“As Moshe Idel states after making a study of manuscript fragments which contained techniques of Kabbalistic prayer, this type of prayer also involved the visualisation of the colours of the Sefirotic ladder. By the ability to visualise these colours, or the divine Names within a coloured circle described by R. Joseph Ashkenazi, the practitioner was able to open a door into his own mind to enable him to perceive the workings of the realm of the Sefirvt. Further meaning was given, therefore, to the word Kauamah. I have said previously that the rabbis understood the word to mean contemplative or meditative prayer, but now this Kabbalistic contemplation spoke of a particular technique of visualising the colours of the Sefirot. Indeed, according to R. David ben Jehudah he-Hasid, a late 13th century Spanish Kabbalist, it was wrong to visualise the Sefirat themselves only their colours. Meditation and prayer performed in this way elevated human thought to the Sefirotic realm, which was achieved without an intermediary.”
“Each Sefirah had its own colour, which has been detailed in a work attributed to R. Azriel. The colours ranged from concealed light for the first Sefirah to the light which contains all colours, then green, white, red, then varieties of white and scarlet, and finally a colour which was composed of all colours. However, the colours did vary as can be seen in the later Pardes Rimonim from Safed.Indeed it seems that the colours were always changing, appearing and disappearing, which is suggested by the scarlet/white colours described above, where more scarlet or more white might appear and so forth.”
Bates, Sandra Annette, The spiritual guide in late antiquity and the middle ages: a comparative study, M.Litt. Thesis, University of Durham, 1999, pp. 41 -42
Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4797/
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