Paracelsus' Wisdom on the Ecosystem of Spirits

Paracelsus' Wisdom on the Ecosystem of Spirits

Frater Acher

Western Magic is often distinguished into strands of high and low magic, learned and folk magic. Such and similar differentiations mainly centre on human social backgrounds as well as correlated motives of action and practice. I.e. they are rooted in an anthropological understanding of magic and how it is leveraged to make sense and alter the world. Unfortunately, with such seemingly obvious approach a lot of damage is already done. And mostly such damage has gone unnoticed and turned into thoroughly embedded bias in our Western tradition. 

By centring on a human worldview and agenda, we inherently fail to give equal importance, value and explorative space to the rest of the (spirit) ecosystem of which man forms but a tiny part of. An introduction to magic, explored and explained from a more holistic perspective, could not pivot on human motives, but would need to begin at the precise opposite end: It would need to introduce us to the functions, forces and fields of living consciousness that exist around us - and which all hold their own motives and agendas.

Luckily for us, and yet sadly forgotten by most, Paracelsus (1493-1541) has done precisely that. And it took him less than two pages to set out the essential foundations of an ecosystem of spirits. In the following, I am sharing a few introductory remarks and observations to this short gem of a text, and then provide my own English translation as well as a modernized German one.

Paracelsus' Wisdom on the Ecosystem of Spirits

Frater Acher

A simple working model of "what does what".

 So the body eats and drinks, but the spirit believes. The body is destructive and perishable, the spirit eternal. The body dies, but the spirit remains alive. The body is overcome by the spirit, but the spirit is not overcome by the body. The body is dull and dark, but the spirit is clear and transparent. The body becomes sick, but the spirit remains healthy. To the body everything is dark, but to the spirit the darkness is light and transparent like a crystal, therefore it can see through all mountains to the lowest ground. The body remembers, the spirit accomplishes.

An Example of the Olympic Spirits in Folk Magic

Frater Archer

In my upcoming book Holy Heretics (Scarlet Imprint, 2022) I am attempting to restore the Olympic Spirit(s) in their original magical context and ritual purpose. Already in 2020, I shared a first online addendum to the finished manuscript of Holy Heretics, where we examined the seal construction of the Olympic Spirits.[1] Here I am offering a second brief addendum: A largely unknown example of how the Olympic Spirits were pragmatically incorporated into the ever evolving strands of folk magic.

What makes this example stand out from the broad array of appearances of the Olympic Spirits in 17th to 19th-century folk magic is their explicit use as household deities or lares as the original Latin term. 

As we can see from the below translation, their application is both innovative as well as eclectic: Three of the seven Olympic Spirits are assigned to specific rooms or spaces in and around a house. Following common practice, known already from Archaic Greek and Jewish traditions, their names and brief conjurations could have been written directly on the crossbeam of the respective door, or on a paper-note which then was fixed there or slipped into the wall.[8]

• In a seeming act of apotropaic magic Aratron, the Olympic Spirit assigned to Saturn, is asked to guard the domestic places that otherwise would be considered most vulnerable to the negative impact of Saturnian forces, i.e. loss, hunger and poverty. Thus, Aratron is asked to protect the kitchen, larder, and all other locations where food for animals are stored.
  
  
• Bethor, the Olympic Spirit associated with Jupiter, finds a more traditional application and is asked to guard the study – the traditional place of domestic learning, writing and reading.
  
  
• Finally, Hagith, the Olympic Spirit associated with Venus, is asked to protect the domestic locations of rest, renewal, intimacy, as well as – if ever practised – of incubation and dream-magic.
  

The Alchemy of Paracelsus

Dunno why he didn't just go by his real name:
Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim.

Through the 1520s Paracelsus led a revolution in Alchemy and Medicine. Rejecting the Galenic theory of the Humors in Medicine and the mechanistic sulfur-mercury theory in Alchemy, here we find his famed theory of the Tria Prima of Sulfur, Salt and Mercury, his Alchemical theory of the human body, and a medicine founded on the Hermetic principle that the microcosm is truly bound up with the cosmic macrocosm. His medical philosophy foresaw organic chemistry, pharmacology, toxicology and even psychiatry - the Paracelsian revolution in alchemical medicine. In this episode we explore his revolutionary textbook the Opus Paramirum (Beyond Wonders) as part II of our exploration of the foundations of the Paracelsian Revolution.