When the purity of white light passes through a prism, it separates into the visible colors, each of which has its own distinct wavelength. While the “fundamental essence” in unity is white light, the manifestation of Maya in her state of apparent division is this rainbow. Her colors become enthralling, captivating, and distracting. The scholar Teun Goudriaan describes in his book the way this plays through the Gods. The Gods are often described as colorless, but they appear manifest—assuming manifold colors— by the application of cosmical energy. Their different colors represent different powers. They become visible through saturating themselves in a color of Maya, becoming tangible through their actions. Of the tantric magical acts I’ve been describing in my recent articles, they show their correlations to every part of reality by each corresponding to a Goddess, certain nakshatras (lunar mansions), a tithi (moon phase), colors, directions, seasons, and so on. At their core, these magical acts (such as binding, freeing, separating, attracting, hypnotizing, etc.) "encompass the range of all possible human activity”; they are simply actions and their result (karma). As Goudriaan writes, “human deeds can be seen as a replica on a minor scale of divine work performed by the Gods”, allowing for creation to go on. Deities, such as Chinnamasta in the Mantra Mahodadhi, are described to be able to carry out different magical acts depending on which color you visualize their skin during your offering.
In the Tibetan Book of the Dead it is described that upon dying, when you are choosing a “womb-door” through which to be reborn, you choose the realm of your next incarnation based on which color pulls on you. Your soul then becomes that color. For example, if you are to take an animal-rebirth, you will glow green. If you are to become a human, you will glow blue. In ways such as this, he points out how color is associated in both ancient and modern times with affecting psychology and health, or symbolizing mood or modes of activity.
The magician too plays with the astral colors as Lunar proto-matter, and manipulates or influences it before it crystallizes into reality. Using the colors of Maya through visualization and offerings, the magician permeates his or her target on an astral level (through the Moon— mind and five senses) with the seductive reds of Akarshan (attraction); the Earthy, stabilizing yellows of Stambhana (immobility); the inky blacks of Ucchatan (mental disturbances); and so on.
His or her ability to paint their environment with these colors indicates the correlating inner attainment. Possessing the reds of Akarshan shows your own mind can attract that which it must merge with for transformation. Possessing the blacks of Ucchatan lets an individual drive out from their own mind distracting thoughts or temptations that would move them away from their true will. The yellows of Stambhana allow the practitioner to control their own tongue (from repeating others, slandering, jealous gossip, etc.) and energetic discharges. In this way, the ability to perform magic— the 10 “tantric achievements”— is a necessary attainment of those on the spiritual path. It is simply a better way of doing anything by working first with proto-matter instead of always being bound to manipulating physical matter. These achievements are the active pairings to the 10 Mahavidya Goddesses, who correlate to the ten planets and ascendant. Having a grasp on each shows the capacity to skillfully journey across the poles of all of reality: hate and love, attraction and repulsion, life and death, freedom and enslavement.
I tend to notice that I only receive the question “what are the karmic results of this?” when I write on anything magic-related, when karma is simply the result of an action, whether it is done with magic or through physical acts. Yet, people seem to hyper-fixate on karmic results of the former. The “karmic result” of performing a magical act is simply *the result*. Some people get dressed up and try to go stand somewhere they will attract someone; others use attraction magic to pull things towards them with energetic undercurrents & improve their beauty that way. Both the physical and magical approaches are applying “influence” and pressure on the will and mental faculties of others… both are whispering “do you want to come up to me?”. The target reacts to the mode of activity saturating their current reality & either accepts falling under the influence, or asserts their will over it. In this way, magic is the most efficient & elevated way to accomplish deeds simply through manipulating that which divides and defines our reality: color, number, symbol, and sound. The question, then, isn’t whether one on the spiritual path will do magic; it is inevitable that they will once or if they tap into the underlying unity, “the white light”, which decodes reality. It reveals how everything can be classified & then correlated to other parts of the Universe depending on its “wavelength”: people, forces of nature, deities, objects, plants, perfumes, and on and on. One sees the hidden colorful threads between the most “macro” cosmic things, woven beautifully all the way into the most minor facets of daily reality. This leads inevitably to the natural tendency to approach things magically instead of only, clumsily, through the material plane.
Just as the colors and symbols of deities show the mode of activity (or inactivity) they inspire, the magician developing their capability to perform magic is the embrace of his or her own Godhood, choosing what in their own life to create, destroy, or maintain. Rejecting to develop one’s capacity to alter reality on an inner and outer level is simply the acceptance of being flurried around by the winds of other forces, which blow together in what appears to be the murky tornado of fate. Grabbing the paintbrush & dipping it in Maya’s colors with your true will & powerful intention is the highest state of worship. Here you merge with the divine will, and too become an artist of energy. Becoming more and more unified, embodying the white light, you are then better able to call forth each color and utilize or apply it according to your desire. You become a being with the capacity to be every color, like the “variegated colors” associated with Venus, the planetary ruler of Tantra. In this way, the best magician is just like the best painter— laying their strokes skillfully, with a special unique love for & understanding of each color, and with the guidance and rhythm of divine inspiration.