„Invisible diseases“—Imagination and Magnetism: Paracelsus and the Consequences“ (1998)

My paper

„‚Invisible Diseases‘ –

Imagination and Magnetism: Paracelsus and the Consequences“ .

was read at  the Symposium on

„Transformation of Paracelsianism 1500 – 1800: Alchemy, Chemistry and Medicine“

organized by  the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine

in Glasgow, September 17, 1993.

This paper was published:

Heinz Schott, „‚Invisible diseases’—Imagination and Magnetism: Paracel­sus and (he Consequences,“ in The Man and His Reputation, His Ideas and Their Transformation, ed. Ole Peter Grell (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 309-21.

Hei­nz Schott, Bonn

                       „Invisible Diseases“ – Imagination and Magnetism:

                                         Paracelsus and the Consequences

                                                                  I

Some scholars of Paracelsus‘ work showed him as a harbinger of psychosoma­tic medicine. Thus, they interpreted his wellknown treatise De causis morborum invisibi­um (On the invisible diseases)[1] as an essay pointing to modern theories of medical psychology and psychotherapy, in spite of its occult, magical and even cabbalistic impact.[2] I claim the opposite perspective. I assume that the occult, magical and religious content of Paracelsus‘ writings is reflected in modern psych­somatic medicine in a secularized form. To this extent, modern concepts, especially the Freudian paradigm, are disguised latecomers from the period of the Renaissan­ce. The currents of the natural philosophy and the specifically scientific approach of the Renaissance are hidden today, but they are still alive.

When we study the different psychosomatic concepts in the history of medicine, we generally notice the double character of psychosomatic ideas. On the one hand there are ideas, pictures, illu­sions within a person’s mind which may imprint themselves upon his own body or infect other bodies by communication. We may call this the power of imagination (Vor­stellungs- or Ein­bildungskraft). On the other hand there are energies or natural powers which correlate the individual organism with the whole organism of nature. This we may call the correla­tion between microcosm and macrocosm. The most essential idea of natural philoso­phy, from the Stoics up to romanticism, claims that all bodies, including the human organ­ism, are connected by networks of magnetic influence. This concept of magnetism, especially the concept of sympathetic interaction, covers the energetic pro­blem: the trans­ference of vital powers within the body or from one body to another.[3]

Imagination plays a great role in the history of medicine. The images of visualized pictures may represent healing powers (Sigmund Freud’s „Eros“). Others may represent destructive powers (death instinct, Freud’s „Todestrieb“)[4] We know the traditional quasi-scientific methods within the history of medicine: The mantic methods of dream inter­pretation or interpretation of prognostic signs and visions. The painted images of the saints in the Middle Ages, for example, play an impor­tant role in the religious medicine of the Middle Ages. The power of the icons may be explained by a power exerted by imagination over the body functions. Evil imaginations, sugge­stions by the devil or the demons, on the other hand, could produce illness or death. We may think of the imagery of mon­sters predicting social disaster.[5]

The idea of magnetism derives from the cosmological concept of inter­action. Occult powers within the natural world influence the human organism. Magic medicine tries to cure sick persons by so-called magnetic techniques. They tend to strengt­hen the vital forces of the organism: in other words, to accumulate vitality. But there are also destructive powers of magnetism. They weaken vitality and take away life energy – like vampires.[6] The long tradition of magical practices and sym­pathetic cures docu­ments the importance of magnetic influence as a medical idea.

Before we deal with paracelsism and mesmerism we should try to construct a rough typology of psychosomatic models. Firstly, the imago may come from outside into the mind, which takes it up and imprints it on the body. This mechanism is called „introjec­tion“ in psychology. Secondly, the imago may originate from inside the human organism, for example, by a disorder of bodily function. In this case the psyche takes up the imago and regards it as a real phenomenon. This mechanism is called „projection“ in psycho­logy. Both these mecha­nisms, introjection as well as projection, may support either healing processes or destructive ones.

In a similar way, there are two processes of magnetic activity. Firstly, a magne­tic influence from outside means an input of energy into the body. It is a positive transfer which may be compared to charging a battery. The flow of energy through the medium of the nervous system, for example, aims (as a healing method) at strengthening the vitality. Secondly, there is the model of attraction – of driving out the germ of disease. The magnetic power may attract the pathogenic „seed“ (Krankheitssamen according to Paracelsus). The human organism is considered as a psychosomatic entity into which energy can be introduced (input) or extracted (output) by an outside agent. To this extent the power of magnetism is based on transference of energy.

A special method of prophylaxis is the defense mechanism (a term borrowed from Freud’s psychoana­lysis).[7] Special practices such as wearing an amulet, for example, are intended to give protection against both bad images and bad magnetic in­fluences.

                                                                 II

Paracelsus has been often admired as a genius who attained new insight into the human body and mind and their disorders and gave physicians a philosophical and ethical basis for their practice. But he is by no means the founder of the theory of imagination and magnetism. Rahter, he took up more or less common ideas and attitudes of his period and adapted them to his specific purposes. He is a repre­sen­tative of his time.[8] Walter Pagel is the chief among those who have demon­strated the enormous impact of neoplatonism, alchemy, gnosis, and, last but not least, the cabbala on Paracelsus. He is directly in­fluenced by the platonism of Renaissance thought, especi­ally as repre­sented by Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) and Giovanni Pico della Miran­dola (1463-1494) of the Florentine Academy, as Pagel has stressed.[9]

The influcnce of the cabbala on Paracelsus has usually been underestimated. The religious mysticism of the Jews, its metaphors and symbols, were generally of great interest in the humanistic period. I mention only Johannes Reuch­lin and his fight for the acceptance of the Jewish cabbala.[10] The Christian cabbala developed during the period of the Reformation. Millenianism (chiliasm), Swabian pietism, the Rosi­cru­cians and even romantic natural philosophy and its off­shoots (up to and encluding modern depth psychology) were biased by cabbalistic elements.[11]

Pagel points out: „…even if Paracelsus had no first hand knowledge of cabalistic ideas and sources, he could not fail to arrive at concordant views in his doctrine as a whole as well as in certain specific points. Such concordances are largely the result of the dominant role played by the theory of Microcosm in both.“[12]

This aspect was often ignored by the interpreters, at least in the German tradi­tion. It may be a consequence of either open or more subtle antisemitism that they imagined Paracelsus as the „Luther of physicians“ (Lutherus medicorum).[13] He appeared as the incarnation of the German art of healing, a genius fighting against un-German trends in medical theory and practice. This interpretation flourished during the Third Reich, a subject explores by Udo Benzenhöfer recent­ly[14]. Antisemitic and anti-scholastic state­ments by Paracelsus seemed to prove his independence not only of the Jewish tradition but also of the classical authorities of galenism and arabism. Such sentiments, which were not evaluated within their historical context, could be taken to serve as affirmations of nationalistic and imperialistic propaganda. Thus, it was often overlooked „that Paracelsus was a strong admirer on the Caba­lah“, as Kudlien put it.[15]

Important concepts of Paracelsus point to cabbalistic sources. I will just hint at his central term Licht der Natur (light of nature). In a treatise belonging to the topic of the „invisible diseases“, Paracelsus identifies the cabbalistic art with the adept’s discoveries in the  „light of nature“ within himself: „Look at Adam and Moses and others, they searched for that within themselves that is in man and opened it, and it belongs all to cabbala; they knew no strange things from the devil or [evil] spirits, but from the light of nature; that is what they evoked within themsel­ves.“[16] The inward approach to the divine sources of the spiritual light recalls the mystical practices of the cabbala (and other religious sub­sy­stems). The successful process depends on a quasi-scientific scholarly self-purifi­cation. From the „Sohar“, the holy scripture of the cabbala, we know about the model of the divine light emanating throughout the material world, the famous doctrine of Sefiroth.[17]

Material things absorb the divine light, covering it like clothes and producing darkness. The sun, often visualized as the „eye of God“, symbolizes the archaic fount of divine light and wisdom. Like the sun, God sends life energy to all beings on the earth. „The glamour [created by God] went from one end of the world to the other and then remained hidden“, we read in the „Sohar“.[18] „The whole of heaven is nothing other than imaginatio influencing man, producing plagues, colds, and other diseases“, we hear from Paracelsus.[19] The same happens in the micro­cosm, i. e. within the individual human organism. Paracelsus uses the metaphor of an inner sun: „Well, what else is imaginatio than a sun within man, having such an effect in his globum [body], that is, where on it shines.“[20] In­deed, there are – according to Pagel – „concordances in detail between the lore of the Cabalah and the teaching of Paracelsus.“[21]

Let us come to the main topic. What is the basic model of imagination and magne­tism for Paracelsus? Firstly, the attractive power of the magnet symbolizes the power of imagination, moreover, Paracelsus identifies both powers. “ As the magnet can attract steel, there is also a magnet in the imagination, which also attracts. There is an imaginatio like a magnet, and an impressio like the sun and heaven, making a man by the power vulcani.“[22] Paracelsus gives us an example (Exem­pel), a parable to explain the identity of imagination and magne­tism. The magnet is just a metaphor for imagination: „Without hands and feet, the magnet attracts iron. Like the magnet attracting the visible, the corpora (bodies) are invisibly drawn to the imagination by itself. But it is not the corpus (body) that enters, but what the eyes see and is not palpa­ble, i. e. form and colour …“.[23]

There are two steps: the attraction (incorporation) of an object (ding) by the imagination (a quasi-magnet) is followed by an impression of this introjected object, similar to the sun and heaven impressing man. „What climbs up into heaven is imaginatio, and what falls down is impressio born out of the imagination“.[24] This movement describes a sort of reflex action, crossing microcosm and macrocosm. A macrocosmic reflex occurs, for instance, when the (evil) imagination of a human individual poisons the stars, which send back the poison to the earth causing plagues and disorders.[25]

                                                                III

In his treatise De causis morborum invisibilium (On the invisible diseases) Para­cel­sus uses the term imaginatio to explain the correlation between body and soul. „The imagin­ation is a master by itself and has the art and all instruments and all it wants to produce, for example as a cellarman, painter, metalworker, weaver etc.; … What does imagination need ? Nothing more than a globe on which it can work, that is, the screen on which it paints what it wants to paint.“ In this way, the imagination of a pregnant woman can express itself directly on the body of the child in the uterus: „The woman with her imagination is the workmaster and the child is the screen on which the work is perfected. The hand of the imagination is invisible, the instrument also, and both work together. … So the imagination does its work at that place, in the way the imagina­tion has decided it.“[26]

In this regard, Paracelsus also calls the power of imagination „belief“ (Glaube). Belief is „like a workman’s in­strument“ which can be used for good as well as for bad purposes. Belief can produce all diseases. Paracelsus compares it with a weapon. Disease will be produced when the weapon is active against its own originator. Paracelsus uses the parable of the man with a rifle which exactly describes the reversion of affections (Affektverkehrung) in modern psycho­logy: „We produce our diseases, so we become similar to a man who has got all his weapons and rifles. But when he meets a manikin aiming at him with a ready rifle the big man is anxious about the weapon and is frightened by it – the same happens to us. … When we become weak the power of our belief hits us as a shot from a rifle and we have to tolerate and to suffer what we have thrown against us.“

Belief which is self destructive Paracelsus calls „despair“ (Verzweiflung). It is a reversal of our belief which makes us weak and sick. The rifle is directed against its owner. The pathological imagination may even give origin to an epidemic, for example a plague or pestilence. The most important cause of plague, therefore, is that people in dispair may „poison heaven, so some will suffer from plague depen­ding on their belief.“[27] Imagina­tion becomes a very dangerous phenomenon if it is combined with despair, and so returns to its own origin. As it was pointed out before, this mechanism constitutes a sort of a reflex activity.

