J e

What color is a man's eyeattracted to most? Whatcolor is a woman's eyeattracted to most? Do youknow the color preferencewomen have for packagedmerchandise?Learn the traditionalcolor symbolism used forcenturies by the Hindusfor their funeral cere-monies.Do you know what colorinstincts man has carriedover from prehistorictimes?Do you know what colorsin television and motionpictures most affect youremotions? What color isbest for comedy, fortragedy, or relaxation?


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Issued by Permissionof theDepartment of Publications

Supreme Grand LodgeA.M.O.R.C.

ESOTERIC ESSAYS consist of a simple presen-tation of particularly interesting subjects in therealm of metaphysics and mysticism. Theessence of these age-old subjects is introducedfor brevity, and yet they are prepared in a man-ner which, it is hoped, will stimulate the readerto a more extensive inquiry and study of suchchannels of knowledge.

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

G 24 380 PRINTED IN U S A


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OLORIn Your Lile

WHETHER you know it or not, you are influenced inyour thinking, acting, and feeling by the colors thatimpinge on your mind and consciousness. Colors enterintimately into all your daily activities. They are usedto increase efficiency, promote safety, influence sociallife and buying habits.

Variety is now the trend: Where one color did be-fore, a variety will do better now. The Portland, Ore-gon, Chamber of Commerce proposed that its city'seight bridges be repainted red, yellow, pink, light gre~,and so on, not alone to beautify them but also to makethem tourist attractions.

In Worcester, Massachusetts, an arms manufacturerintroduced shotgun stocks colored red, green, blue, andyellow to increase their visibility and to make for huntersafety. A Chicago decorating expert advised girls thatrooms where red predominates are more exciting andfoster romance.

According to some psychologists, a woman's eye ismost quickly attracted to red; a man's to blue. PackageDesigner Frank Giannanoti has a unique theory. Hisopinion is that women shoppers-a large majority ofthem-refuse to wear glasses in public because they martheir appearance. A package, therefore, to be noticedmust stand out from the blurred confusion.


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In an experiment carried out by the Color ResearchInstitute, housewives were givensthree different boxesfilled with detergent. They were requested to try thesamples for a few weeks and then report which wasbest for delicate clothing. The women were under theimpression that they had been given three differenttypes of detergent. Actually only the boxes were di-ferent; the detergent was identical.

The design for one package was predominantly yellowbecause some merchandisers were convinced that itspronounced visual impact was most effective. Anotherpackage was predominantly blue without yellow in it.The third was blue with splashes of yellow.

The experiment was effective in establishing women'scolor preference. The housewives reported that thedetergent in the yellow box was too strong. Some evenclaimed that it ruined their clothes The detergent inthe predominantly blue box, they complained, left theirclothes streaked and not too clean. That in the thirdbox-the blue one with splashes of yellow-most feltwas the best: It cleaned their clothes and left them ingood conditionl

According to Color Expert Louis Cheskin, peoplewith many emotional outlets tend to favor muted andneutral colors. They are mainly of the higher educa-tional and income levels. In contrast, the poor andrelatively unschooled favor brilliant colors, chieflyorange and red. For people living in slums, colorsare the more enticing the closer they are to the rainbow.

To promote highway safety, colors are now beingused with greater frequency. O. William Schultz, safetyengineer and director at West Point, and Gerard C.


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Deane, who held a similar post at Fort Hamilton, em-ployed by the army, developed a new idea: yellow andred sections of pavement in advance of intersections.The colors are synchronized with caution and stop signsat the edges of the road. A test installation was inuse at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, and others were setup 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 predetermineddistances in advance of intersections. The type of high-way surface and the maximum legal speed are some ofthe main controlling factors. The test installation atFort Hamilton uses a twelve-foot section of yellow pave-ment and a twenty-four-foot strip of red road, a fractionof the footage that would be necessary on a mainhighway.n nteresting olor Theory

