The good thing about Jung's book is that the instances of his data-fitting are not very numerous. For the most part he is quoting the alchemists' themselves, making connections, and presenting the symbols in a way that allows the reader to make their own connections. And it's pretty obvious when he force fits the data. Some of the things he says ONLY make sense if you kind of correct what he wrote using a more objective psychological system, like Dabrowski's. For example, for Jung the "mysterious conjunction of opposites" is strictly the conjunction of conscious and unconscious. Sure, this is one aspect; consciousness brings light to darkness and reconciles the two. But there's a lot more to it than that. It applies to metaphysics, the macrocosmic conjunction of Being and Non-being; the conjunction of common essence and individual essence; the conjunction of higher emotional and intellectual functions; the conjunction of a 3D body with a higher "body". These are just some of the possibilities that come to mind, and I'll admit I don't understand any of them. So even though Jung is limiting, as Eliade has said, his works are still extremely important just for the amount of sleuthing he did into alchemical texts.
Just a brief comment, I hope it is not too off-topic. First, I don’t claim to know much about alchemy nor Jungian or other psychology – just a layman’s cursory familiarity. Jung has provided for me much useful information and food for thought in general, but I feel he mostly does not go far enough. Sometimes it really becomes frustrating. I have not read "Psychology and Alchemy," but I think I’ve read some excerpts from it in some other works over the last couple of decades. I did read "The Psychology of the Transference" by Jung a few times in the last ten years which is based on analyzing an alchemical document with ten alchemical illustrations and some of their accompanying texts.
This book is part of his work not meant for the layman (as opposed to the only work, his last, that he was persuaded to collaborate on with some of his close disciples / colleagues, including Marie-Louise von Franz, for the general public entitled "Man and His Symbols"). It has much information on alchemy and famous alchemists of the past. Now all of the alchemical material analyzed in "The Psychology of the Transference" is done in the context of the enormous amount of knowledge possessed by alchemical teachings and traditions about psychology – the conscious mind and the unconscious mind – in general and about the question of the "transference" in particular. For those who don’t know, the transference refers to the last stage of psychotherapy (both Jungian and Freudian) where basically the psychological problem of the patient is temporarily transferred to the therapist, followed by a final denouement.
Now, the most frustrating part of Jung’s attitude towards alchemy is that he seemingly has awe and great respect for the depth of "psychological knowledge" possessed by its practitioners, but at the same time a huge misunderstanding and under-appreciation of this same knowledge. He consistently ends up concluding that the alchemists did everything unconsciously, without conscious understanding, directed only by the unconscious mind. He also ends up declaring that the final image in the illustrations – that of the hermaphrodite – which he describes as "monstrous," "grotesque" and in similar terms (I am recounting from memory as I no longer have the book) which he says stands for the integration and reconciliation of opposites, etc. is due to the primitive and low level of development of the state of the medieval alchemists’ mind (the document being analyzed is a medieval alchemical document).
The overall Jungian conceptions are much less subjective and limited to a particular milieu than Freudian ones (Freud and his patients being part of the milieu – time and place, class, etc. – that define his psychological paradigm that he claims apply universally) but they still have their own "problems;" mainly, as I said, they don’t go far enough and also when he goes far in a certain direction, such as some deep psychological phenomena being related to "spirit" and "soul," etc. he makes all sorts of qualifications and restrictions on his implications not on the basis of being unable to positively verify / know these types of things and thus qualify their meanings, but gives me the impression that he fears for "his reputation as a scientist." This impression I’ve gotten is not categorical, in the case of synchronicity and other astounding phenomena, he gives indications that they may be related to phenomena in quantum physics and seems to qualify the implications in a way that suggests merely that "we don’t know for sure, we do not yet fully understand." But some of the qualifications and "back tracking" do raise questions for me as to if there is anything more to it, and sometimes just a lack of knowledge and proper understanding in a larger context than what he is dealing with. (There are some aspects to what I’m raising in his Foreword to the original Welhelm translation of the I Ching into German as well, of which I have the Baynes English translation – when he describes and gives explanations for some really strange phenomena, he immediately feels the need to say nothing "occult" should be inferred without explaining what he means by occult, etc.).
But in any case, just like everything else, we can reap whatever we can, all that is valuable and useful, mine the nuggets of gold and precious gems, so to speak from Jung’s work and keep in mind that no single source has all the answers nor is without distortions / biases, limitations, and problems – problems that the seekers of knowledge and truth have to deal with and resolve. For instance, an example closely related to all of the above is that if Jung did not study and work with Freud for a while and be exposed to Freud’s ideas about the subconscious while noting the problems and limitations, rigidity, etc. with both Freudian psychology and Freud as a personality, he may never have developed some of his own work with the unconscious and types, ARCHTYPES, Collective Unconscious, etc. Freud, with all his limitations and problems, opened the door for Jung and others to explore psychological terrain and develop modern understandings (and misunderstandings) of age old problems and phenomena and systems of knowledge; and so, Jung opened new doors and directions for others to carry on exploring.
