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complete alchemical form the true physician may emerge. My hope is to perceive a richer
portrait of the Swiss philosopher in his capacity as an alchemist, rather than attempt to free his
personality from the obscurity that plagues his historicity.
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Chapter 3: The Elementary Realm
By looking to Paracelsus alchemical treatises in an attempt to understand the role of
elementary chemistry in his system of alchemy, we discover that chemical philosophy played a
significant role in his cosmology, as well as in the thought and practice of his followers. In
addition to significant evidence supporting Paracelsus personal belief in the practical nature of
his own chemistry, we have come to recognize that many important developments in the field of
chemical medicine followed his initiatory advancements. Two common examples of the
Paracelsian school s contribution to practical iatrochemistry is the shift from the water-casting
system of urine analysis to chemical distillation of urine samples in the efforts of diagnosing
illness, as well as the formal chemical investigation of natural spring water and the minerals that
were thought to be responsible for the apparent efficacy of spa water for healing.64 Such
examples of his practical application of iatrochemistry to the world around him demonstrate that
Paracelsus was not by any means a solitary hermit whose speculations and philosophy kept him
in the armchair.
Paracelsus departed from the traditional alchemists and hermeticists with his emphasis on
understanding the world around him in chemical and medicinal terms. The movement initiated
64
Debus, The Chemical Philosophy, 109-110 If the Paracelsian chemical philosophy of nature provided a
conceptual framework for the iatrochemists, it also provided a basis for his practical work. Diagnosis by the
inspection of urine was replaced by chemical distillation and (with van Helmont) by a specific gravity test which
was to become fundamental for modern urinalysis. Paracelsians also turned to the healing powers of mineral water
spas and sought to determine the ingredients of these springs by greatly expanding the known analytical tests for
aqueous solutions.
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by Paracelsus was one that began to look at the greater world, the universe conceptualized as the
macrocosm, as operating through chemical processes; and therefore the human body - a
microcosm understood to be in direct corresponding relationship to the macrocosm - was seen to
also operate via chemical principles. The natural world, when studied chemically, was
recognized to be critical for understanding God and His universe, and therefore corporeal
phenomena was given a new importance. In referencing Paracelsus Paramiric Treatises, it is
Henry Pachter s opinion that, despite the fantastic flights into the realm of spiritualism, despite
the astrological language and the superstitious references to the invisible body, the book clearly
was written to put Nature on her own feet and to show the omnipresence of material
principles. 65 Regardless of whether or not elementary phenomena, that is, in the sense of
physical chemistry, is the central pillar of Paracelsus alchemy, we will see that as a method for
learning about the terrestrial sphere as well as the intangible realms of higher wisdom, its
importance cannot be overlooked.
It is also important to remember that the alchemists during the Renaissance often saw the
physical operations of the chemical processes, or distillations, embodied in the divine drama of
God s Creation. Many interpretations of Genesis by various Hermetic traditions portray God as
the great Alchemist, separating the elements from the primordial Mysterium Magnum or Illiaster,
and thus the miracle of the Creation story is closely associated with the alchemical processes
of separation. Observing how Paracelsus managed to unite neo-platonic experimental cosmology
with traditional alchemical literature, Debus remarks that:
[N]ature in a sense became a chemical laboratory. We have already pointed to his
explanation of the Creation as a divine chemical separation, but with the Paracelsians
almost all processes of interest were to be explained in this fashion. The formation of the
earth s crust could seemingly be duplicated in chemical flasks, mountain streams were
65
Pachter, 216
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explained in terms of earthly distillations, thunder and lightening were no less than the
explosion of an aerial sulphur and niter& and the rains were due to macrocosmic
circulations that imitated the heating of water in the alchemical pelican.66
It is interesting that in his attempt to understand the world around him as a dynamic relationship
of chemical processes, all ruled by specific laws, Paracelsus was perhaps foreshadowing the
desire of modern science to understand the governing principles, or mechanisms, that underlie
and shape the natural world. Debus goes on to point out that we cannot over emphasize the
importance alchemy or chemistry had for Paracelsus and his followers, as it became for them a
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