ABSTRACT
Historically, the link between analytical psychology and alchemy began in 1928, when Richard Wilhelm sent C.G. Jung his translation of a Chinese Taoist text, The Secret of the Golden Flower. Jung has recounted how his investigations into the nature of the unconscious over the previous fifteen years had ‘confronted’ him ‘with an extensive phenomenology to which hitherto known categories and methods could no longer be applied.’1 In his search for some comparative material against which he could test the generality of his findings, he had studied Gnostic texts. However, he was frustrated by the lack of adequate sources and historical information. As it turned out, The Secret of the Golden Flower contained alchemical symbolism, and as Jung wrote, ‘that put me on the right track.’2
