By affirming that the soul is life itself, as well as the basis of all phenomena, had Paracelsus laid the foundations of the connection between Alchemy and light?
If not the connection between Alchemy and light, this idea certainly represents the connection between Paracelsus’ medicine and his medicaments called “Arcana“. To this purpose, Paracelsus said openly that the human being has two bodies, one physical and the other astral. And this is for all existing bodies. The idea of two bodies, one physical and the other astral, is an alchemical axiom, the basis and foundation of Alchemy. The foundations of Paracelsus’ Medicinal Arcana pass through a “medium” that presents many similarities with the astral body. The penetration of the Arcana into the human body occurs through an enveloping medium which has many similarities with the astral body.
This statement may be surprising today, but not to the scientists of Paracelsus’ time, who thought that beings and objects on earth were in close connection and integral unity with the macrocosm of stars and planets. The magical, astronomy, ritual and pharmacological theories of antiquity were based on this idea. It was also Paracelsus’ thought that we were penetrated by the stars. It is interesting to note, in this regard, that the human part for Paracelsus was composed of the elements water and earth, while the sidereal part was composed of fire and air. Yet, for Paracelsus it was not a simple penetration through a medium, but rather thanks to similarities, called “signatures”, that could only be deciphered by an elite of wise men.
Were Paracelsus’ signatures similar to the theories of Roman Augurs, such as Nigidius Figulus, who were based on complex proximities called “sympathies”?
Unfortunately, Nigidius Figulus lived in an era prior to the arrival of the Neoplatonists in Rome; consequently, his work was never subjected to philosophical reinterpretation—and thus rendered innocuous. His reputation as a magician and astrologer was enough to exclude him from the mainstream Roman culture of the time. His theory of “sympathies and antipathies”—almost certainly derived from Etruscan haruspices—was handed down by his contemporaries as an integral part of divination rituals that had to be memorized, without any attempt to delve too deeply into the underlying reasons for certain associations. Despite his having lived some fifteen centuries later, the sources of Paracelsus’s “magical” thought remain unknown to us. As for your question, we are delving into a “magical” realm that defies easy classification or logical analysis. Let us simply be content with what has been handed down to us.
What I can infer is the resemblance between these theories—which you have termed “magical”—and the theosophical concept of the “unique identity” of the human physical and astral bodies, as well as of the physical and astral cosmos.
The unique identity of the human physical and astral body, and of the physical and astral cosmos, is the very foundation of sacred art. An alchemist would take the “single identity” of human physical and astral body and physical and astral cosmos as the union of the Mercurius Sideribus (of the stars) with the earthly Mercurius; and as the union of the microcosm with the macrocosm, i.e., the Philosophers’ Stone. Which ultimately is not very different from the theurgic idea of the sacred banquet (in Alchemy, everything that transmutes or eats or is eaten symbolically). All these complex observations of mine are intended to focus on the concept of the “third” and the medium between things.
Ancient theurgist would have interpreted the Paracelsian concept of a “unique identity” of the human physical and astral body, and of the physical and astral cosmos, as a “sacred banquet”, or divine meal. in short a sacrifice. Many ancient myths have the deities called to a “banquet” with humans from which they cannot avoid. Can we define Paracelsus’ Alchimia as a form of sacred banquet, aka sacrifice?
In a certain sense, ultimately, we can say that there are many analogies between the “call of the deities” and the concept of “single identity”. But Paracelsus made medicines, his Arcana.
The term Arcana bears a phonetic resemblance to Archeon…
True. Paracelsus called Archeon this natural property of amplifying stellar influences in us. And it goes without saying that he knew how to prepare medicines, the Arcana, which could heal the ailment. The Paracelsian idea of purifying materials to make them suitable for receiving stellar influences has generated confusion among his followers with spagyrics. Actually, Paracelsus often speaks of purification of materials to welcome stellar influences and little of extraction of Spiritus Mundi from earthly materials. This aspect could in fact place him in the list of spagyrists and not of alchemists. Yet, he himself specifies that the Azoth, or stellar emission as he calls it, is solar emission that fell on the earth through rain.
On the other hand, Paracelsus said that the cosmos had the form and function of a still.
At the time of Paracelsus, distillation was the supreme method to purify, and spiritualize at the same time, raw matter. Conversely, man himself was represented by Paraclesus as a natural distiller. But the very process of the circulation of the earth’s waters was considered a process of distillation. For Paracelsus we, as well as the earth, have a natural internal alchemist to amplify the stellar influences within us.
We come, then, to the theory of the tiny, natural inner alchemist capable of amplifying stellar influences within us.
A tiny, natural inner alchemist that shares much with the concept of the “third” which acts as a bridge between things. A concept we will explore further in another section.
In what other way might a modern physicist interpret Paracelsus’s concept of a “unique identity” between man’s physical and astral bodies and the physical and astral cosmos, if not as a wave-particle function? After all, do not photons, neutrinos, and electrons make no distinction between the human and the cosmic?
Maybe yes, maybe no. Perhaps quantum entanglement—or who knows what else—would be brought into the discussion… but we must not fall into the trap of translating the natural philosophy of the ancients into the “temporary” discoveries of modern physics.
I think that a Neoplatonic philosopher would have summed up the Paracelsian concept of a “single identity” of human physical and astral body, and physical and astral cosmos, as the union with the archetype.
The concept of the “archetype” in ancient philosophy is also highly complex. Indeed, these concepts often contradicted one another. Yet, we certainly must bear this doctrine in mind—not least because the rest is mythology.
Back to Paracelsus, we know he gave a fundamental role to imagination considered as a faculty of the astral body. Should we understand it as part of his concept of astral light?
I would like to answer you as an alchemist, but I can’t find any other words than to think of modern physics. Paracelsus’ concept of imagination might be more interesting to a physicist than to a psychologist. In fact, the former speaks openly of the wave-particle effects of the photon and the electron on human brain matter (and not only), the latter is still wondering where consciousness resides, and struggles to admit that, after all, we are interactions of photons and electrons.
Returning to the main topic, that is, catoptrics, it is said that a certain design of the hilt of Paracelsus’ sword could actually reveal the structure and angle of a particular alchemical lens. Another tradition claims, that Paracelsus’ sword is a method to “cut the continuum between one body and another”. What’s you take on that?
This is according to an alchemical tradition. It remains to be seen what kind of ray of the radiation spectrum the angle of the hilt of the symbolic sword of Paracelsus could reflect or disperse or deflect or magnify. The tradition of Paracelsus’ sword as a method of “cutting the continuum between one body and another” was mathematical and concerns the ancient belief that there was no void between one body and another but only a continuum so dense that it could be cut, precisely, by a sword.
I don’t remember the exact book by Paracelsus, but he compared us humans to blind men among the bells at night. Did he mean something beyond the visual concept of light?
Here, Paracelsus spoke in a very cryptic manner. And I, too, cannot help but answer you in the same way: perhaps, he meant the spider’s ability to sense the threads of its web. A metaphor that could fulfill both the world of light and the world of sound.
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Main Index: 3. Rays and Optics according to the Ancient Authors