White
Albedo
The whitening: the first light after the dark.
White: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
After the black comes the albedo, the whitening, reached by washing: the matter is cleansed and turns silver, like the dawn. The alchemists put it bluntly, and Jung quoted them: “Whiten the latten and rend your books, lest your hearts be rent asunder.” He read it as the first clarity after the nigredo, lunar and reflective, not yet the full light.
White: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Silver and the moon, the dove and the swan, the white stone, the white robes of the initiate and the newly baptised.
From the Sources
In the passage from Espagnet quoted by Redgrove, the white colour follows the black, gives the perfection of the first degree and of the White Sulphur, and is called the blessed stone.
“The white colour succeedeth the black, wherein is given the perfection of the first degree, and of the White Sulphur. This is called the blessed stone”
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
Silberer reads the white as the 'new earth', freedom or innocence, which follows the black of introversion.
“The black corresponds to introversion and to the first [mystic] death, the white to the " new earth," to freedom or innocence, red to love, which completes the work.”
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
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
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
In the Glossary: Albedo.
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
“White.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/white.
Symbols That Share Its Terms
Rain (Dew) · The Dew (Ros, the heavenly moisture) · The Bird · The Dove · The Swan (Cygnus)
Nearby in the alphabet: The Whale: The monster of the deep that swallows. The Wheel: Turning time, fortune, and the round of birth and death. The Wind: Spirit that blows where it will. The Wise Old Man: Spirit in the form of a knowing elder.