The Peacock’s Tail
"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