Inalchemy,nigredo,or blackness, meansputrefactionordecomposition.Many alchemists believed that as a first step in the pathway to thephilosopher's stone,all alchemical ingredients had to be cleansed and cooked extensively to a uniform black matter.[1]
Inanalytical psychology,the term became a metaphor for "thedark night of the soul,when an individual confronts theshadowwithin. "[2]
Jung
editForCarl Jung,"the rediscovery of the principles of alchemy came to be an important part of my work as a pioneer ofpsychology".[3]As a student of alchemy, he (and his followers) "compared the 'black work' of the alchemists (the nigredo) with the often highly critical involvement experienced by the ego, until it accepts the new equilibrium brought about by the creation of the self."[4]Jungians interpreted nigredo in two main psychological senses.
The first sense represented a subject's initial state of undifferentiated unawareness, "the first nigredo, that of theunio naturalis,is an objective state, visible from the outside only... an unconscious state of non-differentiation between self and object, consciousness and the unconscious. "[5]Here the subject is unaware of the unconscious; i.e. the connection with the instincts.[6]
In the second sense, "the nigredo of the process ofindividuationon the other hand is a subjectively experienced process brought about by the subject's painful, growing awareness of his shadow aspects. "[7]It could be described as a moment of maximum despair, that is a prerequisite to personal development.[8]As individuation unfolds, so "confrontation with the shadow produces at first a dead balance, a standstill that hampers moral decisions and makes convictions ineffective or even impossible...nigredo,tenebrositas,chaos, melancholia. "[9]Here is "the darkest time, the time of despair, disillusionment, envious attacks; the time whenErosandSuperegoare at daggers drawn, and there seems no way forward...nigredo,the blackening. "[10]
Only subsequently would come "anenantiodromia;thenigredogives way to thealbedo... the ever deepening descent into the unconscious suddenly becomes illumination from above. "[11]
Further steps of thealchemical opusinclude such images asalbedo(whiteness),citrinitas(yellowness), andrubedo(redness). Jung also found psychological equivalents for many other alchemical concepts, with "the characterization of analytic work as anopus;the reference to the analytic relationship as avas,vessel or container; the goal of the analytic process as theconiunctio,or union of conflicting opposites. "[12]
Cultural references
edit- In the alchemical literary discourseHydriotaphia, Urn Burial(1658) the meditativenigredostage is described as "lost in the uncomfortable night of nothing" by the physician-philosopherThomas Browne.[13][full citation needed]
- Shakespeare's sonnetsare dense with the symbolism of the "nigredo"... "ghastly night".[14]
- W. B. Yeatsin his alchemical stories introduces the alchemical phase of thenigredo.The narrator begins "to struggle again with the shadow, as with some older night".[15]
- In the Japanese light-novel and anime seriesOverlord,there exists a character called Nigredo. Her two sisters are called Albedo and Rubedo, all three named after the parts of theMagnum Opus.
See also
editReferences
edit- ^Greenberg, Arthur (March 2000).A chemical history tour: Picturing chemistry from alchemy to modern molecular science.New York: John Wiley & Sons.ISBN0-471-35408-2.
- ^Robert H. Hopeke,A Guided Tour of the Collected Works of C. G. Jung(Boston 1989) p. 165
- ^C. G. Jung,Man and his Symbols(London 1978) p. 40
- ^Dieckmann, Hans."Analytical Psychology: Carl Jung's theory of the shadow".eNotes.
- ^Paul W Ashton,From the Brink9 (London 2007) p. 231
- ^Gerhard Adler,Studies in Analytical Psychology(London 1999) p. 19
- ^Ashton,Brinkp. 231
- ^Jung, C. G.Psychology and Alchemy(2nd ed.) (Transl. by R. F. C. Hull)
- ^C. G. Jung,Mysterium Coniunctionis(London 1963) p. 497
- ^Christopher Perry, inP. Young-Eisendrath& T. Dawson, eds.,The Cambridge Companion to Jung(Cambridge 1977) p. 152-3
- ^C. G. Jung, "Psychology of the Transference",Collected Worksvol. 16 (London 1950) p. 279
- ^Hopeke,A Guided Tour "pp. 164–165
- ^"The physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne".
- ^M. C. Schoenfeldt,A Companion to Shakespeare's Sonnets(2007) p. 414
- ^William T. Gorski,Yeats and Alchemy(1996) p. 85