Do you know why the "trademark" Halloween colors are orange and black? Why not any other color combination? Is there anything special about orange and black together? Yes, there is.
Feng Shui-wise, these two colors are on the opposite energy spectrums, so to speak. Orange is a very lively and happy color, the color of fall bounty and the warmth of fire. Orange is often called the "social" color, as it creates the feng shui energy to promote lively conversations and good times in your home.
Black color, on the other hand, is the color of mystery and void. The color of a space with no beginning and no end, a space with an infinite creative energy incomprehensible to the human mind. Full of the feng shui energy of mystery and sophistication; black color also holds the energy of power and protection.
Do you see now why this is the perfect combination for a Halloween celebration? While a very social and fun day, it is also a day when many mysterious and even scary energy doors open, so you better watch your home closely :)
Just a bit of spice for your Monday - the week of Halloween - morning!
See the Halloween feng shui shop for black and orange color ideas and products
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Photo: Steven Puetzer / Getty Images
Comments
Really didnt answer the question
If you can tell me how a Chinese interior decorating thought process has anything to do with All Hallow’s Eve, then maybe this would matter. The ‘mystical energies’ of colors have no bearing on historical implications.
I have to agree with JT. There is no historical explanation as to why halloween is represented by these colors.
i just known the meaning of halloween clearly
i am asian! on this time we are preparing celebration Thadlung festival.
The colors orange and black can be traced back to the occult. They were connected to the commemorative masses for the dead, which were held in November. The unbleached beeswax candles used in the various ceremonies were orange. The ceremonial caskets were covered in black cloths. So thank the Druids and the Celts.
hooray donna!
thank you Donna for answering the question!
They’re the Halloween colors because, if you think about it, they are the only colors HallMark had left after the Red, Green and White of Xmas, and the blues, yellows, reds and pastels of easter! lol
This is an outrageous “explanation”. The accompanying photograph gives a far more likely explanation than that colors with protective energies were chosen to represent the holiday.
Orange is the classic color of both autumn and pumpkins/jack-o-lanterns. Black is a color of death and scary entities.
give her a break you loud mouth morrons…if you have nothing good to say
It is a Feng Shui blog, and I’m sure it’s difficult to come up with anything to say about it. The problem, I suspect, is that most of us came here (as I did) by clicking on a link which just said “Why are Halloween’s Colors Orange and Black,” and were expecting a real explanation. Thanks to the comment author who provided one. I’m amazed that people can still make a living in the 21st century selling Feng Shui and horoscopes, but then I’m amazed that there’s such a huge market for major league baseball. It must be entertaining somebody.
Pumpkins and Black Cats.
Rodika, I am sorry everyone is being so rude to you. Your blog is a very descriptive way of explaining the colors and VERY accurate seeming indeed!
Donna: Unbleached beeswax is a light cream color, almost white. Are you color blind?
I suspect the history of orange and black has it’s roots in this: Beautiful orange colors of falling leaves, and traditional fall harvests. Black is symbolic of the darkness of coming winter as the days get shorter and shorter, and of the emotional darkness of the winter: Winter is a very difficult time for farmers and such forth, and back before we had modern conveniences, some people would die of cold or starvation during the long winter months… No need to speculate about ‘dark energies’ or the ‘occult’ or other things. Believe it or not, primitive people no doubt were far too busy with practical issues like survival than to worry about ‘scary entities’.
Rodika, perhaps the colors were CHOSEN because of the history, above — but the event has become the spooky social time common today because of the feng shui energy. =)
Oh, and for those of you hating on feng shui — it may be a little “woo woo,” but psychologists have proven that colors have certain emotional effects on people. The fact that ancient Chinese peoples managed to figure that out, and explained it in a flowery way, is not something to be scoffed at! They obviously did something right.
here’s explanations I found :
The colors orange and black can be traced back to the occult. They were connected to the commemorative masses for the dead, which were held in November. The unbleached beeswax candles used in the various ceremonies were orange. The ceremonial caskets were covered in black cloths. And let’s not forget the modern-day “Jack O’ Lanterns” orange in color.
http://members.tripod.com/~RU_BOLD/halloween.html
Not exactly wikipedia, but at least it’s connected to something historical beyond ‘new age advertising and feng shei’.
