A balsamic mummy. The medical-alchemical panpsychism of Paracelsus

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I will argue how Paracelsus's concept of the universal ensoulment of nature may relate to his understanding of the self-healing capacity of the body, as shown in his Grosse Wundartzney (1536). Here, his new approach to medicine is visible, focusing not on retaining or restoring the balance of bodily humours but on strengthening the inner “essence” of life (the so-called “balsam,” “mummy,” “astral spirit,” etc.). This is possible by means of life-endowed essences of healing substances which can affect the body’s vital principle by means of inner sympathies. Here, a link is established to medical alchemy as a way to produce more subtle medicines, the “essences” of things. Such an undertaking is possible only in the framework of the natural magic concept with its underlying microcosm-macrocosm analogy. It is my aim to show not only the principles of Paracelsus's new medicine, alchemy, and his worldview in general, but also how his theories may relate to his predecessors, including Marsilio Ficino, one of the few authors who escaped Paracelsus's harsh critique.

KEYWORDS:

• Paracelsus
• Ficino
• Croll
• medicine
• Paracelsianism
• natural magic
• sympathies
• alchemy
• quintessence

1. Introduction: Paracelsus the panpsychist

In popular imagination, Theophrastus of Hohenheim, called Paracelsus (1493–1541), a Renaissance physician, natural philosopher, and lay theologian, is an alchemist and astrologer whose whole world was a living entity inhabited by countless natural beings, such as demons, angels, fairies, and gnomes. After all, such an image seems to be well attested by his own works. It suffices to open the De natura rerum, one of the author’s most famous works, not only because of its reference to the making of the “homunculus”:

it should be known that the life of things is none other than a spiritual essence [ein spiritualisch wesen], an invisible and impalpable thing, a spirit and a spiritual thing. On this account there is nothing corporeal but has latent within itself a spirit and life, which, as just now said, is none other than a spiritual thing. But not only that lives which moves and acts, as men, animals, worms in the earth, birds under the sky, fishes in the sea, but also all corporeal and substantial things [alle corporalische und weseliche ding]. For here we should know that God, at the beginning of the creation of all things, created no body whatever without its own spirit [ohne einen spiritum], which spirit it contains after an occult manner within itself. For what is the body without the spirit? Absolutely nothing. – So it is that the spirit holds concealed within itself the virtue and power [die krafft vnd tugend] of the thing, and not the body.  …  For the body can be destroyed and corrupted in various ways, but not the spirit: for it always remains a living spirit [ein geist vnd lebendig], and is bound up with life. It also keeps its own body alive … Hence it is evident that there are different kinds of spirits [mancherley spiritus], just as there are different kinds of bodies. There are celestial and infernal spirits, human and metallic, the spirits of salts, gems, and marcasites, arsenical spirits, spirits of po, of roots, of liquids, of flesh, blood, bones, etc.¹

Such a statement seems quite clearly a panpsychist one. That is also why David Skrbina quoted it in his book on the “panpsychism in the West” in 2005.² The impression is only intensified if we go on reading that the “spirit” is “life and balsam of all corporeal things” while “the life of man is nothing else but an astral balsam” (Astralischer balsam).

The first formal problem might be that, literally, panpsychism means “all-ensoulment.” But here, the ubiquitous bearer of life is not the soul but the spirit. We will deal with this detail later. What is more disquieting, however, is that it is not certain who is the real author of the quoted text. The De natura rerum is a conglomerate of spurious and genuine writings of Paracelsus. However, as the recent analysis of U. L. Gantenbein has shown, in the case of the fourth book quoted above, there is no strong argument against authenticity, so it could indeed be written by Paracelsus himself.³ This text was widely read and surely helped to establish the image of Paracelsus. But for us, it seems better to start with another work, the authorship of which is rock-solid.

2. The “great surgery” and the “inborn balsam”

Paracelsus did not publish much of his work in his lifetime. Many of his ambitious publishing plans failed and most of his substantial texts remained long in manuscripts only. It was not easy for him to publish as he never was an easy person and usually had to leave one place for another in a hurry; his only academic position was that at the University of Basel in 1527, and he had to flee and leave it behind after his scandalous critique of medical authorities, crowned with his burning a traditional medical textbook.

He had few chances to publish, but he was far from being silent. For a contemporary lay reader, Paracelsus must have been perceived as one of those doctors-astrologers who delivered their predictions and prophesies regularly. Most of what had been published during his life is of this kind: prognostics for upcoming years, interpretations of comets, of a rainbow, of an earthquake, etc.⁴ By the end of his life in 1541, he has managed to have printed around 15 little works of such kind, mostly in German but also in Latin.

