ABSTRACT
Saint John's works exemplify the aspiring aims of Christian mysticism. There are some trends in alchemy which are similar. The alchemists worked to detach the soul from the body which ascended to arrive at a spiritual unity, the Unio mentalis in the upper reaches of the universe called the caelum. The alchemists never became arraigned as heretics, but it may be that much of their obscurity was designed to avoid that very disagreeable possibility. In the texts under consideration, the alchemists were at great pains to state their Christian faith and they say that the truth can be arrived at only by prayer, right living and the grace of God. C. G. Jung recognized that the alchemists' work, or much of it was dependent upon projections and that in studying them he could discern a prototype of individuation. The formulation of projective-identification was introduced by Jung in another context without giving it that title but he never applied to alchemy.
