René Guénon
Chapter 70

59 § The Seven Rays and the Rainbow

We have already spoken, on different occasions, of the 'seven rays' of the sun.[1] It might be asked if these 'seven rays' do not have some connection with what are commonly called the 'seven colours of the rainbow', for these colours literally represent the different radiations of which solar light is composed. There is in fact a definite connection, but at the same time these so-called 'seven colours' are a typical example of the way in which an authentic traditional doctrine can sometimes be deformed by a general misunderstanding. This deformation, moreover, in a case like the present one, is easily explicable. It is clear that there must be a septenary here, but as one of its terms cannot be found, another is substituted which has no real justification; the septenary seems thus to be reconstituted, but it is restored in such a way that its symbolism is entirely falsified. If it is now asked why one of the members of the true septenary thus escapes the common man, the answer is also easy: it is because this term is the one that corresponds to the 'seventh ray', that is, to the 'central' or 'axial' ray which passes 'through the sun' and which, not being a ray like the others, cannot be represented as they are.[2] By this very fact and by reason of the whole range of its symbolic and truly initiatic connections, it has a particularly mysterious character; and from this point of view it could be said that the substitution in question has the effect of veiling the mystery from the eyes of the profane. Nor in this context is it of any importance whether its origin was intentional or simply due to an involuntary misunderstanding, which doubtless would be rather difficult to determine exactly.[3]

In fact, the rainbow does not have seven colours, but only six. Suffice it to recall the most elementary notions of physics: there are three primary colours— blue, yellow, red; and there are three colours complementary to these, that is orange, violet, and green, six colours in all. Naturally there are also an indefinite number of intermediate shades between these colours, with a continuous and imperceptible transition from one to another; but obviously there is no valid reason whatsoever to add any one of these shades to the list of colours, for then one could just as well consider a multitude of them, and in such conditions the very limitation of colours to seven becomes fundamentally incomprehensible. We do not know whether any adversaries of symbolism have ever made this observation, but if so it would be indeed surprising if they had not taken advantage of it in order to qualify this number as 'arbitrary'. Indigo, which is habitually counted among the colours of the rainbow, is really nothing other than a mere shade between violet and blue;[4] and there is no more reason to count it as a distinct colour than there would be in the case of any other shade, such as bluish green for example, or a bluish yellow. Besides, the introduction of this shade into the enumeration of colours completely destroys the harmony of their distribution, which, if correctly understood, will be seen to have the regularity of a geometric schema that is very simple and at the same time very significant from the symbolic point of view. In fact, the three primary colours can be placed at the three apexes of a triangle, and the three complementary colours at those of a second triangle inverted in relation to the first, in such a way that each primary colour and its complement are located at diametrically opposite points; and it is clear that the figure thus formed is none other than the 'Seal of Solomon'. If a circle is traced round the double triangle,[5] each of the complementary

colours will be at the mid-point of the arc between the points occupied by the two primary colours it consists of (neither of these being, needless to say, its complement). The intermediary shades will naturally correspond to all the other points of the circumference,[6] but in the double triangle, which is the essential here, there is obviously room for only six colours.[7]

In order to resolve the question of the seventh term which must be added to the six colours in order to complete the septenary, we must go back to the geometrical representation of the 'seven rays' as we have explained it on another occasion, that is the six directions of space forming the three dimensional cross and the centre itself whence these directions issue.[8] It is important to note at the outset the close similarities this representation has with that of which we have just spoken regarding the colours. Like these, the six directions are opposed two by two, according to three straight lines which, extending on either side from the centre, correspond to the three dimensions of space; and if a plane representation is desired, it obviously cannot be shown except by the three diameters forming the six-spoked wheel (the general schema of the chrismon and various other equivalent symbols). Now these diameters are those which join the opposite apexes of the two triangles of the '_Seal of Solomon_', so that the two representations really form only one.[9] It follows from this that the seventh term, in relation to the six colours, must play the same part as the centre does in relation to the six directions; and, in fact, it will also be placed at the centre of the schema, that is, at the point where the apparent oppositions (which are really only complementarities) are resolved into unity. This amounts to saying that this seventh term is no more a colour than the centre is a direction, but that, as the centre is the principle from which all space with the six directions proceeds, the seventh term must also be the principle from which the six colours are derived and in which they are synthetically contained. This can only be white, which is in fact '_colourless_', just as the point is without '_dimension_'. White does not appear in the rainbow anymore than the '_seventh ray_' appears in geometrical figuration; but all colours are only the product of a differentiation of white light, just as the directions of space are only the development of possibilities contained in the primordial point.

