Cauda Pavonis: The Peacock’s Tail

The Peacock’s Tail

Cauda pavonis (the peacock’s tail) is the phase that follows nigredo in alchemy, characterized by an outburst of all the colors of the rainbow within the substance.

Since the peacock stands for “all colours” (i.e., the integration of all qualities), an illustration in Khunrath’s Amphitheatrum sapientiae logically shows it standing on the two heads of the Rebis, whose unity it obviously represents. The inscription calls it the “bird of Hermes” and the “blessed greenness,” both of which symbolize the Holy Ghost or the Ruach Elohim, which plays a great role in Khunrath.

— Carl Jung, CW 15, Para 391

Elsewhere Khunrath says that at the hour of conjunction the blackness and the raven’s head and all the colours in the world will appear, “even Iris, the messenger of God, and the peacock’s tail.” He adds: “Mark the secrets of the rainbow in the Old and New Testament.”

— Carl Jung, CW 15, Para 392

"When you see various colors, be steadfast and persevering in the regimen, until the Peacock's tail is completely consumed, and it produces a white, bright substance like an oriental pearl, having the highest degree of perfection. This Queen has life and power, not only to transmute metals, but also to cure all human infirmities, the praiseworthy Queen adorned with many virtues, and with such power, that she constantly transmutes Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury into the Moon, and frees human bodies from infinite diseases." — Compendiolum de praeparatione auri potabilis veri Philosophia hermetica, c. 1790 by Federico Gualdi. Yale University Library

"What hinders men from seeing and hearing God, is their own hearing, seeing and willing; by their own wills they separate themselves from the will of God. They see and hear within their own desires, which obstructs them from seeing and hearing God. Terrestrial and material things overshadow them, and they cannot see beyond their own human nature. If they would be still, desist from thinking and feeling with their own self-hood, subdue the self-will, enter into a state of resignation, into a divine union with Christ, who sees God, and hears God, and speaks with him, who knows the word and will of God; then would the eternal hearing seeing and speaking become revealed to them. " Jacob Boehme (1575-1624 C.E.) ‘Cauda Pavonis’, the peacock’s tail, or the peacock itself, is a phase in which many colors appear. Many alchemists place this phase before albedo, whiteness, although some of them place it after albedo. Gerhard Dorn (16th century): "This bird flies during the night without wings. By the first heavenly dew, after an uninterrupted process of cooking, ascending and descending, it first takes the shape of a raven’s head, then of a peacock’s tail; its feathers becoming very white and good smelling, and finally becoming fiery red, indicating its fiery character." The colors refer to the three stages of the Great Work, with rubedo, or redness, being the last one. The peacock's tail has become a well known symbol in alchemy, although it is a later addition to the alchemical symbols. Dom Pernety explains it as: "These are the colors of the rainbow which manifest themselves on the matter during the operations of the stone." He doesn't seem to place that much importance to it, but he does place the peacock's tail after the raven (Blackness, first stage), and before the swan Whiteness, second stage). The phoenix represent the third stage of Redness. The image of the peacock's tail with its iridescence of a multitude of colors, might have found its origin in the spiritual experience of alchemists.

• The Secrets of Hermetic Alchemy, by Dirk Gillabel

"The Almighty Father and Divine Hermes, When He made peace with Noah, Caused all the waters to stay in their designated place So that the world would no longer be drowned. The sign of this peace was the bright shining arch, Which is still seen alive today, Whenever peace is made between water and fire. You will see in our work a similar sign."

"The cauda pavonis was a favourite theme for artistic representation in the old prints and manuscripts. It was not the tail alone that was depicted, but the whole bird. Since the peacock stands for “all colours” (i.e., the integration of all qualities), an illustration in Khunrath’s Amphitheatrum sapientiae logically shows it standing on the two heads of the Rebis, whose unity it obviously represents. The inscription calls it the “bird of Hermes” and the “blessed greenness,” both of which symbolize the Holy Ghost or the Ruach Elohim, which plays a great role in Khunrath. The cauda pavonis is also called the “soul of the world, nature, the quintessence, which causes all things to bring forth.” Here the peacock occupies the highest place as a symbol of the Holy Ghost, in whom the male-female polarity of the hermaphrodite and the Rebis is integrated."

