Turning Toward Earth: Themes, Sources, and Influences in the Emerald Tablet

Abstract

This article traces and elaborates upon Jung's analysis of the alchemical text known as the Emerald Tablet. It highlights unpublished excerpts from the manuscripts of the classes on the subject, known as the ETH Lectures, taught by Jung from November 1940 to February 1941. As a comparative religionist, as well as a Jungian psychotherapist, the author provides insight into the origins and historical and religious influences on this material, as well as speculating upon a variety of possible cross-cultural and philosophical influences on the general body of work known as the Hermeticum, of which the Emerald Tablet is a crucial example. Revisiting obscure alchemical texts such as this serves to remind us of the important relationship of alchemy to Jungian analysis, revealing the unique and direct link between alchemy, which attempted to bring together matter and spirit, with Jung's psychology, which attempts a reconciliation in the individual between matter and spirit, science and religion.