The Black Sun is an extraordinary examination of the alchemical stage known as the "nigredo"..the blackening or mortification, so often experienced as depression, terror, or madness. I was especially transfixed at the way in which Dr. Marlan expresses the paradoxical nature of these experiences in that the darkness itself contains a "shine" or luminescence, that is the light of nature, not that of heaven. The text is richly referenced with the writings of Dr. Jung, several case studies, and many other literary examples. This book is an eloquent validation of a domain of experience that is unavoidable, yet so often denied.