by Carl Jung

The symbol of gold: Of great worth, or the transforming philosopher's stone 'lapis philosophorum' hunted for centuries by the alchemists - is to be found in man. Alchemy, in its infancy, was primarily an experimental process dedicated to transforming physical, material lead into physical, material gold. Ancient alchemists were the scientists (i.e. chemists) of their day.

In much later years of alchemy's development (during the Renaissance), the primary goal for many (or most) alchemists had become that of bringing about a mysterious inner transformation process in the psyche.

I have discovered, in the images of alchemy, further validation of his psychological theories regarding the universal nature of symbols. This was really little different than Jung's earlier discovery of universal symbols contained in sacred religious writings, myths, fairy tales and/or in dreams.

Inner Transformation:

The fascinating thing was that when seen through a symbolic, psychological "lens" -- the (al)chemical experiments to transform base, worthless metals into precious gold reflected an internal developmental process of "wholeness" in the human psyche called "individuation".

I have come to value alchemy for it's rich symbolic content and imagery.

I have unearthed numerous indicators that even some of the earliest alchemists were aware of a corresponding internal process taking place within the human psyche.

Yet what truly set apart the symbols of transformation found in alchemy was (in fact) due to the early alchemists' beliefs that they were strictly dealing with physical, chemical, material processes.

Carl Jung (1875-1961) began to investigate the psychological components of alchemy in the 1920's and throughout the 30's 40's and 50's wrote a number of books interpreting alchemy within the context of his psychological ideas. In order to study the subject further, he began to collect a library of alchemical books.

Jung's idea of the archetypes of the collective unconscious, resonated with the elaborate symbolic language of alchemical texts, and provided scholars with a new way to examine alchemical material. During the early 20th century the cultural climate, and the preconceptions of reductionist science, made it almost impossible for scholars to look at the ideas in alchemical texts, and the scholarship of this period merely presented alchemy as a historical phenomenon, a precursor of chemistry.

Alchemy was at that time only investigated by occultists and historians of science. Jung's courage in grasping this difficult material and providing ways in which one could penetrate alchemical ideas without losing scholarly credibility, led to a serious reappraisal of alchemy which continues to this day.

The most accessible of Jung's alchemical books must be Psychology and Alchemy (1944), which was derived from his Eranos lectures given in 1935-36. In this he first deals with dream symbolism and the imagery of alchemical material, and presented the picture that alchemy is a sea of collective archetypal images which can still surface in our dreams. In the second half of this book, Jung examines the religious ideas that were drawn into alchemy, and the subtle ways in which the alchemical tradition struggled with the contradictions and problems arising from religious ideas.

For example, he looks in depth at the parallels between the philosophers' stone and the Christian mythos, the 'Lapis-Christ parallel', as he titled one of his chapters. Psychology and Alchemy is illustrated with 270 images from alchemical books and manuscripts and from related works. Many of these images were here presented in print for the first time, and this book had a profound influence and gave inspiration to many scholars and esotericists to re-examine alchemical symbolism.

Jung's Alchemical Studies, is a series of essays on the Secret of the Golden Flower, Zosimos, Paracelsus, The Spirit of Mercurius, and the Tree of Life as an archetypal symbol in alchemy. In these essays he is able to look in depth at particular aspects of alchemy.

Probably one of the most difficult, and yet most influential of his books is the Mysterium Coniunctionis, 1955. Here he examines the nature of the opposites in the human psyche and the alchemical tradition. The uniting of the alchemical King and Queen, the male and female components of the psyche, is exhaustively investigated though various alchemical ideas, symbols and source texts. This book, which few people can have studied in depth, nevertheless, provided key ideas for understanding the complexities of alchemical symbolism.