A Flash of Golden Fire: The Birth, Death, and Rebirth of the Modern Soul in Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

In the early twentieth century C. G. Jung survived an intense encounter with the unconscious. He did this by giving expression to his inner world in the paintings and dialogues found in the Red Book. Yet Jung felt alone in this work, unable to find a precedent or cultural parallel, until he discovered alchemy. This ancient “protoscience” became the bridge Jung had been seeking between the remote past and the present. Yet between the downfall of alchemy in the eighteenth century and Jung’s ...