Paracelsus compares persons in despair also with a thief, who hangs himself, being in discordance with god and sentenced to self-hanging. „They are not worthy to be hanged by another [person].“[28] The wealthy opposite of despair is „simplicity“ (Einfalt), which is a refuge from self-destruction.[29]

As I mentioned above, the magnet is a symbol or a metaphor for magnetic healing in the context of magia naturalis, natural magic. At the same time, to Paracelsus it is a real instrument for curing several diseases. The magnet symbolizes the occult powers of natural bodies, their secret sym­pathies  (attractions) and antipa­thies (repul­sions) like those of real magnets. In particular, the interaction between certain bodies can be understood by magnetic tech­niques. The modern history of „magne­tism“ as one of the most important ideas of natural philoso­phy and its medical derivations starts with Paracelsus. In the Herbarius Para­celsus describes the ap­plication of the Persicaria. This is a plant with magical healing powers. In the same way as a magnet „marvellously attracts the iron“, Persicaria works against woun­ded flesh. „You may understand the herb, you should know that you have to take the herb drawing it through a fresh stream, then you have to place it on the part you wish to cure for as long as you need to eat half an egg. Then you have to bury it in a humid place so that it can rot, and the disorder will heal in the same time. … It is not necessary to make the sign of the cross over the wound or to pray, because it is a natural action, working naturally, not superstitiously or magically beyond nature.“[30]

The magnetism of the herb is compared with the interaction between a magnet and a piece of iron. As the piece of iron can be magnetized by passing the magnet along its surface, so the wound can be magnetized by stroking the herb over its surface. In both cases a correspondence will develop between two bodies, ensuring that magnetic interaction occurs. How this „concordance“ works is a miracle, a great work of God (­“magnale„), a mystery of nature. However, in ad­dition, the magnet is more than a meta­phor. It attracts not only iron or steel, but also all „martial diseases“ (which come from the planet Mars). So, it supports the influence of the Mars, (e.g. diarrhoea or the menstrual bleeding). The magnet can draw the materia peccans to the right place, so it can be digested and then be driven out at the right time.[31]  The uterus, the stomach and the bowels are organs which can be influenced directly by the magnet. If the uterus is displaced upwards, it can be driven back by the magnet. The same is possible in the case of epilepsy (falling sickness, fallende Sucht). Some magnets in a certain conformation „drive the illness from the head to the center (sto­mach).“ The magnet can also cure convulsions, stop bleeding, and heal haemor­rhoids. No medical author empha­si­ses the power of the magnet more than Para­celsus.

Imagination and magnetism is a main topic for two or three centuries after Para­celsus. The further development of this topic cannot be dealt with in detail here. The dualism between soul and body introduced by René Descartes, the anatomical and physio­logi­cal research on the nervous system and especially the brain (e.g. by Thomas Willis)[32], the new physical paradigms from Kepler to Newton and the development of the physical and chemical analysis of the human or animal organ­ism all specified the concepts of imagination and magnetism. Imagination was increasingly interpreted as an idea fundamentally affecting psychosomatic inter­action. The „invi­sible diseases“ are born of the imagi­nation, explains Paracelsus. The imagination afflicts the spiritual regulation forces, the so-called archeus or archei. A pathological idea (idea morbosa) may infect other human beings and may thus even start an epidemic of dis­ease.[33] The theory of mass psycholo­gy is based on the concept of transferable ideas. The image (imago) seems to be a contagion, like the germ of an infectious disease.

The magnetic effect is more and more explained as a natural law, an analogue to Newton’s law of gravitation. Power (Kraft) is a universal phenomenon, an active prin­ciple, as Newton pointed out. The cosmological ether seems to be the medium of power. It penetrates all matter like subtle rays.[34]

                                                                 IV

When Franz Anton Mesmer started with his „animal magnetism“ in Vienna about 1775, it was obviously not a direct offspring of paracelsian thought. As a doctor Mesmer was quite up to date with the scientific development of medicine.[35] In­deed, he was a repre­sen­ta­tive of the Enlightenment, and – as Robert Darnton pointed out[36] – the mesmerists in Paris played an important role in the French Revolution. The classical concept of Mes­mer’s animal magnetism was based on the new concept of electricity and its therapeutic application (electrical therapy), and the fashionable use of steel magnets for the cure of diseases in the second half of the 18th century. Mesmer’s dogma of a universal fluid (Allflut, fluide universel) was nothing other than a credo in Newtonian physics.[37] Mes­mer believed in his new foundation of medicine as a natural science. Strictly speaking he was an „iatrophysicist“. The transfer of energy as a healing power was mediated by the nerves. By his techniques of magnetization (mesmeriza­tion) Mesmer evoked „crises“ (Krisen) which today can only be understood as psychosomatic or psychodynamic group phenomena. But in his self-understanding Mesmer found no place for any­thing called a „soul“ or „mind“. He did not even discuss the theory of imagination. We know that his critics told him that his animal magnetism was nothing more than the effect of the powers of imagi­nation.[38]

Mesmer was a pure positivist. He systematically ignored the possibility of negative energies or of pathological transfer of the fluidum. His magnetic „manipu­lations“ trans­ferred only the healing power of fluidum; they never had to extract pa­thological com­plexes or matter. Mesmer never used magnetic „passes“ for exorcistic mani­pulation like some mesmerists 30 or 40 years later.­[39]

When mesmerism became an element of the romantic movement and the natural philoso­phy of the early 19th century, the power of imagination was rediscovered. The concept of somnambulism shows us a fascinating combination of the ideas of the power of imagination and the power of magnetism. The altered state of cons­ciousness experien­ced in somnambulism revealed the imagination as a manifestation of nature itself. When a somnambulist patient produced daydreams, visions or prophetic ideas, these were under­stood to be secret messages from hidden (occult) nature. The „Seeress of Prevorst“ (Die Seherin von Prevorst), the famous case history of a patient written by the Swabian doctor and poetrist Justinus Kerner (1786-1862), is a valuable document in the characterization of a concept of the imagi­nation in natural philosophy of the romantic era.[40]

The scientific explanation followed the anatomical and physiological guidelines of the age. People could be mesmerized by directing the vital powers within the nerves from the „cerebral system“ to the „ganglion system“. That means, in practical terms, the vital power had to be pulled down from the head to the stomach (abdomen). That could be managed by magnetic manipulations or it could happen spontaneously. When magnetic life (magneti­sches Leben) according to Justinus Kerner arose in the Seeress, the interplay of imaginations could flourish: e.g. the vision of a secret language of nature could develop or the spirit of a dead grandmother could appear. Even healing of other patients by praying at a long distance was reported.[41]

                                                                 V

Although the romantic speculations about cosmological and religious dimensions of the nature as a whole organism were increasingly rejected by the scientific community in the middle of the 19th century, the mesmerist concept of somnambu­lism provided the first modern psychosomatic model. It was based on anatomical, physiological and clinical findings and furnished physicians with both experimental and treatment me­thods. The research activities of mesmeristic scholars are fasci­nating. Here we see the beginnings of modern psychotherapy, medical psychology and psycho­somatic medicine.[42]

It is interesting to notice traditional concepts in medical practice today. Para­psychological mediu­mism uses imagination and visions for practical purposes. The progress of science has not eradicated the human belief that we may call super­stition. Today we also may see a sort of mesmerists practising magnetopathy with magnetic „passes“ and the magnetic tub (Baquet). Last year (1992) I met a psych­iatrist — a medical doctor – at a workshop on hypnosis, and he told me that he successfully uses the magnetic tub for his therapeutic group sessions. During the sessions he imitates Mesmer by wearing a violet robe and applying magnetic „passes“. The motive for such practices is not, I assume, primarily historical interest. It ori­ginates in discontent with the present situation and the hope of coming into contact with the primary natural sources of life.

Healing methods by „invisible“ powers are very popular again today. I mention only the so-called spiritual healing and magnetopathy (Heilmagnetismus), with its complex religious, spiritual (and even spiritistic), magical and psychological techniques. These phenomena are often condemned as old superstition, but a histo­rical review should take into account their long tradition in the history of medicine and natural (religious) philosophy. The cabbala, for example, plays an important role in the transfer of religious mysticism to natural philosophy and science in the Renaissance. So, Paracelsus as a philosopher and alchemist may sometimes resemble a cabbalistic scholar more than a laboratory researcher or natural scientist in the modern sense.

We should realize the unique situation of paracelsism at the beginning of the modern era. Natural philosophy and natural science were saturated by religious attitudes and rites. Research in the „light of nature“, e. g. the production of new medicines by alchemy, was at once an approach to the light of God, a process of personal purification, and worship. C. G. Jung’s concept of individuation has shown its psychological importance.[43]  The „scientific commu­nities“, small groups of adepts with more or less secret rules of behaviour, were essential. Moreover, there were possibilities for friendly discussions between Jews, christians and muslims without repression – at least, this was an ideal, praised among others by Jo­hannes Reuchlin in the trialogue of his treatise De arte cabba­listica.[44]

The aspect of intensive communication between mutually respecting scientists appears most important to me. Today we need a multi-cultural („multi-reli­gious“) atmosphere in which intellectuals and scientists can exchange their expe­riences and findings to overcome dangerous prejudices.

Finally, it is very interesting that the theory of imagination and magnetism is traditionally linked with social and political phenomena and tries to explain events of mass psycholo­gy, e. g. the attraction a leader exerts on a crowd of people. In this regard Para­celsus again uses the magnet as a metaphor: „You find a man who knows to speak, so that all the world runs to him and listens. Know, then, that his mouth [Maul]  is a magnet, powerfully attracting the people.“ [45]

N o t e s

Abbreviation: Paracelsus, Ed. Sudhoff = Theophrast von Hohenheim gen. Paracelsus: Sämtliche Werke. 1. Abt. Medizinische, naturwissenschaftliche und philosophische Schriften. Hrsg. von Karl Sudhoff. 14 vols. München, Berlin: Barth, 1929-1933.

[1]….. „Paracelsus, Ed. Sudhoff, vol. 9, pp. 251-350; complete title: „de causis morbo­rum invisibilium, das ist, von den unsichtbaren krankheiten und iren ursachen“.

[2]….. Cf e.g. Werner and Annemarie Leibbrand:Die „kopernikanische Wendung“ des Hysteriebegriffs bei Paracelsus. In: Paracelsus, Werk und Wirkung. Festgabe für Kurt Goldammer. Hrsg. von Sepp Domandl. Wien: Verband der wissenschaftlichen Gesell­schaften Österreichs, 1975; S.125-132.

[3]….. On the concept of sympathy and its metaphoric use in the history of medicine; see Heinz Schott: Sympathie als Metapher in der Medizingeschichte. Würzburger medizinhistorische Mitteilungen 10 (1992), pp. 107-127.

[4]….. The Freudian terminology is very clearly pointed out by J.Laplanche and J.-B.Pontalis: Das Vokabular der Psychoanalyse. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1973 (suhrkamp taschenbuch wissenschaft; 7). Cf the articles on „Eros“, pp. 143-145 and „Todestriebe“, pp. 494-503.

[5]….. The mantic interpretation of monsters (Latin: „monstra“) as signs of sin and moral decay have an important impact on modern behaviour against children born with mal­formations; cf Heinz Schott: Die Stigmen des Bösen: Kulturgeschichtliche Wurzeln der Ausmerze-Ideologie. In: Wissenschaft auf Irrwegen: Biologismus – Rassenhygiene – Eugenik. Edited by Peter Propping und Heinz Schott. Bonn; Berlin: Bouvier, 1992; pp. 9-22.

[6]….. The term „Od-vampirism“ (Od-Vampirismus) describes the negative (weakening) powers of persons in the middle of the 19th century according the „Od“ theory of the German chemist Carl Reichenbach; cf Karl Spiesberger: Justinus Kerners „Sehe­rin von Prevorst“ in Betrachtung esoterischer Tradition und im Lichte psychischer Forschung. In: Erich Sopp and Karl Spiesberger: Auf den Spuren der Seherin. Sersheim: Osiris, 1953; p. 64.

[7]….. Cf reference 2: Laplanche/Pontalis, article „Abwehrmechnismen“, pp. 30-33.

