Colour, Healing and the Human Soul E-Book

Gladys Mayer

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

In a delightful study – originally comprising two separate booklets – the accomplished artist and teacher Gladys Mayer explains that colour is nothing other than the very substance of the soul. Just as the body is made up of mineral, water, air and warmth, so the soul is made up of colour. This is revealed in the emotions of sadness and joy and the many shades in between, as expressed in human language – for example: 'seeing red', 'rose-coloured spectacles' and 'jaundiced view'. Mayer discusses the basis of colour theory and its methodology, and the importance of colour for everyday life and health. It is as fundamental to the soul as air is to the body. By increasing our awareness of the spiritual laws of colour, we can acquire a balanced and enriched life of soul. Thus, colour can become a healing force in life, enabling us to tackle the deadening, grey aspects of our mechanised civilisation. Based on the work of Rudolf Steiner, which she studied intensively for many years, Mayer offers an approach to colour that is of value to painters and artists, as well as to those interested in psychology, health and healing, spirituality and personal development.

Leseprobe

COLOUR, HEALING AND THE HUMAN SOUL

Understanding colours and using them for health and therapy

Gladys Mayer

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS

Rudolf Steiner Press Hillside House, The Square Forest Row, East Sussex RH18 5ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

This edition published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2019

First published as two separate booklets: Colour and the Human Soul (1954) and Colour and Healing (1960) by New Knowledge Books

© New Knowledge Books / Rudolf Steiner Press 2019

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Inquiries should be addressed to the Publishers

The right of Gladys Mayer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978 1 85584 565 7 Ebook ISBN: 978 1 85584 508 4

Cover by Andrew Morgan Design Typeset by Vman InfoTech, Chennai, IndiaPrinted and bound by 4Edge Ltd., Essex

CONTENTS

PART ONE:Colour and the Human Soul

PART TWO:Colour and Healing

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This little book was written by one of the pioneers of Rudolf Steiner’s work in Great Britain. It was originally published as two separate booklets: Colour and the Human Soul in 1954 and Colour and Healing in 1960. Whilst the bulk of the content remains relevant to the present time, some outer aspects of the text reflect the context in which it was written, and will thus appear dated. Nevertheless, we consider that the book contains many original insights and ideas, and trust that readers will continue to find it of value.

PART ONE

COLOUR AND THE HUMAN SOUL

What is colour? – fleeting, insubstantial fluctuating; always changing, yet in itself ever the same. Colour is a mystery if we try to understand it in physical terms.

What is it that holds colour to substance, what releases it? Colour is always the same in itself; green is green whenever we meet it; yellow is yellow. But when attached to substance, the green of today may be yellow tomorrow, and yellow turns to red, to brown, to grey—the colour of decay. Colour attaches itself to substance in the natural world but so lightly is it attached that it may change from minute to minute, from hour to hour. It arises in one place and fades away in another. It is held fast for years, as in the minerals, or it changes from day to day, as in the plants. Colour attached to the natural world is transient, fluctuating, changeful, playing as it were over the substance rather than deeply embodied. Yet in itself it is unchanging, timeless.

A glimpse into the nature and origin of colour may be gained by considering the splendour of colour in the sky at dawn or at sunset, or again the ethereal beauty of the rainbow glowing against a grey, stormy sky. Why is it that sunrise and sunset paint the sky with wondrous colours in a way the pure radiance of the midday sun fails to do? Why is it that the rainbow appears clearest against a lowering sky?

Goethe’s theory of colour gives the answer to this problem in a way that corresponds with artistic feeling and experience. Modern physics gives another explanation which does not in the least correspond with artistic experience but may have significance in other spheres. Goethe’s theory has been set aside by the physicists, but Rudolf Steiner not only shows experimentally that it is well founded in reality but he also shows historically how in Goethe there was reborn an ancient spiritual wisdom concerning the nature of colour, of which Aristotle had preserved a last remnant, but which, between the times of Aristotle and Goethe, had been utterly lost.

This ancient wisdom taught that colour, both in the outer world and in the inner life of the soul, arises through the mingling of darkness and of light. Colour, according to this teaching, is not merely split-up components of light but it is an active mingling of the forces of darkness and of light. Darkness in this case is not, as in modern physics, a mere absence of light, but is in itself an actuality. Light and darkness meet and interact and from their interaction colour arises.