What Does The Color Purple Mean Spiritually? Color Experts Explain

We all have our own personal associations with colors, and when it comes to purple, it likely reminds you of royalty—but there's much more to this color than just regality. If you're curious what the color represents spiritually, here's what experts and research have to say about purple.

Purple has strong associations with royalty and power because it was quite a rare color once upon a time. As psychic and author of Simply Color Therapy Nina Ashby tells mindbodygreen, it was a sought-after color for the royal class as early as 1500 B.C., because it was expensive to make purple dye. So not only was it a status symbol to wear purple, but those in lower classes could rarely afford it.

Ashby explains that from the Byzantine Empire to the Greek and Roman empires, to ancient China, purple mainly meant extravagance but also spiritual wisdom, with priests and bishops donning purple robes and sashes. And in those days, royal people were regarded as "divinely appointed," so royalty and spiritual wisdom were often considered synonymous.

Nowadays, those associations have stuck around, particularly with regard to spirituality. As Ashby notes, purple combines blue and red, with red being the lowest vibrational energy in the color spectrum, and purple and blue being the highest. "So combine them together and you get violet, which combines the highest and the lowest energy, and violet is the color of the power of heaven over Earth," she explains.

Purple is also related to the crown chakra and intuition, or what Ashby calls the "repository of your potential manifestations." Through the crown, we're able to make manifest anything we're holding in that space, she notes.

And in terms of purple's psychological effects, she adds, it's a tranquilizing and hypnotic color that can help you access higher states of consciousness.

In general, research tends to support that appreciation for the color purple is high, with one study1 finding purple, red-purple, and purple-blue were regarded as the most "pleasant hues" by participants. In another study on the effects of colors in marketing, researchers even found that when they sent out various surveys with different colored backgrounds, purple surveys were the most widely completed compared to blue, green, and red.

"Perhaps a combination of perceptual and emotional factors was at play, given that purple has strong association with both royalty and a market-leading brand of chocolate," the study authors note in their research.

When it comes to interpreting dreams, context is important. If purple shows up a lot in your dreams, you'll want to pay attention to what was happening and what you felt in the dream.

Because of this color's connection to spiritual wisdom, you could be getting insights from your higher self through your dreams. As Ashby explains, Albert Einstein himself dreamed about the theory of relativity before he could figure out the equation for it in real life. "That's a very violet kind of thing, and if you read literature from Einstein, he was very spiritual," she adds.

And as Ashby previously explained to mindbodygreen, if you're dreaming about any color, in general, you would have to look at the range of meanings of that color and then interpret your dream in relation to how it appears.

Check out our full guide to dream interpretation for more information here.

If purple seems to be a pervasive color in your relationship (or you're dating someone with a purple aura), there's likely a high concentration of spiritual energy in this relationship. As aura reader Rachelle Terry previously told mindbodygreen, "People with purple auras do not like superficiality or pretenses and should not settle for a shallow relationship," adding that they require depth and a soul connection with somebody.

And as spiritual author Gabriela Herstik previously noted, it's important for those with a purple-dominant aura to set clear boundaries and respect the boundaries of their partner. This can look like "allowing them to come to their own decisions, even if you're picking up on their energy and think you know what's best for them," she says.

Different colors mean different things in feng shui, with the ability to make or break your space. As feng shui expert Katie Rogers previously wrote for mindbodygreen, purple has a feeling of royalty, wealth, and high spirituality, and in feng shui, that translates to wealth, nobility, spiritual depth and wisdom, and general quietness.

Because it is such a spiritual color, however, she notes that you'll want to avoid it in your living space if you want to feel more extroverted or connected to the Earth (because purple might make you feel introspective or ungrounded).

We briefly touched on this in the section above about love, but when it comes to purple or violet personalities, there's almost always some spiritual connectivity involved, as well as power (and power issues), and even spiritual leadership.

"Violet auras are great eccentrics, occultists, they're spiritual—they can be fanatical, they can be obsessive, and they can be very egotistical. They need to be in charge of things," Ashby tells mindbodygreen, adding that it can also make someone isolated or disconnected from others.

"When you think about royalty, they're not part of normal life, they have to live separate. Retaining a sense of isolation gives them an overview where they're not embroiled in things emotionally—but when that's on a personal level, it's harder because these are people who are hermits or pariahs, and they can have mental health problems because they can't cope with the physical plane," she explains.

Purple personalities are often extremely sensitive and may find it hard to live a normal life in public, but they are also creative, deep thinkers who want to do humanity good, according to Ashby.

Each of the seven main chakras is associated with a particular color, with purple relating to the crown chakra. The crown chakra is our connection to the divine, with Ashby explaining that it connects us to the greater network of information on Earth rather than just our own personal networks.

If you'd like to bring more purple into your life, some good places to start would be simply wearing more purple or decorating your space with it, Ashby tells mindbodygreen. This is a great color for rooms that you'd like to be more tranquil and calming, but as aforementioned, you might want to avoid it if you're feeling a bit too heady or introspective.

And according to color therapist Walaa AlMuhaiteeb, purple is also great for accessing the dreamworld and vivid dreams. "If you're looking to explore dreams, or even access a cleansing frequency, violet is great," she previously told mindbodygreen.

You can also work with purple crystals to help tap into the energy of this color, such as amethyst—which is known to be a calming stone that boosts intuition—or lepidolite, which promotes feelings of peace and is also connected to the third-eye and crown chakras.

Every color has its own symbolism and associations, and purple is no exception, with a variety of spiritual meanings. A color of royalty—but also spirituality—there is much nuance to this color's history and plenty of ways to tap into its qualities.