Also in these works, Paracelsus proudly proclaims himself a “doctor of astronomy and medicine” on the title page,⁵ and, to be true, his texts differed distinctly from other works of the genre; they were, to put it simply, less astrological. But beside this, he began establishing his literary reputation in medicine too. He published a booklet on the guaiac wood (Vom Holtz Guaiaco gründlicher heylung) in 1529 and another treatise “On the French disease” (Von der frantzösichen Krankheit) in 1530, both discussing the cure of syphilis. Five years later, his little book on balneology appeared (Von dem Bad Pfeffers). Finally, in 1536, the most important book of those published in his lifetime went out of the printing press, his Grosse Wundarzney (“The Great Surgery”). Even more than once: because the author was not happy with the quality of the first print, he turned to another publisher to prepare a revised version. Another, unauthorized, print appeared in 1537.⁶

In this influential book, he presents not only his partly innovative practical treatment of wounds (with the basic know-how that to do less often means to help more⁷), but also his more theoretical conception of the healing processes in the body. Paracelsus instructs doctors to follow the nature, instead of forcing it to behave according to their theoretical concepts.⁸ Observation and empirical knowledge (Experienz) mean more to him than what the revered authorities have written in their books. The task of medicine is fostering the vital principle in the body by various means – not bringing the disbalance of bodily fluids (discrasia) back to harmony, as the traditional humoral medicine intended. What is responsible for the healing processes in the body is its vital principle, the “inborn balsam” (angeborener Balsam).⁹ This is the true “doctor” that can really cure all wounds; the human physician can only help to remove the blockage¹⁰ and to nourish the body with food, drink, and medicines. Paracelsus says that any medicine, to be able to cure, must be endowed with the “quality of salt which is the outer balsam” (an idea expressed already in Paracelsus's early Herbarius from around 1525).¹¹ Finally, it is God with his wonderful works that is responsible for the healing effects of medicines.¹²

Such an idea was expressed already in Paracelsus's Das Buch Paragranum (1529/1530) and a number of his other books:¹³

our own nature is a physician to itself, which is to say, it has within itself that of which it is in need. Regard the wounds externally: what are wounds in need of? Nothing but the flesh that must grow from within outwardly, and not from without inwardly. Accordingly, the medicine of wounds is no more than a defensive measure that guards nature against any accidents from without, and so that it should remain unhindered in its effect.  …  For mumia is nothing other than the human being himself: mumia is the balsam that heals the wounds; the mastix, the gummi or lead oxide  …  defend nature so that its purpose is advanced.

Sure, the idea of a vital principle in the body has, as such, not much to do with “panpsychism.” But this is not the last word of Paracelsus. What is most important is that the medical matters do not help the life essence of the body by simply adding a quality to the body, or taking it away, as in the Aristotelian-Galenic system of elemental qualities and bodily humors. They can foster the life essence because they are of the same nature: that what is efficient in them are their “essences” which empower the life essence by means of their hidden “sympathies.”¹⁴

To see how a developed project of such a medicine may look like, we can turn to the prominent Paracelsian Oswald Croll (1563–1609), who published his works in the beginning of the 17th century. For him, nature is not a quality but a “power.” Thus, we cannot help nature by means of qualities but by “virtues or powers” (mit virtutibus oder Kräfften).¹⁵ What a right medicus should be interested in is the “inner power and hidden virtue” (jnnerliche Gewalt vnd geheyme Krafft) of things which was “poured” into them by God, or from God, as his “vestige or signature.”¹⁶ Medicine is nothing else but the separation of redundant impurities from what can effectively recover the inner power or “balsam.”¹⁷ In terms of preparing medical drugs, it means to use the “Volcanic anatomical knife” to get beyond the mere “husks,” beyond the “sinful nature,”¹⁸ and beyond the body, which is just excrementum astrorum.¹⁹ The operation of the inner virtues is based on the system of universal sympathies,²⁰ i.e. on the system of natural magic. Minerals, metals, and plants can be used to “keep and embalm the spirit of life” (zur Erhaltung vnd Balsamierung deß Geistes deß Lebens).²¹ This “spirit” is the true medicine, or the “natural mummy” (Mumia Naturalis),²² it is the “life,” inner “astra,” or “astral spirit” in the body,²³ the quinta essentia or “tincture,”²⁴ balsamus or mumia balsamita.²⁵

We can see the underlying intuition here is that of a vital principle hidden not only in the human body but in all created world – be it organic or inorganic, according to our modern division. To put it in other words, all the world is seen as permeated by the invisible principle of life, which is not part of the “sinful nature” but a “vestige of God,” emanating directly from God.

Now, is this also the perspective of Paracelsus? We started with his medical treatise. He was, after all, a physician, so his primary concern would be humans, not nature as such. But to him, human being is not just a part of the universe. It is a microcosm which is perfectly analogical to the world around, the macrocosm.²⁶ There is a perfect harmony (konkordanz) among these two,²⁷ their structure, parts, and matter are identical. What we can say about human beings holds true also for the universe, and vice versa. Both perspectives are intertwined. What is more, neither of them is a self-sufficient entity but they depend on God, who is their beginning and goal. Although it is this theological perspective which is ultimately important for Paracelsus and delivers the final explanation of his worldview, we can enter the problem of panpsychism in his work from an anthropological perspective.

