The Seba library treats Peacock in 9 passages, across 5 authors (including Abraham, Lyndy, Jung, Carl Gustav, Campbell, Joseph).
the stage occurring immediately after the deathly black stage or nigredo, and just prior to the pure white stage or albedo… the appearance of all the colours of the rainbow, which look like a peacock displaying its luminescent tail
Abraham provides the definitive technical account of the peacock’s tail as the chromatic transitional stage between nigredo and albedo in alchemical process, corroborated by Philalethes and Roger Bacon.
, A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, 1998thesis
In alchemy, the end of the work announced by the cauda pavonis was the birth of the filius regius… the peacock annually renews his plumage, and therefore has a relation to all the changes in nature.
Jung identifies the cauda pavonis as the alchemical herald of the royal son’s birth and situates the peacock’s cosmic symbolism — encompassing Juno, Iris, sky, and solar renewal — within the transformative arc of the opus.
, Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, 1955thesis
the bonnets of the two kings, Anfortas and Gramoflanz, are alike of peacock plumes. In early Christian art the peacock, like the phoenix, was symbolic of the Resurrection.
Campbell reads the peacock plumes shared by Wolfram’s two complementary kings as a mythological figure of resurrection and cosmic renewal, citing Augustine’s patristic testimony on the incorruptibility of peacock flesh.
, Creative Mythology: The Masks of God, Volume IV, 1968thesis
blue would be the crucial color in the palette of the peacock because it transforms the other colors into possibilities of imagination, into psychological events, that come to life because of blue.
Hillman reframes the peacock’s chromatic symbolism through imaginal psychology, privileging blue as the alchemical and aesthetic catalyst that vivifies the full spectrum of the cauda pavonis into psychological possibility.
, Alchemical Psychology, 2010thesis
On it there sits a peacock, fanning out its tail, and to the left there is an egg, presumably the peacock’s. In view of the important role w
Jung documents a clinical mandala in which a peacock with egg appears as an atypical dyadic structure, connecting the symbol to the world-egg and individuation iconography within the psychology of the self.
, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 1959supporting
jackdaw a symbol of the stage known as the nigredo, the putrefaction which leads to the stage of the peacock’s tail. Equivalent terms are crow, crow’s head and raven.
Abraham situates the peacock’s tail within the sequential logic of alchemical colour symbolism by defining the jackdaw/raven as the nigredo stage that immediately precedes it.
, A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, 1998supporting
The stages of the work are marked by seven colours which are associated with the planets… The psychological significance of the colours comes out quite clearly in Dorn.
Jung establishes the alchemical colour sequence — within which the peacock’s tail is embedded — as carrying planetary, astrological, and psychological significance, grounding the chromatic symbolism in individual character and soul.
, Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, 1955supporting
Meanwhile she of the Peacocks Flesh did Eate And Dranke the Greene-Lyons Blood with that fine Meate, Which Mercur
Edinger cites Ripley’s alchemical verse in which the consumption of peacock flesh alongside the green lion’s blood marks a critical moment of psychic assimilation within the transformative opus.
, The Mysterium Lectures: A Journey Through C.G. Jung’s Mysterium Coniunctionis, 1995supporting
she had wings on her back, the feathers o
Abraham’s citation of Trismosin’s Splendor Solis depicts a feminine figure bearing multicoloured feathers at the nigredo, implicitly evoking the chromatic symbolism of the peacock’s tail as horizon of renewal.
, A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, 1998aside