Paracelsus | AlchemyHQ

The summer solstice in Basel, 1527. Theophrastus von Hohenheim — Paracelsus, the self-styled man “greater than Celsus” — had been town physician and university lecturer for less than a year, and he had already made himself the most unpopular man in the city. He lectured in German, not Latin. He admitted barber-surgeons and apothecaries to his lectures, breaking the medical faculty’s monopoly. He had been involved in a public quarrel with the canon Johannes Froben about the proper treatment of Froben’s leg, and although Froben recovered, the quarrel had made the Galenist physicians at the university his enemies. And now, on the traditional day of the Basel students’ book-burning, he had taken a pile of the Opera Omnia of Galen and the Canon of Avicenna, and a copy of the Tegni of Rhazes, and he had put them on the fire.

The bonfire was a publicity stunt, and a shrewd one. Within weeks, Paracelsus had been forced out of Basel, and the rest of his short life — he died in 1541, at forty-seven or forty-eight, in a Salzburg inn under circumstances that remain unclear — was spent in restless travel through the German-speaking lands, working as a physician, writing prolifically, and making enemies wherever he went.

Paracelsus is one of the most important figures in the history of medicine and alchemy. He rejected the inherited Galenic medical tradition in favour of a new system based on the tria prima, the spagyric preparation of mineral and metallic medicines, and the doctrine that diseases have specific chemical causes requiring specific chemical remedies. The Paracelsian medical revolution transformed the practice of medicine in early modern Europe and laid the foundation for the modern chemical-pharmaceutical tradition. Pagel’s Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance (1958) and Charles Webster’s Paracelsus: Medicine, Magic and Mission at the End of Time (2008) are the right starting points, and Principe’s The Secrets of Alchemy (2013, ch. 6) is the most accessible single-chapter treatment.

The life

Paracelsus was born Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim in 1493 in Einsiedeln, in the Swiss canton of Schwyz. His father, Wilhelm von Hohenheim, was a physician, and his mother was a Swiss woman who died when Theophrastus was young. The family moved to Villach in Carinthia (in modern Austria) around 1502, where Wilhelm worked as a physician and Theophrastus received his early education.

The young Theophrastus studied at the University of Basel and possibly at other universities, but he was dissatisfied with the medical education he received. He left the university without a degree and began a long period of travel and study, working with alchemists, miners, physicians, and apothecaries throughout Europe. He spent time in the mining districts of Tyrol, where he learned the practical chemistry that would later become the foundation of his medical system. The Tyrol years were formative.

Paracelsus’s medical career reached its peak in 1526, when he was appointed town physician of Basel and began to lecture at the University of Basel. The Basel appointment was secured through the patronage of Erasmus’s publisher Johann Froben. His lectures were inflammatory. On 24 June 1527, the traditional day of the Basel students’ book-burning, he publicly burned the works of Galen and Avicenna in front of the students, and he taught in German rather than the Latin that was standard in the universities. The Basel authorities soon turned against him, and he was forced to leave the city in 1528.

After Basel, Paracelsus spent the rest of his life in restless travel, working as a physician and alchemist in Colmar, Nuremberg, Sankt Gallen, Augsburg, Vienna, Salzburg, and many other places. He wrote prolifically throughout this period, producing the major works that would form the canon of the Paracelsian tradition: the Archidoxes of Magic, the Aurora of the Philosophers, the Paramirum, the Opus Paramirum, the Labyrinthus Medicorum Errantium, the Philosophia ad Athenienses, the De Fundamento Sapientiae, and others. The canon was edited in the late sixteenth century by Adam von Bodenstein and Michael Toxites.

Paracelsus died in 1541 in Salzburg, under circumstances that remain unclear. The story that he was murdered by the physicians he had made enemies of is probably apocryphal, but the story is itself a tribute to the force of his personality. He was buried in the cemetery of St. Sebastian, and his grave became a place of pilgrimage for his followers.

The Paracelsian medical revolution

Paracelsus’s medical revolution was a comprehensive rejection of the Galenic tradition that had dominated European medicine for more than a thousand years. The Galenists had taught that health depends on the balance of the four humors (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile) and that diseases are the result of imbalances in the humors. The proper remedies were herbal preparations prescribed on the basis of the doctrine of contraries: a hot disease required a cold medicine, a wet disease required a dry medicine, and so on.

Paracelsus rejected this system, and the rejection is one of the most consequential single events in the history of medicine. He argued that diseases have specific causes, often traceable to specific chemical agents, and that the proper remedies are specific chemical preparations designed to counteract the specific cause. The alchemical theory of matter — the tria prima of mercury, sulfur, and salt — provided the framework for the new medicine. Diseases were the result of imbalances in the three principles in the body.

