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Paracelsus'S Two-Way Astrology II. Man'S Relation to the Stars
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
Extract
The preceding paper described how all-pervasive was the influence that Paracelsus designated ‘astral’. In what sense, then, is it true that he placed restrictions, on astrological powers? The restriction applies to the more limited and usual sense of astrology, referring to the control of events on earth by the stars in the sky. Paracelsus was not prepared to hand over our fates entirely to a distant autocracy of the stars quite beyond our control.
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References
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7 Ibid., iv, 529–543. Much the same line of attack had been adopted a century earlier by Nicolas Oresme and Henry of Hesse (Ibid., iii, 407–418 and 497). Facts such as these must be borne in mind as qualifications to the reference by Pagel (op. cit., p. 66) to ‘the unlimited power ascribed to them (the stars) in the Middle Ages and at Paracelsus's own time’.
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