Cibatio
Feeding
Nourishing the matter in the vessel, a little at a time.
Cibatio: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The seventh of Ripley’s Twelve Gates: the matter in the vessel is fed, with milk and with meat, “moderately,” so that it grows without being drowned.
Edward Edinger read feeding as the attention given to what is growing in the psyche: fed, it grows; starved, it withers; fed too much at once, it is overwhelmed.
Cibatio: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
The pelican feeding its young with its own blood; the lion and the dragon fed in the vessel; the child at the breast.
From the Sources
The Sophic Hydrolith directs that the third part, kept back, be added to the rest not all at once or in one day, but in seven different instalments.
“When this is done, add the third part (which you have kept) to the rest, but not all at once, or in one day, but in seven different instalments”
The Hermetic Museum, Restored and Enlarged: Most Faithfully Instructing All Disciples of the Sopho-Spagyric Art How That Greatest and Truest Medicine of the Philosopher's Stone May Be Found and Held, "The Sophic Hydrolith", p. 82. Now first done into English from the Latin original published at Frankfort in the year 1678; containing twenty-two most celebrated chemical tracts; in two volumes, Volume I; London: James Elliott and Co., Temple Chambers, Falcon Court, Fleet Street, E.C., 1893 (Internet Archive OCR text). The text, read in part
The Glory of the World explains that the body must receive its spirit to drink gradually, little by little, until it recovers its life, health and strength, by the same gentle heat that digests food in the stomach.
“…those last three words mean that the body must receive its spirit to drink gradually, and little by little, until it recovers its life, and health, and strength, which takes place by means of the same gentle heat which digests food in the stomach”
The Hermetic Museum, Restored and Enlarged: Most Faithfully Instructing All Disciples of the Sopho-Spagyric Art How That Greatest and Truest Medicine of the Philosopher's Stone May Be Found and Held, "The Glory of the World", p. 225. Now first done into English from the Latin original published at Frankfort in the year 1678; containing twenty-two most celebrated chemical tracts; in two volumes, Volume I; London: James Elliott and Co., Temple Chambers, Falcon Court, Fleet Street, E.C., 1893 (Internet Archive OCR text). The text, read in part
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
Where to Read
- George Ripley, The Compound of Alchymy (1471)
- Edward F. Edinger, Anatomy of the Psyche (1985)
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among Operations of the Work
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“Cibatio.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/cibatio.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Centre: The still point around which everything turns. The Chariot: The vehicle drawn by forces the driver must master. The Circle: Wholeness, without beginning or end. Circulatio: Round and round, until it is refined.