Caput Corvi

Synonymous with the caput corvi and nigredo. Cf. Mylius, Philosophia reformata, p. 19, who says that in the nigredo the anima media natura holds sway. This is roughly the equivalent of what I call the collective unconscious.

Jung explicitly equates caput corvi with nigredo and, via the anima media natura, identifies this blackened state with the collective unconscious — making the term a direct marker of depth-psychological regression to the unconscious substrate.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Alchemical Studies, 1967thesis

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Dom Pernety (Fables égyptiennes et grecques, II, p. 152) correctly interprets Coronis as putrefaction, nigredo, caput corvi, and the myth as an opus.

Jung affirms Pernety's triad of putrefactio, nigredo, and caput corvi as a mythological complex, demonstrating that the alchemical stage recapitulates classical myth and thus validates the depth-psychological continuity between ancient narrative and alchemical symbolism.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, 1955thesis

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Take therefore in God's almighty name this black earth, reduce it very subtly and it will become like the head of a Raven. As if explaining the caput corvi the text remarks that... when the blackness appears one must rejoice.

Jung presents the primary alchemical injunction associated with caput corvi — the reduction of black earth to the raven's head form — and identifies the paradoxical joy at the onset of blackness as the psychological and spiritual signature of this stage.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, 1955thesis

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and symbolism of the head in mortificatio, 165-168, 173 as hallmark of mortificatio, 148-149

Edinger catalogues the blackening and head symbolism as the defining hallmarks of mortificatio, contextualizing caput corvi within the broader psychotherapeutic framework of mortification as a necessary psychic death.

Edinger, Edward F., Anatomy of the Psyche: Alchemical Symbolism in Psychotherapy, 1985supporting

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Jung says in paragraph 722 that this picture refers to the completion of the nigredo and the total separation of the two sulphurs, which corresponds to the unio mentalis.

Edinger locates the completion of the nigredo — the phase to which caput corvi belongs — as a discrete structural moment corresponding to the unio mentalis, clarifying its position within the sequential logic of the alchemical and psychological opus.

Edinger, Edward F., The Mysterium Lectures: A Journey Through C.G. Jung's Mysterium Coniunctionis, 1995supporting

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Germination and decay, light changing to darkness, death and rebirth — all these belong to the symbolism of the moon, which dies and is reborn each month.

Edinger situates the mortificatio symbolism, of which caput corvi is an emblem, within a broader lunar cycle of death and rebirth, linking the nigredo to the archetypal rhythm of corruption and renewal.

Edinger, Edward F., Anatomy of the Psyche: Alchemical Symbolism in Psychotherapy, 1985aside

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