Paracelsus gained enduring distinction as a patron of forlorn causes. He advanced and defended beliefs, opinions, and doctrines unpopular in his own day and even less acceptable to the mind of the 20th Cen- tury. 16th Century Europe is now regarded as superstition-ridden, and doctrines then held as valid subjects for scientific consideration have been totally rejected, or at least allowed to languish in dignified oblivion. As we have noted before, Paracelsus chose to gather his friends and ac- quaintances from among the peasantry. He liked to visit hermits living in huts and caves, and to explore the myths and legends of the gypsies, alchemists, herbalists, and even magicians and sorcerers. He was con- vinced that the folk-beliefs flourishing in isolated regions had valid origin and meaning for those who had the wit and wisdom to examine them * 46 • The Mystical & Medical Philosophy of Paracelsus with open and charitable attitudes. We are inclined today to agree with Paracelsus, accepting ancient symbols and ideas not as mere inventions, fabrications, or delusions, but as revealing the deeper phases of human consciousness, much as we regard dreams and visions as testimony to the inner life of the individual. All over the world, people of every race and class, and belonging to many levels and degrees of intelligence, have affirmed the reality of creatures in nature other than those with which we are commonly acquainted. The mythologies of the Persians, Mongolians, Chinese, Japanese, Hindus, and Egyptians, abound with accounts of spirits, benevolent or malevolent, who occasionally involve themselves in the affairs of ordinary mortals. The Greeks had their nymphs and dryades , sprites of fountain and forest. The ancient Druids had their tree-spirits, inhabiting the sacred groves, and the Teutonic tribes never questioned the reality of the Nibelungen folk — gnomes and earth-dwarfs who guarded lost treasures. Although Paracelsus never reached Ireland, he would have found there the same respect for leprechauns, who pegged shoes in forest glades, and fairies, like the airy people o $ A Midsummer Night's Dream, who held court in meadows, and whose dances caused fairy rings of bright flowers. Of course, Paracelsus did not actually invent his explanations relat- ing to elementals and elementaries. He merely adapted them from the writings of the Egyptians and other learned nations of the ancient world. On one occasion, Socrates, desiring to discourse with his disciples, chose a certain shaded and secluded place because the spirits that inhabited it would contribute to the dignity and richness of the occasion. Iamblichus, in his work on the Mysteries, mentions attending spirits, some of which are associated with a person from his birth and become his protectors. This concept, which returns in Christian theology as the Guardian Angel, is not regarded as contrary to the doctrines of the Church. Paracelsus was a devout man, and drew much of his inspiration from the Bible and early commentaries thereon. He was therefore not a stranger to the Scriptures or the miracles and mysterious appearances • 47 • Manly Palmer Hall which they set forth. He came to the conclusion that the subject of sub- mundanes, or nonhuman beings in nature, did not conflict with the orthodox inclinations of pious persons. In the Archidoxis, he tells us that there arc two kinds of substances in nature — two kinds of bodies — which he quaintly describes when he says “there is a flesh from Adam and there is also a flesh that is not from Adam.” He goes on to say that Adamic flesh is composed of the mingling of the four basic elements that were known to the ancients. We must bear in mind that our modern theory of elements is far more complicated than the older concept. The four elements of the ancients were earth, water, fire, and air, and the flesh of Adam is composed of a mingling of these four elements. Thus, in the human body, there is a physical or mineral part, a vegetative or humid part, a fiery' principle, sustaining warmth and motion, and an airy or gaseous principle, often related to the structure of the intellect. Thus the human body is made up of solids, liquids, gases, and a fiery principle. Some of the Cabalists held that the four rivers described in Genesis as flowing out of the Garden of Eden, represented the streams of energy sustaining the four primordial elements. These elements, again, were sy'mboiized by the four fixed signs of the zodiac: Taurus the Bull, repre- senting earth; Scorpio the Scorpion, representing water; Leo the Lion, representing fire; and Aquarius, sometimes called the Water-bearer, an electrical kind of fluid associated with the spirit of air. These elements later became identified with the four corners of the world, and in Chris- tianity, with the four Apostles or Evangelists — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In art, these Evangelists were often pictured accompanied by the fixed signs of the zodiac. Man, descending from Adam and receiving his body from the Adamic flesh, iives in four elementary spheres at the same time. He has dominion over these elements, with the power to control, integrate, and arrange them, and he also possesses within himself what is called in alchemy the quintessence, or the fifth essence. This is a psychic spiritual energy, superior to the elements, by the agency of which these elements can be bound and unbound, held together in conformity with the laws • 48 • The Mystical & Medical Philosophy of Paracelsus governing the human creation. This quintessence, or fifth power, was known to both the Pythagoreans and the Paracelsians as the soul, which permeated the flesh of Adam, ensouled him, so that he became indeed a living being. Paracelsus explains that we come to know the elements because we have a certain experience of them through our sensory perceptions and our intellectual powers. We know that the earth extends beneath our feet; we can touch solid substances and know them to have structure, weight, shape, and size. Bodies grow from the earth, and the more corporeal parts of these bodies are of the earth-earthy, like the trunk of a tree or the bones of animals. Such forms belong to the physical element of earth; they are derived from it, and ultimately they return to it again. Man is also sustained and supported by liquids, which together the ancients called the water element. The human being can live much longer without food than without water. Yet this very water which preserves him, and of which his body is largely composed, can also destroy him; that is, he can drown or become dropsical in his own flesh. Man must also possess the principle of heat or fire in order to exist, and Paracelsus believed that the heat-radiating center in the body was the liver. Without heat, man must die, but with too much heat, he can also be consumed. So fire is both a friendly and a dangerous element. The last of these elements its air, and without this, man can survive only a few moments. He discovers his indebtedness when he climbs to a high altitude and experiences difficulty because of the rarified atmosphere. He lives within air as the fish lives within water, and the pressure of air upon his body is likewise essential to his survival. Paracelsus resolved to explore the mysteries of these four elements, through the cooperation of which man lives and moves and has his be- ing: He decided that these elements are not merely substances heaped together, or stratified, or aggregated for the simple convenience of man. Each has an existence apart from man. Every element has its own bound- aries, its own laws and rules, and each contributes to the maintenance of compound structures because of an internal virtue or energy-factor. . 