The Raven
Caput corvi
The black bird of the beginning.
The Raven: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The alchemists called the blackened matter of the nigredo the raven’s head, caput corvi, and the raven was the bird of the first stage of the work. Jung read it as the dark, sometimes knowing, messenger of the unconscious: black, but wise.
In the Aurora consurgens the raven’s head is the blackness of the work that must be cut off, and Jung read the caput corvi as the melancholy of the nigredo, the depression from which the whitening comes. The raven’s blackness was explained in the Physiologus by its abandoning its young, and in Ovid by Apollo’s curse on the tale-bearer.
Odin’s ravens, Huginn and Muninn, Thought and Memory, fly over the world each day and come back to his shoulders to tell him what they have seen: the god’s own messengers to the unconscious and back.
The Raven: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Odin’s ravens Thought and Memory, Noah’s raven that did not return, the ravens that fed Elijah, Raven the trickster of the Pacific coast, Poe’s “Nevermore.”. The raven of Elijah at Cherith; Saint Benedict’s raven that carried off the poisoned bread; the ravens of the Tower of London; Raven who stole the light; Poe.
From the Sources
Silberer describes the alchemical work in which the red man and white woman are cooked together in the philosophical egg: the matter first turns black and is called raven or raven's head, and later white, called swan.
“The red man and the white woman, called also red lions and white lilies, and many other names, are united and cooked together in a vessel, the philosophical Egg. The combined material becomes thereby gradually black (and is called raven or ravenhead), later white (swan)”
Dr. Herbert Silberer, Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts (originally published as Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism), Part II, Section II, "Alchemy". Translated by Smith Ely Jelliffe, M.D., Ph.D.; Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1971, an unabridged republication of the work published by Moffat, Yard and Company, New York, in 1917 (Project Gutenberg eBook #27755). The text, read in part
At the end of forty days Noah opens the window of the ark and first sends out a raven, which goes to and fro until the waters are dried up.
“8:6 And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made: 8:7 And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.”
The King James Version of the Bible, Genesis 8:6-7. King James Version, Project Gutenberg eBook #10. 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
- Psychology and Alchemy, CW 12
- Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14
- Aurora Consurgens, ed. Marie-Louise von Franz (1957)
- Ovid, Metamorphoses II.531–632
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 Birds
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Raven.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/raven.
Symbols That Share Its Terms
Death (Mortificatio, nigredo) · Putrefactio (Putrefaction) · Mortificatio (Mortification, killing) · Lead (Saturn) · The Eclipse (The black sun) · The Tomb
Nearby in the alphabet: Rain: What falls from heaven to make the earth fertile. The Rainbow: A bridge of light between heaven and earth. Rebirth: Becoming new, in five forms. Red: The reddening: the work completed in blood and life.