Alchemy is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first attested in a number of pseudepigraphical texts written in Greco-Roman Egypt during the first few centuries AD.
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy, psychology, and religious studies. Jung worked as a research scientist at the Burghölzli psychiatric hospital, in Zurich, under Eugen Bleuler. During this time, he came to the attention of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. The two men conducted a lengthy correspondence and collaborated, for a while, on a joint vision of human psychology.
The philosopher's stone, or more properly philosophers' stone, is a mythic alchemical substance capable of turning base metals such as mercury into gold or silver. It is also called the elixir of life, useful for rejuvenation and for achieving immortality; for many centuries, it was the most sought-after goal in alchemy. The philosopher's stone was the central symbol of the mystical terminology of alchemy, symbolizing perfection at its finest, enlightenment, and heavenly bliss. Efforts to discover the philosopher's stone were known as the Magnum Opus.
Hermeticism or Hermetism is a philosophical system based on the purported teachings of Hermes Trismegistus. These teachings are contained in the various writings attributed to Hermes, which were produced over a period spanning many centuries and may be very different in content and scope.
The Nag Hammadi library is a collection of early Christian and Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945.
Melchior is the name traditionally given to one of the biblical Magi appearing in the Gospel of Matthew. There are many notable people with this name, or close variations.
Marie-Louise von Franz was a Swiss Jungian psychologist and scholar, known for her psychological interpretations of fairy tales and of alchemical manuscripts.
Nicolaus Olahus ; 10 January 1493 – 15 January 1568) was the Archbishop of Esztergom, Primate of Hungary, and a distinguished Catholic prelate, humanist and historiographer.
Nicolaus Taurellus was a German philosopher and medical academic.
Zosimos of Panopolis was a Greco-Egyptian alchemist and Gnostic mystic who lived at the end of the 3rd and beginning of the 4th century AD. He was born in Panopolis, and flourished ca. 300. He wrote the oldest known books on alchemy, which he called "Cheirokmeta," using the Greek word for "things made by hand." Pieces of this work survive in the original Greek language and in translations into Syriac or Arabic. He is one of about 40 authors represented in a compendium of alchemical writings that was probably put together in Constantinople in the 7th or 8th century AD, copies of which exist in manuscripts in Venice and Paris. Stephen of Alexandria is another.
A temenos is a piece of land cut off and assigned as an official domain, especially to kings and chiefs, or a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, such as a sanctuary, holy grove, or holy precinct.
The Secret of the Golden Flower is a Chinese Taoist book on neidan meditation, which also mixes Buddhist teachings with some Confucian thoughts. It was written by means of the spirit-writing (fuji) technique, through two groups, in 1688 and 1692. After the publication of the translation by Richard Wilhelm, with commentary by Carl Gustav Jung, it became modernly popularized among Westerners as a Chinese "religious classic", and is read in psychological circles for analytical and transpersonal psychology considerations of Taoist meditations, although it receives little attention in the East.
Alchemical Studies, volume 13 in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, consists of five long essays by Carl Jung that trace his developing interest in alchemy from 1929 onward. Serving as an introduction and supplement to his major works on the subject, the book is illustrated with 42 drawings and paintings by Jung's patients.
The Collected Worksof C. G. Jung is a book series containing the first collected edition, in English translation, of the major writings of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung.
Nicolas Barnaud (1538–1604) was a French Protestant writer, physician and alchemist, from Crest, in Dauphiné, from which he took the name Delphinas. He was a member of the Monarchomaques.
Theatrum Chemicum is a compendium of early alchemical writings published in six volumes over the course of six decades. The first three volumes were published in 1602, while the final sixth volume was published in its entirety in 1661. Theatrum Chemicum remains the most comprehensive collective work on the subject of alchemy ever published in the Western world.
The Bollingen Tower is a structure built by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. In appearance, it is a small castle with four towers. It is located in the village of Bollingen on the shore of the Obersee basin of Lake Zürich.
Kaspar Ursinus Velius was a German humanist scholar, poet and historian.
The Mirror of Alchimy is a short alchemical manual, known in Latin as Speculum Alchemiae. Translated in 1597, it was only the second alchemical text printed in the English language. Long ascribed to Roger Bacon (1214-1294), the work is more likely the product of an anonymous author who wrote between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries.
David Holt was a British psychotherapist based in London and then Oxford who trained in the tradition of Analytical psychology developed by Carl Jung. As an analyst he broadened his approach to include theatre, time, history, politics and economics, psychosis, metaphysics, alchemy and the relationship between Analytical psychology and religion.
