The Secret of the Golden Flower Audiobook By Richard Wilhelm, C.G. Young cover art

The Secret of the Golden Flower

A Chinese Book of Life

Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for $0.00
Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.

The Secret of the Golden Flower

By: Richard Wilhelm, C.G. Young
Narrated by: Scott R. Pollak
Try for $0.00

$0.00/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $19.95

Buy for $19.95

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

The Treasured Guide to Spiritual Growth and Enlightenment

The Secret of the Golden Flower is an ancient Chinese text, passed on for centuries, in which Taoist mystics reveal the path to true enlightenment. The first written version was believed to have originated with Lü Dongbin, a legendary scholar, poet, and spiritual master. Lü Dongbin was the founder of the School of the Golden Elixir of Life during the Tang dynasty. In the text, symbols for light represented awareness, which is normally directed outward toward externals. The method of redirecting one’s consciousness inward towards the self through a straightforward form of silent meditation and breathing was known as “turning the light around”. Through this process of channeling energy beyond the limits of the discriminating intellect, one’s psyche—indeed one’s very fundamental being—can gradually open and bloom. This leads to a pure awakening of the mind and spirit. The result can be metaphorically pictured as a bright “golden flower” mandala, representing the rewarding end goal of a personal alchemy of inner transformation.

This remarkable and important work, first published in the United States in 1931, is Cary F. Baynes’ elegant English translation of sinologist Richard Wilhelm’s 1929 German translation of the original Taoist texts. It is nothing less than a spiritual seeker’s road map to discovering the secret to peace of mind. The simple method described has been called “Zen with details”.

This edition includes insightful philosophical commentary by psychologist Carl Jung that helps explain the metaphysical aspects of the text, providing valuable insights for Westerners. For many generations, The Secret of the Golden Flower has been an invaluable tool and guide for personal and spiritual growth.

Like a practical workbook for achieving enlightenment, this clearly written meditation manual explores foundational techniques to help you experience elevated states of consciousness; repeated listening will serve as an incomparable source of insight and inspiration.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©1962 Richard Wilhelm (P)2022 Licensing Management, Inc.
China Taoism Meditation

Listeners also enjoyed...

Seven Sermons to the Dead Audiobook By Carl Gustav Jung cover art
Seven Sermons to the Dead By: Carl Gustav Jung
The Secret of Secrets Audiobook By Osho cover art
The Secret of Secrets By: Osho
The Secret of the Golden Flower Audiobook By Richard Wilhelm, C.G. Jung cover art
The Secret of the Golden Flower By: Richard Wilhelm, and others
I Ching Audiobook By David Hinton cover art
I Ching By: David Hinton
Stalking the Wild Pendulum Audiobook By Itzhak Bentov cover art
Stalking the Wild Pendulum By: Itzhak Bentov
Man and His Symbols Audiobook By Carl G. Jung cover art
Man and His Symbols By: Carl G. Jung
Modern Man in Search of a Soul Audiobook By Carl Jung cover art
Modern Man in Search of a Soul By: Carl Jung
Ego and Archetype Audiobook By Edward F. Edinger cover art
Ego and Archetype By: Edward F. Edinger
The Movie of Me to the Movie of We Audiobook By Raghu Markus, Duncan Trussell cover art
The Movie of Me to the Movie of We By: Raghu Markus, and others
Psychological Types Audiobook By C. G. Jung cover art
Psychological Types By: C. G. Jung
Deciphering the Golden Flower One Secret at a Time Audiobook By JJ Semple cover art
Deciphering the Golden Flower One Secret at a Time By: JJ Semple
The Dream Audiobook By David Icke cover art
The Dream By: David Icke
Tao Te Ching Audiobook By Stephen Mitchell, Lao Tzu cover art
Tao Te Ching By: Stephen Mitchell, and others
Modern Occultism Audiobook By Mitch Horowitz cover art
Modern Occultism By: Mitch Horowitz
I Am That Audiobook By Osho cover art
I Am That By: Osho
An Esoteric Cosmology Audiobook By Rudolf Steiner cover art
An Esoteric Cosmology By: Rudolf Steiner
Zen Audiobook By Yamada Koun cover art
Zen By: Yamada Koun
Inner Work Audiobook By Robert A. Johnson cover art
Inner Work By: Robert A. Johnson
The Tibetan Book of the Dead Audiobook By Robert Thurman - translator cover art
The Tibetan Book of the Dead By: Robert Thurman - translator
Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom Audiobook By Rachel Pollack cover art
Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom By: Rachel Pollack

People who viewed this also viewed...

