Page 39 - A critical exposition of Jung's theory of alchemy

Xanthosis (Yellowing)
and Iosis (Reddening)

During the 15th and 16th Centuries, this was generally simplified to
three stages.

Nigredo (black)
Albedo (white)
Rubedo (red).

This particular simplification might be unexpected to Jung, given
the importance of the number 4 to him as an archetypal intimation of
wholeness. Surprisingly he insists the change arose because of
unspecified inner reasons (which might imply that archetypes are
unstable) rather than for any ‘external’ cultural reasons - though it might
be thought hard to separate these kinds of reasons (CW 12: 229-30).

Nigredo is the first stage, though elsewhere (CW 16: 182) Jung will
point out that it is rarely the initial stage as it is usually produced by
work - the stripping away of forms mentioned earlier. It is also the
chaos, the depression, the production of separation (CW 12: 230).
Elsewhere he will suggest that it can also involve dismemberment, and
the production of the philosophers’ mercury which is both one and a
duality (CW 16: 197). Edinger comments that the reduction of bodies
into the prima materia is equivalent to reducing the fixed aspects of the
personality into their original undifferentiated condition - thus producing
an innocence and a confusion (1985: 10-11). Jungian commentators
often compare the nigredo to the ‘Dark night of the soul’, but this is
perhaps overly simplistic.

The separation occurring in the nigredo produces the first opposites,
which can then be joined.

However this first possible union of opposites is not long lasting and
passes into death or decay through the processes known as mortificatio,
calcinatio, or putrefactio (CW 12: 231). These, correspond to different
types of chemical operation with their psychological associations.

After this stage washing can lead to the albedo, or there might be a
reunion of soul and body to get a resurrection, or the many colours of
the peacock’s tail might appear (CW 12: 231).

Eventually we get the albedo, which is the making of silver, Luna or
Moon.

After this we may have another union, but often we move straight to
the Rubedo, the reddening and the making of the Stone, or the making of
Gold or Sol, the Sun (CW 12: 232). Though Jung does not seem to

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