I also saw a number of explanations saying that orange came from halloween being an autumn festival.
Wow, this is a very heated discussion! Thank you all for your contribution. Alice, thank you for your kindness and understanding.
Two things:
1. This is a feng shui blog, so our focus is on the energy of your home and everything house and home related. The explanation of many things “feng shui” might sound strange to the Western mind, but then, it is your choice to either explore it or not. The post is not about the history of Halloween, but rather the energy effect of the combination of these two colors in your home.
2. While diversity of opinions is always welcomed, rude and offensive remarks are not acceptable, and will be promptly deleted.
Have a good Halloween!
Oh, for heavens sake, Alice, don’t be a ninny. Psychologists have only proven that color can affect mood–they have never been able to prove that a certain color leads to a certain mood in most people.
Red makes one person angry, and another horny, and still another sleepy, and all of this data is being gathered by experiments that typically have insufficiently adequate controls in place to be considered scientific, which itself is not surprising given that psychologists are not scientists and psychology is not a science.
Feng Shui is lucrative bunk, and the verifiable fact that some people believe in it and claim to feel its effects does not make it less bunky. It only proves the power of suggestion and placebo.
I used to get people at parties to cross their arms and hold my hands. Then I would stare into their eyes and inform them that I was transferring my energy to them, that the arm crossing would intensify the transfer, and that they would soon feel warm, then hot. This trick almost never failed, but it was simply a trick. These were always women, always strangers to me, and chosen by me because they seemed open to suggestion.
When a stranger holds your hands and stares deeply into your eyes, you are going to have a physical response that usually manifests itself as a flushed face or body. That respose gets interpreted as the “energy transfer” working, and feeds upon itself, making the victim feel hetter and hotter until, several times, she would pull her hands away from me as if she couldn’t bear the heat any longer.
It was manipulation, and in a similar way feng shui is manipulation. There is one exception to this, which is that, to the extent that a feng shui expert has learned about and applies aesthetics, they may be both consistent and effective. However, this has nothing to do with “energies” and everything to do with human brain wiring in the visuo-spatial cortex. Aesthetics mostly deals with proportions, and very little with color, and you can learn about it in a basic art appreciation book.
Well, it seems this has turned from Feng Shui colors for Halloween to criticize Feng Shui in every way. I just have one thing to say: For those of you who think a discipline created by one of the wisest civilizations with millenia of life that it’s still up and running is a “Chinese interior decorating” or a “placebo caused by suggestion”, go get a damn reading of at least the Feng Shui basics before opening your mouth and proving your utter and shameless ignorance.
Have a nice day.
Butterfly Wind, who no doubt took her moniker from the ascientific nostrum about the beating of a butterfly’s wing and an antipodal typhoon, crushes me with her clarion call to “go get a damn reading of at least the Feng Shui basics” before suggesting that it’s all a bunch of hooey. Thus humbled, I repair to the Wiki article on feng shui, written by feng shui enthusiasts and in support of feng shui.
Only to find precisely what I have been saying; namely, that the so-called “discipline” is little more than opinion wrapped in mumbo-jumbo with a creamy wishful thinking center. Magnetic “winds” influence our “feelings” about “stuff?” Okay, at least magnetism is verifiable. But the effects are not. And whence color? The only energies associated with color are the frequencies of light exciting the photoreceptors in your optic nerve. Is this what feng shui was referring to? If so, where are the studies showing how these differing frequencies consistently affect brain function beyond the perception of the color itself?
There is, laughably, a concluding section of the Wiki article called “Current Research” that I reproduce here in its entirety:
“A growing body of research exists on the traditional forms of feng shui used and taught in Asia.