3. The microcosm-macrocosm analogy

The anthropology according to Paracelsus starts with the biblical account of the creation of man. Man is created by God as the last of all creatures and the only one who was not created from nothing but from the “dust of the ground” (Gen. 2:7), erden kloß or limbus, to use the phrase of Paracelsus.²⁸ The fact that he is “the extract of the essence of the four elements,”²⁹ that is, incorporates everything created, attests for his noble and extraordinary nature.³⁰ Man can “explore even the heavens and their nature, i.e., God and his kingdom,” for there is nothing he could not and should not know.³¹ On the other hand, humans can, by examining themselves, come to know the whole world – and vice versa, in the mirror of the world, they can know themselves.³² The implication of it is the metaphysical and religious, as well as medical,³³ justification of the investigation of nature. And – since the microcosm is the image of the macrocosm and they both are manifestations of the divine, the traces of which they bear on themselves – also for the knowledge of God.³⁴

But man is not just the “dust of the ground.” God breathed “the breath of life” into his nostrils (Gen. 2:7). Thus, human beings are also the “image of God,” they have the immortal soul that partakes on God. The eternal, divine Spirit is free, it does not depend on the influences of stars that otherwise rule the natural world, and the natural part should be subject to it.

Importantly, the created body, as the true microcosm, is not made only from the elements but it also contains the entire “firmament,” i.e. the starry heaven and “all constellations.”³⁵ Thus, the third, and middle, part is called the astral (sidereal) body, or astral spirit:³⁶ “What is of the flesh is animal and belongs to all animals. That which is of the stars [Gestirn] is human. And that which is of the Spirit of God is after the image [of God].”³⁷ Such a structure is, of course, not an invention of Paracelsus. He may have found it, directly or indirectly, in the conceptions of Marsilio Ficino, who, in his turn, had adapted it from both the medical and the Neoplatonic tradition.³⁸ In the medical sense, the “spirit” is a very fine material, almost immaterial substance.³⁹ It arises from the finest particles of the blood as a kind of warm and life-bearing vapor.⁴⁰ It is the link between the material body and the immaterial soul, the highest and most subtle of the spirits being responsible for volitional acts and emotions. On the other hand, the astral body, mediating between the rough material body and the soul, is a Neoplatonic concept.⁴¹ It played an important role, for example, in the explanation of the soul's descent in the body through the astral spheres during the gradual process of its incarnation, and in the Neoplatonic magic, revived by Ficino.⁴²

In both Paracelsian and Ficinian perspectives, this triadic model must apply by analogy to the universe as a whole. The very name “astral spirit” or “astral body” suggests the position of the third member of the triad. That the stars have a status different both from terrestrial matter and the immaterial soul is an Aristotelian idea. In the Platonic perspective, stars have their souls by which they are moved, or animated. At any rate, the starry heaven, the firmament with its astra, is a very special entity which has a strong influence on the Earth. Stars influence nature, including human beings, by their invisible, yet efficient rays.

Here, on the one hand, the question arises of how far the influences of the stars reach and how they relate to human free will,⁴³ and Paracelsus, in his early Volumen medicinae paramirum, leaves no doubt that we are free, as the stars are free in themselves.⁴⁴ On the other hand, and more importantly for our topic, we can ask where and how we can identify the workings of stars in nature. What becomes an issue is the relation between the astral and the corporeal, i.e. the invisible and the visible, as well as between the internal and external aspect of things. The outer, external aspect is connected with the body, which is essentially dead without its animating principle, i.e. the soul, that is its inner and vital principle. But as the immaterial soul cannot have any effect on matter directly, a need for a conjoining entity arises. For Ficino, this is the spiritus mundi, which is “celestial” (coelestis).⁴⁵ By means of it, the astral influences are distributed to things, and also, and primarily, to human beings, whose own “spirit,” as a medium between their body and soul, is substantially the same as the “spirit of the world.” Spiritus is the middle part both in human beings and in the world, and the astral powers are the invisible powers working in both. For Ficino, it is a general principle that, if something holds true on a smaller scale, the more it must be true on a larger scale: once there are living beings on the earth, it must be itself a living being too.⁴⁶

This intermediate part between body and soul is of profound significance in Ficino’s natural magic and astrology. Since it is the medium transferring the astral influences on earth, it can in turn be used in “natural magic” if we know how to “capture” the stellar influences by means of corresponding, or sympathetically related, images, sculptures, and chants.⁴⁷ These influences can be used to strengthen our spirit by the spirit of the world. Our spirit should become as much “celestial” as possible, it must both “imitate” the starry heaven (in its regularity, clearness, fine motion, and perfect circle motion) and be imbibed with its positive influences. This is the way towards health, as we can see in Ficino’s De vita libri tres.

Similarly, for Paracelsus, the heaven (as a part of the macrocosm) is not only an image of man (as the microcosm).⁴⁸ In a way similar to Ficino, he also speaks of attracting the “heaven of medicine” by means of remedies prepared by the medical art.⁴⁹

4. Virtues and forms

In the texts of Paracelsus, the spiritus and the astra seem, rather, to collapse into one interceding link between the body and soul as the “astral spirit” or “astral body” (both are essentially synonyms⁵⁰). For him, the most interesting are the hidden powers in things, the “astral powers,” or astrum. Paracelsus is so much fascinated by them that he traces their connection to the creative Divine Word itself.⁵¹ Sometimes he even speaks of the uncreated powers of plants, thus connecting these “secrets and mysteries of nature” (secreta und mysteria der natur) directly not only with the astral but also with the divine.⁵² Medicine is not the body, which is a mere earth, but that which is in the body; it stems from the spirit, not from the body.⁵³ Similarly, the “true doctor” cannot search in “paper books” but must be taught from and by the “divine book,” or rather by God himself, by his divine Sapientia.⁵⁴

We have mentioned that the external forms reveal the hidden inner powers. This is a general principle, but it is particularly and practically useful in the case of medicinal substances, plants, metals, minerals, etc. “The sculptor of nature is so artful,” says Paracelsus, “that he does not mould the soul to fit the form, but the form to fit the soul.”⁵⁵ That is why we can recognize the “soul,” or the inner virtues and effects, of a thing by wisely observing its shape and its empirically perceptible qualities, such as color, smell, or taste. They let us know about the invisible healing virtues.

