The Rainbow
A bridge of light between heaven and earth.
The Rainbow: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The rainbow joins heaven and earth after the storm, a bridge of all colours. Jungian writers read it as the reconciliation of opposites after a crisis, and set it beside the alchemists’ peacock’s tail, the many colours that come before the white.
The Rainbow: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
The covenant after the Flood, Bifröst, the bridge to Asgard, Iris the messenger of the gods, the rainbow body of Tibetan tradition.
From the Sources
After the flood God sets his bow in the cloud as the token of a covenant between himself and the earth.
“I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.”
The King James Version of the Bible, Genesis 9:13. Project Gutenberg eBook #10. The text, read in part
Silberer remarks that the rainbow is a sign of a covenant: it binds heaven and earth, man and woman.
“…the rainbow. This, be it remarked in passing, had appeared before; it is a sign of a covenant. It binds heaven and earth, man and woman.”
Dr. Herbert Silberer, Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism, Part II, Section I, 'Psychoanalytic Interpretation of the Parable'. 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
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
- The Book of Symbols, Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism (2010)
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
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 Rainbow.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/rainbow.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Quintessence: The fifth, beyond the four: what the elements hold in common. Rain: What falls from heaven to make the earth fertile. The Raven: The black bird of the beginning. Rebirth: Becoming new, in five forms.