When we compare the essays in the present volume with Jung’s monumental Mysterium Coniunctionis, with Psychology and Alchemy and to a lesser extent Aion, we realize their special value as an introduction to his researches into alchemy. The three longer works, published earlier in this edition, have an impact which to the uninitiated is well-nigh overwhelming. After them these shorter and more manageable works will be turned to, if not for relaxation—their erudition forbids that—at least with a feeling of lively interest, as preliminary studies for the weightier volumes which they now appear to summarize. Much of the symbolic matter has been referred to in other earlier publications: the visions of Zosimos in “Transformation Symbolism in the Mass,” and Mercurius in all the above-mentioned works but more especially in “The Psychology of the Transference,” while “The Philosophical Tree” develops the theme of the tree symbol discussed sporadically in Symbols of Transformation. The “Commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower” is of considerable historical interest. Jung says in Memories, Dreams, Reflections (ch. 7): “Light on the nature of alchemy began to come to me only after I had read the text of the Golden Flower, that specimen of Chinese alchemy which Richard Wilhelm sent me in 1928. I was stirred by the desire to become more closely acquainted with the alchemical texts.” “Paracelsus as a Spiritual Phenomenon” stands out as a separate study with a powerful appeal, perhaps because Jung could identify himself rather closely and sympathetically with that dynamic and explosive personage, his own countryman. Because of its emphasis on alchemical sources, it is included in the present volume rather than in Volume 15 with two shorter essays on Paracelsus as a personality and physician.
*
The Editors and the translator are greatly indebted to the late Mr. A. S. B. Glover for the translation of the Latin, Greek, and French passages in the text, as well as for his tireless work in checking the references and bibliographical data, which continued until shortly before his death in January 1966.
For assistance in explicating Noël Pierre’s poem, grateful acknowledgment is made to Comte Pierre Crapon de Caprona (Noël Pierre), to Miss Paula Deitz, and to Mr. Jackson Mathews.
For help and co-operation in obtaining the photographs for the plates in this volume the Editors are much indebted to the late Mrs. Marianne Niehus-Jung, who made materials available from Professor Jung’s collection; to Dr. Jolande Jacobi and Dr. Rudolf Michel, in charge of the picture collection at the C. G. Jung Institute, Zurich; and to Mr. Hellmut Wieser, of Rascher Verlag, Zurich. The frontispiece, an almost exact coloured replica of a woodcut published by the author in Paracelsica, was discovered fortuitously in a manuscript in the Mellon Collection of the Alchemical and Occult. It is reproduced by courtesy of Mr. Paul Mellon and the Yale University Library. The Editors are indebted also to Mr. Laurence Witten for his advice and assistance in regard to it.