[8]….. In this regard we may compare him with Sigmund Freud, who represents the spectrum of the scientific and cultural currents of the 19th century at the turn of the century.

[9]….. Cf Walter Pagel: Das medizinische Weltbild des Paracelsus: Seine Zusammen­hänge mit Neuplatonismus und Gnosis. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1962; more detailed in Walter Pagel: Paracelsus. An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissan­ce. 2nd, revised ed Basel; München etc.: Karger, 1982; pp 284-289. The importance of Ficino’s and Pico’s theory for magia naturalis is pointed out by Wolf-Dieter Müller-Jahncke: Astrologisch-magische Theorie und Praxis in der Heilkunde der frühen Neuzeit. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1985; pp. 33-41.

[10]….. Cf Max Brod’s introduction to Reuchlin’s life and work; see note 45. Recently an anthology appeared in print covering the whole topic: L’Hébreu au Temps de la Renaissance. Ed. by Ilana Zinguer.  Leiden; New York; Köln: Brill, 1992; see especially the article by Christoph Dröge: „Quia Morem Hieronymi in Transferendo Cognovi…“ – Les Débuts des Etudes Hébraiques chez les Humanistes Italiens“, pp. 65-88.

[11]….. Cf e.g. Volker Roelcke: Jüdische Mystik in der romantischen Medizin? Kabbali­stische Topoi bei Gotthilf Heinrich Schubert. (1991, in press)

[12]….. Walter Pagel: Paracelsus. An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance. Basel u. a.: Karger, 1982; p. 214.

[13]….. This expression appeared as a term of abuse in Basel, where Paracelsus taught as a profes­sor 1527/28; it was also used afterwards in a positive sense; cf Ernst Kaiser: Paracelsus, mit Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschbenbuch, 1984; p. 88.

[14]….. Cf Udo Benzenhöfer (among other articles): Zum Paracelsusbild im Dritten Reich unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Paracelsusfeier in Tübingen/Stuttgart im Jahre 1941. In: Paracelsus, Theophrast von Hohenheim: Naturforscher-Arzt-Theolo­ge. Ed. by Ulrich Fellmeth and Adreas Kotheder. Stuttgart: Wiss. Verl.-Ges., 1993; pp. 63-79.

[15]….. Fridolf Kud[15]…..lien: Some Interpretive Remarks on the Antisemitism of Paracel­sus. In: Science, Medicine and Society in the Renaissance. Ed. by Allen G. Debus. New York: Neale Watson Academic Publications, 1972; pp. 121-126. Kudlien refers to Walter Pagels interpretation.

[16]….. Cf Paracelsus [: Fragmentum libri de morbis de morbis ex incantatibus et im­pressionibus inferioribus, das ist von den unsichtbaren krankheiten], Ed. Sudhoff, vol. 9, p. 360; present author’s translation. „sich Adam an und Moysen und ander, die haben das in inen gesucht, das im menschen war, und das geöffnet und alle gabalischen und haben nichts frembdes kent vom teufel noch von geisten sonder vom liecht der natur; das haben sie gar herfür in inen gebracht.“

[17]….. Cf. Gershom Scholem: Zur Kabbala und ihrer Symbolik. 7th ed. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhr­kamp, 1992; pp. 16-17; 53-54.

[18]….. Der Sohar. Das heilige Buch der Kabbala. Ed. by Ernst Müller. 5. Aufl. Mün­chen: Diederichs, 1991; p. 50; cf. also pp. 49-52 and 76-78.

[19]….. „als der ganz himel ist nichts als imaginatio, derselbige wirket in den men­schen, macht pesten, kaltwehe und anderst.“ Paracelsus, Ed. Sudhoff, vol. 14, p.311 (present author’s translation fo the original quotations).

[20]….. „nun was ist imaginatio anderst, als ein sonn im menschen, die dermaßen wirket in sein globum, das ist, do hin sie scheint?“ Paracelsus, Ed. Sudhoff, vol 14, p.310.

[21]….. Walter Pagel, Paracelsus, An introduction… [see ref. 9], p. 217. They need to be conside­red by research projects in the future. Recently, such a project – sponsored by the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Develop­ment – started: „Jewish and Renaissance Thought in the Works of Paracelsus.“

[22]….. „dan kan der magnes an sich zihen stahel, so ist auch ein magnet do in der imagination, wie ein magnet und ein impressio, wie die sonn und wie der himel, der ein menschen macht in der kraft vulcani.“ Paracelsus, Ed. Sudhoff, vol. 14, p. p. 313.

[23]….. „der magnet zeucht an sich das eisen on hend und füß. zu gleicher weis wie also der magnet das sichtig an sich zeucht, also werden auch die corpora unsichtig durch die imagination an sich gezogen. nicht das das corpus hinein gang, sonder das get hinein, das die augen sehen und nicht greiflich ist, also die form und die farbe…“; Paracelsus, Ed. Sudhoff, vol. 9, p. 290.

[24]….. „und das herauf kompt in himel, ist imaginatio und wider herab felt, ist impressio, die geboren ist aus der imagination.“ Paracelsus, Ed. Sudhoff, vol. 14, p. 314.

[25]….. Cf Paracelsus, Ed. Sudhoff, vol. 14, p. 317.

[26]….. Paracelsus, Ed. Sudhoff, vol. 9, p. 287.

[27]….. „… das sie den himel vergiften, das er etlichen pestilenz gibt, nach dem ir glaub ist.“ Paracelsus, Ed. Sudhoff, vol. 9, p. 280.

[28]….. „nich wert das sie ein ander henk“; Paracelsus, Ed. Sudhoff, vol. 9, p. 358.

[29]….. Cf Paracelsus, Ed. Sudhoff, vol. 9, p.357.

[30]….. „Damit und ir den brauch des krauts verstanden, so sollent ir wissen, das in der gestalt gebraucht wird, nemlich man nimpt das kraut und zeuchts durch ein frischen bach, demnach so legt mans auf das selbig, das man heilen wil, als lang als einer möcht ein halb ei essen. darnach so vergrabt mans an ein feucht ort, domit das faul werde, so wird der schad gesunt in der selbigen zeit. …das etlich ein kreuz uber die scheden machen, etlich beten darzu; solch alles ist von unnö­ten, gehört nit darzu, dan es ist ein natürliche wirkung do, die das natürlich tut, nit superstitiosisch und zauberisch.“ Paracelsus, Ed. Sudhoff, vol. 2, p. 18.

[31]….. Cf the chapter on the magnet in Herbarius: Paracelsus, Ed. Sudhoff, Vol. 2; pp. 49-57.

[32]….. The reflex model introduced by Descartes and the brain research especially by Willis is clearly analysed and illustrated in Edwin Clarke and Kenneth Dewhurst: Die Funktio­nen des Gehirns. Lokalisationstheorien von der Antike bis zur Gegen­wart. München: Heinz Moos, 1973; pp. 69-74.

[33]….. Cf Paracelsus, Ed. Sudhoff, vol. 9, p. 279-280.

[34]….. Heinrich Feldt studied the concept of power in regard to the history of magnetism in detail, especially from Kepler and Newton until the 18th century and the concept of mesmerism; cf Heinrich Feldt: der Begriff der Kraft im Mesmerismus. die Entwicklung des physikalischen Kraftbegriffes seit der Renaissance und sein Einfluß auf die Medizin des 18. Jahrhunderts. Med. Diss. Bonn 1990.

[35]….. Mesmers scientific ideas are very problematic; cf e.g. Ernst Florey: Franz Anton Mesmers magische Wissenschaft. In: Franz Anton Mesmer und der Mesmeris­mus. Wissenschaft, Scharlatanerie, Poesie. Hrsg. von Gereon Wolters. Konstanz: Universitäts­verlag, 1988; pp. 11-40. Nevertheless, as a member of the medical faculty in Vienna, Mesmer was well informed about scientific standards.

[36]….. Cf Robert Darnton: Mesmerismus und das Ende der Aufklärung in Frankreich. München: Carl Hanser, 1983 (Original: Mesmerism and the End of Enlightenment in France; 1968).

[37]….. Cf Heinz Schott: Die Mitteilung des Lebensfeuers. Zum therapeutischen Konzept von Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815). Medizinhistorisches Journal 17 (1982), S. 195-214.

[38]….. See Heinrich Feldt: The ‚force‘ of imagination in the medicine of late eighteenth century Germany. In: Proceegins of the 1st European Congress on the History of Psychiatry and Mental Health Care. Ed. by Leonie de Goei and Joost Vijselaar. Rotterdam: Erasmus Publishing, 1993; pp. 25-31.

Gereon Wolters pointed out the scientific problem of Mesmer’s theory refused by two commissions in Paris; he analysed the report at the Royal Academy of Sciences as an epistemological document of the Enlightenment; see Gereon Wolters: Mesmer und sein Problem:: Wissenschaftliche Rationalität. In: Franz Anton Mesmer und der Mesmerismus. Wissenschaft, Scharlatane­rie, Poesie. Hrsg. von Gereon Wolters. Konstanz: Univer­sitätsverlag, 1988; pp. 121-137.

[39]….. On Kerner’s exorcistic manipulations see Heinz Schott: Zerstörende und heilende Bestrebungen des „Magnetischen Lebens“: Kerners Forschungsperspektive im Kontext der zeitgenössischen Medizin. In: Justinus Kerner, Jubiläumsband zum 200. Ge­burtstag. Teil 2. Weinsberg: Nachrichtenblatt der Stadt Weinsberg, 1990; pp. 443-450.

[40]….. Justinus Kerner: Die Seherin von Prevorst. Eröffnungen über das innere Leben des Menschen und über das Hereinragen einer Geisterwelt in die unsere. 2 Teile. Stuttgart; Tübingen: Cotta, 1929.

[41]….. See Heinz Schott: Der ‚Okkultismus‘ bei Justinus Kerner – Eine medizinhistori­sche Untersuchung. In: Justinus Kerner: Nur wenn man von Geistern spricht. Briefe und Klecksographien. Hrsg. von Andrea Berger-Fix. Stuttgart: Edition Erdmann, 1986; pp. 71-103.

[42]….. I remember the pioneering work of Henry F. Ellenberger: The Discovery of the Unconscious. 2 vols. Bern: Huber, 1973. Ellenberger shows the importance of mesme­rism and somnambulism for the development of modern ‚dynamic psychiatry‘.

[43]….. Cf. e.g. C. G. Jung: Einleitung in die religionspsychologische Problematik der Alchemie. In : C. G. Jung: Gesammelte Werke, vol. 12; pp. 17-54.

[44]….. Max Brod emphasized this aspect especially in his sympathetic book: Johannes Reuchlin und sein Kampf. Eine historische Monographie. Stuttgart u.a.: Kohlhamm­mer, 1965.

[45]….. „du findest ein man, der kan reden, das im alle welt zulauf, und hört im zu. nu wiß, das das maul ein magnet ist, zeucht an sich die leut in der kraft.“ Paracelsus, Ed. Sudhoff, vol. 9, p. 363.

Franz Anton Mesmer — ein spekulierender Arzt der Goethezeit (PPT-Präsentation 2015)

Diesen Vortrag hielt ich im Hörssal XV des Melanchthonianums der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg am 21. Mai 2015 auf Einladung der Goethe-Gesellschaft Halle (Saale). Hier meine PPT-Präsentation.

 

Der animalische Magnetismus, eine aufregende Geschichte (Vortrag am 5.03.2015)

Zum 200. Todestag von Franz Anton Mesmer hielt ich in Meersburg einen Festvortrag. Näheres siehe Magic Mirror Blog.

Die Mesmer-Büste von Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (1770)

Die vier Fotos zeigen Ansichten der Büste, wenn man sie gegen den Uhrzeigersinn umwandert. 

Nähere Angaben finden sich in dem Sammelwerk Franz Anton Mesmer und die Geschichte des Mesmerismus. Beiträge zum Internationalen Wissenschaftlichen Symposion anläßlich des 250. Geburtstages von Mesmer, 10.- 13. Mai 1984 in Meersburg. Hg. von Heinz Schott. Stuttgart: Steiner 1985; Frontispiz.