This is the concept of the “signatures of things” (signatura rerum), and Paracelsus was hailed by his contemporaries – such as the Czech physician and astronomer Thaddaeus Hagecius or the alchemist and theosopher Heinrich Khunrath – as the reviver of this doctrine.⁵⁶ Paracelsus himself pointed out that the reading of signs in nature was no new art, but had only slipped out of memory; this unfortunate oblivion had become the source of many mistakes so that, instead of searching for the “true foundation” and the hidden secrets of natural things, to which only knowledge of the signatures may lead, authors merely repeated what they had “experienced from blind experience.”⁵⁷ Even if it was a “mere” revival, it was a step of extraordinary importance: Daniel Sennert, a century later, assumes the doctrine of signatures to be the distinguishing mark between traditional physicians and Paracelsians.⁵⁸

It is important in the Paracelsian worldview that the signatures of things have been established by the divine Providence. God wanted to give us the right means to recognize the healing powers in nature and to use them to cure all diseases. The universe, then, is inherently something rational and intelligible. For Paracelsian authors in general, things are letters written in the “book of nature,” one of the three “divine books”: the Bible, the book of nature, and man as microcosm endowed with conscience.⁵⁹ Ficino aimed to make sense of natural phenomena by use of allegories, parables, and analogies to find their meaning applicable to the spiritual realm, or God.⁶⁰ Paracelsus, in his turn, focused on the signatures of things in order to understand their inner astra and semina, their powers and virtues revealing their true essences. In both cases, however, the correct interpretation of the book of nature is not “literal” but a deeper one. Finally, it is God who reveals himself through the book of nature, and he wants us to come to ever greater and deeper knowledge of nature, and thus of him (and ourselves):⁶¹

There is nothing in the depths of the seas or in the heights of the firmament that human being cannot know. No mountain or rock is so mighty that it can hide and conceal what is in it and what cannot be revealed to man; all this comes from its signed signature [signatum signum].⁶²

Let us summarize. If we can understand the “signatures of things” as hints to their invisible hidden powers, we will know their virtues and healing effects. These, however, do not relate to the Aristotelian elemental qualities or to the four Galenic bodily humors primarily, but they work on the principle of inner sympathies.⁶³ After all, for Paracelsus, these virtues are themselves not of elemental nature, but, as vital principles, originate in, or at least hint at, the divine. Because the vital principles in the human body (the mumia, or balsam) are of the same nature, they can be empowered by their likes in remedies.

5. Spirits and quintessences

From a more practical perspective, the matters to be used as remedies in Paracelsian medicine are in their raw state first and need to be prepared, or refined, so that their inner virtues may become more effective. This process of refinement cannot be left unto nature, but must be perfected by art. It is in this context that Paracelsus speaks, in his Grosse Wundarzney, about the art that can “give” us the mysteries of medicine, i.e. the alchemy.⁶⁴ Although he does not explain it here any further, this remark aims at preparing the “arcana” or “essences,” something very much praised by Paracelsus in many other places. Alchemy, for him, is primarily (although not exclusively as it has often been asserted) a means to prepare more effective and more subtle medicines.⁶⁵ Fire is the “knife” that can open matter to reveal, indeed unleash, its true healing powers, to use Croll's expression.

In his teaching on life-giving essences of things and their relation to the life essence in the human body, Paracelsus again follows an older tradition,⁶⁶ of which Ficino is just one of the important representatives in this context. Fundamental and widely read was the 14th-century Liber de consideratione quintae essentiae omnium rerum, written by the Franciscan John of Rupescissa (Jean de Roquetaillade).⁶⁷ This work appeared in print only in 1561 but it had been circulating widely in manuscripts before⁶⁸ – mainly in the so-called “lullyfied” version, titled De secretis naturae seu de quinta essentia, in which Rupescissa was combined with extracts from works ascribed to Raimundus Lullus.⁶⁹ The abbreviated version of De secretis was first printed in 1514, and the German translation of it in 1532.⁷⁰ According to Rupescissa, there is a power (virtus) in nature which was given unto it (contulit) by God to cure human body and to restore our life forces; it can preserve our corruptible body and protect it from decay.⁷¹ It is a “root of life” (radix vitae) which in itself is indestructible; it nourishes and restores the “power of life and the spirit.” But since nothing that is composed of the four elements can escape destruction, the radix vitae cannot be of this world. Therefore, it is a “thing” which is analogical (sicut se habet) to heaven, which was called quintessence by philosophers; like heaven, it is immutable and indestructible. This (in fact, supernatural) quintessence can be “extracted from the natural body created by God.” The extraction of this “human heaven” (caelum humanum), which is also called “burning water” (aqua ardens), “soul or spirit of wine” (anima vini seu spritius), and “water of life” (aqua vitae), is carried out by distilling various substances (e.g. human blood).⁷² This is followed by a description of distillation methods and procedures to make the “celestial” quintessence more specific by “decorating” it with various “stars.”

