Quintessence and World-Spirit

Quercetanus’s Paracelsian Natural Philosophy

Hiro HIRAI

Chemical Heritage Foundation

hhirai2@gmail.com

Paracelsus (ca. 1493-1541)

Petrus Severinus (1540/42-1602)

Idea Medicinae Philosophicae (Basel, 1571)

Joseph Du Chesne alias Quercetanus (1546-1609)

“As for Paracelsus, my intention is not to defend his theology, nor to support him in all things as if I were forced to follow all that he said.”

Quercetanus’s Short Biography

1546 0 born in Gascogne (France)

1574 28 settled in Geneva Theodore Zwinger’s (1533-88) circle in Basel Theodore Birckmann’s introduction to Paracelsianism

1591 45 physician to Henri IV 1603 57 De priscorum philosophorum materia medicinae (Paris) attacked anonymously by Jean Riolan (1539-1606)

1604 58 Ad veritatem Hermeticae medicinae (Paris)

1609 63 died

Ad veritatem Hermeticae medicinae (Paris, 1604)

2. Nature and World-Soul

First principle of the Universe = God↓

Second principle = Nature

Universal nature = universally diffused virtue of God

= World-Soul = heaven

+Particular nature

= natural things’ specific naturehaving divine signature

Plato speaks of the universal nature in Timaeus when he says: “Nature is a certain force infused into everything, mediator and nurse and, because of it, the principle of movement and rest is found in things.” Hermes said almost the same thing […]. The Pythagoreans said that this force was God. Virgil the great disciple of the Pythagoreans wrote: “Spirit nourishes from inside.” The Platonists called it “World-Soul.”

[The Hermeticists] add that from this soul of the world come the forms, powers and properties of things, by which everything is vivified and sustained. Just as the soul and the body are united into one thanks to a spirit as the link uniting both sides since it belongs to the nature of both, the soul and the body of the world are united together by the mediating and interposing ethereal spirit.

By the World-Soul the Platonists meant a spirit, which fosters, animates, preserves and sustains everything, like a certain spirit of that Elohim, which hovered over the [Biblical primordial] waters. Since Plato [was] not of ignorant of the story of Genesis, he could bear it in mind and construct from it his [theory of the] World-Soul.

3. Seeds, Principles, Elements and Quintessence

3 “hypostatical” principles =

Paracelsian 3 principles (Salt, Sulfur and Mercury)

Physical world

Superior globe (Fire + Air)

+

Inferior globe (Water + Earth)

4 elements = matrix-like receptacles of natural things

Spiritual entities

Astral seeds ↓

3 principles ↓

4 Elements

Natural beings

Invisible-Spiritual (Seeds, Principles and Elements)+

Visible-Material (Material Vestments)

When the artist separates the bodies of these elements and reduces them to nothing, he obtains by the separation of the passive and material elements the three hypostatical, formal and active principles. Contracted into one, they form a mixed body, which philosophers call “quintessence” or “quartessence.” It is free of any corruption and rich in perfection […].

Since Moses did not make any mention of fire in Genesis, 1.1, where he teaches the Creation of all things, we confirm the opinion of the divine prophet more willingly than the reasoning of the pagan philosopher. Thus we do not recognize any other fire than the ethereal heaven […]. This heaven must be called “fourth formal and essential element” or “fourth essence” extracted from the other elements. In fact the Hermeticists reject the fifth body or the quintessence, since there are not four elements from which the quintessence is drawn, but only three from which the fourth essence is extracted.

4. The Quest for the Universal Medicine

[The universal medicine] is called “quintessence” (though we prefer to call it “quartessence”) and “celestial stone of philosophers.” Riolan did not have any knowledge of this [entity]. So he misunderstood that by speaking of the stone of philosophers, that is, this universal medicine I was thinking of the transmutation of metals as if such a transmutation were the highest medicine of the human body. He did not realize that in the microcosmic man lie hidden the mines of imperfect metals, from which many sicknesses are propagated. A good, pious and wise doctor must reduce them into gold and silver, that is, into perfect purification by virtue of that marvelous and precious medicine […].

Creation story of Genesis in chemical terms

Concordance of Ancients (Plato and Aristotle)

+

Hermeticists = Chemical Philosophers

+

Authority of Bible (Moses and Genesis)

Key:

“Ancient theology” (Prisca theologia) and Christianization

Quintessence and World-Spirit

Quercetanus’s Paracelsian Natural Philosophy

Hiro HIRAI

hhirai2@gmail.com