Kabbalistic Influences on Alchemy, Psychoanalysis, and Analytic Psychology

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With the Scientific Revolution, the Hermetic science of alchemy transformed into chemistry. From the perspective of the scientific worldview, alchemy was merely a pseudoscientific proto-chemistry. Beginning in the nineteenth century, researchers rediscovered alchemy as an allegory for spiritual development. However, prior to the Middle Ages, alchemy was not an allegorical narrative, but rather a metallurgic craft that incorporated religious principles. At some point, metallurgic alchemy transformed into allegorical alchemy in which the focus was on personal development through spiritual growth. This transformation may have occurred sometime in the Middle Ages, a time period in which alchemists incorporated principles of Jewish mysticism, known as Kabbalah, into alchemy. Not until the mid-twentieth century did researchers explore the extent of the Kabbalistic influences on alchemy. The Kabbalah may have also influenced Sigmund Freud. His father was a partially assimilated Hasidic Jew, and Freud himself may have been acquainted with Kabbalistic writings. Researchers have compared psychoanalysis to the principles and psychological constructs of a major stream of Kabbalah—Lurianic Kabbalah. While in Freud's Viennese circle, Herbert Silberer wrote a seminal book on the occult that for the first time portrayed alchemy as a psychology of the unconscious. Although Freud repudiated his writings, the book eventually influenced Carl Jung. Jung became interested in alchemy's symbolism as a key to a psychology of the unconscious. Although Jung acknowledged the influence of Kabbalah on alchemy, his unacknowledged relationship to the Kabbalah was significant. The aspects of alchemy that influenced Jung the most were the very ones that were deeply influenced by the Kabbalah.