49 • Manly Palmer Hall Such elements, therefore, are indeed rivers of life, and man, in order to retain his physical economy must preserve the balance of these elements in his body at all times, which he does by means of nutrition and even the introduction of talismans and magical formulas. Elements are not always visible, nor is man able to solve their mystery completely by merely observing their effects in his own life. Fire, for example, is a spontaneous element arising here, disappearing there, blazing forth from the volcano or from the striking of flint and steel. A fire may disappear, burn out, leaving only cold embers, but the principle or spirit of fire remains, and it may be conjured into manifestation by those requiring its assistance. Each of the elements, in the Paracelsian theory, is actually a kind of a world — a sphere interpenetrating the spheres of the other elements, yet possessing qualities of its own. Thus there are four spheres: earth the most visible, physical and fixed; water — physical but mutable; fire — sometimes visible in combustion, and more mutable; and finally air — usually invisible, and to be discovered, as in the case of wind, when it causes some physical thing to move, like the swaying of branches or the filling of a sail. All physical elements are therefore two-fold, possessing a causal nature, essentially invisible, and a nature according to effect or consequence, usually visible to some degree. Paracelsus explained that these spheres of the four elements are subject to a certain kind of scientific analysis, if man possesses internal faculties beyond the objective sense perceptions. Man, by virtue of his own constitution, lives in a world of three dimensions, but he is surrounded by a universe in which there are an infinite number of dimensions beyond human experience. A dimension is more than a mere division or expression of extent and expanse. The element spheres expand into dimensions beyond us, and are finally lost to our comprehension in the concept of space, which is actually the reservoir of dimension. There are forms in nature which are not three- dimensional or two-dimensional or one-dimensional, as we apply such terms. There are also forms in which there are many more dimensions than we have ever recognized. Paracelsus further believed that man • 50 • 1 The Mystical & Medical Philosophy of Paracelsus possesses powers and latent faculties by which it is possible for him to gradually become aware of a many-dimensioned universe. This will mean the ultimate conquest of space through the realization that there is no such thing as space, but merely an infinite expanse of unfolding areas of visible or invisible, known or unknown life, energy, and substance. There is no vacuum in the universe, and the nearest thing to a vacuum, according to Paracelsus, was the brain of one of his fellow professors at Basel University. Man, on certain occasions, may be able to break through some of the dimension-binders which hold his consciousness in psychological re- straint. This can occur in sleep or in the dream state. Paracelsus belonged to that group of philosophers who maintained that our comparative ignorance on the subjective side of our own lives was due mostly to our hypnotic addiction to objectivity. The consciousness of the small child, not having been adversely conditioned by what we call the reasonable, retains faculties by which he may penetrate some of the dimensional boundaries and become aware of invisible creatures, or participate in experiences which are not of this world. Later, however, ridicule and the pressure of common opinion contribute to the loss of the extra faculties and their perceptions. To make his point as simple as possible, Paracelsus devotes some consideration to the element of water. We all know that the seas and oceans, rivers and streams, and even the old family rain barrel, are worlds populated with living things, whose ways of life differ from our own, but are well adapted to the element in which they exist. Visible water is only a small part of the liquid element. The whole sphere of water, visible and invisible, terrestrial and sidereal, may therefore also be a habitable region. Could we see this region, it might unfold as a varied and wonderful landscape. There could be rocks composed only of the humid principle; mountains and valleys, plants and animals, some resem- bling human beings, others without any correspondence in our mortal experience. Actually, all this wonderful world is differentiated within one substance only. It is not a compound, but this does not mean that • 51 • Mar.lv Palmer Hall it cannot support or advance the destinies of the creatures developing within it. If nature produces a sphere, or plane of substance or activity, it does not leave this creation lifeless and forlorn. Every dimension of environment sustains living things, even as the visible earth sustains its diversity of flora and fauna. Thus there is a two-fold world of earth — one visible, and the other invisible; and the same is true of water, of fire, and of air. These elements are also worlds, and these worlds are inhabited. The creatures of such invisible planes are called by the Paracelsian mystics elemental. This is because each is composed of a single element, with both the advantages and disadvantages of an uncompounded con- stitution. All elementals differ from human beings in two respects: first, they have a body composed of only one element; and second, they do not have a soul, because the soul itself arises in compound bodies and cannot find a habitation appropriate to itself in forms composed of single elements. Actually, in the case of elementals, spirit, soul, and body, are not differentiated because these creatures have not been individualized as man has been. Being thus undifferentiated, they do not possess moral natures; that is, they are amoral; they are neither good nor bad. In this, they resemble animals. They do not worship, nor do they fear any evil. They are not frightened by death, nor are they constituted for immortal- ity. They have an existence without conflict. Because there is no stress or pressure, as must exist in compound beings, their constitutions are not subject to wear or exhaustion. These elemental beings can therefore exist for a very long time in comparison to man, and when their existence ends, they dissolve again into the substance from which they came. Because all four elements are material but not physical, their cor- responding beings are also essentially material, though not physical, as we understand that term. They are subject to the laws of generation, and attain a certain gradual evolution within the elemental field to which they belong. By their constitution, however, the growth which they attain advances the element itself rather than the nature of the separate beings. • 52 • The Mystical & Medical Philosophy of Paracelsus Paracelsus, following the concepts of Greece, Egypt, India, and China, divided elemental beings into four groups. Of these, he considered the earth-spirits, or the gnomes, to be those most closely associated with matter; the water-spirits, he calls undines, or nymphs; the fire-spirits, salamanders; and the air-spirits, sylphs. Paracelsus also indicates that the elementals not only live within their particular elements, but are the administrators of the processes associated with the elements. In other words, we seem to perceive a certain intelligence operating in the relation- ships of elements and creatures. We observe the growth of metals in the earth, and how fishes have a certain instinctive knowledge of