The driving force behind Paracelsus was his compassion. “Compassion,” he exclaims, “is the physician's schoolmaster.” It must be inborn in him. Compassion, which has driven many another great man and inspired his work, was also the supreme arbiter of Paracelsus's fate:
Par 146, FamNo3
The instrument which he put at the service of his great compassion was his science and his art, which he took over from his father. But the dynamism at the back of his work, the compassion itself, must have come to him from the prime source of everything emotional, that is, from his mother, of whom he never spoke. She died young, and she probably left behind a great deal of unsatisfied longing in her sonso much that, so far as we know, no other woman was able to compete with that far-distant mother-imago, which for that reason was all the more formidable. The more remote and unreal the personal mother is, the more deeply will the son's yearning for her clutch at his soul, awakening that primordial and eternal image of the mother for whose sake everything that embraces, protects, nourishes, and helps assumes maternal form, from the Alma Mater of the university to the personification of cities, countries, sciences, and ideals
CW13 ¶ 147THE LIGHT OF NATURE AS THE
The light of nature [ lumen naturae ] is the quinta essentia, extracted by God himself from the four elements, and dwelling “in our hearts.” It is enkindled by the Holy Spirit. The light of nature is an intuitive apprehension of the facts, a kind of illumination. It has two sources: a mortal and an immortal, which Paracelsus calls “angels.” “Man,” he says, “is also an angel and has all the latter's qualities.” He has a natural light, but also a light outside the light of nature by which he can search out supernatural things. The relationship of this supernatural light to the light of revelation remains, however, obscure. Paracelsus seems to have held a peculiar trichotomous view in this respect
CW13 ¶ 148THE THOUGHT IMPLICIT IN ALL OF
ALCHEMY IS “GOD UNDER ME”
Paracelsus did not see that the truth of the Church and the Christian standpoint could never get along with the thought implicit in all alchemy, “God under me.” And when one unconsciously works against oneself, the result is impatience, irritability, and an impotent longing to get one's opponent down whatever the means
CW13 ¶ 155“BOMBASTIC” STYLE FULL OF NEOLOGISMS
Generally certain symptoms appear, among them a peculiar use of language: one wants to speak forcefully in order to impress one's opponent, so one employs a special, “bombastic” style full of neologisms which might be described as “power-words.” This symptom is observable not only in the psychiatric clinic but also among certain modern philosophers, and, above all, whenever anything unworthy of belief has to be insisted on in the teeth of inner resistance: the language swells up, overreaches itself, sprouts grotesque words distinguished only by their needless complexity. The word is charged with the task of achieving what cannot be done by honest means. It is the old word magic, and sometimes it can degenerate into a regular disease. Paracelsus was afflicted with this malady to such a degree that even his closest pupils were obliged to compile “onomastica” (word-lists) and to publish commentaries
CW13 ¶ 155DOCTORS HAVE ALWAYS LOVED USING
MAGICALLY INCOMPREHENSIBLE JARGON
The unwary reader continually stumbles over these neologisms and is completely baffled at first, for Paracelsus never bothered to give any explanations even when, as often happens, the word was a hapax legomenon (one that occurs only once). Often it is only by comparing a number of passages that one can approximately make out the sense. There are, however, mitigating circumstances: doctors have always loved using magically incomprehensible jargon for even the most ordinary things. It is part of the medical persona. But it is odd indeed that Paracelsus, who prided himself on teaching and writing in German, should have been the very one to concoct the most intricate neologisms out of Latin, Greek, Italian, Hebrew, and possibly even Arabic
CW13 ¶ 155SEPARATING THE PRIMA MATERIA INTO
ACTIVE AND PASSIVE PRINCIPLES
With the triumph of Christianity under Constantine the old pagan ideas did not vanish but lived on in the strange arcane terminology of philosophical alchemy. Its chief figure was Hermes or Mercurius, in his dual significance as quicksilver and the world soul, with his companion figures Sol (= gold) and Luna (= silver). The alchemical operation consisted essentially in separating the prima materia, the so-called chaos, into the active principle, the soul, and the passive principle, the body, which were then reunited in personified form in the coniunctio or “chymical marriage.” In other words, the coniunctio was allegorized as the hierosgamos, the ritual cohabitation of Sol and Luna. From this union sprang the filius sapientiae or filius philosophorum, the transformed Mercurius, who was thought of as hermaphroditic in token of his rounded perfection
CW13 ¶ 157Par 157, (f) FamNo4
Par 157, (f) FamNo5
LIGHT OF NATURE
The light of nature is indeed of great importance in alchemy. Just as, according to Paracelsus, it enlightens man as to the workings of nature and gives him an understanding of natural things “by cagastric magic” (per magiam cagastricam), so it is the aim of alchemy to beget this light in the shape of the filius philosophorum
