A Jungian Approach to the Golem Tradition

According to G. Scholem (1974, p. 351), a golem "is a creature, particularly a human being, made in an artificial way by virtue of a magic act, through the use of holy names." The possibility of making such a creature is connected with the "magical exegesis of the Sefer Yezirah and with the ideas of the creative power of speech and of the letters." It is the purpose of this paper to analyze the golem tradition in terms of modern psychological ideas, in particular, the ideas of C. G. Jung.