the rules governing their own existences. This is likewise true of animals, birds, and of the larger expressions of elements in storms, the formations of clouds, whirlpools, eddies, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. It is scarcely necessary for us to enlarge the stories relating to elemen- tals. We can, however, summarize the Paracelsian concept. Elementals are divided into races and groups. They have their homes; they are ruled over by kings and princes; they perform innumerable tasks, busying themselves in their world as we busy ourselves with the problems of our dimension and existence. Occasionally, these elementals come into our own sphere of awareness because our natures include the substances within which the elementals exist. Legends like the story of Undine, the beautiful accounts of the Greek nymphs, and of gnomes revealing their treasures to mortals for whom they have a friendship, are regarded by us as pure fiction, but Paracelsus recommended that the subject be given further examination. In his philosophy, Paracelsus also differentiated an entirely different group of invisible creatures, referring to them as elementaries. At first, the terms might seem confusingly similar. We must remember that an elemental is a natural creature derived from the flesh that is not the flesh of Adam, and belonging to the orderly procedure of creative processes in the universe. By contrast, the elementary is an artificial being, created in the invisible worlds by man himself. In harmony with more recent findings, Paracelsus noted that most elementaries seem to be of an evil • 53 • Manly Palmer Hall or destructive nature. They are generated from the excesses of human thought and emotion, the corruption of character, or the degeneration of faculties and powers which should be used in other, more construc- tive, ways. A good example of the Paracelsian elementary is the incubus. This is a kind of demon which exists because when God created Adam, he breathed into him the divine power. Man is therefore a creator, not merely in the terms of the perpetuation of the species, but especially in terms of the imagination. Man is creative in arts, sciences, and philoso- phies, but his creative powers are not only external, but also internal. Because he lives, man bestows life, and he can generate creatures from his thoughts and emotions, even as from his flesh. The power to create is the power of vibration, by which anything is set into a peculiar motion. This motion is itself immortal, and contributes its own power to other things forever. The invisible progeny of man include thought-forms and emotion-forms. These are like infants, especially in their beginnings, for they depend upon their creator for their nutrition and survival. Later, however, if the forces which generate them continue to operate, these thought and emotion-forms gain strength, finally attaining a kind of independence which is their immortality. Having thus become even stronger than their creator, these thought or emotion-forms will turn upon the one who fashioned them, often causing in him a terrible habit and destroying his health and happiness. Man may also create by the power of his speech. Among Orientals, addicts to hashish and other drugs have reported their ability, while under the influence of these narcotics, to see words coming out of the human mouth. These words appear as luminous forms or patterns. Paracelsus tells us substantially the same thing. Entities thus created by thought, emotion, or the spoken words, are further sustained by the continual flowing of energy from the person. If such support is not sufficient a kind of vampirism sets in, and the elementary, like a parasitic plant, drains the energy of the human body to support its own growth. It becomes a psychic tumor, surviving at the expense of the organism to which it is attached. • 54 • The Mystical & Medical Philosophy of Paracelsus Much of the information gathered by Paracelsus relating to the incubus is interesting from a psychological standpoint. We know that the human psyche can become ridden with pressure-centers or pressure- patterns which we call fixations, complexes, phobias, and the like. We know that these negative psychic formations are nourished by the continual repetition of the attitudes which caused them. We say that negative attitudes become habitual, by degrees taking over and destroying the mental and emotional integrity of the individual. A fixation, well nour- ished by attitudes suitable for its perpetuation, intensifies, becoming actually avaricious and resolved to dominate or possess the entire life of its unhappy victim. This again suggests the Paracelsian analogy between the incubus and the parasite. Just as a beautiful orchid, or the mistletoe plant, lives partly from the air and partly from the tree to which it is attached, so the incubus, or the phobia, is an unlawful being, surviving not because its roots are in nature, but at the expense of another living organism whose vital forces will be vampirized. Modern thinking, therefore, sheds a light upon the concept of elementaries, extending beyond the basic research of Paracelsus. We observe today the tremendous increase in mental pathology. We know that attitudes which become more and more fixed lead to what science calls a state of obsession. Paracelsus used the term obsession to signify possession by an entity. Today the term is used to signify possession by an abnormal attitude. What is the fact of this matter? Is it possible that the abnormal attitude has gradually become an entity? We may prefer not to assume such a belief, but how can we completely explain the pe- culiar and continuous undermining of the consciousness and morality of a human being? Once a destructive attitude has come into posses- sion of a life, the person is gradually devoured by that attitude, which appears to become more and more possessive. Many persons under psychological obsession resist treatment, as though some foreign creature were fighting for its own survival in them. Often, indeed, in a mental illness, the patient, instead of desiring to recover, becomes defensive of his ailment, defending abnormalcy more courageously than he would ever defend normalcy. • 55 • I I Manly Palmer Hull Much has also been written on the subject of vampires, the mysterious | undead who live upon the blood of the living and can be destroyed only j when a stake is driven through their hearts. In Paracelsian psychology, the vampire also plays an interesting role. There seems to be an analogy I with what might be termed collective manias. To become a vampire, we | must first be the victim of a vampire. This evil creature can function only at night, and must sleep forever in its own earth. Many psychological j ailments seem to be communicated by the pressures of one person ad- > versely influencing the life of another. We have great psychoses, shared j by multitudes of persons, such as fear of war, crime, sickness, poverty, and death. Once we have been attacked by these fears, we become like j them. We perpetuate negative thought and emotion-forms, preserving our own bad habits by causing others to share them. Destructive thought- patterns therefore organize into groups, and in each of these groups, there are millions of persons exemplifying the same destructive and morbid tendencies. These, according to Paracelsus, result in collective thought- forms, which will become attached to persons who make themselves available through a basic kind of negation. The individual then simply becomes receptive to the pressures of his world, allows these pressures to move in, until he finally becomes another unit in the pressure-group, adding his negative influence to the already tragic condition. In the Paracelsian doctrine, there is, however, a solid sense of jus- tice. In order to be a victim of elementaries of any kind, the individual must be potentially given to excessive attitudes or destructive habits. The kindly person, fully occupied in useful endeavors, will not open his nature to infection or contagion. Actually, the elementary is closely associated with imagination, which can be a distorting and deforming force in the life of the individual. In the aloneness of his private living, the melancholy person becomes filled with self-pity, deludes himself, convinces his mind that he is the victim of injury or neglect, and finally prepares his nature for the development of one of these psychic entities. Recovery must therefore be a reversal of process, in which faith, friend- ship, understanding, tolerance, and good humor break the vicious circle and deprive the obsession of its needed nutrition. . 