Landscape ecologists find traditional feng shui an interesting study.[65] In many cases, the only remaining patches of old forest in Asia are “feng shui woods,” which strongly suggests the “healthy homes,”[66] sustainability[67] and environmental components of ancient feng shui techniques should not be easily dismissed.[68][69]
Environmental scientists and landscape architects have researched traditional feng shui and its methodologies.[70][71]
Architectural schools study the principles as they applied to ancient vernacular architecture.[72][73][74].
Geographers have analyzed the techniques and methods to help locate historical sites in Victoria, Canada,[75] and archaeological sites in the American Southwest, concluding that ancient Native Americans considered astronomy and landscape features. [76]
Whether it is data on comparisons to scientific models, or the design and siting of buildings,[77] graduate and undergraduate students have been accumulating solid evidence on what researchers call the “exclusive Chinese cultural achievement and experience in architecture”[78] that is feng shui.”
Those of you who like feng shui and want it to be real will see in this section all the “truth” you need. The rest of us will see an amusing example of how shrewd people can say nothing and make it sound like something.
I suggest reading Environmetal Physcology by Bell or finding a college or university that teaches Environmetal Phsycology before you begin to assume a correlation between colors and behavior. Lighting, furnature placement, textures, sound, volume … all of these have been linked to behaviors and emotional stimulation yet color is yet to be linked…
Also, I would never trust Wiki as a reliable source, generally not a good idea…
Rodika,
Pay no attention to the fire breathing critics that blast their stinking breath at anyone anywhere anytime because they are cowards who would never act up this way in a toe to toe situation.
Any one with a bit of sense would see that they are rude nutwits ta boot.
Spot on, Lindsay.
I agree with you about Wiki; I used it to show that even a source skewed toward supporting feng shui cannot, in any meaningful way, actually support it.
I would also stress that while environmental psychology has indeed linked such things as position, texture, and sound to behaviors, these phenomena have not been subtly applied in experimentation; does one really need feng shui advice to deduce that a vacuum cleaner is likely to jangle your nerves more than a Bach piano sonata?
When finer variations are studied, along the lines of some feng shui/aesthetic decisions (“Should the vase go on the left or the right of the picture? Should it be copper or brass?”), behavioral differences largely disappear, and are harder to control for and thus verify. And as these differences vanish, so too does the supposed utility of feng shui.
Your first sentence was, “Do you know why the “trademark” Halloween colors are orange and black?” Regardless of the topic of your site, it’s reasonable for people to expect you to answer that question. Feng Shui does answer why the colors of a pagan holiday are black and orange.
I find it strange (and sad!) that you will criticize feng shui so much without actually taking the time to understand it or read more about it.
Do you actually understand what feng shui is all about?? Have you taken the time to read at least one article on this site to try and understand it?
Everything – and I mean everything! – is energy. And the sooner you realize it, the more power to you.
Speaking of energy, if you have some “good energy” to leave here, please do so, if you feel angry and upset, leaving a rude posting here will not help your anger.
I know what might help, though! How about applying some practical feng shui basics in your home?
Then you can come back and thank feng shui supporters instead of attacking them.
PS. This blog posting was on the energy effects of the combination of orange and black colors on the feng shui of your home for Halloween. What I find very strange, though, is that most critics came with the same arguments that were in the posting. Did not the posting say “orange for fall bounty” and “black for mystery?”
Look at the energy left in this blog and feel empowerment to transition to positive. that is truly where one belongs.
Wow. Some people have too much free time. Let it go, folks. It’s just a blog.
I totally agree with you Casey. Get a life people!!
YA IT EXPLAINED THE COLORS VERY WELL.
THANK YOU~!
Wow. The great thing about living in a connected world is that the same concepts, thoughts, COLORS, etc. can have so many different meanings in different cultures around the world. This is what makes life exciting and modern–we can take meaning from so many different places and use it to uplift ourselves and make our lives better. Being open to life is such a great way to live.
anne
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After a second thought, and after reading more comments, I have to admit that some people have made excellent points. It doesn’t help anything to be so negative.