Die Abbildungen sind auch über folgende Links abrufbar: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByekXtB9kRIybUVUMWxBTkJncG8/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByekXtB9kRIyZ21CZ2h6OTMtT3c/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByekXtB9kRIyRktIajJ3MUpiSGc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByekXtB9kRIyZlBHSE5RcmdvWDQ/view?usp=sharing

Zur neuen Mesmer-Büste, die 2013 in Mesmers Geburtsort Iznang am Bodensee enthüllt wurde, siehe den betreffenden Beitrag in diesem Blog:

Ansprache zur Enthüllung der Mesmer-Büste am 28. Juni 2013 in Iznang

Diese Büste in der Uferanlage von Iznang fordert zu gestalterischen Experimenten heraus, wie folgendes Foto von Ulrich Renz aus Weiler (Gemeinde Moos) zeigt. 

Das Foto wurde mir freundlicherweise vom Urheber am 4. Januar 2015 übersandt. Leichte Spuren von Schnee bzw. Eis sind sichtbar. Der blaue Hintergrund stellt den Himmel über Iznang dar.

Das erinnert an eine entsprechende Vervollständigung der Kekulé-Statue in Poppelsorf — zur jeweiligen Saison passende Dekorationen dieses berühmten Herrn waren eine Zeitlang Kult.

„Halloween mit der richtigen Kopfbedeckung zu feiern“:

Quelle: http://www.urbanfreak.de/august-kekule/

Ansprache zur Enthüllung der Mesmer-Büste am 28. Juni 2013 in Iznang

Zur Veranstaltung siehe

http://schott.wordpress.com/2013/05/18/franz-anton-mesmer-buste-wird-am-28-juni-2013-in-seinem-geburtsort-iznang-enthullt/

Ein Zeitungsbericht über die Veranstaltung:

http://www.wochenblatt.net/heute/nachrichten/article/wuerdiger-platz-fuer-den-newton-der-medizin.html

Begrüßung

Danke für die ehrenvolle Einladung, hier sprechen zu dürfen. Ich möchte nur einige wenige Punkte kurz herausstellen:

1.      Erinnerung an Mesmers 250. Geburtstag am 23. Mai 1984, Feier in Iznang: Marsch zum Geburtshaus, Empfang durch Herrn Bölli, Abendessen im „Adler“, mein Vortrag, umrahmt von Musik (Duo von Mozart für Violine und Klavier).

2.      Seither hat sich die Rezeption von Mesmer bzw. dem Mesmerismus verstärkt, große interdisziplinäre und internationales Interesse.

3.      Das Thema „Mesmer“ begleitet mich als Medizinhistoriker seit den 1980er Jahren und macht einen Schwerpunkt meiner letzten großen Studie „Magie der Natur“ aus, die demnächst in Druck gehen soll.

4.      Ich freue mich, dass Iznang, dieser wunderschöne Geburtsort von Franz Anton Mesmer, nun ihren berühmten Sohn mit einem Denkmal ehrt.

5.      Es wäre wunderbar, wenn wir uns in Iznang hin und wieder in Sachen Mesmer, vielleicht in Form eines besonderen Mesmer-Tages, treffen würden − denn die Geschichte des Mesmerismus und nicht zuletzt Mesmers Lehre vom so genannten Fluidum oder animalischen Magnetismus ist noch lange nicht zu Ende!  

In diesem Sinne wünsche ich der Gemeinde Iznang und uns allen noch viel Freude mit unserem Helden, der von diesem wunderbaren Ort am See zutiefst geprägt war. Es gibt noch vieles mit ihm zu entdecken.

 

Vielen Dank!

Zur historischen Mesmer-Büste von Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (1770) siehe den speziellen Beitrag in diesem Blog:

Die Mesmer-Büste von Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (1770)

 

Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) und die Geschichte des animalischen Magnetismus (2011)

Vortrag am Medizinhistorischen Institut der Universität Bern am 31. März 2011.

PPT-Präsentation siehe Link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByekXtB9kRIyakFidkxXVVJra1k/edit?usp=sharing

The Idea of Nature as Associated with the Idea of Care (Report 2002)

Warren t. Reich asked me officially to write a Report on the relation of Nature and Care (Fürsorge) for him.

He is a Distinguished Research Professor of Religion and Ethics in the Georgetown University Theology Department and Professor Emeritus of Bioethics in the Georgetown University School of Medicine. He is the Director of the Project for the History of Care.

http://care.georgetown.edu/Who%20is%20Warren%20T_%20Reich.html

In his Article „History of the Notion of Care“ (1995) Warren T. Reich studies the gender aspect outgoing from the ancient Roman mythological figure of Cura. He investigates the legacy of this divine figure reflecting Heidegger’s and Kierkegaard’s philosophy among other positions.   

http://care.georgetown.edu/Classic%20Article.html

But the most essential point he missed: Cura or care is a character of Natura or nature, which was personified traditionally as a nourishing and healing female figure: Alma mater, Goddess of health, divine mother. Nature even resembled Maria in the early modern iconography and emblematics. This dimension of care can only be detected by historiography of medicine and science and their respective history of ideas.    

Introduction

In the history of medicine, the idea of Nature is very closely associated with the the idea of Care. There is one essential assumption in medical theory and practice, which can be found from antiquity until nowadays: the idea of a “healing power of Nature” (vis medicatrix naturae, Naturheilkraft). This assumption has two consequences: (1) Nature is imagined as a doctor in itself (or better: herself); and (2) Nature is the primary physician, the human doctor is only secondary, because he can only cure in accordance with her intentions and laws – and not against them. As we will see, in the iconography of alchemy Nature is often symbolised by female figures: healing Goddess, queen, the Virgin etc. Nature (Latin natura) is like Care (Latin cura) feminine. Therefore, it is reasonable to personify the concept of Nature by gender (“she”). But it is essential to realise, that Nature does not fit in the traditional (dualistic) gender pattern of the cultural history: male as bright, spiritual, and eternal; and female as dark, elemental, and deathly. Obviously, Nature is often imagined as a female figure, but with intrinsic male qualities: She is a medium of the divine power and becomes therefore herself a divine (radiating) power.

 

It should be mentioned, that the concept of Nature as a healing power is characteristic for the occident (Europe). It is a questionable, whether this situation can be generalised. So, the concept of a natural healing power does not play a comparable role in the Chinese tradition, were Confucianism stressed more the social duties and interrelations, so that medical metaphors correspond to political ones. (E. g.: In Chinese, “cure” is the same term as “rule” in a political sense; cf. Unschuld, 1996)

 

Our hypothesis is: Nature in the context of the history of (Western) medicine can be identified with Care. Nature cares for the health of man by her actions, outside and inside the human body. There was a strong impact by the Christian tradition: God cares for man by the means of Nature. Nature becomes a medium of the divine creativity. So, Nature as a caring instance reveals only the intentions of God: to protect people from diseases and to cure them. In this way, Care (cura) is at work before man intervenes. She, then, becomes a guide for man, who can only cure and care according to her guidance.

 

My report gives a general historical overview. It is focussed on the early modern times, when natural magic, alchemy and astrology hat a great impact on medicine by the movement of paracelsianism. The latter emphasised very much the idea of Nature as a general instance not only in regard to the natural healing power, but also in regard to  the intellectual and empirical guide for serious scholars (“philosophers”) In this context, we find the most impressive imagery of Nature/Care, as it is pointed out below by a series of illustrations. We are here confronted with a nodal point in the history of science and medicine: The new (natural) sciences came up and began to develop, whereas the “occult” natural philosophy (mainly neo-platonism) maintained and was implemented in the early modern discourse of the scientific community. The most important cornerstone was the concept of Nature in accordance to the motto: “Reading in the Bible of Nature”! Only when this historical background is taken in mind, one can understand the real (religious and magic) impact of modern aspects of Nature in Medicine (and Science), e. g. in the form of naturopathy (Naturheilkunde).

 

“Physis” or “natura” in Greek medicine

 

Nature or natura in Latin is named physis in Greek. In the Hippocratic writings, the idea of Nature as a healing power is stressed very strictly. The principle formula can be read in the sixth book of “Epicemic Diseases” (Epid. V, 1): Noúson phýsies iatroí, i. e. Nature is the healer of the disease (exactly: the Natures are the doctors of the diseases). Nature was imagined as a vital controller of the human organism. The (self-)healing tendencies were only one of its vital expressions. “Nature remains without education and did not learn anything, but nevertheless works dutifully” (Epid. VI, 5) Physicians observed, that sick persons could recover from their illness without medical aid – spontaneously. Obviously, the physis had been at work. It was supposed to regulate the balance of the body humours in the sense of humour pathology.

 

In this perspective, physis was supposed to be an agent of self-help within the human body, which could fail. In this case, people would fall ill and the doctor’s help would become essential for surviving. It was then the task of the doctor, to support the natural healing power by his artificial healing, in co-operation with Nature and not against it. The Hippocratic doctor had to work as a “servant of Nature” (tês phýseos hyperétes) and not as its master. The idea of the physis implied a useful activity. Probably, it influenced the idea of usefulness in the concept of Nature in Plato and Aristotle. In the Hippocratic tradition, Nature cared for the wealthy state of the human body protecting it from harm and disease and had the power of healing in the case of illness. Only when the power was too weak or failed to work properly, the doctor had to intervene and to support it in accordance to its tendencies.

The dogmatic concept of Greek medicine was formulated by Galen (2^nd c.). He fixed the doctrine of humour pathology, which dominated the history of the Western medicine throughout the ages until the modern times. The concept of Galenism was coined by the model of the four body humours (blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm): their balance or harmony meant healthiness (temperate state), their imbalance or disharmony meant disease (intemperate state). Medical therapy aimed at the reversal of the disharmony to achieve harmony. The guideline can be called contraria contrariis (i. e. contrasting disorders by contrasting treatment). The unbalanced state of the disorder should be corrected in accordance with the physis, which was supposed to fight against pathological processes or matter by producing a so-called krisis. The work of Nature was imagined as a dynamic conflict. Medicine could intervene in this conflict and take Nature’s part against harmful factors. Insofar, there was a concordance between the natural dynamics and the artificial intervention, e. g. by blood letting, herbal medicine or diet. The doctor had to support the efforts of the physis.

An example may illustrate the idea of the natural healing power. Bleeding by menstruation was taken for protective action of the female body, drawing out pathogenic materials. In analogy, haemorrhoids appeared to be a benevolent natural action of the body humours in males. The retention of menstrual as well as haemorrhoid bleeding was assumed to cause severe illnesses like melancholy, epilepsy, madness etc. It can be studied in textbooks of the 18^th and 19^th centuries, how far reaching this concept was. The well-known German doctor and psychiatrist Karl Friedrich Ideler (1796) appreciated nosebleeds in all diseases caused by too large quantities or congestion of blood, like apoplexy, falling sickness or stupor in the consequence of  a suppressed natural bleeding of the body: Suppression of the menstruation in female respectively suppression of the haemorrhoids in male persons. “The third [therapeutic] crisis by bleeding is achieved by the haemorrhoids. You may expect that bleeding in the manly age [im mannbaren Alter].” (Cf. Schott, 1998b, p. 118) Therefore, the Plexus haemorrhoidalis was called the “golden vessel” (güldene Ader, Goldader). The bleeding of the haemorrhoids were an equivalent of blood letting.

 

Nature and the imagery of light

 

In general, the imagery of light plays an important role in medical history. It symbolises in particular the healing power of Nature corresponding to the idea of a vital power (Lebenskraft) which was supposed to circulate as a luminous fluid or “spirit”in the nerves. The polarity of lightness and darkness can be found at all times of cultural history. Light as a male characteristic symbolises divinity, eterniy, spirituality, wellness, and fiery (imponderable) substances; whereas darkness as a female characteristic represents the evil, dead, danger, and disease. The cross cultural pattern for this polarity is the imagery of day and night. Consequently, the sun is identified as a symbol of divine majestic glamour and male power, whereas the moon signals darkness, discomfort and female weakness. In the tradition of humour pathology (i. g. galenism) the gender polarity is especially stressed: the male qualities are warm and dry, opposing the female ones being cold and wet.

