PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION.
There are many respects in which Paracelsus at the present day seems to be little more than a name. Even among professed mystics the knowledge concerning him, very meagre and very indefinite, is knowledge that has been obtained at second hand, in most cases from Eliphas Levi, who in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie and again in his Histoire de la Magie, has delivered an intuitive judgment upon the German "Monarch of Arcana," expressed epigramatically, after the best manner of a Frenchman.[1] But, whencesoever derived, the knowledge is thin and phantasmal. Paracelsus is indeed cited as an authority in occult science, as a great alchemist, a great magician, a great doctor; he is somehow supposed to be standing evidence of the "wisdom of a spoliated past," and to offer a peculiar instance of malignity on the part of the enemies of Hermetic philosophy, because such persons have presumed to pronounce him an impostor. Thus there is a very strong opinion concerning him, which occultists and mystics of all schools have derived from a species of mystical tradition, and this represents one side of modern thought concerning him. It is not altogether a satisfactory side, because it is not obtained at first hand. In this respect, however, it may compare, without suffering by comparison, with the alternative opinion which
- ↑ The cure of Paracelsus were miraculous, and he deserved that there should be added to his name of Philippus Theophrastus Bombast that of Aureolus Paracelsus, with the addition of the epithet of divine.—Dogme de la Haute Magie, c. 1. Paracelsus, that reformer in magic, who has surpassed all other initiates by his unassisted practical success.—Ibid., c. 5. Paracelsus, the most sublime of the Christian magi.—Ibid., c. 16. Paracelsus was a man of inspiration and of miracles, but he exhausted his life with his devouring activity, or, rather, he rapidly outwore and destroyed its vestment: for men like Paracelsus can both use and abuse fearlessly; they well know that they can no more die than grow old here below.—Rituel de la Haute Magie, c. 2. Paracelsus was naturally aggressive and combative; his familiar, he said, was concealed in the pommel of his great sword, which he never put aside. His life was incessant warfare; he travelled, he disputed, he wrote, he taught. He was more attentive to physical results than to moral conquests; so he was the first of practical magicians and the last of wise adepts. His philosophy was wholly sagacity, and he himself called Philosophia Sagax. He has divined more than anyone without ever completely understanding anything. There is nothing to equal his intuitions unless it be the temerity of his commentaries. He was a man of bold experiences; he was drunk of his opinions and his talk; he even got drunk otherwise, if we are to believe his biographers. The writings which he has left behind him are precious for science, but they must be read with caution; he may be called the divine Paracelsus, if the term be understood in the sense of a diviner; he is an oracle, but not invariably a true master. He is great as a physician above all, for he had discovered the Universal Medicine; yet he could not preserve his own life, and he died while still young, worn out by his toil and excesses, leaving a name of fantastic and doubtful glory, based on discoveries by which his contemporaries did not profit. He died without having uttered his last message, and he is one of those mysterious personages of whom one may affirm, as of Enoch and S. John: he is not dead, and he will revisit the earth before the last day.—Histoire de la Magie, Liv. V., c. 5. His success was prodigious, and never has any physician approached Paracelsus in the multitude of his marvellous cures.—Dogme de la Haute Magie, c. 16.