56 • The Mystical & Medical Philosophy of Paracelsus Out of his philosophy of elementaries, Paracelsus came to the conclusion that a very large part of what we consider to be physical disease, results from psychic parasites generated by wrong thought and emotion. He did not go so far as to insist that attitudes are the sole cause of sickness, but he regarded them as extremely important factors. Furthermore, wrong attitudes will reduce the probability of recovery, and leave the patient without the proper energy for the reorientation of his career. Gradually, the obsessing entity or elementary sets up physical equivalents in the body, which symbolize the state of the soul and the interior sickness of the mind and heart. Paracelsus was enough of a psychologist to recognize that the black magician of medieval sorcery is simply the black psychic side of ourselves. The dishonest person seeking to gain by unlawful ends certain securi- ties or advantages normally reserved for those of proper attainments, becomes a kind of sorcerer who, with spells and incantations, tries to fulfill his own selfishness. Thus, a person living an apparently respectable life, but inwardly filled with hatreds, morbid emotion, and destructive attitudes, is creating another being within his own magnetic field — a kind of second and negative self. This is suggested in the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In the Paracelsian period of human activity, it was believed that certain persons had attendant demons, or familiar spirits, who served their bidding for a time and then claimed the immortal soul of the magician. This is the Mephisto who attached himself to Faust, as the result of what has been called the Faustian complex. This Mephisto is ever whispering in our ear that we may do as we please, regardless of consequences, and we agree because we desire to agree; but if we follow this course and listen to this demoniacal voice, our satanic imp will ultimately carry us away to his own infernal region. Contrary to general opinion, Paracelsus did not believe that our private elementaries, demons, and vampires, could go out from us and hurt the persons we hate or wish to injure. The elementary cannot ex- ist except within the energy-field of its own creator. Destructive emo- tions or hatreds, therefore, can never escape from us, but having been * 57 • I Manly Pd mer Hail generated and allowed to flow into the energy-field, they return to us j again in the forms of various disasters. The hate we turn upon another | strengthens only the power to hate in ourselves. For this reason, the [ doctrine is soundly ethical. Our own evil destroys us, usually so slowly 1 and mysteriously that we do not understand the procedure. We are I reminded always that evil is its own punishment, even as good is its own greatest reward. Paracelsus also had another theory which perhaps will seem incred- \ ible to us, yet it deals with a subject which we have never satisfactorily solved. This has to do with the problem of germs, bacterial organisms, and viruses — those microforms of life that are so dangerous to the health of ordinary mortals. Paracelsus believed that the germ, or its equivalent, is a psychic entity created by creatures possessing mental and emotional powers. He pointed out that epidemical disease usually accompanies out- breaks of destructive human intensity. War, for example, is nearly always accompanied by a plague, and also by violent seismic disorders. By this way of thinking, the Swiss Hermes points out the danger of overloading those processes of nature by means of which physical, emotional and mental pollution is neutralized or overcome. We are now [ concerned with water pollution and with the pollution of air, as in the smog problem. Paracelsus believed that the psychic fields of the world, which must absorb the psychic toxins arising from the negative dispo- sitional characteristics of mental and emotional creatures, can become J so polluted that they can no longer cleanse themselves with sufficient [ rapidity. The result is the rise of psychic toxin in the energy field of the planet. Invisible Creatures of the Elements Paracelsus gained enduring distinction as a patron of forlorn causes. He advanced and defended beliefs, opinions, and doctrines unpopular in his own day and even less acceptable to the mind of the 20th Cen- tury. 16th Century Europe is now regarded as superstition-ridden, and doctrines then held as valid subjects for scientific consideration have been totally rejected, or at least allowed to languish in dignified oblivion. As we have noted before, Paracelsus chose to gather his friends and ac- quaintances from among the peasantry. He liked to visit hermits living in huts and caves, and to explore the myths and legends of the gypsies, alchemists, herbalists, and even magicians and sorcerers. He was con- vinced that the folk-beliefs flourishing in isolated regions had valid origin and meaning for those who had the wit and wisdom to examine them * 46 • The Mystical & Medical Philosophy of Paracelsus with open and charitable attitudes. We are inclined today to agree with Paracelsus, accepting ancient symbols and ideas not as mere inventions, fabrications, or delusions, but as revealing the deeper phases of human consciousness, much as we regard dreams and visions as testimony to the inner life of the individual. All over the world, people of every race and class, and belonging to many levels and degrees of intelligence, have affirmed the reality of creatures in nature other than those with which we are commonly acquainted. The mythologies of the Persians, Mongolians, Chinese, Japanese, Hindus, and Egyptians, abound with accounts of spirits, benevolent or malevolent, who occasionally involve themselves in the affairs of ordinary mortals. The Greeks had their nymphs and dryades , sprites of fountain and forest. The ancient Druids had their tree-spirits, inhabiting the sacred groves, and the Teutonic tribes never questioned the reality of the Nibelungen folk — gnomes and earth-dwarfs who guarded lost treasures. Although Paracelsus never reached Ireland, he would have found there the same respect for leprechauns, who pegged shoes in forest glades, and fairies, like the airy people o $ A Midsummer Night's Dream, who held court in meadows, and whose dances caused fairy rings of bright flowers. Of course, Paracelsus did not actually invent his explanations relat- ing to elementals and elementaries. He merely adapted them from the writings of the Egyptians and other learned nations of the ancient world. On one occasion, Socrates, desiring to discourse with his disciples, chose a certain shaded and secluded place because the