Deep Blue

Deep blue is the colour of the infinite, the receptive, and the formless. As a hue in the King Scale of Colour, it corresponds to the Sephirah or Path assigned the value of this step—in this case, Path 23. The name itself is straightforward: it is the blue of the deep ocean, of the night sky just after true sunset, a shade that suggests the quality of depth without bottom, a profound stillness.

Position on the Tree of Life

The colour Deep blue is the King Scale value for Path 23, the path that connects Chokmah (Wisdom) to Binah (Understanding). This path is attributed to the Hebrew letter Mem (מ), which means "water." On the Tree, this path traverses the Abyss, the great gulf between the supernal triad and the rest of the sephiroth. The deep blue here is the colour of the water of creation, the Tehom of Genesis—the deep upon which the Spirit of God brooded. It is the colour of the potential that contains all form but is itself without form, the ocean of consciousness before the first ripple of distinction.

Astrological and Planetary Correspondence

Path 23, and thus its colour Deep blue, is attributed to the element of Water in the King Scale. Correspondingly, this deep blue has a strong affinity with Saturn (Shabbathai), the outermost classical planet and the sphere of Binah itself. The colour is that of the Saturnine darkness, of the ringed planet's leaden, slow, and contracting influence. It is the blue of the polar night, the colour of restriction, of the womb of time, and of the salt of the sea. In astrological terms, this is not the blue of a clear sky (Jupiter's blue) but of the deep, heavy, and sorrowful sea of Binah.

Historical Context

The use of deep blue as a sacred colour is ancient and widespread. In the Hebrew tradition, the colour techelet (תכלת), a specific blue-violet dye from the Murex snail, was used for the fringes of the tallit (prayer shawl) and for the priestly garments. This blue was the colour of the heavens and of the divine presence. In the Zohar, the blue of the techelet is likened to the Throne of Glory, which appears as a sapphire stone (Ezekiel 1:26).

In alchemy, the aqua permanens or philosophic water is often represented as a deep, still blue—the colour of the Mercurial water that dissolves and coagulates, the water of life that is also the water of death. The symbol of this water is the caelum or the blue sky, a fixed point in the chaotic sea of the prima materia. The alchemist Basil Valentine, in his Twelve Keys, describes a "sapphire blue" stone that precedes the red stone of the Philosophers.

The colour appears in the Mystical City of God by Mary of Agreda as the colour of the vestments of the Virgin Mother in her innermost sanctuary, representing her purity and her depth. In the Western Esoteric Tradition, Eliphas Levi associated deep blue with the letter Mem and with the card of the Hanged Man in the Tarot, a card of suspension, of descent into the waters of the unconscious, and of the sacrifice of the ego.

In Liber 777

In the table for Liber 777, the King Scale colour for Path 23 is given as Deep blue. This value sits between the Emerald green of Path 22 and the Green blue of Path 24, a sudden descent into the profound, still depth between the active green of Netzach and the complex blue-greens that follow. It is the colour of the letter Mem in the world of Atziluth, the pure, undifferentiated blue of the great sea of Binah, the colour of the water that is the source of all life and the grave of all form.