ABSTRACT

In this essay I will describe how Jung’s understanding of the alchemical imagination helped to facilitate an experience of psychological transformation and healing for a team of five students enrolled in a course called ‘Alchemy and the Transformation of Self ’. The course was offered for the second time at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University. Gallatin is unique because it is a non-traditional liberal arts college within a traditional university. The curriculum is interdisciplinary with a focus on experiential learning supported by the rigor of classical texts. This explains why a course as subversive as alchemy is integrated into the curriculum. Moreover, Gallatin is the only school in New York University where Jung has been welcomed into the academy without suspicion. Primary and secondary sources by and on Jung are incorporated into the handful of courses I teach, including a course primarily devoted to Jung called ‘Jung and Postmodern Religious Experience’.