spirits that inhabited it would contribute to the dignity and richness of the occasion. Iamblichus, in his work on the Mysteries, mentions attending spirits, some of which are associated with a person from his birth and become his protectors. This concept, which returns in Christian theology as the Guardian Angel, is not regarded as contrary to the doctrines of the Church. Paracelsus was a devout man, and drew much of his inspiration from the Bible and early commentaries thereon. He was therefore not a stranger to the Scriptures or the miracles and mysterious appearances • 47 • Manly Palmer Hall which they set forth. He came to the conclusion that the subject of sub- mundanes, or nonhuman beings in nature, did not conflict with the orthodox inclinations of pious persons. In the Archidoxis, he tells us that there arc two kinds of substances in nature — two kinds of bodies — which he quaintly describes when he says “there is a flesh from Adam and there is also a flesh that is not from Adam.” He goes on to say that Adamic flesh is composed of the mingling of the four basic elements that were known to the ancients. We must bear in mind that our modern theory of elements is far more complicated than the older concept. The four elements of the ancients were earth, water, fire, and air, and the flesh of Adam is composed of a mingling of these four elements. Thus, in the human body, there is a physical or mineral part, a vegetative or humid part, a fiery' principle, sustaining warmth and motion, and an airy or gaseous principle, often related to the structure of the intellect. Thus the human body is made up of solids, liquids, gases, and a fiery principle. Some of the Cabalists held that the four rivers described in Genesis as flowing out of the Garden of Eden, represented the streams of energy sustaining the four primordial elements. These elements, again, were sy'mboiized by the four fixed signs of the zodiac: Taurus the Bull, repre- senting earth; Scorpio the Scorpion, representing water; Leo the Lion, representing fire; and Aquarius, sometimes called the Water-bearer, an electrical kind of fluid associated with the spirit of air. These elements later became identified with the four corners of the world, and in Chris- tianity, with the four Apostles or Evangelists — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In art, these Evangelists were often pictured accompanied by the fixed signs of the zodiac. Man, descending from Adam and receiving his body from the Adamic flesh, iives in four elementary spheres at the same time. He has dominion over these elements, with the power to control, integrate, and arrange them, and he also possesses within himself what is called in alchemy the quintessence, or the fifth essence. This is a psychic spiritual energy, superior to the elements, by the agency of which these elements can be bound and unbound, held together in conformity with the laws • 48 • The Mystical & Medical Philosophy of Paracelsus governing the human creation. This quintessence, or fifth power, was known to both the Pythagoreans and the Paracelsians as the soul, which permeated the flesh of Adam, ensouled him, so that he became indeed a living being. Paracelsus explains that we come to know the elements because we have a certain experience of them through our sensory perceptions and our intellectual powers. We know that the earth extends beneath our feet; we can touch solid substances and know them to have structure, weight, shape, and size. Bodies grow from the earth, and the more corporeal parts of these bodies are of the earth-earthy, like the trunk of a tree or the bones of animals. Such forms belong to the physical element of earth; they are derived from it, and ultimately they return to it again. Man is also sustained and supported by liquids, which together the ancients called the water element. The human being can live much longer without food than without water. Yet this very water which preserves him, and of which his body is largely composed, can also destroy him; that is, he can drown or become dropsical in his own flesh. Man must also possess the principle of heat or fire in order to exist, and Paracelsus believed that the heat-radiating center in the body was the liver. Without heat, man must die, but with too much heat, he can also be consumed. So fire is both a friendly and a dangerous element. The last of these elements its air, and without this, man can survive only a few moments. He discov- ers his indebtedness when he climbs to a high altitude and experiences difficulty because of the rarified atmosphere. He lives within air as the fish lives within water, and the pressure of air upon his body is likewise essential to his survival. Paracelsus resolved to explore the mysteries of these four elements, through the cooperation of which man lives and moves and has his be- ing: He decided that these elements are not merely substances heaped together, or stratified, or aggregated for the simple convenience of man. Each has an existence apart from man. Every element has its own bound- aries, its own laws and rules, and each contributes to the maintenance of compound structures because of an internal virtue or energy-factor. . 49 • Manly Palmer Hall Such elements, therefore, are indeed rivers of life, and man, in order to retain his physical economy must preserve the balance of these elements in his body at all times, which he does by means of nutrition and even the introduction of talismans and magical formulas. Elements are not always visible, nor is man able to solve their mystery completely by merely observing their effects in his own life. Fire, for example, is a spontaneous element arising here, disappearing there, blaz- ing forth from the volcano or from the striking of flint and steel. A fire may disappear, burn out, leaving only cold embers, but the principle or spirit of fire remains, and it may be conjured into manifestation by those requiring its assistance. Each of the elements, in the Paracelsian theory, is actually a kind of a world — a sphere interpenetrating the spheres of the other elements, yet possessing qualities of its own. Thus there are four spheres: earth the most visible, physical and fixed; water — physical but mutable; fire — sometimes visible in combustion, and more mutable; and finally air — usually invisible, and to be discovered, as in the case of wind, when it causes some physical thing to move, like the swaying of branches or the filling of a sail. All physical elements are therefore two-fold, possessing a causal nature, essentially invisible, and a nature according to effect or consequence, usually visible to some degree. Paracelsus explained that these spheres of the four elements are subject to a certain kind of scientific analysis, if man possesses internal faculties beyond the objective sense perceptions. Man, by virtue of his own constitution, lives in a world of three dimensions, but he is surrounded by a universe in which there are an infinite number of dimensions beyond human experience. A dimension is more than a mere division or expression of extent and expanse. The element spheres expand into dimensions beyond us, and are finally lost to our comprehension in the concept of space, which is actually the reservoir of dimension. There are forms in nature which are not three- dimensional or two-dimensional or one-dimensional, as we apply such terms. There are also forms in which there are many more dimensions than we have ever recognized. Paracelsus further believed that man • 50 • 1 The Mystical & Medical Philosophy of Paracelsus possesses powers and latent faculties by which it is possible for him to gradually become aware of a