“The Monarchy of all the Arts has been conferred on me, Paracelsus, Prince of Philosophy and Medicine. For this purpose I have been chosen by God to blot out all the phantasies of elaborate and false works, of delusive and presumptuous words, be they the words of Aristotle, Galen, Avicenna or any among their followers.”

This was the manifesto of Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493-1541), otherwise known as Paracelsus. A big man with a bigger ego, his overbearing manner and foul mouth made him enemies everywhere. But beneath the bombast he was one of the most brilliant physicians, scientists and alchemists of the Renaissance.

Paracelsus was a true fortean. He despised the classical authorities and revered instead the ‘book of the world’ which can only be read by walking through it, one page per country, and seeing everything firsthand. What he found repeatedly brought him into conflict with the medical establishment. Rejected at first, he has been gradually winning scientists over ever since.

Renaissance medicine was rigidly divided: academic physicians at the top, apothecaries beneath them and barber-surgeons at the lowest level. Poor people resorted to wise women and herbalists, who were outside the system and marginalised by the law.

Physicians tended to be genteel and scholarly. Some were so exalted that they never left their books to see an actual patient. They drew their knowledge from the ancient authorities, who were held to be infallible, and new observations or data were ignored if they contradicted established teaching. They stuck rigidly to Galen’s theory that an imbalance in the body’s four humours was the cause of all disease, and treatment consisted of restoring the balance. This was an unpleasant process involving bleeding, purging, sweating or inducing vomiting. Patients frequently died, a result blamed on the violence of the sickness. Paracelsus, though, rejected Galen, and insisted that diseases had external causes with a different ‘poison’ causing each type of disease.

Apothecaries were the forerunners of chemists, mixing combinations of herbal simples to make medicine. Paracelsus took a different approach. He identified the active ingredient in each remedy so that it could be extracted, purified and given in a controlled dose. He dissolved opium in alcohol and called the result laudanum; for centuries it was the most effective painkiller available. He attacked the trade in imported guiaic (from tree bark) from the New World, an expensive and useless treatment for syphilis. He claimed to have successfully treated the disease with small doses of a toxic mercury compound, but few believed him. Some 400 years later, a new treatment for syphilis was developed: Salvarsan, a toxic compound of arsenic.

Barber-surgeons, at the bottom of this medical heirarchy, carried out bleeding and treated wounds. Their approach was to cauterise with hot oil or brands, or to amputate. By contrast, Paracelsus simply cleaned and drained wounds, believing that this would allow the body’s own healing ability to work. In spite of his impressive success rate, this approach did not catch on until the 19th century.

The source of Paracelsus’ many discoveries was his willingness to go out into the world to find the truth. His travelled from his native Switzerland to Arabia and Scandinavia, from Ireland in the West to the Russian Steppe in the East. He learned advanced techniques from Arab chemists that were completely unknown to western scholars. In every town and city, he sought people from whom he could learn – not academics but those with practical knowledge. “A doctor must seek out old wives, gypsies, sorcerers, wandering tribes, old robbers and other such outlaws and take lessons from them.” 1

He believed in experience, observation and experiment. As a result, he was the first to record that inhaled dust, and not subterranean spirits, was the cause of miners’ diseases. He also realised that problems with drinking water were responsible for goitre. He took the radical stance that insanity was an illness, not the effect of demonic possession, and that the insane should be treated kindly.

A keen alchemist, Paracelsus insisted the true aim of alchemy was not the manufacture of gold but the making of new kinds of medicine. He developed treatments using antinomy, sulphur, mercury and potassium salts. The London Pharmacopoeia took up his method for naming new chemical compounds based on their components.

Such successes, though, were rare. Although he wrote many books, his attempts to get published were usually thwarted. Imagine a writer, unsupported by any respectable scientist, who claimed that Einstein and Newton were wrong, and that the entire pharmaceutical industry was a blatant fraud. This, essentially, was Paracelsus’ position. To make matters worse, he roundly abused anyone who disagreed with him, publicly calling them “ignorant cabbages”, “sausage stuffers”, “high asses” and worse. No wonder he attracted little sympathy among his peers.

