Yellow
Citrinitas
The yellowing, as the dawn becomes day.
Yellow: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The ancient alchemists counted four stages of colour, black, white, yellow, and red; later ones often dropped the yellowing, the citrinitas, and kept three. Jung noted the change and read the yellow as the dawning of the solar light out of the lunar white, a turning from reflection toward the full day.
Yellow: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Gold not yet perfected, the rising sun, saffron and the robes of the monk, the yellow of the Chinese emperor.
From the Sources
In Espagnet's account, quoted by Redgrove, the third colour is orange, arising in the passage from white to red, like the dawn with saffron hair, a forerunner of the sun.
“The third is Orange colour, which is produced in the passage of the white to the red, as the middle, and being mixed of both is as the dawn with his saffron hair, a forerunner of the Sun.”
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 gives the order of the colours as going from black through grey to white, yellow, red and purple.
“The color change of the substance is expressed by means of the change of garments, like peacock's tail, rainbow. The process goes from black through gray to white, yellow, red, purple.”
Dr. Herbert Silberer, Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism, Part II, Section II, 'Alchemy'. 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
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
In the Glossary: Citrinitas.
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
“Yellow.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/yellow.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Womb: The vessel of life, and of rebirth. The Wounded Healer: The one who heals by virtue of a wound. The Abduction: Seized by the depths: the innocent carried below. The Abyss: The depth without a bottom.