Esoteric Coffeehouse

Not many people liked Paracelsus during his lifetime, and even after his death his somewhat shady reputation followed him into the modern era. He was not a shy Copernicus who only published his discoveries after his death, or a reluctant Galileo who admitted his faults in front of the Inquisition. It was only too lucky for him that the Inquisition was not in full force then. As it was, he lived his life as a perpetual gypsy, until he found his untimely and somewhat mysterious death in Salzburg, now Austria.

Nowadays, when chemistry, biology or medicine look back at him, they find themselves at odds on how to integrate this pivotal figure in their textbooks. It is clear that Paracelsus was instrumental in changing the nature of medicine and ‘chemistry’ (then it was simply alchemy), but he did so in his idiosyncratic ways. Paracelsus was not a scientist, nor could he have been in that age; science as we now call it dates from the late 17th or even the 18th century. His methods and intentions were far too different to those of the later science, and no attempt at ‘recuperating’ Paracelsus for science would actually work. Hence, most scientific textbooks either avoid him or mention him for having destroyed the Galenic-Aristotelian worldview.

This was no mean feat in itself, and only Paracelsus’ ambiguous image probably prevented him from being hailed as a revolutionary of the likes of Copernicus, Galileo or Newton. Surely, the astronomical revolution was spectacular through its change of the paradigm of the earth as the centre of the universe. However, Paracelsus’ efforts of challenging the view of the composition and structure of the universe were also grandiose projects.

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There is hardly a more controversional figure in the history of ideas than Paracelsus, by his real name Theophrastus Bombast of Hohenheim (1493-1541). He was many things to many people: a hero to some, a quack to other, a devil’s doctor, a German nationalist or a drunkard. Perhaps he was all these things, because, by comparison to most other historical figures, he was impossible to frame. In fact, Paracelsus created a world of his own and a mythology that has never ceased to fascinate since his premature death at 47.

Inevitably, any scholarly analysis of Paracelsus is bound to reduce something from his larger-than-life self. Scholars simply do not have the tools to tackle his complexity. The same is the situation of his works. He wrote a wondrous amount, and another wondrous amount was added unto him by his faithful followers. Like a religious figure, he created a veritable ‘tradition’ of writings that were attributed to him. This huge compendium is still awaiting a contemporary analysis, despite efforts in this direction (notably Kurt Goldammer).

Paracelsus was a religious figure of sorts; many people called him ‘Lutherus Medicorum’, the Luther of physicians. He didn’t like it; even though he lived during the turmoil of Luther’s Reform, he remained a faithful, if unorthodox Catholic. Instead, he proposed his own version of the world, a peculiar mixture of natural philosophy, alchemy, magic and Christianity. He was in fact the quintessential representative of the Renaissance; a man convinced of his mission of reforming people’s views of the world and of Christianity. He believed there was no inherent contradiction between the analysis of the natural world (we now call this ‘science’) and religion; in fact, Christianity was the very basis of this analysis.

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