Rubedo
Encyclopedia
Rubedo is a Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 word meaning "redness" that was adopted by alchemists to define the fourth and final major stage in the Magnum Opus
Magnum opus (alchemy)
The Great Work is an alchemical term for the process of creating the philosopher's stone. It has been used to describe personal and spiritual transmutation in the Hermetic tradition, attached to laboratory processes and chemical color changes, used as a model for the individuation process, and as...

. Both gold, and the philosopher's stone
Philosopher's stone
The philosopher's stone is a legendary alchemical substance said to be capable of turning base metals into gold or silver. It was also sometimes believed to be an elixir of life, useful for rejuvenation and possibly for achieving immortality. For many centuries, it was the most sought-after goal...

 were associated with the color red, as rubedo signalled alchemical success, and the end of the great work. Rubedo can be interpreted as achieving enlightened consciousness and the total fusion of spirit and matter. The three alchemical stages preceding rubedo were nigredo
Nigredo
Nigredo, or blackness, in alchemy 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....

 (blackness) which represented putrefication and spiritual death, albedo
Albedo (alchemy)
In alchemy, albedo is one of the four major stages of the magnum opus; along with nigredo, citrinitas and rubedo. It is a Latinicized term meaning "whiteness" and follows the nigredo stage...

 (whiteness) which represented purification, and thirdly citrinitas
Citrinitas
Citrinitas, sometimes referred to as xanthosis, is a term given by 15th- and 16th-century alchemists to "yellowness." It was one of the four major stages of the alchemical magnum opus, and literally referred to "transmutation of silver into gold" or "yellowing of the lunar consciousness." In...

 (yellowness); the solar dawn or awakening. Rubedo is also known by the Greek word, Iosis.

The symbols used in alchemical writing and art to represent this red stage can include blood, a phoenix, a rose, a crowned king, or a figure wearing red clothes. Countless sources give mention to a reddening process. The seventeenth dictum of the 12th century Turba Philosophorum
Turba Philosophorum
The Turba Philosophorum, also known as Assembly of the Philosophers, is one of the oldest European alchemy texts, translated from the Arabic, like the Picatrix...

 is one example:
In the framework of psychological development (especially followers of Jungian psychology) these four alchemical steps are be taken as analogous to the process of attaining individuation
Individuation
Individuation is a concept which appears in numerous fields and may be encountered in work by Arthur Schopenhauer, Carl Jung, Gilbert Simondon, Bernard Stiegler, Gilles Deleuze, Henri Bergson, David Bohm, and Manuel De Landa...

: In an archetypal schema, rubedo would represent the Self
Self (psychology)
The psychology of self is the study of either the cognitive and affective representation of one's identity or the subject of experience. The earliest formulation of the self in modern psychology derived from the distinction between the self as I, the subjective knower, and the self as Me, the...

 archetype
Archetype
An archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated...

, and would be the culmination of the four stages. The Self manifests itself in "wholeness," a point in which a person discovers his or her true nature.
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