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Paracelsus's Two-Way Astrology I. What Paracelsus Meant by ‘Stars’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Extract

References to the stars permeate the writings of Paracelsus (1493–1541); yet modern authorities comment on the way he restricted astrological influence. The contradiction is only apparent, and disappears when the significance he attached to the relevant vocabulary is understood. He had in mind a kind of influence rather different from that usually thought of in connection with astrology, and the astrological jargon he bandied about had a metaphorical more often than a literal meaning. In his major works, signs of detailed interest in the movements of the actual stars are few; the ‘astrological’ terminology hides a system of natural explanation by virtues or forces largely immanent in earthly objects.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1964

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References

1 Pagel, W., Paracelsus, 1958, p. 66Google Scholar, Karger, S., Basel; and Koyré, A., Mystiques, Spirituels, Alchimistes, 1955, p. 47, Librairie Armand Colin, Paris.Google Scholar

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11 Astronomia magna, Huser x, 266.Google Scholar The wisdom of the flesh is here referred to as animal wisdom, but elsewhere animals are credited with reason of the astral kind, and astral wisdom in man is called animal as distinct from the divine (Interpretation of the Stars, Waite ii, 287Google Scholar; Erklärung der ganzen Astronomie, Sudhoff xii, 457458).Google Scholar

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24 But only too visible. Paracelsus had trouble in keeping his similes for the non-corporeal both invisible and intangible; sometimes he preferred air which, though tangible, is invisible.

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36 Thorndike, L., A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 1934, iii, 357359, Columbia Univ. Press, New YorkGoogle Scholar; Multhauf, R. P., Isis, 1954, xlv, 359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 For Paracelsus, ‘there is nothing corporeal but has latent within itself a spirit and life’ (Concerning the Nature of Things, Book IV, Waite i, 135Google Scholar), but in assessing the significance of this apparent hylozoism it is important to remember what he meant by ‘life’. The word did not necessarily imply any properties that would be regarded today as biological; rather, it summarized the essential nature or outstanding characteristic of a thing. Thus ‘the life of sulphur is a combustible, ill-smelling fatness … the life of gems and corals is mere colour … the life of sweet things is a subtle sweetness’ (Ibid., pp. 136–137). Archei, such as that in the earth which makes metals (Ibid., Book I, p. 125) and that of the waters which makes stones (Ibid., Book II, p. 129) can be regarded as life-principles only if ‘life’ is given this wide meaning.

38 Archidoxies, Book IV, Waite ii, 2223.Google Scholar

39 In its permanence, the quintessence might seem to partake of the divine. The idea of an eternal substance in sublunary matter was, indeed, one of the points criticized by Erastus (Pagel, , 1958, op. cit., p. 323).Google Scholar

40 From animal flesh and blood, ‘a certain resemblance to a quintessence can be extracted’ (Archidoxies, Book IV, Waite ii, 25Google Scholar); this is understandable, since the sidereal body, like the elemental, takes some time to decay (Astronomia magna, Huser x, 71Google Scholar). Such extracts are related to mumia, which is best obtained from bodies killed violently before the end of their predestined life-span and therefore still rich in the balsam in which life lies hidden (Concerning the Nature of Things, Book VI, Waite i, 147Google Scholar; Fünf Traktat Philosophiae, Huser ix, 400404).Google Scholar

41 ‘Body is not necessary to the medicine. But it has body so that our eyes can see it. Without body it would not be possible for us.’ Opus Paramirum, De morbis invisibilibus, Huser i, 305.Google Scholar

42 Archidoxies, Book IV, Waite ii, 24.Google Scholar In the case of plant products, taste and odour are also important and must not be lost during isolation (Ibid., pp. 33–34). Essentially the same position was still taken two centuries later by the sober, critical and erudite Boerhaave in connection with his Spiritus Rector (Jevons, F. R., Medical History, 1962, vi, 343).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 Concerning the Nature of Things, Book IX, Waite i, 187.Google Scholar

44 Interpretation of the Stars, Waite ii, 286Google Scholar; Vom Erkanntnus des Gestirns, Huser x, 481.Google Scholar

45 The ‘spiritualization of matter’ is discussed by Pagel, (1958), op. cit., p. 86Google Scholar; cf. also Idem., Ambix, 1961, ix, 117.Google Scholar

46 Often, when Paracelsus spoke of elements, he seems to have been referring not to the constituents of matter but to regions of the cosmos. R. Hooykas, who pointed this out (Janus, 1935, xxxix, 175), saw these two meanings as quite separate. Perhaps the connection between them is to be found in another kind of macrocosm-microcosm analogy expressed by using the same word for the two things linked by the comparison—associating, that is, the same generative force or ‘mother’ (matrix) with a region of the cosmos and with certain sets of properties in earthly bodies. A similar significance of the ambiguous use of the word ‘star’ is suggested elsewhere (see note 3). These situations exemplify the pervasive role of analogy in Paracelsus's explanations and, correspondingly, of metaphor in his terminology, the difficulty of which is largely due to the way in which the metaphors are not only mixed but also superimposed, so that the meanings of words double and redouble.Google Scholar

47 The boundaries are movable; Paracelsus often used words of classification to indicate relative rather than absolute positions. Some apparent self-contradictions become understandable when this is realized. Another example is the use of the word ‘animal’ discussed in note 11.

48 For instance, De peste libri tres, Sudhoff ix, 568.Google Scholar

49 For instance, Paragranum, 1. Ausarbeitung, Sudhoff viii, 91.Google Scholar

50 Aristotle, De Anima, i, 2, 403b20–405b30.

51 Das Buch Paragranum, Waite ii, 151.Google Scholar

52 In the classical pharmacology, the aim was to neutralize any undesirable side-effects of one drug by adding another. Such ‘correcting … is just as if a dog should break wind in a room and you should kill the stink with fumigations and juniper wood; but does not the smell remain …?’ (Das Buch Paragranum, Waite ii, 161).Google Scholar