It is very early that a connection between Rupescissa and Paracelsus was seen.⁷³ His acquaintance with them might be mediated by the influential Liber de arte distillandi of Hieronymus Brunschwig, which, in the editions since 1505, incorporated also Rupescissa's concepts. In the 1512 edition, Brunschwig refers explicitly to Rupescissa and Ficino as to his sources.⁷⁴ It has been said already that the editions of 1505 and 1508 included a German translation of Ficino’s De vita I and II.⁷⁵

Inspired by Rupescissa, Ficino relates the substance of the heavens, the heavenly fifth element, the Aristotelian quinta essentia, with the quintessences⁷⁶ which can be extracted alchemically from earthly substances.⁷⁷ Yet for him, this is not a relation of analogy but of identity. In his thought, the sublunar and supralunar regions merge and are seen as homogeneous, so that the quintessences of things are the heavenly quintessence. Besides, Ficino postulates the “spirit of the world” (spiritus mundi) which, in his opinion, is of the same “matter” as the human “spirit”; now, the human spirit has “the most tempered and shining, and therefore heavenly, quintessence,”⁷⁸ while the world spirit is the quintessence. Thus, Ficino may say:

just as the power of our soul is brought to bear on our members through the spirit, so the force of the World-soul is spread under the World-soul through all things through the quintessence, which is active everywhere.⁷⁹

The quintessence of the world is present everywhere, in all things, but in varying degrees.⁸⁰ The more spirit and quintessence a thing has, the more virtue it has, which it receives from the soul of the world as its animating principle. This spirit is, at the same time, the mediating vehicle between the “germinal causes” (rationes seminales) in the life-giving soul of the world and the “seeds” of things (semina) in matter,⁸¹ so that the extraction of essence can be understood as the extraction of a seed – for example, the “seed of gold.” Thus, Ficino may discuss the “elixir” of Arabic alchemists, which is the “spirit of gold,” in the context of “the spirit of the world through which the world begets everything (since it also begets all things through its own spirit) and which we may call both heaven and quintessence”⁸² – and which is “certainly the same in the body of the world and in ourselves.”

This “spiritual,” or medical, alchemy is incorporated into Ficino’s metaphysics of light and allegory of the sun when he discusses the possibility to achieve “eternal youth,” or at least “one hundred and twenty solar years,” available to those “who could grasp the light and heat of the sun in all its purity and quality” and adapt it to their own use.⁸³ That these were not just casual observations is evident when Ficino mentions the origin of stones, metals, and gold, or when he explicitly refers to alchemical authors (auctores alchymiae).⁸⁴ These ideas became very inspiring. Not surprisingly, Ficino’s name later appeared on the title page of several books on alchemy. This was mainly thanks to authors such as Giovanni Augurelli, Jean Fernel, Lodovico Lazzarelli,⁸⁵ and Philipp Ulsted.⁸⁶ His concept of the spirit of the world as an alchemical quintessence was also widely disseminated by Agrippa of Nettesheim in his influential compendium De occulta philosophia.⁸⁷ This could hardly escape Paracelsus's attention.

The quintessence in all things is analogical to the spirit as the mediator between the human body and soul, which, in a way, is also a quintessence. This spirit-quintessence must be kept as much “temperate” and fine as possible. But the finest and most temperate thing is heaven – that is why the spirit must be made “celestial,” as was mentioned. What it means and how this relates to the motif of quintessence can be partly deduced from the following passage of Ficino’s De vita longa:

Now nothing in the world is more tempered than the heavens; virtually nothing under the heavens, more tempered than the human body; nothing in this body more tempered than the spirit. Through tempered things, therefore, the life which resides in the spirit is recreated; through tempered things the spirit is conformed to celestial things.  …  Precisely as the body, which is composed from the thicker parts of the humors, is reduced into a fifth form, so the spirit, which is constituted from the subtler portions of the humors, has naturally a fifth form most tempered and bright and therefore celestial. And it must be kept in this very form in order that, as we said, it might be subtle indeed and at the same time firm, that it might by all means be bright but also somewhat solid. And besides, let it be continually fomented with odoriferous, firm, bright things if we want to preserve life, which flourishes in the spirit, and to claim for ourselves celestial gifts.⁸⁸

In the De vita sana, Ficino debates the optimum balance of the bodily humors, i.e. the perfect health. According to him, such an ideal mixture (krasis) gives the body a golden-purple color. In thus tempered body, the black bile (which is, traditionally, the most “philosophical” humor) causes the spirits to be produced as gentle as the “living,” “winy,” or “flaming water” (i.e. the alcohol) produced by distillation. This should be also our goal: that the spirit in the body be, similarly to the quintessence acquired by distillation, as subtle, radiant, and agile as possible.⁸⁹ This is the end of the magia naturalis in Ficino’s De vita, where he recommends various matters, magical images, odors, colors, sounds etc. that would, on the basis of universal sympathies, help to achieve such a state of sprit.

