iopanosiris:

Roberto Ferri, Nigredo

In alchemy, nigredo, or blackness, means putrefaction or decomposition. The alchemists believed that as a first step in the pathway to the philosopher’s stone all alchemical ingredients had to be cleansed and cooked extensively to a uniform black matter.

In analytical psychology, the term became a metaphor ‘for the dark night of the soul, when an individual confronts the shadow within’