CW13 ¶ 161THE “TRACTATUS AUREUS” ATTRIBUTED TO HERMES
An equally ancient treatise of Arabic provenance attributed to Hermes, the “Tractatus aureus,” says (Mercurius is speaking): “My light excels all other lights, and my goods are higher than all other goods. I beget the light, but the darkness too is of my nature. Nothing better or more worthy of veneration can come to pass in the world than the union of myself with my son.” In the “Dicta Belini” (Belinus is a pseudo-Apollonius of Tyana) Mercurius says: “I enlighten all that is mine, and I make the light manifest on the journey from my father Saturn.” “I make the days of the world eternal, and I illumine all lights with my light.” Another author says of the “chymical marriage” from which arises the filius philosophorum: “They embrace and the new light is begotten of them, which is like no other light in the whole world”
CW13 ¶ 161`THE NATURAL LIGHT OF MAN'
The “natural light of man” or the “star in man” sounds harmless enough, so that none of the authors had any notion of the possibilities of conflict that lurked within it. And yet that light or filius philosophorum was openly named the greatest and most victorious of all lights, and set alongside Christ as the Saviour and Preserver of the world! Whereas in Christ God himself became man, the filius philosophorum was extracted from matter by human art and, by means of the opus, made into a new light-bringer. In the former case the miracle of man's salvation is accomplished by God; in the latter, the salvation or transfiguration of the universe is brought about by the mind of man“Deo concedente,” as the authors never fail to add. In the one case man confesses “I under God,” in the other he asserts “God under me”
CW13 ¶ 163MAN TAKES THE PLACE OF THE CREATOR
Man takes the place of the Creator. Medieval alchemy prepared the way for the greatest intervention in the divine world order that man has ever attempted: alchemy was the dawn of the scientific age, when the daemon of the scientific spirit compelled the forces of nature to serve man to an extent that had never been known before. It was from the spirit of alchemy that Goethe wrought the figure of the “superman” Faust, and this superman led Nietzsche's Zarathustra to declare that God was dead and to proclaim the will to give birth to the superman, to “create a god for yourself out of your seven devils”
CW13 ¶ 163THE TRUE ROOTS WHICH UNLEASHED
FORCES AT WORK IN WORLD TODAY
Here we find the true roots, the preparatory processes deep in the psyche, which unleashed the forces at work in the world today. Science and technology have indeed conquered the world, but whether the psyche has gained anything is another matter
CW13 ¶ 163PARACELSUS' PREOCCUPATION WITH ALCHEMY
Paracelsus's preoccupation with alchemy exposed him to an influence that left its mark on his spiritual development. The inner driving-force behind the aspirations of alchemy was a presumption whose daemonic grandeur on the one hand and psychic danger on the other should not be underestimated. Much of the overbearing pride and arrogant self-esteem, which contrasts so strangely with the truly Christian humility of Paracelsus, comes from this source. What erupted like a volcano in Agrippa von Nettesheim's “himself demon, hero, God” remained, with Paracelsus, hidden under the threshold of a Christian consciousness and expressed itself only indirectly in exaggerated claims and in his irritable self-assertiveness, which made him enemies wherever he went
CW13 ¶ 164We know from experience that such a symptom [self-assertiveness] is due to unadmitted feelings of inferiority, i.e., to a real failing of which one is usually unconscious. In each of us there is a pitiless judge who makes us feel guilty even if we are not conscious of having done anything wrong. Although we do not know what it is, it is as though it were known somewhere. Paracelsus's desire to help the sick at all costs was doubtless quite pure and genuine. But the magical means he used, and in particular the secret content of alchemy, were diametrically opposed to the spirit of Christianity. And that remained so whether Paracelsus was aware of it or not. Subjectively, he was without blame; but that pitiless judge condemned him to feelings of inferiority that clouded his life
CW13 ¶ 164THE TREATISE IS MAINLY CONCERNED WITH LONGEVITY
The treatise, De vita longa, is mainly concerned with the conditions under which longevity, which in Paracelsus's opinion extends up to a thousand years or more, can be attained. In what follows I shall give chiefly the passages that relate to the secret doctrine and are of help in explaining it. Paracelsus starts by giving a definition of life, as follows: “Life, by Hercules, is nothing other than a certain embalsamed Mumia, which preserves the mortal body from the mortal worms and from corruption' by means of a mixed saline solution.” Mumia was well known in the Middle Ages as a medicament, and it consisted of the pulverized parts of real Egyptian mummies, in which there was a flourishing trade. Paracelsus attributes incorruptibility to a special virtue or agent named “balsam.” This was something like a natural elixir, by means of which the body was kept alive or, if dead, incorruptible. By the same logic, a scorpion or venomous snake necessarily had in it an alexipharmic, i.e., an antidote, otherwise it would die of its own poison