6. Conclusion

I believe that the Ficinian perspective can help us to understand what Paracelsus had in mind and what was the underlying principle not only of his medical theories but also of his worldview in general.⁹⁰ Let us recapitulate. The Paracelsian medicine presupposes an omnipresent vital entity hidden in man and in all natural things. The human “balsamic mummy” is in all respects identical with the healing powers and virtues of plants, etc. They differ only in quantity or degree. This entity may be called, from various perspectives, the astral spirit or quintessence. It is not the animating soul, but the connecting link between body and soul. It is so subtle and vital that it resembles the “uncreated” rather than the “created.” But the efficient principle, the virtues of things, is hidden in them, so that we must prepare them by means of the (alchemical) art – we must extract from them the essences or quintessences. However, the life-giving principle is present practically everywhere. We can feed our “balsam” or “mumia” with all matters as long as we know how to use them, they all can be used to fortify our spirit-quintessence-balsam. This is, in my opinion, a theoretical position that can rightly be considered to fit well within the general context of “panpsychism.”

Additional information

Funding

This work is a result of the research funded by the Czech Science Foundation as the project GA ČR 21-17059S, “Pantheism and Panpsychism in the Renaissance and the Emergence of Secularism.”

Notes on contributors

Martin Žemla

Martin Žemla is an intellectual historian. He received his Ph.D. from the Charles University in Prague. He is a research fellow at the Centre for Renaissance Texts at Palacký University in Olomouc and at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the Charles University in Prague. His research focuses on philosophy and religion in the 13th to 17th centuries, especially German mysticism, Renaissance Neoplatonism, and Paracelsianism.

Notes

1 Paracelsus, The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings, 135 (German terms supplemented by me); Paracelsus, 9 Bücher De natura rerum, 329–30: “das leben eines dinges  …  ist zu wissen, das es anders nichts ist als ein spiritualisch wesen, ein unisichtbars und unbegreiflichs ding und ein geist und ein geistlichs ding. Darumb zu gleicher weis wie nun nichts corporalisch ist, es hat und füret einen spiritum in im verborgen, also ist auch nichts, es hat in im ein leben verborgen und lebet. Dan was ist auch das leben anders dan, wie gemeldet, ein geistlichs ding. Es hat auch nicht alein nur das ein leben was sich regt und bewegt, als die menschen die tiere, die würm der erden, vögel under dem himel und die fisch im wasser, sonder auch alle corporalische und wesentliche ding. Dan das sollen wir wissen, das got im anfang und schöpfung aller dingen gar kein einiges corpus auch one einen spiritum geschaffen hat, den es verborgen in im fürt, dan was wer das corpus nuz one den spiritum? Nichts. Darumb so hat der spiritus die kraft und tugent und ligt in in verborgen und nit im corpus … dan es mag zerstört werden in gar mancherlei weg, der spiritus aber nit, er bleibt alwegen ein geist und lebendig, ist auch des lebens subiectum, erhelt auch sein eigen corpus lebendig. … Aus disem sehen wir, das gar vil und mancherlei spiritus send, wie auch vilerlei corpora seind. Dan es sind spiritus coelestes, spiritus infernales, spiritus hominis, spiritus metalli, spiritus der minerlaien, spiritus der salium, spiritus hgemmarum, spiritus der marcasiten, spiritus der arsenicalien, spiritus dr potabilium, spiritus der aromatum, spiritus herbarum, spiritus radicum, spiritus lignorum, spiritus carnis, spiritus sanguinis, spiritus der geben etc.”

2 Skrbina, Panpsychism in the West, 67; cf. e.g. Koyré, Mystiques, Spirituels, Alchimistes, 82–3.

3 Gantenbein, “Real or Fake?”, 18–20.

4 Even in these “prognostics,” however, Paracelsus appears to be an opponent of astral determinism and a herald of human freedom, and his interpretations are therefore quite atypical for the genre. See Goldammer, “Die Astrologie im ärztlichen Denken des Paracelsus”, 250, 259.

5 Paracelsus, Practica teutsch auff das M.D.XXXV. Jar.

6 Paulus, “Appendix”, 242.

7 Cf. Croll, Basilica chymica, 61.

8 Paracelsus, Die Große Wundarznei, 30: du mußt ir nach und sie dir nit.

9 Paracelsus, Die Große Wundarznei, 33–5. Similarly, Paracelsus introduces the term “Yliaster” (from Greek hyle, “matter,” and aster, “star,” i.e. “astral matter”). See Jung, Paracelsus als geistige Erscheinung, 67.

10 Weeks, Paracelsus, 109–10.

11 Paracelsus, Die Große Wundarznei, 48. Cf. Paracelsus, Herbarius, 26–7. Perhaps Paracelsus understands salt both as a conservant and – as the sal nitri (saltpeter), i.e. as a part of gunpowder – as a powerful source of hidden energy. See Webster, Paracelsus, 140.

