Page 19 - A critical exposition of Jung's theory of alchemy

Society of Chymical Physitians shortly after the Restoration of Charles
II, many of the most important alchemists stayed in London to help cure
victims of the Great Plague of 1665 and died themselves. This series of
deaths together with the political reaction against reform, drove
alchemists back into secrecy, destroyed their ability to use the same kind
of language and eventually produced the kinds of ‘clear scientific’ style
of writing pursued by people like Robert Boyle, who himself was more
or less covertly seeking the secrets of alchemy without success - though
he did claim to have witnessed the degradation of gold - a reverse
transmutation (Idhe 1964)5. It is a possible hypothesis that alchemy, by
neglecting the bent of Medieval and Renaissance scientia of proceeding
by logical deduction from axioms, introduced the method of opinion and
experiment, and the aim of replication, which lead to modern science.

Also at this time, the division between live soul and dead matter
became so ‘obvious’ to people that alchemy itself appeared to split more
radically than previously between those alchemies devoted to
transmutation of spirit and those devoted to matter. For example
productions such as the Book of Lambspring, the works of Khunrath and
the writings of Jacob Boehme seem entirely spiritual. It is possible to
question the increase in this split, by pointing out that when we cannot
understand something we should not automatically say it is religious -
but at the moment I incline its favour. By the 19th Century it was part of
almost every esotericist’s argument that alchemy was mainly, or only,
about spiritual things - although some were still prepared to argue that
laboratory work might occur when the spiritual transmutation had taken
place. Amongst the most interesting of these writers is Mary Anne
Atwood, an English woman who suggested that Alchemy was related to
Mesmerism and the control of a magnetic fluid, and that it descended
from the Greek mystery Religions, so she uses a great deal of neo-
Platonic philosophy in her elucidation. Her position, that alchemy was
connected to gnosticism or old paganism, is thus similar to Jung’s (CW
13: 122; CW 12: 304, 357), and Jung is possibly too quickly dismissive
of her work, as he might be of most of the esoteric alchemists. Writing
of alchemy in the 18th century, Jung states that the decay of alchemy

had begun at least a century earlier, at the time of Jacob
Boehme, when many alchemists deserted their alembics and

5. For the best account of Boyle’s alchemy see Principe (1998).

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