 

Apparitions of light symbolised in the tradition of religious mysticism the emanation of the divinity influencing (influence in German: ein-fließen, Ein-fluß)– literally spoken – natural things. Insofar, religious mysticism was connected with a sort of natural mysticism. Jacob Böhme was a visionary, who did not only use religious sources, but was also fed by the thought of Paracelsian alchemy. In his writings there are many allusions to light. The relation of light and fire was important for him: “I would like to give you another example of fire and light / the fire shows us by its painfulness / the Nature in the science (Szientz) / and the light shows us the divine fire of love / for the light is also a fire / but a giving fire / and it hands over itself to all things / and in this there are life and essence, air / and a spiritual fluid / and in this oily water the dear fire of the light lives, because it is the food of the light …” (Böhme, 1623; translation H. S.)

 

“In the light of Nature”: Paracelsian natural philosophy

 

The concepts of light and fire can also be found quite frequently in the work of Paracelsus. They reveal theological, natural mystical, and alchemical aspects. I emphasis only a few quotations of Paracelsus. The “light of Nature” is called within the human body also the “light of the microcosm” (liecht microcosmi): “The light of Nature is an eternal light, because it comes from the angels and stays in the souls, where there is no death. But the deadly light dies, that is the deadly school master.” The light is taken for a “noble master” (edler lehrmeister), teaching his disciple, doctor or natural philosopher. The light of Nature is only lit by the Holy Spirit. The greater light of the Holy Spirit, the more extensive the light, from where all science and knowledge originates.

 

Light would also create life as a “living fire” (lebenig feur). Gold is taken for “pure” (lauter) or “frozen fire” as well. The Holy Spirit is the power igniting fire in natural things. The divine or heavenly fire appears white, whereas the evil or diabolic and pathogenic fire appears as a “black” or “dark fire”. (Cf. Schott, 1998a, p. 278 ff.)

 

The remarkable Paracelsian imagery of light leads to further questions. On the one hand one may ask, whether Paracelsus himself had visionary or mystical experiences leading him to those metaphors. Was his term “light of Nature” therefore more than just a theoretical rhetoric? Most of the scholars refuse the assumption, that Paracelsus experienced himself natural mysticism. But in my opinion it seems to be possible, even if there is no biographical proof (ibd., p. 283 f.). On the other hand it is until nowadays unclear, whether respectively in which way Paracelsus was influenced by the tradition of cabbala. Especially in the tradition of the Jewish mysticism the divine light emanating from God and penetrating Nature was very important.

 

By the way; Giordano Bruno used in his treatise “On Magic” (De magia) the imagery of light too, demonstrating the correlation of the divine and natural world. “So the descent through the universe to the living beings starts from God. He is on the top of the ladder, pure actor, acting potency and purest light. At the deepest roots of the ladder there is the matter, darkness, and the pure passive potency… In between the deepest and the highest grade there are the medium species: those, who are more above participate in the light and the act of the acting power, but those, who are more below participate in the darkness and the passive potency and power.” (Bruno, 1999, p. 119 f.)

The Rosicrucean manifestos in the early 17^th century follow the Paracelsian perspective and also present an imagery of light. The “light of God” (Liecht von Gott) is mentioned in the “Confessio fraternitatis” (1815), that can be perceived in a characteristic manner by members of the secret society (i. e. the Rosicrucean brotherhood). In the “chemical wedding” (chymische Hochzeit) (1616) a miraculous intensification of the sun light happens: It is directed from the mirrors at all of the walls of a castle hall to a golden globe (Guldene Kugel) hanging in the middle radiating such a glamour (glantz),  that nobody could open the eyes. (Cf. Schott, 1998a, p. 293)

Nature as a magician (maga): the archeus in the stomach (Paracelsus)

It is remarkable, that Paracelsus, who criticised Galenism radically, nevertheless also stressed the importance of the hypochondrium and the digestive organs – even stronger than the heavily attacked “pigs of humour pathology” (Humoristensäue)! This paper is not the convenient place to deal with the adventurous life and work of Paracelsus between the Middle Ages and the modern times, between religion and natural science, magic and empirical medicine. Here, I will only outline the crucial point of his anthropology: i. e. the continuous correspondence between microcosm (man) and macrocosm (world) in the meaning of alchemy.

Nature itself (as vulcanus) works like an alchemist, is in herself a sort of magician (maga, a female magician) preparing natural things – but not “to their end”. It is the task of man as a “philosopher” (philosophus, i. e. a doctor or pharmacist) to complete the industry of Nature. The medical alchemy turns out to be an “art of separation” (Scheidekunst), which separates the poison (German: Gift) from the efficient medicine  and excretes the waste or faeces (German: Schlacke) to get the pure essence of the drug (arcanum). In accordance to the principles of the microcosm-macrocosm-model “like up (in heaven) – so below (on earth)” and “like outside – so inside” the alchemy outside in Nature and laboratory is corresponds to the alchemy inside the human body, precisely in the stomach, working similarly. In the Paracelsian view, the stomach is the central organ located in the middle of the human body, where the “life spirit” (spiritus vitae) is seated and the soul is rooted. Paracelsus also uses the terms geist microcosmi, archeus, or vulcanus. He calls them the alchemical artists.

In his treatise Labyrinthus medicorum errantium (1537/48) he displays the analogy of natural and artificial, inner and outer alchemy, stomach and kitchen (i. e. laboratory): “alchimia ist ein kunst, vulcanus ist der künstler in ir …  das ist alchimia, das ist der schmelzer der vulcanus heist. Was das feur tut, ist alchimia, auch in er kuchen [Küche], auch im ofen. Was auch das feur regirt, das ist vulcanus, auch der koch, auch der stubenheizer.” (Alchemy is the art, vulcanus is the artist of it. … alchemy is the melter called vulcanus. What rules the fire, that is vulcanus, also the cook, also the boilerman.) In his “example” (Exempel), i. e. a parable or simile, of the bread, Paracelsus shows, how the inner alchemist in the stomach (alchimia microcosmi) is able to complete and perfect the whole process of natural alchemy:  There is a development from the growing of the grainand to harvest it to the making of bread, eating it, and digesting it. “also folgt der archeus, der inwendig vulcanus hernach, der weiß zu circulirn und praeparirn …, wie die kunst selbst vermag mit sublimirn, destillirn, reverberirn etc.; dan die artes [alchemistischen Künste] sind alle im menschen als wol in der eußerlichen alchemei …” (Paracelsus ed. Sudhoff, vol. 11, p. 188 sq.) (Now, the archeus, the vulcanus inside continues, who knows to circulate and prepare …, as the art itself is able to sublimate, distil, to reverb [?] etc.; for  the arts are all together as well inside man as in the outer alchemy …”)

So, the medical anthropology of Paracelsus focuses on the alchemical idea of the archeus. But its localisation in the stomach is not to understand anatomically in a modern sense. It is just the abdominal  region of the cardia (German: Magenmund), where heart and stomach come together, the hypochondrium, the centre of the body, the origin of life and disease. There is a special term in German, still used in the 19^th century: namely Herzgrube, which means “hollow of the heart”.

In his writing Labyrinthus medicorum errantium he wrote: “Man is born to fall down. Now, there are two [helpers] in the light of Nature raising  him: the internal physician [inwendige artzt] with his internal medicine, they are borne and given him in the conception … But the external physician begins only to work, when the inborn is down, burned out [abgezappelt], tired; then he turns over his duty to the external one.” (Paracelsus ed. Sudhoff, vol. 11, 198 sq.; cf. Schott, 1987, p.462)  This idea follows the classic concept of supporting the weakened physis (i. e. healing power of Nature).

So, Paracelsus established the metaphor of an “internal doctor” or “inner alchemist”. Nature within the human body corresponds with Nature outside: Generally, Nature worked like a magician, like an alchemist – Nature herself was declared to be the prime alchemist. In this way, “natural magic” became the main concept of paracelsianism. Paracelsus used the metaphor of the “first” or “internal” doctor to describe the internal Nature of man, of microcosm. “You should realise, that a doctor should really know, where the Nature aims at. For it is the first doctor, man is the second. Where Nature begins, there shall the doctor help, that it goes out at that location. Nature is a better doctor than man.” The practical guideline is clear: The “external doctor” (auswendige Arzt) has to subordinate himself to the “internal doctor” (inwendige Arzt) i. e. Nature and to co-operate with her.

Imitation and Perfection of Nature: Two principles of natural magic 

But Paracelsus went further. He presumed an interplay between microcosm (man) and macrocosm (environment, universe) constituted by subtle correspondences between similar things inside and outside the human body, which seemed to be linked spiritually. The Paracelsian microcosm-macrocosm-model implied two principles of natural magic:

• The principle of imitation: Nature itself appeared as a secret or disguised  magician, a maga, a teacher of adepts. The “philosopher” (as a scientist, alchemist, or physician) had to study the magic Nature and to learn her secret methods. The motto was: Learning by imitating Nature. All the work of a “philosopher” should be done “in the light of Nature”. Therefore, one could characterise the Paracelsian program of “experience and science” (experientia et scientia) as a claim for enlightenment. But imitation included the tendency of perfection transcending the act of mere reproduction or repetition.

• The principle of perfection: The “philosopher” should perfect the natural process by his art of alchemy. This opened a very new perspective. The products of Nature, e. g. the plants or metals appeared to be still imperfect in their natural stage. Only a “philosopher” was able to perfect the natural product by refining and purifying it getting an arcanum, a pure spiritual remedy. The alchemical procedure meant both: imitating and perfecting Nature as the only way to conquer the “seed” (samen) of a disease by producing specific drugs (arcana).

Alchemy and it’s laboratory work were the adequate fields of performing the principles of natural magic for medical purposes. They displayed an impressive imagery (see below).

The Paracelsian  “philosophers” (scholarly doctors and alchemists) refused demonology, sorcery, and quackery as superstition and fraud. Nevertheless, their manipulations and healing practices resembled them in many aspects. The corresponding imagery influenced medical anthropology and sensory perception in the following centuries: e. g. archeus (“internal alchemist”, vulcanus) meaning the life-principle (Lebensgeist). Its domicile is not the brain, but the upper abdomen (hypochondrium) and the organs located there, particularly stomach and spleen. All the metaphors relevant to visceral activities like “kitchen”, “oven”, “digestion” etc. were of great importance for science and (chemical) medicine, which began to flourish in early modern times.

