Skip to main content

IMC 2018: Sessions

Session 651: Scientific Thought: Medieval and Modern

Tuesday 3 July 2018, 11.15-12.45

Moderator/Chair:Heide Estes, Department of English, Monmouth University, New York
Paper 651-aMedieval Alchemy: Early Metaphors for Collective Memory
(Language: English)
Roula-Maria Dib Nassif, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Index terms: Anthropology, Daily Life, Philosophy
Abstract

Paper -a:
Not until the early years of the 20th century that medieval alchemy was given psychological significance. With the advent of Carl Gustav Jung's studies on the nature of alchemy as a metaphor for psychological processes, medieval alchemy played a crucial role in of modern psychology and has led to the discovery of the collective unconscious, which is an inherited reservoir of collective racial memories. My study intends to show the influence of medieval alchemy on the idea of collective memory in modern-day developments in Jungian psychology, showing the impact of the once-arcane on daily modern life.