Gold
Aurum
The incorruptible: not the common gold.
Gold: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
Gold, which neither rusts nor tarnishes, was the metal of the sun and the goal of the work. The alchemists insisted, “our gold is not the common gold,” and Jung read their gold as a value of the psyche, the incorruptible that is won from base matter: another name for the stone and the Self.
The alchemists wrote aurum nostrum non est aurum vulgi, “our gold is not the common gold,” and Jung took them at their word: what they sought was a philosophical gold, which the texts also call the sun, the king, and the stone. He read the long failure of the laboratory as the projection of an inner process onto matter, and its gold as the value that the work of individuation makes of the base beginning.
The golden flower of the Chinese text Jung commented on in 1929 is the same gold grown as a plant: the light of the self circulated until it crystallises.
Gold: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
The golden age, the golden fleece, the golden flower, the gold of the Magi, and gold leaf in the old pharmacies. The golden bough of Aeneas and of Frazer; the golden ass; Midas, whose touch starved him; the gold of Rhinegold cursed; the golden section.
From the Sources
The anonymous author of the Golden Tract says that 'our gold' is living gold and 'our silver' living silver, causing only life and growth, while common gold and silver are dead.
“Moreover, our gold is living gold, and our silver is living silver, so that they can cause nothing but life and growth. Common gold and silver are dead,”
Arthur Edward Waite (signed preface to the English edition), The Hermetic Museum, Restored and Enlarged, 'The Golden Tract concerning the Stone of the Philosophers'. Now first done into English from the Latin original published at Frankfort in the year 1678; in two volumes, Volume I; London: James Elliott and Co., 1893 (Internet Archive OCR text). The text, read in part
Silberer observes that the mystical alchemists insisted the gold they wrote of was not the gold of the multitude, as if they said, 'Our gold is not of this world.'
“…the gold they write about is not the gold of the multitude; not the venal gold that they can exchange for money. Their language seems to sound as if they said, " Our gold is not of this world."”
Dr. Herbert Silberer, Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism, Part II, Section III, 'The Hermetic Art'. Translated by Smith Ely Jelliffe, M.D., Ph.D.; New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1917 (Internet Archive OCR text). The text, read in part
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
In the Materia Medica
Gold leaf: the substance itself, as the old medicine used it and as it is known today.
Where to Read
- Psychology and Alchemy, CW 12
- “Sol,” in Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14
- “Commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower,” CW 13
- Psychology and Alchemy, CW 12, ¶ 99
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
In the Glossary: philosophers’ stone.
Also among Metals, Principles, and Substances
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“Gold.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/gold.
Symbols That Share Its Terms
Squaring the Circle (Quadratura circuli) · Vitriol (V.I.T.R.I.O.L.)
Nearby in the alphabet: The Giant: The first, crude powers, before the order of the gods. The Goat: Lust, vitality, and the one who bears the sins. The Gorgon: The face that turns to stone. The Grail: The vessel found by the one who asks the right question.