The Secret of the Golden Flower: A Chinese Book of Life (Paperback)

by Richard Wilhelm (Author), C. G. Jung (Commentary) "THE BOOK comes from an esoteric circle in China..." (more)
Key Phrases: picture that belongs, heavenly heart, primal spirit, Hui Ming Ching, Master Lii-tsu, Richard Wilhelm (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The ancient Taoist text that forms the central part of this book was discovered by Wilhelm, who recognized it as essentially a practical guide to the integration of personality. Foreword and Appendix by Carl Jung; illustrations. Translated by Cary F. Baynes.A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

Language Notes
Text: English, German, Chinese (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 149 pages
• Publisher: Harvest Books; Revised edition (1962)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156799804
• ISBN-13: 978-0156799805
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #25,404 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Penetrating Text and Commentary by Jung, October 14, 2004

By	R. Schwartz (United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A very interesting and meaningful book to say the least. And like Jung, gratitude must be given Richard Wilhelm for his insight in the East and translation of the text.

A manual written symbolically for the practice of meditation, where thoughts are reduced to the square inch between the eyes, the eye lids half closed, eyes centered near the tip of the nose, the heart rate next to nothing in quietude, controlled breath of a circular motion that becomes quiet. The "white light" so spoken in Buddhist terms and various states of consciousness are related. However, this is far more than a mere meditation manual, but symbols which convey non-intellectual ideas, that is, non-Western rationalism, and yet significant and advanced in both it's teaching and applications.

Ultimately for myself, it is Jung's commentary that my Western mind needed to interpret the text itself and the subsequent interpretations. I am moved in profundity on Jung's analysis that man's consciousness advances non-rationally, but psychically. Where the advancement cannot be spoken or written of in intellectual terms but rather can be done so in symbols. In this, Jung expounds on the idea that symbols convey advanced images that relate to the psyche and can never be proved intellectually or rationally. This is where images, as in Mandalas, come in. Images and symbols speak what words cannot. They are of a higher conscious level awareness, a psychical advancement. None of this is rationally or mathematically equated, none, nor can it be languistically conveyed. Humans can only point, using symbols and images, they can not expound, explain and reason on such.

Jung's acknowledges the law of opposites and how the Chinese contain a higher culture or mind than the West, one that can contain contradictions or opposites without one-sided fundamentalism. And this is no doubt far ahead of most Western thinking in terms of black and white thinking, or what Jung calls barbarism. This reminds me of Walt Whitman's self poem of containing all contradictions and Keats "negative capabilities" and Shakespeare's comments on having all thoughts together without becoming irritable over such, and that including the beat poet, Allen Ginsberg, who spoke of the same.

In Jung's memorial words dedicated to Richard Wilhelm, he relates to his thoughts on Synchronistic principle, which confirm his validity on the practices of Chinese wisdom found in I-Ching and Astrology, both sciences based not on Newtonian, or causality principles but rather through a remarkable phenomena of the unconscious, psychic parallelisms based which cannot be related to each other causally. The Tao will never be created with words and concepts, a teaching that is absent from the history of philosophy since the time of the pre-socratic, Heraclitus, and only reappears as a faint echo in Lebinitz.

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not a page is wasted, January 21, 2001

By A Customer

This book is absolutely worth reading, from cover to cover, including all of the commentaries and introductions and what have you. The text itself is, of course, incredible, with a surprising clarity that is rare among aged religious and philosophical texts, especially those pertaining to meditative practice, and Richard Wilhelm's somewhat outdated translation doesn't inhibit it much. Carl Jung's commentary is equally worth reading, and could easily stand as a book of its own. It also thankfully puts this book at arm's length from watery New Age "spirituality." Get this book and don't skip anything.

49 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The "Big Secret" has been revealed!, July 27, 2001

By	Pat Reed (TN USA) - See all my reviews

The "Secret of the Golden Flower" is the best book i have ever read. I have read hundreds of nonfiction books searching for hidden knowledge - none of them (with an exception of Sri Swami Sivananda's Yogic Texts) speek so clearly and openly of the divine secret which has eluded mankind for so long. I cannot posibly put into words the extreme importance of the contents of this book. The ancient Taoist translations are priceless. Read it and then read it again. I have read the two Chinese texts, with Wilhelms excellent translations, over ten times - and haven't even glanced and Jung's commentary. For the spiritual aspirant contemplating the deep secrets of the alchemical sciences, ancient Egyptian, Indian, and Biblical texts - look no further - this book is worth it's weight in "gold."