Carl Jung, the smart alchemist

It was a recurring dream that guided Jung in his passion for understanding the human mind. For years, he dreamed that next to his house was a secret wing. In the dream, he asked himself how it was possible that he had never noticed the secret wing and each time explored that mysterious addition. Little by little, patiently analyzing the experiences he had in the secret wing, he came to understand that this mysterious addition was his unconscious, in which he enclosed everything that he rejected or repressed.

For decades, Jung searched incessantly for some scientific explanation that would allow him to work with the individual and collective unconscious of his patients, a theory that could be fully satisfactory to him, that would accommodate his observations regarding his dreams and those of his patients.

At last, in a dream he had in 1926, he found the clue that would guide his work for the rest of his life. That night, in a particularly vivid dream, he dreamed that he was imprisoned in the 17th century. He interpreted the dream as a call to alchemy, which reached its maximum splendor in that century. "Only after discovering alchemy did I clearly understand that the unconscious is a process and that the relationships of the self with the mind and its contents initiate an evolution, a true metamorphosis of the mind," said the Swiss psychologist.

Jung began researching this ancient discipline and came to have the largest alchemical library in Europe. It consolidated a solid and rich psychological and mental interpretation of alchemy that is inspiring and useful to understand and manage ourselves a little better every day. Let's see it.