Why did Carl Jung study alchemy?

Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, studied alchemy because he believed the old alchemists were describing changes in themselves as much as in their flasks. In their pictures of blackening, washing, marriage and gold he saw the same steps he watched in people’s inner lives, and he wrote about them in Psychology and Alchemy (1944) and Mysterium Coniunctionis (1955–56).

What Jung saw in the books

Jung collected old alchemical books and read them for years. He came to think that the alchemists projected their own inner lives onto the matter in the vessel: what they described happening to the metal often reads like what happens to a person going through a hard change. The dead king, the black crow, the royal wedding and the reborn gold became, for him, pictures of the psyche.

The black stage and the shadow

Jung read the nigredo, the blackening, as the encounter with the shadow: the parts of ourselves we would rather not see. For him that encounter came first, before any whitening or gold, just as it does in the Great Work. What is shadow work?

The wedding of opposites

Conjunction, the marriage of King and Queen, Sun and Moon, stood for him as the union of opposites inside a person. Mysterium Coniunctionis, the mystery of the conjunction, is named after it. What is conjunction in alchemy?

Why it still matters

Jung’s reading is the reason alchemy and shadow work are so often spoken of together today. Not every historian agrees that the alchemists themselves meant it that way, and many of them were working chemists. But the pictures have lasted because people recognise themselves in them.

In the old masters’ words

“Both need the help one of the other.” Hermes Trismegistus, The Golden Tractate

In Lead to Gold

Lead to Gold follows Jung’s reading: the first five gates are shadow work, the alchemists’ black stage, and the path goes on through clearing and new light to your gold.

Last updated October 24, 2026.

Lead to Gold: Shadow Work, on Google Play

The alchemists’ Great Work, made into ten quiet minutes a day: twelve gates, a private journal, and a line of wisdom from the old masters. Free to download, for Android.

Get it on Google Play

Keep reading

• What is shadow work?: Shadow work means looking honestly at the parts of yourself you hide or judge. Where the idea comes from, Carl Jung and alchemy, and how to begin gently.
• What is conjunction in alchemy?: Conjunction, stage 4 of the twelve stages of alchemy: joining your opposites. What the alchemists did, and what it means for you.
• Nigredo, albedo, citrinitas and rubedo: what do they mean?: Nigredo, albedo, citrinitas and rubedo are alchemy’s four colour stages: black, white, yellow and red. What each one means, in the flask and in you.