# Nigredo

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{{Short description|Term used in alchemy and Jungian psychology}}
{{Over-quotation|date=May 2025}}
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{{for multi|the fictional character|Gaignun Kukai|the album|Diary of Dreams}}
In [alchemy](/source/alchemy), '''nigredo''', or blackness, means [putrefaction](/source/putrefaction) or [decomposition](/source/decomposition). Many alchemists believed that as a first step in the pathway to the [philosopher's stone](/source/philosopher's_stone), all alchemical ingredients had to be cleansed and cooked extensively to a uniform black matter.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Greenberg |first1=Arthur |title=A chemical history tour: Picturing chemistry from alchemy to modern molecular science |date=March 2000 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |location=New York |isbn=0-471-35408-2}}</ref>

In [analytical psychology](/source/analytical_psychology), the term became a metaphor for "the [dark night of the soul](/source/Dark_Night_of_the_Soul), when an individual confronts the [shadow](/source/Shadow_(psychology)) within."<ref>Robert H. Hopeke, ''A Guided Tour of the Collected Works of C. G. Jung'' (Boston 1989) p. 165</ref>

==Jung==
For [Carl Jung](/source/Carl_Jung), "the rediscovery of the principles of alchemy came to be an important part of my work as a pioneer of [psychology](/source/psychology)".<ref>C. G. Jung, ''Man and his Symbols'' (London 1978) p. 40</ref> 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."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Dieckmann |first1=Hans |title=Analytical Psychology: Carl Jung's theory of the shadow |url=http://www.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/shadow-analytical-psychology |website=eNotes |language=en}}</ref> 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 the {{lang|la|unio naturalis}}, is an objective state, visible from the outside only&nbsp;... an unconscious state of non-differentiation between self and object, consciousness and the unconscious."<ref>Paul W Ashton, ''From the Brink'' 9 (London 2007) p. 231</ref> Here the subject is unaware of the unconscious; i.e. the connection with the instincts.<ref>Gerhard Adler, ''Studies in Analytical Psychology'' (London 1999) p. 19</ref>

In the second sense, "the nigredo of the process of [individuation](/source/individuation) on the other hand is a subjectively experienced process brought about by the subject's painful, growing awareness of his shadow aspects."<ref>Ashton, ''Brink'' p. 231</ref> It could be described as a moment of maximum despair, that is a prerequisite to personal development.<ref>Jung, C. G. ''Psychology and Alchemy'' (2nd ed.) (Transl. by R. F. C. Hull)</ref> 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&nbsp;... ''nigredo'', {{lang|la|tenebrositas}}, chaos, melancholia."<ref>C. G. Jung, ''Mysterium Coniunctionis'' (London 1963) p. 497</ref> Here is "the darkest time, the time of despair, disillusionment, envious attacks; the time when [Eros](/source/Eros) and [Superego](/source/Superego) are at daggers drawn, and there seems no way forward&nbsp;... ''nigredo'', the blackening."<ref>Christopher Perry, in [P. Young-Eisendrath](/source/Polly_Young-Eisendrath) & T. Dawson, eds., ''The Cambridge Companion to Jung'' (Cambridge 1977) p. 152-3</ref>

Only subsequently would come "an [enantiodromia](/source/enantiodromia); the ''nigredo'' gives way to the ''[albedo](/source/Albedo_(alchemy))''&nbsp;... the ever deepening descent into the unconscious suddenly becomes illumination from above."<ref>C. G. Jung, "Psychology of the Transference", ''Collected Works'' vol. 16 (London 1950) p. 279</ref>

Further steps of the [alchemical opus](/source/Magnum_opus_(alchemy)) include such images as [albedo](/source/albedo_(alchemy)) (whiteness), {{lang|la|italic=no|[citrinitas](/source/citrinitas)}} (yellowness), and {{lang|la|italic=no|[rubedo](/source/rubedo)}} (redness). Jung also found psychological equivalents for many other alchemical concepts, with "the characterization of analytic work as an {{lang|la|opus}}; the reference to the analytic relationship as a {{lang|la|vas}}, vessel or container; the goal of the analytic process as the {{lang|la|coniunctio}}, or union of conflicting opposites."<ref>Hopeke, ''A Guided Tour'' pp. 164–165</ref>

==Cultural references==
{{Main|Alchemy in art and entertainment}}

* In the alchemical literary discourse [Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial](/source/Hydriotaphia%2C_Urn_Burial) (1658) the meditative ''nigredo'' stage is described as "lost in the uncomfortable night of nothing" by the physician-philosopher [Thomas Browne](/source/Thomas_Browne).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://levity.com/alchemy/sir_thomas_browne.html|title=The physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne|access-date=2020-07-02|archive-date=2008-01-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080118175213/http://levity.com/alchemy/sir_thomas_browne.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>{{fcn|date=January 2023}}
* [Shakespeare's sonnets](/source/Shakespeare's_sonnets) are dense with the symbolism of the "nigredo"&nbsp;... "ghastly night".<ref>M. C. Schoenfeldt, ''A Companion to Shakespeare's Sonnets'' (2007) p. 414</ref>
* [W. B. Yeats](/source/W._B._Yeats) in his alchemical stories introduces the alchemical phase of the ''nigredo''. The narrator begins "to struggle again with the shadow, as with some older night".<ref>William T. Gorski, ''Yeats and Alchemy'' (1996) p. 85</ref>
* In the Japanese light-novel and anime series ''[Overlord](/source/Overlord_(novel_series))'', there exists a character called Nigredo. Her two sisters are called Albedo and Rubedo, all three named after the parts of the [Magnum Opus](/source/Magnum_opus_(alchemy)).

==See also==
* ''[Dark Night of the Soul](/source/Dark_Night_of_the_Soul)''
* [Nekyia](/source/Nekyia)

==References==
{{reflist|colwidth=40em}}

{{Alchemy}}

Category:Alchemical processes
Category:Analytical psychology

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Nigredo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigredo) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigredo?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.