Paracelsus defined alchemy in the Labyrinthus medicorum errantium: “That is the melter (Schmelzer) , his name is vulcanus; what the fire makes, is alchemy- also in the kitchen, also in the oven. What the fire rules, that is vulcanus, – also the cook, also the boilerman (Heizer). – The same happens with the medicine (Arznei); it is created by God, but has not yet been made up to the end, but is hidden in the waste (Schlacken). Now vulcanus has got the duty to take away the waste from the medicine.” (Paracelsus, ed. Peuckert, vol. 2, p. 463)

The following “parable (Exempel) of the bread” illustrates the argumentation of Paracelsus very well: “Nature produces the prime matter (primam materiam) until the harvest; then alchemy cuts, grinds, bakes to the mouth (bis zum Maul); now, prima and media materia  is finished and the alchemy of the microcosm (alchimia microcosmi) starts. It has the prime mater in the mouth, that is bread, it chews it, that is it’s first work; then there is the other matter in the stomach which digests and is transformed into blood and flesh, the ultima materia (last matter). … So Nature procedes and deals with us as the creatures of God.” (l. c., p. 464) The vulcanus in the macrocosm, especially located in mountains, corresponds to the archeus in the microcosm and both correspond to the alchemist in his laboratory or medical practice. The latter does not only imitate the former, but moreover brings his work to an end: “That is alchemy: what does not have come to an end, to bring to an end.” (l. c. )

Archeus – Nature as the “life spirit” (van Helmont)

Now, we should look at the most important Paracelsian scholar of the 17^th century, namley Johann Baptist van Helmont. In his “Ortus medicinae”, which was translated congenially by Christian Knorr von Rosenroth under the title “Aufgang der Artzney-Kunst” (1683), van Helmont reports his dream vision of the “tomb of the truth” (Grab der Wahrheit), which is hidden in the darkness of the earth. In the corresponding illustration, we can see besides van Helmont himself Paracelsus, holding a torch in his hand approaching the tomb. (Illustration 1: van Helmont, 1683, fronitspiece) At the same time people from above are digging a sort of light channel. Light symbolises here in the first line scientific enlightenment by (chemical) research of the hidden Nature. Van Helmont, more precisely than Paracelsus, combined the metaphor of light with the concept of Archeus (spiritus vitae, Lebensgeist). The spiritus vitae is imagined as a glancing matter and was even perceived personally by his self-experimentation. Van Helmont noticed the poisoning effects of a special herb called “monk’s hood” or aconite (Eisenhut in German) and could find out by chance the location of the soul (Lager der Seele): “I felt quite distinctly … that the sensuousness and the movement without harm was disseminated throughout the whole body; the entire power, however, to reflect, would reside noticeably and sensitively in the hypochondrium (Herzgrube)… as if, so to speak, then the mind would consider all its intentions at this place.  … without any input by the head … In the consequence, I have learned … that the reason would beam in a shining manner up to the head … that a strange light would ascend out of the hypochondrium.” (cf. Schott, 2001, p. 300) So, the archeus resides in the stomach (hypochondrium) beaming up to the head.

Van Helmont’s plea for the abdominal soul is strong. He argues against the over-estimation of the brain and stresses, “that the stomach rules more over the head, than the head over the stomach”. For the stomach is the centre, the root of the human life; “from where the beams [of the vital spirit] can go up as well as down.” So, the brain is illuminated by ascending beams from the “cardia” like a sun. The mental enlightenment, elucidation starts from stomach and spleen, which is called the “sun and cook” of the stomach. The connection of divine and natural light is also very remarkable in van Helmont’s work, although he emphasised more than Paracelsus the internal physiological processes within the human Body.

 

Stomach and spleen as the ruling (double) centre (van Helmont)

 

Van Helmont dealt with the theory of the “life spirit” much more systematically than Paracelsus did, and created sophisticated argumentations to explain its location and its physiological and pathological functioning in the abdomen. The “life spirit” (archeus) represents Nature within man, caring for his wealthy state. For van Helmont it is quite clear, that the cardia (Magenmund) is the real source of the soul (Brunn-Quell der Seele), as he experienced it impressively by a self experiment. He reports the situation, when he detected the location of the soul by a to study the effect of the poison of a special herb (Aconitum Napellus) in his own body: “I felt quite clearly, … that the sensitivity and motion would spread without distortion  from the head into the whole body; whereas the whole power to reflect reasonably was located remarkably and perceptibly in the cardia (Hertzgrube) … as if reason would calculate and think there … any influence from the head seemed to be blocked. … I have learned by this event, … that reason beams in a shining manner up to the head, … that a light arises from the cardia … But all powers of reason stay external in regard to the brain and are in a way asleep as far as they are not illuminated out of the cardia (Hertzgrube).” (Van Helmont, 1683, p. 886) (translation from the German edition by Knorr von Rosenroth – H. S.) Van Helmont stresses very impressively the idea of the abdominal soul and argues against the overestimation of the cerebral soul. I finds, “that the stomach rules more the head, than the head rules the stomach”. For the stomach is the centre, the root of the human body, “from where the beams [of the life spirit] conveniently can go up as well as down.” So, the brain is illuminated by rising beams from the cardia, like from a sun.

But van Helmont goes further than Paracelsus, describing the life spirit as a “double ruler” (Duumviratus, zweyherriges Regiment). In the stomach there is “a double cook: one originates from the spleen, the other one belongs to the stomach itself.” The spleen would spend the stomach a power of fermentation through many arteries, it is therefore so to speak its sun and cook. Van Helmont uses here even the metaphor of the married couple to illustrate the co-operation of both organs. The first movement comes from the spleen, and the first sensitivity from the stomach: “So, the stomach is the perfection of the spleen, and the spleen is the perfection of the stomach.” Although van Helmont refutes generally the Paracelsian concept of microcosm and macrocosm and its astrological implications, he keeps the traditional view, that Saturn as an evil star can influence man by the spleen. Imagination and fantasy can produce there pathogenic images (ideae morbosae) impressing the life spirit like a germ in the cardia so heavily, that a “germinal” (sämliche) disease develops. Nowadays, we might say, that van Helmont anticipated here the idea of parasitology respectively bacteriology as well as the idea of  psychosomatic medicine. 

Above all, van Helmont tried to explain the origin of the plague by this concept. Before him, Paracelsus had identified the “dispair” (Verzweiflung ) as the cause of the plague. Now, van Helmont expounds an elaborated theory of the aetiology of the plague as the paradigm of a general aetiology. Especially the images of fright, awful visions were supposed to produce the image of plague (partially propagated by the spleen) in the cardia containing the poison of pestilence. These images were thought tp be “extraordinarily toxic and powerful enough to pollute the life spirit” and to provoke the plague. 

Van Helmont also criticized the ignorance of the old and new scholars, who would take the “crisis” for natural help e. g. by the moon without knowing, that in fact the life spirit (Lebensgeist, archeus) would act (van Helmont, 1683, p. 948/23) – only imitating natural things, e. g. the moon. The whole Nature works magically or spiritually (geist-artig). Even in bodies without mind and free will, the imagination (Einbildung, phantasia) is an active power: it sends it’s image (bildliches Wesen) combining it with the “beam of the passive thing” (mit dem Strahl des leidenden Dinges). This model of an encounter between a sender a receiver is essential for the natural magic, i. e. the magic of Nature. But the intellect (eigentliche Verstand) of magic and imagination (magica & phantasia) itself can only be found in creatures endowed with reason (van Helmont, 1683, p. 1038/152). Van Helmont refused generally the microcosm-macrocosm-analogy of Paracelsus. Nevertheless he also alluded to astrology, when he claimed e. g. in the Tumulus Pestis (11^th chapter)  that the spleen would correspond with the vital spirit (lebendiger Geist) of Saturn causing hypochondria.

Like Paracelsus, van Helmont maintained the two principles of imitation and perfection throughout his work (see belos). He accentuated mainly the imagery of imagination (animal phantasticum, phantasy) to describe physiological and pathological processes, and anthropomorphised the interplay of organs. Whereas Paracelsus claimed the action of Nature as a model for magic medicine, van Helmont emphasised more the human reason as a model for the magic of Nature. The polarity of man and Nature (i. e. human reason and “reason” within natural things) implied a certain hierarchy: Only man could perfect and transcend Nature, even when Nature was the teacher and treasure of all magic stuff. How could this mystery happen?

 

Religion: the complementary side of alchemy

The most important requirement of the Paracelsian concept of natural magic was the religious attitude. The alchemical procedures in the light of Nature could only work, when they – at the same time – happened in the “light of God” or “in the light of the Holy Spirit”. The ultimate authority was neither man nor Nature, but God himself. Imitation and perfection of Nature were only possible and  permitted, when they were performed with humility. The feature of Paracelsianism in regard to religion was coined by different sources. I can only summarise here the most important ones: (a) neo-Plalatonism, (b) the identification of Nature with the Bible, (c) the Jewish respectively Christian kabbalah, and (d) the impetus to reform or even revolutionise science and society.

Paracelsian neo-Platonism was very well analysed by Walter Pagel (1962), and the famous slogan of reading in the Bible of Nature – fundamental for the dogma of signatures (Signaturenlehre) – was broadly noticed by the scholars of cultural historiography. But the impact of the Kabbalah, the Jewish tradition of religious mysticism, is yet unclear and is still a major problem for interpreters. Pagel mentions: “Paraccelsus has in common with the Kabbalah the analogies of macrocosm and microcosm, and therefore he resorted in his terminology and ideology to similar conclusions, interpretations, and allegories. It will be hardly proven, that he gained special and specifically alchemical knowledge from the Kaballah.” (Pagel, 1962, p.88) Another religious motif of the Paracelsian movement was the idea of a social reform or even revolution corresponding to the moral guidelines of natural philosophy. The claim for a general reformation of society with religious humility along scientific enlightenment –  which e. g. the Rosicrucian movement in the early 17^th century propagated – was strongly influenced by Paracelsianism and Paracelsus in particular, as Roland Edighoffer (1998) pointed out.

It is a fascinating fact, that natural philosophy and religion played an important role in early modern science and medicine. Both were very closely connected. It is almost impossible to differentiate between both approaches or attitudes. The reason for that is quite simple: Nature herself  was estimated as a mirror of divinity, a magic mirror of God’s will, and a medium for human beings. Imitating and perfecting Nature was much more than just a support for the weakened physis. It was a sort of worship and revelation rooting in the Jewish-Christian tradition.

“Electric medicine” and “animal magnetism”: Revelations of the hidden Nature

 

The production and application of electricity in the age of enlightenment was a great event in the history of medicine and science. In the first half of the 18^th century, the electrical machine and the bottle of Leiden were constructed, so that for the first time in history a sparkling natural power could be provoked artificially. Lightning, spark, enlightenment, beam or shock described not only the sensual perception of the artificially produced electricity (by friction), but were also metaphors for the mental reception of this artificially provoked natural phenomenon. The flooding of the “electric fire” through of the body by could be seen, felt and communicated. The electrical phenomena of light fascinated scientists and artists, but also the unlearned public. The fascination was induced by a sort of “theology of electricity” (Ernst Benz). Former speculations of natural philosophy and magic on the “light of Nature” with the corresponding religious implications seemed now to be ready for demonstration by scientists. Theosophists an pietists were especially impressed. The Swabian pietist Friedrich Christian Oetinger assumed, that electricity would open a secret science of magic (cf. Schott, 1998b, p. 294). The “electric fire” was taken for the divine light. In this theological perspective, the electric light effects like lightning and sparks were interpreted as manifestations of occult natural powers. (Illustrations see below)

 

We can only mention the electrotherapy of those days, which was applied against palsies of all kind. A special application was the “electric medicine” consisting in water, wine, tea or other potions, which had been “saturated by electrical matter”. In “The Electric Medicine” (Die electrische Medicin) by J. G. Schäffer, a textbook published in 1766,  we can read, that electric water “poured out of the bottle in the dark … looks like bright fluid fire.” (Cf. Schott, 1998b, p. 230) Electrical experiments for the amusement of the public were quite popular. E. g. an “electric halo” was produced by an apparatus in the form of a crown, which was put on the head. So, it was possible to provoke a glamorous aura by “electrification” especially of young ladies. The famous British scholar Joseph Priestley mentioned, that this experiment set all “electrifiers” of Europe in motion. (Priestley, 1772, p. 101 sq.)

 

When Franz Anton Mesmer inaugurated his so-called animal magnetism in 1775, he was strongly influence by his experience of electricity (and mineral magnetism). He refers often to the imagery of light and fire. So, he characterised the essence of magnetism as an “invisible fire” (Mesmer, 1818, p. 18 and 110), which he also called “vital fire” (Lebensfeuer). It is invisible, not perceptible by the common senses.

