On Spiritual Phenomena in Art and Science

What lies behind genius creativity—an author’s character or the energy of an era?

Jung explores the nature of inspiration through examples from Freud, Picasso, Joyce, and others, showing that great works arise not so much from personal impulses as from the depths of the collective unconscious.

A collection of essays for those who want to see how alchemy, medicine, literature, and art converge within a single system of coordinates—within the language of archetypes.

Throughout his life, Jung closely studied the inner world of outstanding scholars and artists. To what extent do their discoveries and masterpieces belong to their individuality, and to what extent are they dictated by the collective unconscious of their time—the very “spirit of the age”? What nourishes the creative force that seeks expression and reaches far beyond the creator’s personal life? Jung puts forward the idea that the creative act is determined above all by the current of collective life; that is why, being a general phenomenon, it manifests in similar ways across the most diverse fields—from medicine and psychoanalysis to alchemy, painting, literature, and architecture.

The book includes texts in which Jung reflects on creators and their legacy, based on materials from Sigmund Freud, Paracelsus, Picasso, James Joyce, and others.