The Alchemy of Shadow Work

Navigating the darkness and disorientation of the nigredo stage

In this edition of The Artemisian, I'll be answering a question submitted by a paid subscriber. If you'd like to submit one of your own, consider joining the community of paid members. Your support allows me to devote more time to these offerings and ensures that the resources here remain accessible. Upgrading also allows you to engage further with my work via in-depth monthly classes, discounts on 1:1 services and more¹.

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A paid subscriber writes…

A few months ago I started attempting some shadow work on my own to try and heal some issues from the past. Since beginning, I’ve started noticing that I’m having bad dreams more often. I’m also experiencing a general sense of unease and heaviness. Do you think there’s a connection between these experiences and the shadow work I’m doing?

Plate 19, “The Dark Sun” from Splendor Solis by Salomon Trismosin

Before getting into this question, I want to make an important disclaimer. The nature of working with the shadow can be incredibly destabilizing in one’s life. Opening the gates to the unconscious is much like peering beyond the veil into the great unknown, it opens a portal of sorts, and what comes out can be as frightening as it can be healing. Many times, the fear comes before the cure. These previously unknown parts of ourself, that which was rejected, hidden, disagreeable, must be brought into the light of consciousness and claimed as our own. It is no easy task.

In Mysterium Coniunctionis, Jung shares:

“Self-knowledge is an adventure that carries us unexpectedly far and deep. Even a moderately comprehensive knowledge of the shadow can cause a good deal of confusion and mental darkness, since it gives rise to personality problems which one had never remotely imagined before.”

An emphasis on containment, such as working within a therapeutic setting or building ego resilience and strength, is so often emphasized because the shadow has a tendency to overwhelm. It brings confusion and darkness, and we often lack the resources and resilience to face this alone.

If you suspect that the increase in symptoms is coming from a lack of support, working with a professional to integrate and temper the experience is paramount. With that said, I will approach this question from an archetypal perspective, focusing on the symbols and patterns, as many of the details noted are typical of beginning this kind of inner work.

Nigredo - The Blackening Stage of Alchemy

Emblem 9, “Putrefactio” from Philosophia Reformata by Johann Daniel Mylius

"When you see your matter going black, rejoice: for that is the beginning of the work."

— Rosarium Philosophorum

In the alchemical opus, the early operations and procedures are characterized by a destruction of the prima materia. It must be cooked, incinerated, dissolved until it reaches a uniform blackness; this is the first stage of the work — the nigredo. Breaking down the material helps reduce it back to its primal state. Only then can it be truly redeemed, transformed and elevated.

As a psychological analog, the nigredo state draws the psyche deep into the underworld, where we are like to experience a dark night of the soul. Attachments, false beliefs, illusions, emotional distortions are stripped away in the process. Rather than turn away from this act, alchemists counsel us to stay with it, to make things blacker than black. This, however, usually results in a myriad of difficult states that one must face such as:

• A sense of losing a grip on one’s life

• Experiencing a slow deterioration of something meaningful

• Feeling lost, disoriented, hopeless or helpless

• A depressive mood

• An increase in intense images of the psyche (in dreams, fantasies, etc) that may feel haunting, fearful, related to a sense of death or loss

• Panic, anxiety or other general nervous system dysregulation

If we look at the quote above, taken from a famous alchemical manuscript, we are reminded that the nigredo is an achievement. It means that meaningful work has begun and things are changing. This fluctuation has an impact upon us, and a period of instability can feel like too much to bear. Successful completion of this stage is contingent on the symbolic death of the material, that is, being with the process long enough so it can reach its natural end. It is the moment the caterpillar enters the chrysalis, it is dissolution in service of rebirth.

Is this the right time to continue the work? Are the necessary conditions able to be met? Do you have enough inner and outer resources at your disposal? These are the important questions we must face when we engage the shadow. Weathering the storm, finding our way out of the labyrinth, ascending from the underworld may be possible, but it comes at a cost.

Eventually this work begins to lighten. From the inky black void of the nigredo, the light of the moon begins to shine through. The heaviness recedes, we are able to reorient and navigate our environment with greater ease. The alchemist call this stage the albedo², it is a time of renewal, where the material is cleansed and the impurities washed away. Psychologically, a kind of detachment is established, where before we may have felt trapped, chained, bound to the shadow. We begin to see more clearly, with a vision that is contemplative, reflective, curious. Life begins to awaken once more, and the path towards resolution and integration is much closer.

Alchemy provides an archetypal re-imagining of our inner work struggles³. Can these symptoms be placed upon an alchemical map for yourself? Does that shift anything or reveal where you may be able to make corrections? Does it make the work feel possible? Or, perhaps, does it speak to a need to slow down and find greater containment?

Join the conversation

1. Have you experienced a nigredo state before? How did you navigate it?

2. What techniques do you use for shadow work?

3. Any thoughts or questions on using alchemy to reframe inner work?

1. Info on paid subscriber benefits can be found here.

2. Listen to Moon as the Illuminated Shadow for musings and insights on the albedo.

3. For more on this idea, see Alchemical Inner Work.