12 Paracelsus, Die Große Wundarznei, 78.

13 Paracelsus, Opus Paramirum, 436–7. See also Paracelsus, Liber de matrice, 680; Paracelsus, De causis morborum invisibilium, 844. According to Weeks (Paracelsus, Das Buch Paragranum, 228, note a), “mumia” is described at times as a “balsam” which preserves the living body from putrefaction, or as an innate healing power of the body.

14 See Webster, Paracelsus, 150–1.

15 Croll, Basilica chymica, 61; see Kühlmann and Telle, “Einleitung”, 18–20.

16 Croll, De signaturis, 167.

17 Croll, Basilica chymica, 59.

18 Croll, Basilica chymica, 60.

19 Croll, Basilica chymica, 36.

20 Croll, Basilica chymica, 19, 60, etc.

21 Croll, De signaturis, 177.

22 Croll, Basilica chymica, 13

23 Croll, Basilica chymica, 21, 23 etc.

24 Croll, Basilica chymica, 40–1, 51 etc.

25 Croll, Basilica chymica, 59, 105.

26 See e.g. Paracelsus, Das Buch Paragranum, 440–1 etc.

27 Paracelsus, Von den hinfallenden Siechtagen, 273–4.

28 See e.g. Paracelsus, Astronomia magna, 33, 37; Paracelsus, Ein Mantischer Entwurf, 648–9.

29 Paracelsus, Astronomia magna, 36.

30 Paracelsus, Opus paramirum, 488–9; De causis morborum invisibilium, 844–5.

31 Paracelsus, De nymphis, 116.

32 Paracelsus, Das Buch Paragranum, 112–15; Paracelsus, Opus paramirum, 318; Paracelsus, De modo pharmacandi, 467; cf. Goldammer, “Die Paracelsische Kosmologie und Materietheorie”, 305.

33 See Paracelsus, Das Buch Paragranum, 176–7.

34 Thus, for some followers of Paracelsus, such as Valentin Weigel, the self-knowledge can become the ultimate philosophy. See Weigel, Gnothi seauton, 51.

35 Paracelsus, Von den unsichtbaren Krankheiten, 308.

36 Paracelsus, Astronomia magna, 58, 300. The terms “astral spirit” and “astral body” are often used interchangeably among the Paracelsians. See e.g. Weigel, Gnothi seauton, 62, 64 etc.

37 Paracelsus, Astronomia magna, 22.

38 We leave open the question of how well and from what sources Paracelsus actually knew Ficino. According to Schütze, “Zur Ficino-Rezeption des Paracelsus”, Paracelsus knew the German translation of Ficino's De vita sana and De vita longa, made by Johannes Adelphus Muling (Mülich) and published together with Hieronymus Brunschwig's Medicinarius in 1505, i.e. the second edition of his book on the ars distillandi. See Gantenbein, “Paracelsus und die Quellen seiner medizinischen Alchemie”, 137–40. Besides that, Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim included in his De occulta philosophia a number of paraphrases of Ficino's De vita coelitus comparanda, i.e. the third book De vita, not translated by Muling. Cf. esp. Agrippa, De occulta philosophia 112–13 (chap. I,14) and 153–4 (chap. I,37). Although the term spiritus appears rearely, in the above sense, its importance is fundamental to Agrippa’s conception of magic.

39 See Ficino, Three Books on Life, 111, 207, 257 (Ficino, Opera omnia, 496, 521, 535). For further references in Renaissance medicine after Ficino, see Hirai, “The New Astral Medicine”, 271; Matton, “Jean Fernel et les alchimistes”, 164–6.

40 Basically, three different sorts of spirits were distinguished, the natural (naturales), vital (vitales), and psychical (animales), according to the place in the body they resided in and worked. See Klier, Die drei Geister.

41 See Dodds, “Appendix II. The Astral Body in Neoplatonism”, 313–21.

42 See esp. Ficino's treatise on natural magic, the De vita libri tres (Three Books on Life).

43 See e.g. Paracelsus, Astronomia magna, 323; Bergengruen, Nachfolge Christi – Nachahmung der Natur, 82.

44 Paracelsus, Volumen medicinae paramirum, 179–80.

45 Cf. Ficino, Three Books on Life, 259 (Ficino, Opera omnia, 536).

46 See Ficino, Opera omnia, 1342. Cf. Kristeller, Die Philosophie des Marsilio Ficino, 68–70; Copenhaver – Schmidt, Renaissance Philosophy, 15.

47 This is the subject of Ficino's De vita coelitus comparanda (esp. chap. 13), which draws heavily on Neoplatonic sources as well as on the Picatrix, the magical-astrological treatise of Arabic provenance.

48 See Paracelsus, Das Buch Paragranum, 176–7.

49 Paracelsus, Elf Tractat, 29, 50.

50 In addition to the original texts of Paracelsus, this is evidenced by Valentin Weigel, who drew extensively on Paracelsus and used both terms synonymously. See Weigel, Gnothi seauon, 62, 64.

51 See Paracelsus, Das Buch Paragranum, 268: “Dann der Heilig Geist ist der anzünder des Liechts der Natur”.

52 Paracelsus, De vera influentia rerum, 215; Paracelsus, Labyrinthus medicorum errantium, 173. See Webster, Paracelsus, 130. Cf. also Paracelsus's ambiguous concept of the “Mysterium”, Pagel, “Paracelsus and the Neoplatonic and Gnostic tradition”, 162; Pagel, “The prime matter of Paracelsus”, 125; Cranefield and Federn, “The Begetting of Fools”, 57.