To the ordinary people, though, he was something of a hero. He preferred taverns to libraries, and was known to take on all comers in drinking contests – and to win. He saw patients from every social class, applying a Robin Hood scale of charges so the rich paid exorbitantly and the poor were treated for free. When hounded out of his one university post, he cheerfully adopted the life of a wandering doctor.

In 1541, he was offered a new post by Duke Ernst of Bavaria, but within the year he was found dead at a Salzburg inn. One story says he was killed in a brawl, another that he was poisoned by his enemies. Yet another version suggests that he died of a heart condition, having made his will out some days earlier.

Death was by no means the end. Many of his works were eventually published by his supporters. General acceptance came later – sometimes much later. His stream of boastful and apparently wild claims has always inflamed the critics. Charles Mackay, writing in 1844, described his “frantic imaginings” as being “unparalleled in the history of philosophy”.2 The 1929 edition of Encyclopædia Britannica questions whether he introduced a single new truth into medicine, although the current edition describes his achievements as ‘outstanding’. Even today he is called “one of the most remarkable rogues, quacks and self-advertisers in the history of medicine.” 3

He may have been a good physician, but his philosophy makes it impossible for Paracelsus to be accepted as a scientist in the modern sense. A seer and mystic, he believed that all knowledge was accessible because all objects in the Universe were represented within the human mind. Everything in the macrocosm that surrounds us is mirrored in the microcosm of the mind, so by searching in the mind all secrets of the Universe can be discovered.

He saw his work as natural magic, utilising the virtues that were naturally present in things. This belief in magic went beyond the powers of herbs and minerals: he describes swords that can cut an anvil in two, sorcery to make bodies invisible, and a magical means of carrying on a conversation with someone 100 miles away.

In recent times, Paracelsus has become a rallying point for the Alternative, the New Age and often the downright flaky – but he does not belong with this crowd. He was above all a practical man who might be described as the first proponent of evidence-based medicine. He stressed the importance of the attitude of both the patient and the physician, and the power of resolute imagination. He was aware of the placebo effect, and put it to good use; but he would pour scorn on some of the current therapies that invoke his name.

Even today, he presents a challenge to science. We may laugh at the Renaissance physicians and their notion of humours, and the apothecaries who ignored mercury compounds and laudanum. We can wonder how Paracelsus’ writings on anæsthesia using ‘sweet vitriol’ (ether) could be ignored for centuries, until finally being followed up 1846. We can readily believe that he was in some ways 400 years ahead of him time – but was he, perhaps, even more advanced than that?

In the 2000 conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, there were descriptions of new treatments for thrush, athlete’s foot and eye infections. All of these were directly based on traditional herbal remedies. Modern medicine is beginning to learn from the despised ‘old wives’, just as Paracelsus did. Homeopathy, of which Paracelsus is one of the founders, is beginning to win acceptance in orthodox medical circles.

What can we make of his account of the creation of a homunculus, a
miniature human being, in his laboratory? Cloning and genetic engineering are clearly impossible with 16th-century technology. His statements about the wondrous substance called Azoth (see panel) also strain our credulity, and we are forced to conclude that he must have been, to some degree at least, misguided or a fraud.

Robert Browning provided him with an answer to his critics in the poem Paracelsus:

“I press God’s lamp Close to my breast; its splendour, soon or late Will pierce the gloom. I shall emerge one day.”

Paracelsus’ own responses were, unsurprisingly, more robust: “Not one of you will survive, even in the most distant corner where even the dogs will not piss”.

Whatever we may think, Paracelsus surely will rise again, like a magnificent, overblown Zeppelin. After five centuries, his claim to the Monarchy of all Arts is looking secure.

Decoding Paracelsus

We may have much to learn from Paracelsus, but decoding his writings is not straightforward. Some of this is due to his secrecy; alchemists were jealous of their knowledge and wary of accusations of black magic. They wrote in a code that could only be understood by those initiated into the mysteries. Iron, for instance, was called ‘Mars’ and lead was ‘Venus’. Other substances such as ‘white eagle’ and ‘red lion’ remain mysterious. Some of Paracelsus’ formulæ were clearly meant to throw others off the scent, such as a recipe for laudanum which involves gold and crushed pearls.

