Aura color · not on the spectrum

Purple Aura

A purple aura is read as attention turned to what cannot be measured. Physically it is red and blue mixed, unlike violet, a spectral color. No single wavelength makes it.

Wavelength: None not one band of the spectrum
Swatch #8B5FBF: Opp. 565 nm complementary wavelength
In Thought-Forms, 1905: In the key quoted below, Besant & Leadbeater
Chakra pairing: Crown rainbow scheme, 1970s on

Swatch measured against the CIE 1931 observer; key: Besant and Leadbeater, Thought-Forms, 1905.

Checked against the visible spectrum

There is no such thing as purple light

Wavelength none — not a frequency

Chakra Crown — one of only 8 covered

Lightness of the swatch L* 49 of 100

Purity of the swatch 45% of a spectral color

Purple and violet are not the same thing, and this is where most sources blur them. Violet is a real wavelength at the end of the spectrum; purple is a mixture of red and blue with no single frequency. The crown chakra is usually given as purple, which makes the most spiritual color in the system a non-spectral one.

19 of 31 aura colors have no wavelength. Why →

The purple swatch among all colors the eye can see

The #8B5FBF swatch lies among the purples, where no wavelength exists, so its hue is defined by the opposite one: 565 nm, at 45% purity.

What a purple aura is said to mean

Purple is the color of the crown chakra and is read as spiritual awareness, imagination and a strong inner life. Aura readers describe purple people as intuitive, often private, drawn to mystery, art and big questions. They are said to sense things before they can explain them, and to need meaning in what they do more than most.

The reading

Attention turned to what cannot be measured

The shadow side

Meaning invented to avoid the ordinary

Tradition, not measurement. What aura cameras actually record →

Primary source

The purple aura in the first published color key

Besant and Leadbeater, 1905

“A mixture of affection and devotion is manifested by a tint of violet, and the more delicate shades of this invariably show the capacity of absorbing and responding to a high and beautiful ideal.”

Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater, Thought-Forms (London, 1905), “The Meaning of the Colours” — read the original text. Purple is not named in the key; violet is the nearest entry. Besant and Leadbeater repeat the key from Leadbeater’s Man Visible and Invisible (1903), the book that popularized the idea of a colored aura. Most modern aura charts descend from Christopher Hills’s rainbow scheme of 1977, which is why their meanings often differ.

The purple aura in everyday life

In love

Deep and loyal, looking for a connection that feels fated. A purple partner can seem distant while they are thinking things through.

At work

The arts, spiritual practice, research, psychology and counseling. Routine work without purpose is said to wear purple down.

Finding balance

Readers suggest bringing big ideas down to one practical step a day, so the inner life feeds the outer one.

Light and dark purple

Mixing white into purple gives #BFA7DC, and mixing in black gives #4C3469; their lightness reads 72 and 27 against the swatch’s 49. Neither move adds a wavelength, because purple never had one.

Light purple · #BFA7DC · L* 72

Read as a softer form of the same reading: attention turned to what cannot be measured.

Dark purple · #4C3469 · L* 27

Read as meaning invented to avoid the ordinary — the strained version.

Questions about the purple aura

What does a purple aura mean?

Attention turned to what cannot be measured. The shadow side is meaning invented to avoid the ordinary.

Is purple a real color of light?

No. It is red and blue mixed, unlike violet, a spectral color, so it never shows up as a band in a rainbow.

Which chakra is purple?

The crown chakra. It is one of 8 aura colors out of 31 that map onto a chakra at all.

How rare is a purple aura?

Auras have never been counted, so rarity cannot be measured. Interest can: purple sits between white and yellow in searches, 8th of 31 colors at 6.0%.

The seven chakras and their colors →

Aura colors read alongside purple

Colors people look up about as often as purple:

Crystal White Yellow Red

All 31 colors, with wavelengths →

No band to measure. Swatch #8B5FBF, complementary wavelength 565 nm. How this was produced →

Sources

Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater, Thought-Forms (London, 1905), “The Meaning of the Colours”

Statements of fact on this page were checked against these sources in October 2026. How we choose and check sources: editorial policy.

Cite this page

AstroHot. “Purple Aura Meaning: Does the Color Even Exist?” Accessed October 28, 2026. https://astrohot.com/aura-colors/purple/

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