 

The association of light, fire, ether, fluid, tone is typical for Mesmer’s terminology. So, he explains e. g. : “This fire is originally an artificial product, which I have provoked and ignited in a certain way in my person unifying and concentrating the factor of the natural magnetism to such a degree, that the this fire could be produced. Experience has proven, that the working agent has got something of the Nature of fire, but it is not at all a substance, but a motion, like the tone in the air or the light in the ether … it is in a subtle order, surpassing all others in refinement and motility.” (ibd., p. 110) In Mesmer’s words, magnetising can also be characterised as a “communication of the vital fire” (Mitteilung des Lebensfeuers; cf. Schott, 1982). It is imagined as the transference of the “invisible fire”. (Illustration 2: “Magnetic cure” at the end of the 18^th c., from: E. Sibley: A Key to magic & the Occult Sciences, ca. 1800) Thought and intention can also be sent by the motion of the “fluid series” (Flutreihen) in the nervous system and the brain, even across long distance. Therefore, telepathy is a natural (physical) process in Mesmers’s view.

 

In his fundamental textbook on “mesmerism” (Mesmerismus oder das System der Wechselwirkungen), edited by Wolfart 1814, we find apart from the above mentioned imagery of light an interesting sketch by Mesmer,  titled “The eye of God” (Auge Gottes). (Illustration see below) From the eye within the triangle beams of light radiate down to the material world. These eye-beams signify the origin of the creating power of God setting the bodies of the universe swinging in two main circles: the archetype of the magnetic current (Grundbild der Magnetströmung). This “eye of God” is well known in cultural history and was especially displayed as an emblem ofdisplayed free masonry.

When animal magnetism was taken over by doctors and scholars in the romantic period, the imagery of light was applied to physiological and nervous processes within the body. The natural philosopher Gotthilf Heinrich Schubert pointed out, that in somnambulism the “common sense” (Gemeingefühl) was sharpened. Then, the “inner light” of persons in the magnetic sleep would flow through the whole body. (Schubert, 1808, p. 299) Another example is the visualisation of the so-called ganglion-system or solar plexus during the somnabulistic state. Justinus Kerner reported in 1829, how the “Seeress of Prevorst” (Die Seherin von Prevorst) could percieve her nervous spirit (Nervengeist) in her stomach. (Illustration 3: visualisation of the solar plexus by the “Seeress of Prevorst”; from Kerner, 1829) She called it her “sun circle” (Sonnenkreis). “She said: she would see a sun in her stomach region [i. e. solar plexus] moving slowly, and she wished to be able to open her eyes, because of not to be forced to see this sun any longer.” (Kerner, 1829, p. 317)

Natural philosphy and its modern consequences

The imagery of light in natural philosophy and science was essential to demonstrate the action of Nature: magic correspondences inside and outside the human body. Sun shine or lightning and other metaphors of macrocosm were used to illustrate the more or less hidden processes within microcosm, i. e. the human body. It is very remarkable, that the Paracelsian imagery can be followed up until romanticism in the early 19^th century. Electricity, mesmerism and galvanism supported very intensively speculations and investigations in regard to contemporary concepts of neuro-physiology. The Paracelsian view of natural magic was adapted to the new scientific advancements in medicine. The break happened, when the modern natural sciences triumphed at the middle of the century. Then, the idea of a vital spirit (Lebensgeist), a magnetic fluid, was refuted, and consequently the imagery of light disappeared from the scientific discourse, too. Nevertheless, the tradition of occultism was continued beyond the official borders of science. I may just remind you of the naturopathy (Naturheilkunde) and its further development as so-called alternative medicine including magic methods like aura diagnosis or “magnetic healing” (Magnetopathie), based on paracelsian and mesmeric ideas. Here, at the threshold of the modern period, we can observe the whole range of the imagery of light again.

The idea of an original healing power of Nature caring for the wealthy state of man came down in the Western (European) medical tradition until nowadays. It became a main principle of modern naturopathy (Naturheilkunde) originating in the early 19^th century. About 1800, the medical aim to support Nature became rather prominent in Germany. It was deeply influenced on the one hand by the impact of the pedagogic health advice of doctors according to the principles of enlightenment, and on the other hand by speculations on the “vitality” (Lebenskraft) of the human body according to natural philosophy in the period of romanticism. Medicine about 1800 still maintained more or less the traditional concept of physis which can be very well shown in the work of Christian Wilhelm Hufeland. He stressed the therapeutic principle contraria contrariis according to the humoral pathology – the opposite of natural magic. Nevertheless, Hufeland flirted with contemporary aspects of it; he alluded to Mesmer’s animal magnetism and it’s fluid theory, when he identified vitality (Lebenskraft) more or less with the magnetic power (magnetische Kraft) of living bodies – even more subtle and penetrating than light, electricity, or (mineral) magnetism. (Hufeland, 1860. P.31) Hufeland stressed to support natural processes to create a wealthy longevity. His position was taken over by the lay movement of naturopathy (Naturheilbewegung) in the later 19^th century. Insofar, it is even very popular within alternative or complementary medicine today. (Cf. Rotschuh, 1983)

But the legacy of the Paracelsian concept of natural magic is not really represented in Hufeland’s work and in the following theory of  naturopathy (Naturheilkunde). It can rather be identified with mesmerism and it’s off-springs inside and outside the academic medicine, from somnambulism to hypnotism, from spiritualism to parapsychology. Franz Anton Mesmer argued, that his animal magnetism was based on “my theory of imitation” (“meiner Nachahmungs-Theorie”; Mesmer, 1781, p.16). The magnetic powers of natural things should be evoked by special techniques of magnetising, the explicit task of the magnetiser was to imitate Nature. And Mesmer declared, that Nature was not only a master for the physical (i. e. medical) treatment, but also a master for the moral (i. e. pedagogical) general education.

In my opinion, Sigmund Freud secretly took over some moments of natural magic, when he created his theory of the “Unconscious”. Of course, there was no longer the alchemical aim of imitating and perfecting Nature in spiritualising matter in a laboratory, but the psychological aim of educating and improving the neurotic person remained. The brutal instincts ruling the neurotic person should be overcome by strengthening the Ego (Ichstärkung) to achieve a self-conscious autonomy. The alchemical process shows some analogies with the emancipatory self-education in the sense of psychoanalysis, which can also be traced in Thomas Mann’s Zauberberg. (Cf. Schott, 1997)

 

Iconographical representations of the (divine) Nature and Care

Nature is represented by the imagery of light, beams, fire, but also by configurations alluding to specific persons, especially virgins respectively St. Mary, or to human organs, especially the eye. In the following, a series of icons are shown throughout the modern times. It is remarkable, that religious connotations are always present. Nature cannot be clearly separated from God, its divine origin. We focus here primarily on the iconography of alchemy and natural magic in early modern times, because it is most instructive for are purpose: Nature was symbolised and personified in many ways. Generally, there is a combination (a manifest or invisible “chain”) of three links: God – Nature – Man. Never before and never afterwards this constellation was so self-evident and essential than in this period. Even William Harvey, who detected the blood circulatien (1628) stressed the analogy of sun and heart!

After the heliocentric “revolution” by Copernicus, the divine origin of Nature was identified with the sun corresponding with the heart inside the human body. There is a scale of “light”: Firstly the divine light, secondly the light of Nature (licht der natur, Paraclesus). You cannot work in the light of Nature e. g. as a scholarly doctor or pharmacist without recognising the divine light ruling the light of Nature. There are four different levels: (a) God as the origin of life animating Nature, (b) Nature as an intermediate (female) magician teaching the alchemist, (c) the alchemist as an adept imitating Nature in accordance to the will of God, and (d) the artificially manipulated Nature as a medical source of healing power.

(a) God as the origin of life

The Paracelsian and Rosicrucian author Robert Fludd created very impressive emblems showing the role of Nature in regard to the microcosm-macrocosm-relation. The remark “All spiritual and invisible glamour (splendor) comes from God” is illustrated by a personalised sun with fiery radiating beams. (Illustration 4: from R. Fludd, Clavis philosophiae et alchymiae, Frankfurt 1633) The divine light shines on all natural things, but it becomes differently assimilated: the subtle heart reflects its glance, the crude heart absorbs it. (Illustration 5: from R. Fludd, Philosophia sacra, Frankfurt 1626; Roob, 1996, p. 256) In this way, God communicates directly with man, as it is reported in mysticism (e. g. Jakob Böhme). This tradition is far reaching. Even the founder of the so-called animal magnetism Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) published in his final textbook Mesmerismus, oder das System der Wechselwirkungen (1814) a drawing titled “The eye of God”. Within a triangle an open eye can be seen, from which beams emanate downwards mowing in two different currents the material matter. (Illustration 6: from Mesmer, 1814) Mesmer’s “eye of God” is only a late modification of the topic. The Hebrew tetragram (JHWH) within a triangle symbolises the divine origin of all natural powers, like Robert Fludd has depicted it. (Illustration 7: from R. Fludd, Utriusque Cosmi, Oppenheim 1617; Roob, 1996, p.467) Instead of the eye respectively the tetragram we see here the three heavens (fire, ether, elemental) and the earth in the centre. In the Aula subterranea, edited by L. Ercker and Johannes Hiskia Cardilucius (1672/73) we see the emanating beams from a divine sun influencing matter on earth with their sidereal power of the planets. (Illustration 8: Aula subterranea, title page from Bachmann/Hofmeier, 1999, p.125) The picture reminds us of the emanation of light from an electric globe (see below).

(b) Nature as healing power and guide for the magicians (alchemists)

One illustration of Fludd is titled Integrae Naturae speculum Artisque imago (i. e. Mirror of the whole Nature and image of the art). (Illustration 9: R. Fludd, Utriusque Cosmi, vol. 1, Oppenheim 1617; Roob, 1996, p.501) The “golden chain” leads from the hand of God to the Virgin Nature and further from her to the “ape of art”. The latter symbolises the knowledge and skill to imitate Nature. I this emblematic drawing Nature connects the divine fiery heaven with the sidereal “ether” heaven and the sub-lunar elemental world. Nature nourishes all natural things like a wet nurse. “On her breast is the true sun, on her stomach the moon.” Her heart gives light to the stars and her womb, the spirit of the moon, is thought to work like a filter for sidereal influences to the earth.

Also Michael Maier represented Nature as a young woman (with delicious fruits) in his Atlanta fugiens (Oppenheim 1618). (Illustration 10: cf. Roob, 1996, 505) “Your guide shall be Nature” is the motto. His illustration stresses the idea, that the philosopher, i. e. researcher has to follow in her foot steps. This coincides with the principle of alchemical laboratory work, to imitate and complete Nature – like an ape in a non-pejorative sense. According to Maier the adept has to combine four things: Nature, reason, experience and the studies of scholarly literature. The foot steps symbolise the signs, the stick means reason, the glasses experience and the reading of scholarly literature the lantern “giving light to the reader”.

God cares for Nature and therefore Nature can care for Man, if he – as a philosopher or magician – is able to recognise the hidden secrets and to study them properly. Nature becomes a medium for Man to meet God. The topic “Bible of Nature” (biblia naturae) became quite popular during the early modern times. Hermann Boerhaave published Jan Swammerdam’s famous book on the insects under this title (Dutch: Bybel der Natuure; Latin: Biblia Naturae) (Illustrations 11 and 12: Title pages) Nature was identified not only with the Virgin (St. Mary), but also with sophia (wisdom), the mystical bride of the philosphers. The picture by Hieronymus Reussner shows a tree growing out of a mercurial (virginal) mother: Nature. (Illustration 13: H. Reussner, Pandora, Basel 1588; Roob, 1996, p.503) The religious connotations are obvious: Mercury is identified with Mary, because it conceives the “solution of heaven” (semen) like her and produces the purified lapis (stone of wisdom, Christ). In a graphic of the 1785 displaying secret figures of the Rosicrucians (Altona 1785), sophia (“Virgin Sophia”) is a female emanation of God. (Illustration 14: cf. Roob, 1996, p.502) His word is transferred into matter by the womb respectively foetus of Nature: “Fiat natura”.