53 Paracelsus, Labyrinthus medicorum errantium, 171–2.

54 Paracelsus, Labyrinthus medicorum errantium, 171.

55 Paracelsus, Astronomia magna, 91–3.

56 Hagecius, Aphorismorum Metoposcopicorum libellus unus, 9; Khunrath, Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae, comm. 297.

57 Paracelsus, Von den natürlichen Dingen, 86, 88.

58 Sennert, De chymicorum, 588–9.

59 Khunrath, Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae, com. 28, 32, 48 etc.

60 See Žemla, “Marsilio Ficino's Allegorical Use of Optical Phenomena”.

61 Paracelsus, Labyrinthus medicorum errantium, 169, 171.

62 Paracelsus, Astronomia magna, 174–5.

63 See Paracelsus, Opus paramirum, 440–2.

64 Paracelsus, Die Große Wundarznei, 66–7.

65 See e.g. Kühlmann and Telle, “Einleitung”, 2.

66 See Gantenbein, “Paracelsus und die Quellen seiner medizinischen Alchemie”,143 ff.

67 On Rupescissa, see Multhauf, “The Significance of Distillation in Renaissance Medical Chemistry”; Multhauf, “John of Rupescissa and the Origin of Medical Chemistry”.

68 See Benzenhöfer, Johannes’ de Rupescissa Liber de consideratione, 10, 15.

69 Benzenhöfer, Johannes’ de Rupescissa Liber de consideratione, 21 ff.

70 Benzenhöfer, Johannes’ de Rupescissa Liber de consideratione, 22.

71 Rupescissa, De consideratione, 12, canon 1 and 2.

72 Rupescissa, De consideratione, 15–18, canon 2; the preparation of human blood quintessence is described in chap. 10.

73 See e.g. the 1549 edition Wundt vnnd Leibartznei  …  Auß den Schrifften des vil vnd wol- erfarnen D. Theophrasti Paracelsi. Dabei Von außziehung der fünfften Wesenheit / Quinta Essentia  …  Durch verborgene Natürliche krafft derselbigenn / Raimundus Lullius, i.e. the “lullyfied” of Rupescissa's De consideratione. See Benzenhöfer, Johannes’ de Rupescissa Liber de consideratione, 46 et al. According to Benzenhöfer, Johannes’ de Rupescissa Liber de consideratione, 72–7, the influence of Rupescissa is not present in the earliest writings of Paracelsus and only begins with works from 1525 onwards.

74 See Gantenbein, “Paracelsus und die Quellen seiner medizinischen Alchemie”, 139.

75 See above, note 38.

76 In this, Ficino could have relied already on Aristotle, De generatione animalium 2, 3, 736b33–7a7. According to Aristotle, there is a hidden nature in the “spirit” (pneuma) in the seed which contains the heat of life, distinct from the element of fire. It is analogous to the fifth element, of which the stars are composed. This passage (possibly together with the pseudo-Aristotelian De mundo 4, 394b9–11) served medieval interpreters as the theoretical basis for astrological speculation on conception. See Hirai, “The New Astral Medicine”, 269–70, 275.

77 On Ficino's momentous concept of quintessence, see Newman and Grafton, “Introduction”, 24; Matton, “Marsile Ficin et l'alchimie”, 123–92; Forshaw, “Marsilio Ficino and the Chemical Art”, 260–2.

78 Ficino, Three Books on Life, 247 (De vita longa 14 … .)

79 Ficino, Three Books on Life, 247 (Ficino, Opera omnia, 532).

80 See Hirai, “Concepts of Seeds”, 273–4.

81 On this, see Hirai, “Les logoi spermatikoi”, 260–2.

82 Ficino, Three Books on Life, 257 (Ficino, Opera omnia, 535).

83 Ficino, Opera omnia, 974.

84 Matton, “Marsile Ficin et l'alchimie”, 134–8.

85 Matton, “Jean Fernel et les alchimistes”; Prinke, Omylů svůdná zahrada, 284–6, 289.

86 Wittstock, Melancholia translata, 110–12; Matton, “Marsile Ficin et l'alchimie”, 152–5. Ulsted (or Ulstad) published extracts of the Liber de arte distillandi by Brunschwig, together with parts of the De consideratione quintae essentaie by Rupescissa, under the title Coelum philosophorum seu de secrteis naturae – 1525 in Latin, and 1527 and 1551 in German, also with extracts from Ficino. See Benzenhöfer, Johannes’ de Rupescissa Liber de consideratione, 43–4, 63–6.

87 Matton, “Jean Fernel et les alchimistes”, 165–6.

88 Ficino, Three Books on Life, 207–9 (Ficino, Opera omnia, 520–1).

89 On the relation of the concept of spiritus to the contemporary art of distillation, see Kodera, “The Art of the Distillation of ‘Spirits'”.

90 I leave aside the question of how much and what exactly Paracelsus drew directly from Ficino. That is a topic for a somewhat different study.