James Hillman was a past master of alchemical psychology. This field uses metaphors derived from ancient alchemy to elucidate deep structures in the creative imagination. We tend to forget that creative processes are not random. Imagination embodies along lines that become apparent when we ponder the frequently incomprehensible images of alchemy.
The book, Alchemical Psychology, covers a lifetime of studies and is quite difficult to read by someone who is not deeply steeped in alchemy, the work of C.G. Jung or James Hillman. Robert Bosnak and Patricia Berry have studied these thinkers for well over 40 years.
James Hillman was the primary training analyst of Robert Bosnak, who developed the field of embodied imagination: the way in which images can be felt in the body and shape our embodied condition.
This course goes through Alchemical Psychology and engages with the chapters Yellow and The Stone page by page – and frequently line by line – sometimes dropping even between the lines into the great mystery itself. For those who have tasted these mysteries, there is no way back. One is haunted by them for life. It was so with Jung, Hillman, and with Bosnak as well. It will happen to you if you’re open to it.