A more difficult obstacle is the lack of existing words for what he was
writing about. For example, he speaks of every creature having an alchemist in its stomach which converts food into energy. The alchemist of the pig is the most subtle of all, as it can process material which the alchemist of the human and the sheep cannot. In the 19th centur,y Mackay found this hilarious; but it is apparent enough to us now that the ‘internal alchemist’ is shorthand for the chemistry of the

Read a physics textbook and you will find familiar words like ‘up’, ‘down’, ‘top’ and ‘bottom’. These are different types of subatomic particles and have nothing to do with the words’ everyday usage; unless you realise this, the book makes no sense at all. Likewise, when Paracelsus speaks of stars, he is referring not to celestial objects but to subtle influences. His salt, sulphur and mercury, the three active principles of the Universe, are not the substances we know but have more in common with the forces of physics.

It is only when we distinguish what is metaphorical from what is literal and establish the real meanings of words that we can unlock his secrets.

Paracelsus and the Rosicurcians

Although shunned by the establishment, Paracelsus always had followers. Among these were the Rosicrucians, a group so secret that it is not certain that they ever even existed. Although reputedly dating back to the 15th century, they first became known to the world in 1614 in a series of anonymous pamphlets. These attacked the Catholic church and described the secret brotherhood of the Rosicrucians, skilled in science and medicine and dedicated to helping mankind. The tracts invited like-minded readers to join the brotherhood, but gave no details of who or where they were. In 1623, they caused a sensation in Paris by posting notices announcing the presence of the ‘invisible college’ of the Rosicrucians in the city; again contact details were lacking.

The members of the order were to follow in Paracelsus’ footsteps and become wandering physicians, treating the poor for free and increasing the store of human knowledge. They were to meet secretly, identifying themselves with the sign of a rose and a cross. It is probably not a coincidence that these are the emblems of Martin Luther.

Some of the Rosicrucian tracts were traced to Johnannes Andreae, a German Lutheran writer who admitted to writing them as a hoax. This may be true, or it may be a Rosicrucian attempt at concealment. Certainly the Catholic Church has used the claim to discredit the Protestant Rosicrucians. Others say that Andreae was part of something larger, and that the Rosicrucians were a tremendously powerful secret society.

Real or not, the Rosicrucians inspired Sir Thomas Gresham to set up an English ‘invisible college’ by sponsoring regular meetings of the eminent scientists of the day. In time, the group attracted the patronage of James I and became the Royal Society. Thoroughly respectable, the Society kept quiet about the more questionable activities of its members. In 1697, the Society’s president was a man who devoted more time to his alchemical and occult researches than to science, though few knew about this aspect of Sir Isaac Newton’s studies.

Having learned the value of secrecy and circumspection, his successors have enjoyed more public success and influence than Paracelsus himself.

Red Mercury

Red mercury is an enigmatic substance said to have originated in a Soviet nuclear programme. Described as a dense, cherry-red liquid, it is said to possess remarkable properties. It can be used to make miniature nuclear warheads, stealth coatings and medicine. Although there have been many attempts to sell bogus red mercury on the black market, the real thing has never appeared and is thought to be a myth.

Paracelsus created a substance known as ‘Azoth’ or philosophers’ mercury. It was “a powder of the reddest colour, almost like saffron, yet the whole corporeal substance is liquid like resin... it is a ruby colour of the greatest weight.” He carried it in its powdered form in the pommel of his sword. Azoth had two separate functions: “according to the former mode it can be applied for the renewing of the body; according to the latter it is to be used for the transmutation of metals.”

Although he claimed to have performed transmutation, Paracelsus was not interested in it. “Though you may be able to produce a ton of gold, consider that you cannot consume a ton.” He was more enthusiastic about the healing power of the mercury, which he said consumed all diseases “just like an invisible fire”. He used it to cure not only syphilis and leprosy but also lupus and cancers.

In the 20th century, radioactivity was used to transmute metals (in tiny quantities) and to destroy cancer. Paracelsus was knowledgeable about mining, and was initiated into shamanic mysteries in Russian Siberia, an area known for radioactive minerals.

It seems unlikely that Paracelsus actually discovered a miracle substance unknown to western science before or since – so perhaps Red Mercury is simply the modern incarnation of a very old scam. (see FT69:44, FT 127:32).