many-dimensioned universe. This will mean the ultimate conquest of space through the realization that there is no such thing as space, but merely an infinite expanse of unfolding areas of visible or invisible, known or unknown life, energy, and substance. There is no vacuum in the universe, and the nearest thing to a vacuum, according to Paracelsus, was the brain of one of his fellow professors at Basel University. Man, on certain occasions, may be able to break through some of the dimension-binders which hold his consciousness in psychological re- straint. This can occur in sleep or in the dream state. Paracelsus belonged to that group of philosophers who maintained that our comparative ignorance on the subjective side of our own lives was due mostly to our hypnotic addiction to objectivity. The consciousness of the small child, not having been adversely conditioned by what we call the reasonable, retains faculties by which he may penetrate some of the dimensional boundaries and become aware of invisible creatures, or participate in experiences which are not of this world. Later, however, ridicule and the pressure of common opinion contribute to the loss of the extra faculties and their perceptions. To make his point as simple as possible, Paracelsus devotes some consideration to the element of water. We all know that the seas and oceans, rivers and streams, and even the old family rain barrel, are worlds populated with living things, whose ways of life differ from our own, but are well adapted to the element in which they exist. Visible water is only a small part of the liquid element. The whole sphere of water, visible and invisible, terrestrial and sidereal, may therefore also be a habitable region. Could we see this region, it might unfold as a varied and wonderful landscape. There could be rocks composed only of the humid principle; mountains and valleys, plants and animals, some resem- bling human beings, others without any correspondence in our mortal experience. Actually, all this wonderful world is differentiated within one substance only. It is not a compound, but this does not mean that • 51 • Mar.lv Palmer Hall it cannot support or advance the destinies of the creatures developing within it. If nature produces a sphere, or plane of substance or activity, it does not leave this creation lifeless and forlorn. Every dimension of environment sustains living things, even as the visible earth sustains its diversity of flora and fauna. Thus there is a two-fold world of earth — one visible, and the other invisible; and the same is true of water, of fire, and of air. These elements are also worlds, and these worlds are inhabited. The creatures of such invisible planes are called by the Paracelsian mystics elemental. This is because each is composed of a single element, with both the advantages and disadvantages of an uncompounded con- stitution. All elementals differ from human beings in two respects: first, they have a body composed of only one element; and second, they do not have a soul, because the soul itself arises in compound bodies and cannot find a habitation appropriate to itself in forms composed of single elements. Actually, in the case of elementals, spirit, soul, and body, are not differentiated because these creatures have not been individualized as man has been. Being thus undifferentiated, they do not possess moral natures; that is, they are amoral; they are neither good nor bad. In this, they resemble animals. They do not worship, nor do they fear any evil. They are not frightened by death, nor are they constituted for immortal- ity. They have an existence without conflict. Because there is no stress or pressure, as must exist in compound beings, their constitutions are not subject to wear or exhaustion. These elemental beings can therefore exist for a very long time in comparison to man, and when their existence ends, they dissolve again into the substance from which they came. Because all four elements are material but not physical, their cor- responding beings are also essentially material, though not physical, as we understand that term. They are subject to the laws of generation, and attain a certain gradual evolution within the elemental field to which they belong. By their constitution, however, the growth which they attain advances the element itself rather than the nature of the separate beings. • 52 • The Mystical & Medical Philosophy of Paracelsus Paracelsus, following the concepts of Greece, Egypt, India, and China, divided elemental beings into four groups. Of these, he considered the earth-spirits, or the gnomes, to be those most closely associated with matter; the water-spirits, he calls undines, or nymphs; the fire-spirits, salamanders; and the air-spirits, sylphs. Paracelsus also indicates that the elementals not only live within their particular elements, but are the administrators of the processes associated with the elements. In other words, we seem to perceive a certain intelligence operating in the relation- ships of elements and creatures. We observe the growth of metals in the earth, and how fishes have a certain instinctive knowledge of the rules governing their own existences. This is likewise true of animals, birds, and of the larger expressions of elements in storms, the formations of clouds, whirlpools, eddies, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. It is scarcely necessary for us to enlarge the stories relating to elemen- tals. We can, however, summarize the Paracelsian concept. Elementals are divided into races and groups. They have their homes; they are ruled over by kings and princes; they perform innumerable tasks, busying themselves in their world as we busy ourselves with the problems of our dimension and existence. Occasionally, these elementals come into our own sphere of awareness because our natures include the substances within which the elementals exist. Legends like the story of Undine, the beautiful accounts of the Greek nymphs, and of gnomes revealing their treasures to mortals for whom they have a friendship, are regarded by us as pure fiction, but Paracelsus recommended that the subject be given further examination. In his philosophy, Paracelsus also differentiated an entirely different group of invisible creatures, referring to them as elementaries. At first, the terms might seem confusingly similar. We must remember that an elemental is a natural creature derived from the flesh that is not the flesh of Adam, and belonging to the orderly procedure of creative processes in the universe. By contrast, the elementary is an artificial being, created in the invisible worlds by man himself. In harmony with more recent findings, Paracelsus noted that most elementaries seem to be of an evil • 53 • Manly Palmer Hall or destructive nature. They are generated from the excesses of human thought and emotion, the corruption of character, or the degeneration of faculties and powers which should be used in other, more construc- tive, ways. A good example of the Paracelsian elementary is the incubus. This is a kind of demon which exists because when God created Adam, he breathed into him the divine power. Man is therefore a creator, not merely in the terms of the perpetuation of the species, but especially in terms of the imagination. Man is creative in arts, sciences, and philoso- phies, but his creative powers are not only external, but also internal. Because he lives, man bestows life, and he can generate creatures from his thoughts and emotions, even as from his flesh. The power to create is the power of vibration, by which anything is set into a peculiar motion. This motion is itself immortal, and contributes its own