James Hillman was a prominent post-Jungian thinker and writer who founded the depth psychological approach known as Archetypal Psychology. He built on Jung’s understanding of the archetypal background of the psyche and took the mythic imagination to be the primary means by which we may access this background. This made him, in many respects, the world’s most mythological psychologist.

Alchemy may be defined as the unveiling of the primordial perfection hidden within the heart of appearances. In its most universal sense, alchemy traces the transformations of reality as it unfolds from and returns to this ever-present (yet ever-concealed) origin. In this context, the natural and spiritual aims of alchemy, from gold-making to god-making, reveal themselves as particular applications of a single universal process.