Citrinitas

The citrinitas — the yellowing, Greek xanthosis — is the third of the four original colors of the opus-alchymicum, between nigredo-albedo-rubedo (whitening) and rubedo (reddening). Jung, citing Heraclitus, names the original four: “melanosis (blackening), leukosis (whitening), xanthosis (yellowing), and iosis (reddening)” — and observes that “Later, about the fifteenth or sixteenth century, the colors were reduced to three, and the xanthosis, otherwise called the citrinitas, gradually fell into disuse or was but seldom mentioned” (Jung, cited in Hillman, Alchemical Psychology).

Hillman’s Alchemical Psychology rescues the citrinitas from this disappearance. The yellowing, he argues, is a distinctive psychic movement between the moon-sphere of the albedo and the blood-heat of the rubedo: a dawn, an intellectual sunrise, “The growing light of solar illumination [that] helps one discern more clearly the imperfections of the lunar sphere” (Alchemical Psychology). It is not a return of ego-solarity but a discerning light — “Birds play a prominent part in the citrinitas” — a change in intellect itself, not merely in mood or affect.

The disappearance of citrinitas from the three-color scheme (black, white, red) that dominated late alchemy is, for Hillman, a loss — the loss of a distinct operation of mind between the receptive silver of the albedo and the incarnate gold of the rubedo.

Relationships

• opus-alchymicum
• nigredo-albedo-rubedo
• nigredo-albedo-rubedo
• nigredo-albedo-rubedo
• coniunctio

Primary sources

• hillman-alchemical-psychology (Hillman 2010)
• jung-psychology-and-alchemy (Jung 1944)