Albrecht Dürer’s wood-cut Philosophia (1502) shows Nature as a queen on her throne. (Illustration 15: from C. Celtis, Amores, Nürnberg 1502; Roob, 1996, p.507) The Latin inscription below says: “What belongs to heaven and earth, air and water, and what concerns the things of human life, also the fiery God in the whole universe: I, Philosophia, bear all this in my chest.” Maybe, the title copper etching of A. Kircher’s Ars magna sciendi (Amsterdam 1669) refers to Dürer. (Illustration 16: cf. Roob, p.508) The identification of Sophia with Nature means, that Nature is the first philosopher providing also the first aid, the primary care for mankind – because of its divine origin. In Hans Burgkmair’s (1473-1531) painting the figures of a healing Goddess, Mary, Sophia, and Nature are blended. The queen of heaven sends here light beams down St. John on Patmos. (Illustration 17: painting in Alte Pinakothek, Munich) These beams are symbols of the divine power, the Holy Spirit, which has at the same time a healing effect. This motive can also be clearly seen on a drawing, depicted by a schizophrenic patient named Fritz Fendt about 1910, which belongs to the Prinzhorn Collection at the Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Heidelberg. (Illustration 18: reproduced in Schott, 1986) Here, the healing beams go out from the finger tips of a healing Goddess – probably Hygieia with the Asclepian snake- down to the earth, influencing the poor imprisoned patient. They shall demonstrate the “power of suggestion”.

Amulets like “miraculous medals” are known throughout the cultural history in all regions of the globe. It is interesting, that within the Catholic tradition there are practises of religious and magic healing still nowadays. The “miraculous medal” (wuntertätige Medaille)  of the “Aktion Deutschland braucht Mariens Hilfe” (i. e. campaign Germany needs Mary’s help). (Illustration 19: public flyer) It goes back to a vision of a nun in Paris 1830. Mary appeared her and gave her the order, to propagate the medal. The announcement promises “healing of severe diseases, protection from accidents …” The healing power of Nature is here personified by the virtue of Mary, an interesting confusion of divine and natural powers, which was so typical the alchemical approach in the early modern times, as we have noticed above.

(c) The alchemist as an adept imitating Nature

A miniature of Jean Perréal from 1516 shows a direct encounter of Nature and the alchemist. (Illustration 20: cf. Roob, 1996, p.504) The figure of Nature is a mixture of a seducing naked girl, a wise woman, an angel, and a queen. She urges the alchemist to leave his mechanical laboratory (opus mechanice) and to learn in her realm. The tree symbolises the earthly germ of all metals, animals and plants, which is separated by the (natural) alchemical process to the highest flower of the elixir (“vegetable gold”). Alchemy follows Nature, but tries to shorten the process of maturation. Nature cares for the maturation of necessary things for man: e. g. plants and metals. It is the task of man, to accelerate this natural process and to complete it.

The work of the alchemist was focused on the immanent alchemical procedures of Nature itself, which he tries to imitate and accelerate. The copper etching by Matthäus Merian illustrating the Opus medico-chymicum by J. D. Mylius (1618) shows the alchemist or magician surrounded by a wood of metals. (Illustration 21: cf. Roob, 1996, p.465) He separates vertically by his opus magnum day and night, sun and moon, fire and water, sulphur and mercury. On the right, the hunter Aktaion with the head of a stag represents the researching philosopher looking at the naked Diana (at the same time Luna) symbolising Nature. This image is characteristic for the Rosicrucian ideology, by which Merian was influenced. Another picture shows the alchemist Henning Brand, who detected 1669 in his search for the prima materia the phosphor in the urine. He looks at the beaming retort adoring the self-revealing Nature. (Illustration 22: from Alchimia – Idologie und Technologie, ed. by E.E. Ploss et a., Munich 1970, p.4)

(d) The artificially modified Nature

There is a sort of “second Nature”, produced by man, but still imagined as an off-spring of Nature itself. The paradigm of electricity is most significant. When it appeared in the early 18^th century for the first time in history, the electrical phenomena gave to the contemporaries the impression of a divine power penetrating in a magic way not only the “ether” but also the nerves within the (human) body by the nerve fluid. The so-called bottle of Leyden was the first electrical capacitor, long before the battery was invented by Volta about 1800. Abbé Nollet shows in Figure 15 of his Essai on electrification (French ed.: Paris 1746) an electric globe radiating like a sun (Illustration 23: from Nollet [1746]). When we compare it with Fludd’s representation of the sun in the early 17^th century, when artificial electricity was absolutely unknown, we recognise the philosophical respectively religious implications in their physical outfit. In the era of enlightenment, electricity was still felt in the perspective of magic and alchemy. Ernst Benz (1971) coined therefore the term “theology of electricity” (Theologie der Elektrizität). This feeling becomes very evident in the frontispiece of Abbé de Sans: “Guérison de la Paralysie par l’Électricité” (Paris 1778), where an “electrical globe” is shown with a halo, which reminds of a divine source of magic (healing) power like the sun. (Illustration 24: from Abé de Sans [1778]) It is remarkable, that at the same time (about 1775), when this “elecrical globe” was produced, Franz Anton Mesmer founded his concept of “animal magnetism” in Vienna and the exorcist Johann Joseph Gaßner became famous by his mass cures in South Germany. One illustration (there are also others) shows, how the healing power of a divine light originates from a symbol of a spiritual sun (“the triumphant name of Jesus”), whereas  the natural sun shines besides it.(Illustration 25: cf. Hanauer, 1985, Abb. 8) The heavenly power is obviously strong enough, to pull out, to expel  the demon.

 

Naturopathy (Naturheilkunde) and the “unconscious” (Freud)

The idea of an original healing power of Nature within the human body has come down in the Western (European) medical tradition until nowadays. It became a main principle of modern naturopathy (Naturheilkunde) originating in the early 19^th century. About 1800, the medical aim to support Nature became rather prominent in Germany. It was deeply influenced on the one hand by the impact of the pedagogic health advice of doctors according to the principles of enlightenment, and on the other hand by speculations on the “vitality” (Lebenskraft) of the human body according to natural philosophy in the period of romanticism. Medicine about 1800 still maintained more or less the traditional concept of physis which can be very well shown in the work of Christian Wilhelm Hufeland. He stressed the therapeutic principle contraria contrariis according to the humoral pathology – the opposite of natural magic. Nevertheless, Hufeland flirted with contemporary aspects of it; he alluded to Mesmer’s animal magnetism and it’s fluid theory, when he identified vitality (Lebenskraft) more or less with the magnetic power (magnetische Kraft) of living bodies – even more subtle and penetrating than light, electricity, or (mineral) magnetism. (Hufeland, 1860. P.31) Hufeland stressed to support natural processes to create a wealthy longevity. His position was taken over by the lay movement of naturopathy (Naturheilbewegung) in the later 19^th century. Insofar, it is even very popular within alternative or complementary medicine today. We have to mention here the brillant study by Karl Eduard Rothschuh (1983) dealing with the development of modern naturopathy: Naturheilbewegung, Reformbewegung, Alternativbewegung.

But the legacy of the Paracelsian concept of natural magic is not purely represented in Hufeland’s work and in the following theory of  naturopathy (Naturheilkunde), which emphasised vitalism (the concept of the “vital power”, Lebenskraft), but did not really follow the idea of natural magic (simile principle, sympathetic cures etc.). It can rather be identified with mesmerism and it’s off-springs inside and outside the academic medicine, from somnambulism to hypnotism, from spiritualism to parapsychology. Franz Anton Mesmer e. g. argued, that his animal magnetism was based on “my theory of imitation” (“meiner Nachahmungs-Theorie”; Mesmer, 1781, p.16). The magnetic powers of natural things should be evoked by special techniques of magnetising, the explicit task of the magnetiser was to imitate Nature. And Mesmer declared, that Nature was not only a master for the physical (i. e. medical) treatment, but also a master for the moral (i. e. pedagogical) general education.

In my opinion, Sigmund Freud secretly took over some moments of natural magic, when he created his theory of the “Unconscious” (cf. Schott, 1986). Of course, there was no longer the alchemical aim of imitating and perfecting Nature in spiritualising matter in a laboratory, but the psychological aim of educating and improving the neurotic person remained. The brutal instincts ruling the neurotic person should be overcome by strengthening the Ego (Ichstärkung) to achieve a self-conscious autonomy. The alchemical process shows some analogies with the emancipatory self-education in the sense of psychoanalysis, which can also be traced in Thomas Mann’s Zauberberg. (Cf. Schott, 1997)

 

Nature/Care in (the history of) literature 

The idea of Nature/Care is a very common topic in the history of literature. This paper cannot deal with this subject in detail. Only two examples, taken from well-known authors :

In his  “Essais”, Montaigne makes many allusions to Nature as a caring power within the human body. So, he discusses e. g. the right way to encounter one’s disease. We should give them free passage and schuld them not suppress unduly, then they will disappear more easily. He concludes: “Give nature a little her own right, she knows her business better than we do.” (Montaigne ed. Stilett, p. 68)

Goethe, who was very aware of (Paracelsian) natural philsophy, wrote to Lavater (letter from 14^th of Octobre, 1782): “Großen Dank verdient die Natur, daß sie in die Existenz eines jeden lebendigen Wesens auch so viel Heilungskraft gelegt hat, daß es sich, wenn es an dem einen oder dem anderen Ende zerrissen wird, selbst wieder flicken kann; und was sind die tausendfältigen Religionen anders als tausendfache Äußerungen dieser Heilungskraft.” Goethe exposes here accurately the traditional idea of Nature/Care: Nature cares for the integrity of living beings and repairs them, when they are torne “at one end or another”.

 

Final Remarks – Summary

 

The paper demonstrates the close association of the idea of Nature with the idea of Care. This association can be traced throughout the history of (at least European or Western) medicine, from antiquity until nowadays. The concept of the healing power of nature (vis medicatrix naturae, Heilkraft der Natur) is a basic assumption as well in theory as in practice, best expressed by the common proverb: Natura sanat, medicus curat (the nature heals, the physician cures) going back to the origins of the Greek medicine. This idea implies, that Nature is superior to man and cares for patients like a physician. The paper is focused on the tradition of natural magic (Paracelsianism) in the early modern times and its transformation in the 18^th century, when mesmerism influenced “romantic” medicine (and initiated modern psychotherapy and psychoanalyis). The idea of a careful Nature respectively a natural Care was then highly estimated, but not at all unique, because it was more or less popular at all times. It would be an interesting task, to write in this perspective a new history of medicine, which has not been done so far – apart from the unique study by Max Neuburger (1926). Moreover, such a project would signal a new approach to medical ethics and its historical roots. Human Care can only work properly and in truth, when it is based on the Care of Nature, when it works in accordance with “her”.

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Illustrations

1. Johannes auf Patmos; painting by Hans Bergkmayer (1473-1531; Alte Pinakothek München.
2. „Die Macht der hypnotischen Suggestion“, sketch by Fritz Fent, 26.9.1911; Museum Sammlung Prinzhorn, Heidelberg.
3. Johann Baptist van Helmont‘s drawing of the tomb of the truth („Grab der Wahrheit“); from: Christian Knorr von Rosenroth: Aufgang der Artzney-Kunst. Sulzbach 1683.
4. Experiement with the „bottle of Leiden“; from: Abbé Nollet: Abhandlung über die Elektrisierung der Körper. Venedig 1747. (ital. Ausgabe)
5. The electrifying globe („Eletrisierkugel“) with halo; frontispiece from: Abbé de Sans: Guérison de la Paralysie, par l’Èlecricité. Paris (Includes the report of a miraculous healing of a nun by electrotherapy)
6. „Beatification“, das miralce or the electrical crown or halo; from B. Rackstraw: Miscellaneous observations … London
7. „Magnetic cure“ at the end of the 18^th century; from: E. Sibley: A Key to magic & the Occult Sciences, ca. 1800.
8. The eye of God („Auge Gottes“), skech by F. A. Mesmer; from: K. Chr. Wolfart (ed.): „Mesmerismus oder das System der Wechselwirkungen …“. Berlin 1814.
9. The imagination of radiating light in the solar plexus; from J. Kerner: Die Seherin von Prevorst … Stuttgart