The true septenary, therefore, is in this instance formed by the white light and the six colours into which it is differentiated; and it goes without saying that the seventh term is really the first, for it is the principle of all the others, which would have no existence whatsoever without it; but it is also the last in the sense that all finally return to it: the reunion of all the colours reconstitutes the white light, which gave birth to them. It could be said that in a septenary thus constituted, one is at the centre and six is at the circumference; in other words, such a septenary is formed of unity and of the senary, unity corresponding to the non-manifested principle and the senary to the whole of manifestation. We can compare this with the symbolism of the '_week_' in the Hebrew Genesis, for, there too, the seventh term is essentially different from the six others. Creation, in fact, is the '_work of six days_' and not of seven; and the seventh day is that of '_rest_'. This seventh term, which could be designated as the '_sabbatical_' term, is truly also the first; for this '_rest_' is nothing other than the return of the creative Principle into the initial state of non-manifestation, a state moreover, from which it had gone forth only in appearance in relation to creation and to produce creation according to

Footnotes

[4]Samudra (in Pali, _samudda_) is literally the 'gathering together of the waters', which recalls the words of Genesis 1: 9: 'Let the waters that are under the heavens be gathered together in one place'.
[1][See above, 43, 'The Narrow Gate', and 52, 'Symbols of Analogy'.]
[2]Referring to the beginning of the Tao-te-King, it could be said that each of the other rays is 'a way', but that the seventh is 'the Way'.
[3]We have found a rather curious piece of information in this respect, though unfortunately without precise reference. The Emperor Julian [the 'Apostate'] refers somewhere to the 'seven rayed god' (Heptaktis), whose solar character is evident, as being, in the teaching of the Mysteries, a subject about which it was desirable to maintain the greatest reserve. If it were established that the erroneous notion of the 'seven colours' goes back to antiquity, it could then be asked if it had not been voluntarily spread by the initiates of these same Mysteries who would thus have found the means of assuring the preservation of a traditional doctrine without, however, making its true sense known externally. In the contrary case, it must be supposed that the substituted term was somehow invented by the common people themselves, who would have known simply of the existence of a septenary, but who would have been ignorant of its real constitution. It may be, moreover, that the truth lies in a combination of the two hypotheses; for it is very possible that current opinion on the 'seven colours' represents the outcome of several successive deformations of the initial doctrine.
[4]The very designation 'indigo' is clearly quite modern, but it may be that it replaces some other older designation, or that this shade itself was at one time substituted for another in order to complete what was commonly understood to be the septenary of colours. To verify this it would naturally be necessary to undertake historical researches of a somewhat complicated kind, researches for which we neither have the time nor the necessary materials at our disposal; but for us, this point has only a very secondary importance, since what we have in mind is simply to show how the current conception expressed in the ordinary enumeration of the colours of the rainbow is erroneous and how it distorts the true traditional idea.
[5][See figure 18].
[6]If we wished to count an intermediary colour between each of the six principal colours, as indigo between violet and blue, there would then be twelve colours in all and not seven; and if we wished to extend the distinction of shades further, it would always be necessary, for evident reasons of symmetry, to establish the same number of divisions in each of the intervals between two colours. In a word, this is no more than a very elementary application of the principle of logic and consequence.
[7]We may note in passing that the fact that visible colours thus take up the entire circumference and meet again without any discontinuity, shows that they really form a complete cycle (violet participating both in the neighbouring blue and in red which is found at the other side of the rainbow) and that, consequently, the other non-visible solar radiations such as those which modern physics designates as 'infra-red' and 'ultra-violet' rays, in no way pertain to light and are of quite a different nature from it. Thus, there are not as some seem to believe 'colours' which an imperfection of our visual organs prevents us from seeing, for there would be no room on any part of the circumference for these so-called colours, and it certainly could not be maintained that this circle is an imperfect figure or that it suffers from any discontinuity whatsoever.
[8][See figure 19].
[9]Let us note also that an indefinite multitude of directions could be considered by interposing all the intermediate directions, which thus correspond to the intermediate shades between the six principal colours. But there is no need to consider distinctly any but the six '_oriented_' directions which form the system of rectangular coordinates to which all space is referred and by which it is as it were '_measured_' in its entirety. In this relationship, too, the correspondence between the six directions and the six colours is therefore perfectly exact.
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