The Paracelsian theory of disease was the doctrine of the tartarus, the doctrine that diseases are caused by the precipitation of salts in the body. The salts accumulate in the tissues and the organs, and they produce the symptoms of disease. The proper remedy is a purified chemical preparation that can dissolve the salts and restore the body to its natural state.

The Paracelsian pharmacology was correspondingly new, and the newness is the reason the Paracelsian movement provoked such fierce opposition. Paracelsus turned to the mineral and metallic preparations, prepared by the alchemical operations of dissolution, calcination, distillation, and recombination. The most important of the new preparations were mercury compounds (for syphilis, the “French disease” that had ravaged Europe since the 1490s), antimony compounds (for fevers and chronic skin conditions), and lead compounds (for various internal disorders). The Paracelsian preparations were often toxic, and the Galenist physicians attacked them as dangerous nostrums. But they were sometimes remarkably effective, and they became a major part of the early modern materia medica. The most important of the lasting Paracelsian preparations is the “tartar emetic” (antimony potassium tartrate), which was widely prescribed as an emetic and expectorant until the twentieth century.

The doctrine of signatures

One of the most distinctive features of the Paracelsian tradition is the doctrine of signatures, the doctrine that God has marked each plant and mineral with a sign that indicates its medical use. The yellow colour of celandine indicates its use in diseases of the liver and the gallbladder; the lung-shaped leaves of lungwort indicate its use in diseases of the lungs; the red colour of bloodroot indicates its use in diseases of the blood. The doctrine has roots in the Greek and Roman medical tradition (Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica) and was developed in the medieval period by Hildegard of Bingen, but Paracelsus gave it a new theoretical foundation, integrating it with the alchemical theory of matter and the broader Hermetic worldview.

The doctrine of signatures was a major feature of the Paracelsian botanical tradition, and it remained influential in the Western herbal tradition long after the rest of the Paracelsian system had been abandoned. The plant is a complex organism, and the Paracelsian tradition was right to insist on the complexity.

The theological writings

Paracelsus was not only a physician and alchemist; he was also a serious theological writer, and the theological writings are the most underappreciated part of the Paracelsian canon. The theological works include the Philosophia ad Athenienses, the De Fundamento Sapientiae, the Liber de Sancta Trinitate, and many shorter treatises. The theological works present a complex and heterodox Christian theology that incorporates alchemical, astrological, and Hermetic elements.

The Paracelsian theology is a Christianized form of the Hermetic tradition. The cosmos is a single, living, ensouled whole, created by God and animated by the divine spirit. The human being is a microcosm in which the structure of the cosmos is repeated. The alchemist who works on the lower participates in the higher, and the physician who heals the body participates in the divine work of creation.

The Paracelsian theology was controversial, and the established churches viewed it with suspicion. Paracelsus was charged with heresy, and his theological writings were placed on the Index of Forbidden Books by the Catholic Church. But the Paracelsian theology was enormously influential in the development of the Western esoteric tradition, and it shaped the work of the Rosicrucian, theosophical, and anthroposophical movements.

The Paracelsian tradition

After Paracelsus’s death, his followers, known as the Paracelsians or the “chemical physicians,” spread his ideas through the universities and courts of Europe. The Paracelsian movement was one of the most important intellectual movements of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and it transformed the practice of medicine, chemistry, and natural philosophy.

The most important of the early Paracelsians include:

Adam von Bodenstein (1528–1577), the Swiss physician who edited the first collected edition of Paracelsus’s works.
Michael Toxites (1514–1581), the German physician and alchemist who popularised the Paracelsian preparations in Strasbourg.
Joseph Duchesne (Quercetanus) (1544–1609), the French Huguenot physician who introduced the Paracelsian preparations to the French court.
Leonhard Thurneisser (1531–1596), the German alchemist and physician who ran a large spagyric laboratory in Berlin.
Oswald Croll (c. 1560–1609), the German Paracelsian physician whose Basilica Chymica was the most comprehensive spagyric text of the early seventeenth century.
Johann Baptist van Helmont (1580–1644), the Flemish chemist and physician who modified and developed the Paracelsian system.
The mysterious “Basil Valentine”, the pseudonymous author of the Triumphal Chariot of Antimony (1604) and the Last Will and Testament of Basil Valentine (1626), two of the most influential Paracelsian texts of the early modern period. Principe (2013, ch. 6) and the recent scholarship agree that “Basil Valentine” is a pseudonym and that the texts are the work of the early seventeenth-century Paracelsian community.

Paracelsus and the alchemical tradition

Paracelsus was a serious alchemist as well as a physician, and his alchemical writings are an important part of the alchemical tradition. The most important of the Paracelsian alchemical texts include the Aurora of the Philosophers, the Archidoxes of Magic, the Treasury of Treasures for the Philosophers, and the Coelum Philosophorum.