power to other things forever. The invisible progeny of man include thought-forms and emotion-forms. These are like infants, especially in their beginnings, for they depend upon their creator for their nutrition and survival. Later, however, if the forces which generate them continue to operate, these thought and emotion-forms gain strength, finally attaining a kind of independence which is their immortality. Having thus become even stronger than their creator, these thought or emotion-forms will turn upon the one who fashioned them, often causing in him a terrible habit and destroying his health and happiness. Man may also create by the power of his speech. Among Orientals, addicts to hashish and other drugs have reported their ability, while under the influence of these narcotics, to see words coming out of the human mouth. These words appear as luminous forms or patterns. Paracelsus tells us substantially the same thing. Entities thus created by thought, emotion, or the spoken words, are further sustained by the continual flowing of energy from the person. If such support is not sufficient a kind of vampirism sets in, and the elementary, like a parasitic plant, drains the energy of the human body to support its own growth. It becomes a psychic tumor, surviving at the expense of the organism to which it is attached. • 54 • The Mystical & Medical Philosophy of Paracelsus Much of the information gathered by Paracelsus relating to the incubus is interesting from a psychological standpoint. We know that the human psyche can become ridden with pressure-centers or pressure- patterns which we call fixations, complexes, phobias, and the like. We know that these negative psychic formations are nourished by the continual repetition of the attitudes which caused them. We say that negative attitudes become habitual, by degrees taking over and destroying the mental and emotional integrity of the individual. A fixation, well nour- ished by attitudes suitable for its perpetuation, intensifies, becoming actually avaricious and resolved to dominate or possess the entire life of its unhappy victim. This again suggests the Paracelsian analogy between the incubus and the parasite. Just as a beautiful orchid, or the mistletoe plant, lives partly from the air and partly from the tree to which it is attached, so the incubus, or the phobia, is an unlawful being, surviving not because its roots are in nature, but at the expense of another living organism whose vital forces will be vampirized. Modern thinking, therefore, sheds a light upon the concept of elementaries, extending beyond the basic research of Paracelsus. We observe today the tremendous increase in mental pathology. We know that attitudes which become more and more fixed lead to what science calls a state of obsession. Paracelsus used the term obsession to signify possession by an entity. Today the term is used to signify possession by an abnormal attitude. What is the fact of this matter? Is it possible that the abnormal attitude has gradually become an entity? We may prefer not to assume such a belief, but how can we completely explain the pe- culiar and continuous undermining of the consciousness and morality of a human being? Once a destructive attitude has come into posses- sion of a life, the person is gradually devoured by that attitude, which appears to become more and more possessive. Many persons under psychological obsession resist treatment, as though some foreign creature were fighting for its own survival in them. Often, indeed, in a mental illness, the patient, instead of desiring to recover, becomes defensive of his ailment, defending abnormalcy more courageously than he would ever defend normalcy. • 55 • I I Manly Palmer Hull Much has also been written on the subject of vampires, the mysterious | undead who live upon the blood of the living and can be destroyed only j when a stake is driven through their hearts. In Paracelsian psychology, the vampire also plays an interesting role. There seems to be an analogy I with what might be termed collective manias. To become a vampire, we | must first be the victim of a vampire. This evil creature can function only at night, and must sleep forever in its own earth. Many psychological j ailments seem to be communicated by the pressures of one person ad- > versely influencing the life of another. We have great psychoses, shared j by multitudes of persons, such as fear of war, crime, sickness, poverty, and death. Once we have been attacked by these fears, we become like j them. We perpetuate negative thought and emotion-forms, preserving our own bad habits by causing others to share them. Destructive thought- patterns therefore organize into groups, and in each of these groups, there are millions of persons exemplifying the same destructive and morbid tendencies. These, according to Paracelsus, result in collective thought- forms, which will become attached to persons who make themselves available through a basic kind of negation. The individual then simply becomes receptive to the pressures of his world, allows these pressures to move in, until he finally becomes another unit in the pressure-group, adding his negative influence to the already tragic condition. In the Paracelsian doctrine, there is, however, a solid sense of jus- tice. In order to be a victim of elementaries of any kind, the individual must be potentially given to excessive attitudes or destructive habits. The kindly person, fully occupied in useful endeavors, will not open his nature to infection or contagion. Actually, the elementary is closely associated with imagination, which can be a distorting and deforming force in the life of the individual. In the aloneness of his private living, the melancholy person becomes filled with self-pity, deludes himself, convinces his mind that he is the victim of injury or neglect, and finally prepares his nature for the development of one of these psychic entities. Recovery must therefore be a reversal of process, in which faith, friend- ship, understanding, tolerance, and good humor break the vicious circle and deprive the obsession of its needed nutrition. . 56 • The Mystical & Medical Philosophy of Paracelsus Out of his philosophy of elementaries, Paracelsus came to the conclusion that a very large part of what we consider to be physical disease, results from psychic parasites generated by wrong thought and emotion. He did not go so far as to insist that attitudes are the sole cause of sickness, but he regarded them as extremely important factors. Furthermore, wrong attitudes will reduce the probability of recovery, and leave the patient without the proper energy for the reorientation of his career. Gradually, the obsessing entity or elementary sets up physical equivalents in the body, which symbolize the state of the soul and the interior sickness of the mind and heart. Paracelsus was enough of a psychologist to recognize that the black magician of medieval sorcery is simply the black psychic side of ourselves. The dishonest person seeking to gain by unlawful ends certain securi- ties or advantages normally reserved for those of proper attainments, becomes a kind of sorcerer who, with spells and incantations, tries to fulfill his own selfishness. Thus, a person living an apparently respectable life, but inwardly filled with hatreds, morbid emotion, and destructive attitudes, is creating another being within his own magnetic field — a kind of second and negative self. This is suggested in the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In the Paracelsian period of human activity, it was believed that certain persons had attendant demons, or familiar spirits, who served their