The Peacock’s Tail
Cauda pavonis
All the colours at once, before the white.
The Peacock’s Tail: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
Between the black and the white the alchemists saw the matter break into all colours, like a peacock’s tail, the cauda pavonis. Jung read it as the moment when the many possibilities of the unconscious flash out before they are brought to unity: a promise, and a confusion.
The Peacock’s Tail: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
The peacock of Juno, set with the hundred eyes of Argus; the peacock as a Christian sign of resurrection, since, Augustine said, its flesh did not decay; the rainbow.
From the Sources
Silberer writes that the so-called peacock's tail appears before the stable white, showing the gay colouring of visionary experience and marking the stage of introversion.
“…called peacock's tail appears, which comes before the stable white to indicate the characteristic gayness of color of visionary experiences, and which marks the stage of introversion.”
Dr. Herbert Silberer, Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism, Part III, Section II, 'The Goal of the Work'. Translated by Smith Ely Jelliffe, M.D., Ph.D.; New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1917 (Internet Archive OCR text). The text, read in part
Espagnet, quoted by Redgrove, says that besides the fixed signs of the work almost infinite colours appear in the vapours, like the rainbow in the clouds.
“Besides these decretory signs which firmly inhere in the matter, and shew its essential mutations, almost infinite colours appear, and shew themselves in vapours, as the Rainbow in the clouds”
H. Stanley Redgrove, Alchemy: Ancient and Modern, Chapter II, § 28, note 40. Second and revised edition; London: William Rider & Son, Ltd., 1922 (first published 1911) (Project Gutenberg eBook #43240). 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
- Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14
- Psychology and Alchemy, CW 12
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among The Colours of the Work
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Peacock’s Tail.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/peacocks-tail.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Orphan: Alone and without origin: the lonely beginning of the self. The Owl: Wisdom that sees in the dark. The Pearl: Beauty grown around a wound, in the depths. The Pelican: The mother who feeds her young with her own blood.