Alchemy and Jung

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how Carl Jung's theory of individuation relies on alchemical symbolism to describe the psychological process of growth involving collective unconscious experience and personal unconscious experience. The paper provides a review of the peer-reviewed and scholarly literature to determine what alchemy was, how it was supposed to work, whether it did in fact work, and an analysis of how Jung's theory of individuation was formulated based on these arcane alchemist concepts. A summary of the research and important findings are reported in the conclusion. A photograph of 'The Splendor Solis - Plate 8: Colors of Rebirth' is included with the paper.

From the Paper:

"The existing body of knowledge concerning alchemy during this period in history was largely based on manuscripts written in an esoteric and arcane, symbolic language that made them almost impossible to understand from a modern perspective; however, also during the early 20th century the emerging field of depth psychology (called 'analytical psychology' by C.G. Jung) introduced an entirely new approach to understanding the nature of alchemical pursuits and its application to human psychological development. According to Biedermann (1970), "Psychologists, notably C. G. Jung, have begun to pay serious attention to the symbolism of alchemy. Jung's interpretations are often not much easier to understand than the obscure texts of the old alchemists themselves but his investigations focused attention on the 'esoteric alchemy,' on the symbolism as opposed to the chemistry" (p. 57). "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Biedermann, H. (1970). Alchemy in R. Cavendish (ed.). Man, myth & magic: An illustrated encyclopedia of the supernatural, vol. 1. New York: Marshall Cavendish Corporation.
• Elkins, J. (2000). What painting is: How to think about oil painting, using the language of alchemy. New York: Routledge.
• Goode, S. (1993, September 20). Freud is losing out to the Jung-at-heart. Insight on the News, 9(38), 16.
• Henderson, J. L., & Sherwood, D. N. (2003). Transformation of the psyche: The symbolic alchemy of the splendor solis. New York: Brunner-Routledge.
• Hobdell, R., & Fordham, M. (1998). Freud, Jung, Klein -- The fenceless field: Essays on psychoanalysis and analytical psychology. London: Routledge.

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