The Seba library treats Golden Chain in 7 passages, across 5 authors (including Jung, Carl Gustav, Seaford, Richard, von Franz, Marie-Louise).
The Golden (or Homeric) Chain in alchemy is the series of great wise men, beginning with Hermes Trismegistos, which links earth with heaven.
This editorial annotation provides the canonical depth-psychological definition of the Golden Chain as an alchemical succession of wise men constituting a vertical axis between earth and heaven.
, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 1963thesis
the Homeric passage closest to expressing the omnipotence of Zeus, and the unity of the universe, envisages a golden chain by which Zeus pulls up to the sky the gods along with the earth and the sea
Seaford identifies the Homeric golden chain as the ur-text for cosmic unity under sovereign power, reading it as a mythological prefiguration of the totalizing function of precious metal and, ultimately, money.
, Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy, 2004thesis
members of the Order of the Golden Vliess carry a golden chain around their necks. The golden ram whose fleece was nailed to a tree was compared to Christ sacrificed and nailed to the cross
Von Franz traces the golden chain as insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece, linking it to a sacrificial Christological symbolism that encodes the alchemical themes of death, transformation, and totality.
, Puer Aeternus: A Psychological Study of the Adult Struggle with the Paradise of Childhood, 1970supporting
members of the Order of the Golden Vliess carry a golden chain around their necks. The golden ram whose fleece was nailed to a tree was compared to Christ sacrificed and nailed to the cross
A parallel passage in von Franz’s companion volume reiterates the golden chain as an emblem of initiatory and sacrificial continuity within chivalric-alchemical orders.
, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, 1970supporting
Dillon, John, ‘A Platonist Ars Amatoria’, Classical Quarterly, NS 44 (1994), 387–92. — The Golden Chain [collected papers] (Aldershot, 1990).
A bibliographic citation of John Dillon’s collected papers under the title The Golden Chain signals the term’s use in Platonist scholarship as a metaphor for the transmission of philosophical wisdom, corroborating its lineage-of-wisdom connotation.
, Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation, 2000aside
gold is the incorruptible not because like a diamond it is hard but because it is the very body of the divine. Homer uses ‘golden’ as an epithet for the divine
Hillman’s meditation on gold as the incorruptible body of the divine provides essential conceptual context for the Golden Chain, grounding its authority in the alchemical metaphysics of gold as divine substance.
, Alchemical Psychology, 2010aside
At its feet lie a golden bow and arrow on a golden chain, and with them you may try three times to shoot the parrot.
The golden chain appears here in a Near Eastern fairy-tale context within Man and His Symbols as a magical binding instrument, illustrating the term’s folkloric extension beyond its alchemical-philosophical register.
, Man and His Symbols, 1964aside