The Paracelsian alchemy is a Christian-Hermetic synthesis, and the synthesis is the key to understanding the Paracelsian contribution to the alchemical tradition. The alchemical work is the work of the Christian sage, and the philosopher’s stone is the symbol of the integration of the human being with the divine. The Paracelsian alchemical theory builds on the tria prima and the four elements to develop a sophisticated account of the composition and transformation of matter, and the Paracelsian alchemical practice integrates the laboratory work with the spiritual and devotional life.

The Paracelsian alchemical tradition is one of the most important branches of the Western alchemical inheritance, and it shaped the development of the Rosicrucian, theosophical, and anthroposophical movements.

The Paracelsian legacy in medicine

The Paracelsian medical revolution had an enormous and lasting impact on the history of medicine, and the impact is the reason Paracelsus is the right place to start any account of the modern chemical-pharmaceutical tradition. The use of mineral and metallic preparations — mercury, antimony, lead, copper, and a long list of other substances — became a major feature of the early modern materia medica, and many of the Paracelsian preparations remained in use well into the nineteenth century. The most important is the “tartar emetic” (antimony potassium tartrate), which was widely prescribed as an emetic and expectorant until the twentieth century.

The Paracelsian tradition contributed to the development of the modern chemical and pharmaceutical traditions. The Paracelsian laboratory was a working chemical laboratory, and the procedures of dissolution, calcination, distillation, and crystallisation were the ancestors of the modern chemical techniques. The spagyric tradition was one of the most important sources of the modern pharmaceutical tradition, and the cluster on spagyric alchemy examines it in detail. The Paracelsian doctrine that diseases have specific chemical causes requiring specific chemical remedies was also an important precursor of the germ theory of disease.

The Paracelsian legacy in Western esotericism

The Paracelsian tradition was one of the most important sources of the modern Western esoteric tradition. The Paracelsian synthesis of Christian theology, Hermetic philosophy, and alchemical practice provided a framework that the later esoteric movements could build on. The Rosicrucian manifestos of the early seventeenth century — the Fama Fraternitatis (1614), the Confessio Fraternitatis (1615), the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz (1616) — drew heavily on the Paracelsian tradition, and the Theosophical Society of the late nineteenth century treated Paracelsus as one of the great sages of the Western esoteric tradition.

The Paracelsian legacy is also visible in the modern alternative-medicine and spagyric revival, and the Paracelsian tradition is a major part of the contemporary Western esoteric and alternative-medicine inheritance.

Paracelsus as a cultural figure

Paracelsus has been a major cultural figure since the sixteenth century, and his image has been shaped by hagiography, polemic, and the modern popular imagination in roughly equal measure. The Paracelsus of the Paracelsian tradition is the great sage, the inspired physician, the alchemist who has mastered the secrets of nature. The Paracelsus of the Galenist critics is the charlatan, the mountebank, the drunken quack who burned the works of Galen in a public spectacle. The Paracelsus of the modern esoteric revival is the initiate, the master of the Western mystery tradition, the source of the modern spagyric practice.

The historical Paracelsus was more complex than any of these images. He was a brilliant physician, a serious alchemist, a profound theological writer, and a deeply heterodox thinker who challenged the medical and theological establishments of his time. He was also arrogant, contentious, and difficult to work with. The Paracelsus who emerges from the recent scholarly literature (Pagel, Webster, Principe) is a man of real intellectual achievement, working within a serious intellectual tradition, whose medical and alchemical innovations were more substantial than his polemics suggested.

FAQ

Q: When did Paracelsus burn the books? A: On 24 June 1527, the traditional day of the Basel students’ book-burning, Paracelsus publicly burned the works of Galen and Avicenna. He was already in his second year as town physician.

Q: What is the doctrine of the tartarus? A: The Paracelsian doctrine that diseases are caused by the precipitation of salts in the body. The salts accumulate in the tissues and the organs, and they produce the symptoms of disease. The proper remedy is a purified chemical preparation that can dissolve the salts.

Q: Who is “Basil Valentine”? A: The pseudonymous author of the Triumphal Chariot of Antimony (1604) and the Last Will and Testament of Basil Valentine (1626). The historical author is unknown; the works are probably the product of the early seventeenth-century Paracelsian community.

Q: Is the “signature” doctrine Paracelsus’s invention? A: No. The doctrine of signatures has roots in the Greek and Roman medical tradition (Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica) and was developed in the medieval period by Hildegard of Bingen. Paracelsus integrated it with the tria prima and the Hermetic worldview, giving it a new theoretical foundation.