This book presents us with more evidence for Jung's theories of symbols of the unconscious, which he has found in the texts of alchemy and religion, symbols which can be found still today, and which he believes are produced by our brain and projected onto objects, by the unconscious. I would have had trouble understanding this book fully if I had not already read The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, but having read it this book also made a lot of sense. I don't think this is must read Jung, but as an auxiliary piece it backs up his more important work with extra examples. It would be worth reading in its own right for someone with a particular interest in Medieval to Renaissance thought, though as a psychological text it does more a job of filling in the details, and providing interesting parallels, than giving anything fundamentally new that wasn't in the Archetypes. Worth reading if you have time to get through books this long, and are interested in psychology, but not for those with only a passing interest. ( )