The Secret of the Golden Flower Audiobook By Richard Wilhelm, C.G. Jung cover art
The Secret of the Golden Flower By: Richard Wilhelm, and others
Deciphering the Golden Flower One Secret at a Time Audiobook By JJ Semple cover art
Deciphering the Golden Flower One Secret at a Time By: JJ Semple
Seven Sermons to the Dead Audiobook By Carl Gustav Jung cover art
Seven Sermons to the Dead By: Carl Gustav Jung
The Secret of Secrets Audiobook By Osho cover art
The Secret of Secrets By: Osho
A Meditator’s Guidebook to The Secret of the Golden Flower Audiobook By JJ Semple cover art
A Meditator’s Guidebook to The Secret of the Golden Flower By: JJ Semple
Ego and Archetype Audiobook By Edward F. Edinger cover art
Ego and Archetype By: Edward F. Edinger
The Essential Rumi, New Expanded Edition Audiobook By Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, Coleman Barks - translator, John Moyne - translator, A. J. Arberry - translator, Reynold Nicholson - translator cover art
The Essential Rumi, New Expanded Edition By: Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, and others
Psychology of the Unconscious Audiobook By Carl Jung cover art
Psychology of the Unconscious By: Carl Jung
Memories, Dreams, Reflections Audiobook By C. G. Jung cover art
Memories, Dreams, Reflections By: C. G. Jung
Stalking the Wild Pendulum Audiobook By Itzhak Bentov cover art
Stalking the Wild Pendulum By: Itzhak Bentov
The Wisdom of Insecurity Audiobook By Alan Watts, Deepak Chopra - introduction MD cover art
The Wisdom of Insecurity By: Alan Watts, and others
The Origins and History of Consciousness Audiobook By Erich Neumann, R. F. C. Hull - translator, Carl Jung - foreword cover art
The Origins and History of Consciousness By: Erich Neumann, and others
Man and His Symbols Audiobook By Carl G. Jung cover art
Man and His Symbols By: Carl G. Jung
Modern Man in Search of a Soul Audiobook By Carl Jung cover art
Modern Man in Search of a Soul By: Carl Jung
The Red Book Audiobook By C. G. Jung, Sonu Shamdasani - editor translator cover art
The Red Book By: C. G. Jung, and others
Most relevant  
What would otherwise have been a great reading was marred by the reader’s atrocious mispronunciation of words like the Tao which should sound like “dow”, and the iChing, which he pronounces as “eye” Ching instead of “eee”Ching’. These mispronunciations were like irritating nails on a chalkboard to me.

The brilliance of the Chinese mind as brought forth by Richard Wilhelm and commented on by Carl Jung

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I gave up when he was talking about trigrams. I'm interested in Daoism, and I've got a good grasp of the language. I could not understand a single word he said when he was pronouncing the Chinese names of things. That section was totally useless to consume as an audiobook for that reason.

his accent was terrible 哎呀

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

The narrator has absolutely no idea how to pronounce Mandarin Chinese words, and should have prepared himself by taking a day to learn Pin Yin prior to engaging in this undertaking. He mispronounces some of the most basic things central to this title, for example Tao and Taoist should be pronounced with more of a D sound like Dao or Daoist, but the narrator uses the hard T. Another example is mispronouncing Lao Tzu’s name several times. This addition of this sacred text may be good in written form, but I couldn’t bring myself to stick with it in audio book form and feel as though I wasted my money.

Terrible Narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.