An interesting color theory advanced by Walter A.Woods, an industrial psychologist, is that the morenormal and mature you are, the more sensitive youwill be to color and the more you will prefer toned-down combinations. On the other hand, the moredisturbed and immature you are, the more you will gofor strong colors and contrasts.Mr. Woods finds woman less constant in her colortastes than mano While girls never lose their fascination

for drama tic colors, they prefer subtler hues as theygrow older. Among men, lifelong colors likes and dis-likes tend to be fixed either before or during the periodof adolescence.Colors are seen differently in relation to the positionof the viewer. When matching colors, you should do3


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so in an upright position. According to Dr. J. N.Aldington, the way you see colors is affected by theposition of your body.Standing upright, you see colors in about the sameway with both eyes. Fortunately, this is the usualposture when matching color samples. When you leon your back, your color vision in both eyes is alsoalke. If you roIl on one side, however, the lower eyeis more sensitive to red than is the top one, Dr. Alding-ton states. The upper eye is more sensitive to blue. Ifyou turn over, the color sensitivities of the two eyes

are reversed.The color research laboratory of Sun ChemicalCorporation of New York has made extensive studiesof the dimension of colors, among them what causescolors to seem to vary in size and distance. Because thefocus of the eyes is not the same for aIl colors, the huesof the spectrum appear near or far, large or small.Red, for example, focuses normaIly at a point behindthe retina. To see clearly the lens of the eye becomesthick (convex), pulling the color nearer and thus ap-parently giving it larger size. Conversely, blue is focusednormaIly at a point in front of the retina, causing thelens to flatten out and push the color back. That iswhy blue is sometimes referred to as a recedingcolor, and red an advancing one.One of the effects of color on apparent size is that thefeet look smaIler in black shoes than in white. Re-searchers at the Johns Hopkins University Institute forCooperative Research found that the hue and vividnessof an object and the amount of lght it reflects may

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make it appear as much as 13.5 percent larger thananother object of exactly the same size.

These scientists found that white makes an objectlook larger than a color would, even though white hasno color. Red makes anything look larger than doesgreen, even when the green is brighter.

We have come to regard different colors as repre-senting light radiations of different wavelengths. Thewaves in the air giving a red sensation as they strikeour eyes are about 32-millionths of an inch from erestto crest. Those that we recognize as violet are about16-millionths of an inch in length. Intermediate colorshave wavelengths between these two.

All light sensations come from the sun, a mixture ofwavelengths embracing the entire visible spectrum.Sunlight itself is colorless. This is not because it doesnot stimulate the color cells of our retinas, but becauseit stimulates all of them at the same time. To see adefinite color we have to isolate light radiations of theapproximate wavelength, removing others from the sun-light mixture. The isolated radiations then stimulatethe retina cells preferentially, and we s the light as adefinite color.

The actual color-detecting processes that take placein the eye are little understood. It is believed that theremay be three distinct types of receptor cells in theretina, each influenced preferentially by different wave-lengths of light. Red light affects one type of receptorcell, violet light, another. Green light affects the third,but stimulates the other two as well.

The effect of other wavelengths is to stimulate thesereceptor cells to different degrees. Yellow light, for

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example, wilI tend to stimulate the red and green re-ceptors, but the blue only sightly. BIue light favors thegreen and violet ceIls.

Having three types of receptor ceIls, aIl stimulated tosome extent by most wavelengths, means that the braindetects color in the form of different balances in theintensity of stimuli in the three types of ceIls. Wetherefore detect mixtures of light radiations in widelydiffering wavelengths as the same color.