"These statements concerning the regimen of Venus are confirmed in Penotus’s Table of Symbols, where the peacock is correlated with the “mysterium coniugii” and with Venus, as is also the green lizard. Green is the colour of the Holy Ghost, of life, procreation and resurrection. I mention this because Penotus correlates the coniugium with the “dii mortui” (dead gods), presumably because they need resurrecting. The peacock is an ancient Christian symbol of resurrection, like the phoenix. According to a late alchemical text, the bronze tablets in the labyrinth at Meroë showed Osiris, after his regeneration by Isis, mounting a chariot drawn by peacocks, in which he drives along triumphing in his resurrection, like the sun."

• Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis

“I beseech thee with all my heart, that thou wilt send me from thy holy heavens Ruach-Hokhmah-El, the Spirit of thy Wisdom, that it may ever be beside me as a familiar, may skilfully govern me, wisely admonish me and teach me; may be with me and pray with me and work with me; may give me right will and knowledge and experience and ability in physical and physico-medical matters.”

• The prayer of the author in Amphitheatrum sapientiae

"But Basilides also himself affirms that there is a non-existent God, who, being non-existent, has made the non-existent world, that has been formed out of things that are not, by casting down a certain seed, as it were a grain of mustard-seed, having in itself stem, leaves, branches, and fruit. Or this seed is as a peacock’s egg, comprising in itself the varied multitude of colours.

And this, say the Basilidians, constitutes the seed of the world, from which all things have been produced. For they maintain that it comprises in itself all things, as it were those that as yet are non-existent, and which it has been predetermined to be brought into existence by the non-existent Deity.

There was, then, he says, in the seed itself a threefold Sonship, in all respects of the same substance with the non-existent God, which has been begotten from things that are not. And of this Sonship, divided into three parts, one portion of it was refined, and another gross, and another requiring purification.

The refined portion, when first the earliest putting down of the seed was accomplished by the non-existent God, immediately burst forth, and ascended upwards, and proceeded towards the non-existent Deity. For every nature yearns after that God on account of the excess of His beauty, but different creatures desire Him from different causes.

The more gross portion, however, still continues in the seed; and inasmuch as it is a certain imitative nature, it was not able to soar upwards, for it was more gross than the subtle part. The more gross portion, however, equipped itself with the Holy Spirit, as it were with wings; for the Sonship, thus arrayed, shows kindness to this Spirit, and in turn receives kindness.

The third Sonship, however, requires purification, and therefore this continued in the conglomeration of all germs, and this displays and receives kindness.

And Basilides asserts that there is something which is called “world,” and something else which is called supra-mundane; for entities are distributed by him into two primary divisions. And what is intermediate between these he calls “Conterminous Holy Spirit,” and this Spirit has in itself the fragrance of the Sonship."

• Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies (also known as Elenchos) Book X, chapter on Basilides

“This is the bird which flies by night without wings, which the early dew of heaven, continually acting by upward and downward ascent and descent, turns into the head of a crow, then into the tail of a peacock, and afterwards it acquires the bright wings of a swan, and lastly an extreme redness, an index of its fiery nature.”"

• Dorn, De transmutatione metallorum

"Our Ground [or Earth] therefore, being sufficiently enough moistned, we must beseech God to bestow upon us the hot shine of the Sun; for without the Sun's heat which stirs up the Life in all things, there cannot possibly be any increase and growth. Lend me therefore your best attention. As soon as the putrefied Body of our Sol shall feel the warming heat of the Sun, its blackness, which was the true Sign of its Putrefaction, will vanish away by little and little, and give way to the access and approach of many most delicate Colours, the which, the Philosophers have named the Peacock's Tail, and this finisheth the third day of our Philosophical Labour. And now, when the Fruit-producing Sun shall have thus illustrated our Field, or Ground with its warmer Rays, but for one day as yet, we may easily see, what is further likely to come to pass hereafter."

• A Short Book of Dialogues, or, (Certain Colloquies) of some Studious Searchers After the Hermetick Medicine and Universal Tincture.

"In view of the important role which the peacock and the peacock’s egg together play in alchemy and also in Gnosticism, we may expect the miracle of the cauda pavonis, the appearance of “all Colours” (Böhme), the unfolding and realization of wholeness, once the dark dividing wall has broken down."