bidding for a time and then claimed the immortal soul of the magician. This is the Mephisto who attached himself to Faust, as the result of what has been called the Faustian complex. This Mephisto is ever whispering in our ear that we may do as we please, regardless of consequences, and we agree because we desire to agree; but if we follow this course and listen to this demoniacal voice, our satanic imp will ultimately carry us away to his own infernal region. Contrary to general opinion, Paracelsus did not believe that our private elementaries, demons, and vampires, could go out from us and hurt the persons we hate or wish to injure. The elementary cannot ex- ist except within the energy-field of its own creator. Destructive emo- tions or hatreds, therefore, can never escape from us, but having been * 57 • I Manly Pd mer Hail generated and allowed to flow into the energy-field, they return to us j again in the forms of various disasters. The hate we turn upon another | strengthens only the power to hate in ourselves. For this reason, the [ doctrine is soundly ethical. Our own evil destroys us, usually so slowly 1 and mysteriously that we do not understand the procedure. We are I reminded always that evil is its own punishment, even as good is its own greatest reward. Paracelsus also had another theory which perhaps will seem incred- \ ible to us, yet it deals with a subject which we have never satisfactorily solved. This has to do with the problem of germs, bacterial organisms, and viruses — those microforms of life that are so dangerous to the health of ordinary mortals. Paracelsus believed that the germ, or its equivalent, is a psychic entity created by creatures possessing mental and emotional powers. He pointed out that epidemical disease usually accompanies out- breaks of destructive human intensity. War, for example, is nearly always accompanied by a plague, and also by violent seismic disorders. By this way of thinking, the Swiss Hermes points out the danger of overloading those processes of nature by means of which physical, emotional and mental pollution is neutralized or overcome. We are now [ concerned with water pollution and with the pollution of air, as in the smog problem. Paracelsus believed that the psychic fields of the world, which must absorb the psychic toxins arising from the negative dispo- sitional characteristics of mental and emotional creatures, can become J so polluted that they can no longer cleanse themselves with sufficient [ rapidity. The result is the rise of psychic toxin in the energy field of the planet. As all creatures inhabiting this planet must derive their energies and life substances from this field, its pollution causes widespread low- ering of vitality and morality. When this occurs, the general health and optimism of the race are afflicted. People complain of intangible ills, and are inclined to a common morbidity or to the neglect of activities which are healthful and psychically normal and sustaining. Paracelsus therefore believed that the solution to the problem of health was the realization that only the wise and the good can be happy • 58 • The Mystical & Medical Philosophy of Paracelsus and well. This does not mean that Paracelsus himself was never ill. He realized that he lived in a society which made freedom from sickness almost impossible. He believed, however, that we could minimize our dangers through the cultivation and preservation of defensive vitality. We can keep our psychic nature free from elementaries, and protect our energy fields from the parasitical attitudes which drain our vital resources. In early works on medicine, it is often noticed that representations of diseases are in the form of clouds of demon-like insects. These attack the sick man from all directions, and most certainly represent the evils in his own nature contributing to his discomfort. Paracelsus was a minister of good will among men. He believed that it was the duty of the human being to establish constructive relationships with the intelligent universe existing around him. Nature is by essential purpose kindly and benign, and has provided man with innumerable resources and opportunities, but through the perversion of his power, and the pollution of his mental-emotional life, man has created a situa- tion which has caused him to assume that the world is evil. If, however, he establishes harmonic sympathies with universal life, he will make friends he knows not of. We are reminded of the story of the kindly peasant to whom the earth-dwarfs cheerfully revealed their treasure. Even as the incubus is the product of man’s destructive emotion, so there is a guardian angel, generated from good thoughts and right emotions. There are good spirits to attend the good man, because he has created them, and they serve him gladly. He is rewarded according to the merit of his deeds, and if he finds depletion and depression invading his life, he should realize the strange chemistry of the elements and principles upon which he depends for existence. Through the proper use of his faculties, man builds a wonderful armor of protection around his life.
All creatures inhabiting this planet must derive their energies and life substances from this field, its pollution causes widespread low- ering of vitality and morality. When this occurs, the general health and optimism of the race are afflicted. People complain of intangible ills, and are inclined to a common morbidity or to the neglect of activities which are healthful and psychically normal and sustaining. Paracelsus therefore believed that the solution to the problem of health was the realization that only the wise and the good can be happy • 58 • The Mystical & Medical Philosophy of Paracelsus and well. This does not mean that Paracelsus himself was never ill. He realized that he lived in a society which made freedom from sickness almost impossible. He believed, however, that we could minimize our dangers through the cultivation and preservation of defensive vitality. We can keep our psychic nature free from elementaries, and protect our energy fields from the parasitical attitudes which drain our vital resources. In early works on medicine, it is often noticed that representations of diseases are in the form of clouds of demon-like insects. These attack the sick man from all directions, and most certainly represent the evils in his own nature contributing to his discomfort. Paracelsus was a minister of good will among men. He believed that it was the duty of the human being to establish constructive relationships with the intelligent universe existing around him. Nature is by essential purpose kindly and benign, and has provided man with innumerable resources and opportunities, but through the perversion of his power, and the pollution of his mental-emotional life, man has created a situa- tion which has caused him to assume that the world is evil. If, however, he establishes harmonic sympathies with universal life, he will make friends he knows not of. We are reminded of the story of the kindly peasant to whom the earth-dwarfs cheerfully revealed their treasure. Even as the incubus is the product of man’s destructive emotion, so there is a guardian angel, generated from good thoughts and right emotions. There are good spirits to attend the good man, because he has created them, and they serve him gladly. He is rewarded according to the merit of his deeds, and if he finds depletion and depression invading his life, he should realize the strange chemistry of the elements and principles upon which he depends for existence. Through the proper use of his faculties, man builds a wonderful armor of protection around his life.
