The Eclipse
The black sun
The light swallowed by the dark.
The Eclipse: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The alchemists spoke of a sol niger, a black sun, and Jung, in Mysterium Coniunctionis, read it as the dark side of consciousness, the nigredo in which the light of the ego is eclipsed.
The eclipse is also a union: sun and moon meeting in one place in the sky, which the alchemists pictured as their marriage.
The Eclipse: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Rahu swallowing the sun; the darkness at the Crucifixion; Nerval’s “black sun of melancholy”; Dürer’s Melencolia I.
From the Sources
Frazer records that at an eclipse the Ojebways imagined the sun was being put out and shot fire-tipped arrows into the air to rekindle it.
“At an eclipse the Ojebways used to imagine that the sun was being extinguished. So they shot fire-tipped arrows in the air, hoping thus to rekindle his expiring light.”
Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion, Chapter V, section 3, 'The Magical Control of the Sun'. Project Gutenberg eBook #3623 (the one-volume abridged edition). The text, read in part
Frazer says it is no wonder that the savage is thrown into a panic by an eclipse, thinking the sun or moon would perish unless he defended them from the monster that threatens to devour them.
“No wonder, therefore, that he is thrown into a panic by an eclipse, and thinks that the sun or the moon would surely perish, if he did not raise a clamour and shoot his puny shafts into the air to defend the luminaries from the monster who threatens to devour them.”
Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion, Chapter XXVIII, section 9, 'The Magic Spring'. Project Gutenberg eBook #3623 (the one-volume abridged edition). 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
- “Sol,” in Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
In the Glossary: Nigredo.
Also among The Heavens
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Eclipse.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/eclipse.
Symbols That Share Its Terms
Death (Mortificatio, nigredo) · Putrefactio (Putrefaction) · Mortificatio (Mortification, killing) · Lead (Saturn) · The Bird · The Raven (Caput corvi) · The Tomb
Nearby in the alphabet: The Eagle: Height, sight, and the spirit that rises. The Earth: Matter, body, and the mother of all. The Egg: The whole in potential, before it opens. The Enchantment: Held under a spell, waiting to be released.