Editing Carl Jung (section)

===Alchemy===
[[File:Michael Maier Atalanta Fugiens Emblem 21.jpeg|thumb|The mythic alchemical philosopher's stone as pictured in ''[[Atalanta Fugiens]]'' Emblem 21]]
Jung's acquaintance with alchemy came between 1928 and 1930 when he was introduced to a manuscript of ''[[The Secret of the Golden Flower]]'', translated by [[Richard Wilhelm (sinologist)|Richard Wilhelm]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jung |first1=Carl |editor1-last=Shamdasani |editor1-first=Sonu |title=The Red Book |date=2012 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |page=555 |edition=Reader |chapter=Epilogue}}</ref>  The work and writings of Jung from the 1930s onwards shifted to a focus on the [[Alchemy#Psychology|psychological significance of alchemy]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jung |first1=Carl |editor1-last=Hull |editor1-first=R.F.C. |title=Psychology and Alchemy |date=1952 |publisher=Princeton University Press |edition=1968 Second Edition completely revised |chapter=From Editorial Note to the First Edition}}</ref>

In 1944, Jung published ''[[Psychology and Alchemy]]'', in which he analyzed the alchemical symbols and came to the conclusion that there is a direct relationship between them and the psychoanalytical process.{{refn|group=lower-alpha|'For Jung, alchemy is not only part of the pre-history of chemistry, that is, not only laboratory work, but also an essential part of the history of psychology as the history of the discovery of the deep structure of the psyche and its unconscious. Jung emphasized the significance of the symbolic structure of alchemical texts, a structure that is understood as a way independent of laboratory research, as a structure per se.' {{cite book|last=Calian|first=George Florin|title=Alkimia Operativa and Alkimia Speculativa. Some Modern Controversies on the Historiography of Alchemy|url=https://archive.org/stream/AlkimiaOperativaAndAlkimiaSpeculativa.SomeModernControversiesOnThe/FlorinGeorgeCalian-AlkimiaOperativaAndAlkimiaSpeculativa.SomeModernControversiesOnTheHistoriographyOfAlchemy#page/n0/mode/2up|publisher=Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU|location=Budapest|year=2010|pages=167–168}}}} He argued that the alchemical process was the transformation of the impure soul (lead) to perfected soul (gold), and a metaphor for the individuation process.<ref name="jungbio1"/>

In 1963, ''[[Mysterium Coniunctionis]]'' first appeared in English as part of ''[[The Collected Works of C. G. Jung]]''. ''Mysterium Coniunctionis'' was Jung's last major book and focused on the "''Mysterium Coniunctionis''" archetype, known as the [[sacred marriage]] between the sun and moon. Jung argued that the stages of the alchemists, the blackening, the whitening, the reddening, and the yellowing, could be taken as symbolic of individuation—his chosen term for personal growth (75).<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Wagner |first=Christopher Franklin |date=2019-05-15 |title=Of Books and Fire: Approaching the Alchemy of Carl Gustav Jung |url=https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/290574 |language=en |doi=10.17863/CAM.37801}}</ref>