CW13 ¶ 170THE AQUASTER AND ILIASTER
Like a true alchemist, he [Paracelsus] thought of the Aquaster and Iliaster as extending both upwards and downwards: they assume a spiritual or heavenly form as well as a quasi-material or earthly one. This is in keeping with the axiom from “Tabula smaragdina:” “What is below is like what is above, that the miracle of the one thing may be accomplished.” This one thing is the lapis or filius philosophorum. As the definitions and names of the prima materia make abundantly plain, matter in alchemy is material and spiritual, and spirit spiritual and material. Only, in the first case matter is cruda, confusa, grossa, crassa, densa, and in the second it is subtilis. Such, too, is the opinion of Paracelsus
CW13 ¶ 175ARES AS AN INTUITIVE CONCEPT
Ares, accordingly, is an intuitive concept for a preconscious, creative, and formative principle which is capable of giving life to individual creatures. It is thus a more specific principle of individuation than the Iliaster, and as such it plays an important role in the purification of the natural man by fire and his transformation into an “Enochdianus.” The fire he is heated with is, as we have seen, no ordinary fire, since it does not contain either the “Melusinian Ares” or the “Salamandrine Essence.” The salamander symbolizes the fire of the alchemists. It is itself of the nature of fire, a fiery essence. According to Paracelsus, Salamandrini and Saldini are men or spirits of fire, fiery beings. It is an old tradition that, because they have proved their incorruptibility in the fire, such creatures enjoy a particularly long life. The salamander is also the “incombustible sulphur”another name for the arcane substance from which the lapis or filius is produced. The fire for heating the artifex contains nothing more of the nature of the salamander, which is an immature, transitional form of the filius, that incorruptible being whose symbols indicate the Self
CW13 ¶ 177FOR THE ALCHEMIST THE REDEMPTION OF THE WORLD
BY GOD'S SON WAS NOT THE LAST WORD
We have never seriously considered the fact that for the medieval investigator the redemption of the world by God's son and the transubstantiation of the Eucharistic elements were not the last word, or rather, not the last answer to the manifold enigmas of man and his soul. If the opus alchymicum claimed equality with the opus divinum of the Mass, the reason for this was not grotesque presumption but the fact that a vast, unknown Nature, disregarded by the eternal verities of the Church, was imperiously demanding recognition and acceptance. Paracelsus knew, in advance of modern times, that this Nature was not only chemical and physical but also psychic. Even though his Trarames and whatnot cannot be demonstrated in a test tube, they nevertheless had their place in his world. And even if, like all the rest of them, he never produced any gold, he was yet on the track of a process of psychic transformation that is incomparably more important for the happiness of the individual than the possession of the red tincture
CW13 ¶ 196PARACELSUS' DEEPEST PASSION
BELONGED TO THE LUMEN NATURAE
He was a well-intentioned, humble Christian. His ethics and his professed faith were Christian, but his most secret, deepest passion, his whole creative yearning, belonged to the lumen naturae, the divine spark buried in the darkness, whose sleep of death could not be vanquished even by the revelation of God's son. The light from above made the darkness still darker; but the lumen naturae is the light of the darkness itself, which illuminates its own darkness, and this light the darkness comprehends. Therefore it turns blackness into brightness, burns away “all superfluities,” and leaves behind nothing but “faecem et scoriam et terram damnatam” (dross and scoriae and the rejected earth)
CW13 ¶ 197THE LUMEN NATURAE IS THE NATURAL SPIRIT
The lumen naturae is the natural spirit, whose strange and significant workings we can observe in the manifestations of the unconscious now that psychological research has come to realize that the unconscious is not just a “subconscious” appendage or the dustbin of consciousness, but is a largely autonomous psychic system for compensating the biases and aberrations of the conscious attitude, for the most part functionally, though it sometimes corrects them by force. Consciousness can, as we know, be led astray by naturalness as easily as by spirituality, this being the logical consequence of its freedom of choice. The unconscious is not limited only to the instinctual and reflex processes of the cortical centres; it also extends beyond consciousness and, with its symbols, anticipates future conscious processes. It is therefore quite as much a “supraconsciousness”
CW13 ¶ 229NONE OF THE ALCHEMISTS HAD ANY CLEAR IDEA
OF WHAT HIS PHILOSOPHY WAS REALLY ABOUT
None of the alchemists ever had any clear idea of what his philosophy was really about. The best proof of this is the fact that everyone with any originality at all coined his own terminology, with the result that no one fully understood anybody else. For one alchemist, Lully was an obscurantist and a charlatan and Geber the great authority; while for another, Geber was a Sphinx and Lully the source of all enlightenment
CW13 ¶ 231