Colors are not fixed and rigid things, but flexible andsubtIe; yet they playa very important role in our every-day lives.

iscell neIn their tombs and temple decorations the ancient

Egyptians used a variety of colors. Sir Gardner Wilkin-son, noted Egyptologist, relates that the Egyptians usedprincipaIly red, green, black, and yeIlow. Por a con-siderable time they did not have black. When theydiscovered how to produce it, they then used blackextensively. YeIlow was often used to harmonize withit. Some of the races of mankind had no names for thecolors which they used. There is, however, no doubtabout their distinguishing such colors. Por example, theAssyrians had no name for green; certain East Africantribes have no name for purple.Shiny objects, that which glistens, as a piece of metalor a pebble, wilI seem to please the aborigine. Perhapsthis attraction was first due to the intensity of lightas a stimulus of high importance. Shiny objects were6


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undoubtedly the first things that were consideredbeautifulEven today modern man is influenced by this primitive

urge for the bright and shiny in objects he purchases-even if such are intended for utilitarian purposes. Thechrome decorations on automobiles and many homeaccessories are examples of this primitive esthetic taste.The love of gems and glistening stones is likewise aprimitive carry-over in addition to whatever significancecustom attributes to them.

There are, however, variables that must be taken intoconsideration where esthetics are concerned. Colorpreference is related to environment. For example, theChinese do not react to the same colors as do theAmericans or English. A story is told that before Com-munism prevailed in China, a gasoline station waspainted white and did very little business. To theChinese, white suggests death and sorrow. After achange in its color, the gasoline station increased itssales. Of course, we know the effect of color in ad-vertising-how it arouses certain desires or reactions ...

In India, and to Hindus in particular, yellow is asymbolic color. Marigold flowers are placed on corpsesbefore they are immersed in the sacred Ganges andcremated. The Rosicrucian Camera Expedition filmedsuch a rite at Benares, the sacred city of the Hindus,where the placing of these marigold flowers on de-ceased Brahmans was common. In apan, red is con-sidered one of the most auspicious colors, and hasfor centuries been used on the exteriors of shrinesand temples.


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In a color therapy room in addition to other treat-ments given, certain patients are obliged to lie in thisroom for a time, exposed to colored lights which tintthe room. Music is played which has an emotionalrelationship to the color used. Many patients find relieffrom tension under certain particular color combina-tions. Lectures and demonstrations on this subject arepart of one of the fascinating courses that are given eachsummer at Rose-Croix University in Rosicrucian Park,San ose, California.

A few years ago, Stanford University in California,conducted experiments in connection with colors andtheir effects upon motion picture audiences andspectators at theaters. Dr. Robert Ross found that:Gray, blue, and purple were associated with tragedies.Yellow, orange, and red complimented the comedysense. Red was also suggestive of great, dramatic in-tensity; gray and purple were the next most effective.

The motion picture director, William A. Welmann,had, it is related, an interesting theory in connectionwith the emotions induced by colors. He thought thatcolor was related to primitive environment association.Mr. Welmann made a chart of the emotional equivalentsof colors. These color and emotional relations he usedin some of his successful films. The following informa-tion is from his chart:

Black-night, negative, glumnessWhite-snow, uplift, purityGray-rain, fog, old age, decadenceBlue-sky, the sea, thought, inspirationGreen-leaves, foliage, springtime, health, welfareRed-blood, sunrise, sunset, combat, life, vigor

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The RosicruciansInvite outo share the useful knowledge which makes life moreenjoyable and free of much of the doubt and confusionthat beset the average man and woman today.

The Rosicrucians are a nonsectarian fratemity, de-voted to an investigation of the high principIes of lifeas expressed in man and nature. The so-called mysteriesof life and death, of the inequalities of people, and ofthe purpose of our existence here are removed y thesensible exposition of the Rosicrucian teachings.

The age-old truths expounded by the Rosicruciansprovide men and women with such useful knowledge ofthe cosmic principIes as makes it possible for them tomaster their lives instead of drifting with the years. Youwill be amazed at your own potentialities and the op-portunities afforded you to realize your fondest hopesand dreams. No change in your personal or social af-fairs is required.

Write today for the free booklet, The Mastery o Lifewhich explains who and what the Rosicrucians are andmoreover how they can help you with your own life.Address: SCRIBE R. F. F.

The ROSIRUINS(AMORC)San Jose, California 95191, U. S. A.

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Color in Your Life