THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER - A Chinese Book of Life - Richard Wilhelm (Translator) C.G. Jung (Forward & Commentary) (Hardback, Routledge, 1972)

THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER - A Chinese Book of Life - Richard Wilhelm (Translator) C.G. Jung (Forward & Commentary) (Routledge, 1972)

Hardback with dust-jacket. 150 pages.

"The Secret of the Golden Flower" is a Chinese Taoist meditation manual, first was translated by Richard Wilhelm, a friend of Carl Jung. Jung wrote a forward, commentary and an appendix for the book. The Secret of the Golden Flower (Chinese: 太乙金華宗旨; pinyin: Tàiyǐ Jīnhuá Zōngzhǐ) is a Chinese Taoist instruction of neidan (inner alchemy) meditation, which also fuses Buddhist teachings with some Confucian thoughts. It was originally written by means of the spirit-writing (fuji) technique, through two groups, in 1688 and 1692.

Richard Wilhelm, while a missionary in China, obtained a reprinted copy in Beijing in the 1920s from members said to be an "esoteric group". According to Wilhelm, the Chinese publisher (Zhanran Huizhenzi) relied on an incomplete 17th-century version of a woodblock he had discovered in a bookstore, which he later completed with a friend's book. The Beijing bookseller only printed a few thousand copies of the work for a select audience, which included Wilhelm. Wilhelm translated the text in 1929, which was read by his friend Carl Gustav Jung.  

The title is illustrated with eleven plates and four text illustrations.

Condition: Very Good. Some light age-toning to page stock but clean and unmarked. Dust-jacket is complete. Price clipped. Some discolouration to reverse of jacket edges and signs of sun-fading to spine. Overall a very nice copy of this 1972 hardback.