[15] Numbers xv. 38. Here we might mention that the Rabbins considered that blue was the colour of the two stones on which the Commandments were written. Plato tells us that the robes of the priests of Atlantis were blue. The Buddhists say, “Sapphire produces peace of mind and equanimity. It chases out evil thoughts by establishing healthy circulation. It opens barred doors to the spirit. It produces a desire for prayer. It brings peace, but he who would wear it must lead a pure and holy life.” Surely, if all this is true, it is almost essential that we should follow the advice of colour healers and have our ceilings always of blue. Blue is often called the colour of devotion, but we must remember that devotion is not an end in itself; it is the striving after eternal Truth and Wisdom that matters. So much did the Hindoos think of the colour that their gods are addressed by the epithet “narayan,” and they are said to be born of the sea which ever reflects the blue of heaven. In Egypt the gods were often painted blue to show their heavenly origin; _e.g._ Kneph the Creator, the great Mind, wears blue robes. Mummies were shrouded in blue beads to show that they were united with the soul of Truth. Odin, the wise All-Father of the Scandinavians, is nearly always spoken of as wearing blue robes. The blue pines near the homes of Philemon and Baucis were sacred to Jupiter. Sin, the Assyrian god, is said to have had a blue beard. Our conception of blue beard has taken on the debased meaning of cruelty. Isis is often called the Lady of the Turquoise, while Osiris is god of the turquoise and the lapis lazuli. The Virgin Mary is often clad in a blue robe, for the same reason that she is often represented as standing by the Well of Truth, as in Arthur Hacker’s “Annunciation.” The Hindoo Mariama is addressed as “Holy Nari Mariama, mother of perpetual fecundity.” In both Mexico and Chaldea blue was worn as mourning, being a token of the joy that the soul realised in the Fields of Peace. The turquoise and the lapis lazuli seem to have had in them the two blues that appealed most to the ancients. In the “Burden of Isis” we have these words in praise of Osiris, who is identified with the spirit of the departed:-- “With turquoise is thy hair twined, and with lapis lazuli, the finest of lapis lazuli. Lo, the lapis lazuli is above thy hair.” There is another similar incantation in the Festival Songs of Isis and Nephthys:-- “Thy hair is like turquoise as thou comest from the Fields of Turquoise; thy hair is like unto the finest of lapis lazuli, and thou thyself art more blue than thy hair. Thy skin and body are like southern alabaster, and thy bones are of silver. The perfume of thy hair is like unto new myrrh, and thy skull is of lapis lazuli.” Since hair is not blue, the statement must be symbolic, and means that the spirit of the departed has now become one with Eternal Truth.