The Doctrine of Signatures in Renaissance EuropeBy Anna Klein

Contents

Introduction The Doctrine of Signatures Pre-Renaissance Trends in Medicine and Natural Philosophy The Church and Natural Philosophy of the Renaissance Renaissance Trends in Natural Philosophy

Hermetic Philosophy Astrological Botany and Medical Astrology Macrocosm-Microcosm Analogy

Paracelsus (1493-1541) Paracelsian Philosophy

Boehme (1575-1624) Other Proponents of Doctrine of Signatures

Giambattista Della Porta (1535-1615) Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654) John Gerard

Dispute of the Theory William Turner Dodoens (1517-1585) Helmont (1579-1648)

Conclusion Works Consulted

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Introduction

Here is a discussion of the doctrine of signatures as an element of Natural Philosophy during the Renaissance (1400-1600s). Specifically, the focus will remain on two Renaissance-era proponents of the theory, the famous physician Paracelsus and mystic-philosopher Jakob Boehme. From present day occurrences (homeopathy, hanhemann, german) in search of the origin of the concept. Does not trace the progression all the way back, rather focuses on an important time in the development of the natural philosophy of the doctrine of signatures in western culture. By examining the renaissance era, the various elements that led to the widespread popularity (I’m still working on intro/thesis here)Homeopathy--as distinguished from allopathy

Title: Confessions Of A Neo-Classicist.Author(s): Heron, Krista

Source: American Homeopath; 2003, Vol. 8, p42, 5p

The doctrine of signatures (also called the doctrine of correspondence, or similitude) is a mixture of philosophy and medical theory and has been expounded by a variety of people, from chemists to medical practitioners, alchemists to philosophers. Notions related to the doctrine of signatures have existed in many cultures and times throughout history, though it enjoyed great popularity in Renaissance European thought. The

2Figure 1. From Giambattista Della Porta’s Phytognomica (1588), plants such as maidenhair fern have the signature of human hair.

theory states that many things of God’s creation (plants, animals, minerals, etc.) hold a clue to their usefulness in their external characteristics. When specifically applied to medicinal plants, the doctrine of signatures claims that a plant’s medicinal value can be determined by observing the various characteristics and habits of the plant (signatures); mode and location of growth, shape of leaves, color of flowers. Thus, by symbolic association, a plant’s appearance is linked to the disease that it can be used to treat. For example, the yellow flowers and juice of celandine (Chelidonium majus) indicates its usefulness in the treatment of liver disorders, and the heart-shaped leaves of Viola tricolor (aka heartsease or pansy) might signify that it may be used as a cordial for diseases of the heart. An example of such a connection is found in the illustration (Figure 1) from Giambattista Della Porta’s Phytognomica (1588), which shows that the maidenhair fern may resemble a human head of hair (and so may be used to treat baldness).1 Many of the common names for plants (maidenhair, eyebright, toothwort, bloodroot) suggest their use according to the doctrine of signatures.

The Doctrine of Signatures2

This concept that the properties (medicinal and otherwise) of natural things may be discovered through their external characteristics may be an understandable 1 Image source: http://www.bronwenwilson.ca/physiognomy/2 The following sources were consulted for this section:Clarkson, Rosetta E. The golden age of herbs and herbalists. New York : Dover Publications, 1972. pp53-57.

Dyer, T. F. Thiselton. The folk-lore of plants. London, Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly, 1889. Detroit, Singing Tree Press, 1968. pp201-215.

Foucault, Michel. Mots et les choses. English- The order of things: an archaeology of the human sciences; translated from the French. London, Tavistock Publications, 1970.

Gordon, Lesley. Green magic : flowers, plants, and herbs in lore and legend. New York : Viking Press, 1977. pp26-29.

Jordan, Michael. The green mantle : an investigation into our lost knowledge of plants. London : pp140-159.

Lehane, Brendan. The power of plants. New York : McGraw-Hill, 1977. pp148-159.

Sumner, Judith. The Natural History of Medicinal Plants. Portland, Timber Press, 2000. pp15-51.

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development of human imagination. The daunting task of uncovering the mysteries of nature has, throughout time and across cultures, been met in countless ways. Further, the search for cures to the various diseases and physical maladies that confront humans creates an even greater impetus to strive to make sense of nature. Michael Foucault explained well the mindset associated with the doctrine of signatures in 1970, “there must of course be some mark that will make us aware of these things: otherwise the secret would remain indefinitely dormant.”

There is evidence that the earliest humans experimented with local plants, looking for their medicinal value. Pollen from a medicinal plant was found in Paleolithic graves, which might indicate that plant medicine has been considered important for nearly sixty thousand years. People used trial and error, studied the way that animals interacted with plants, and attempted various other methods of determining how plants might be used medicinally. Matching any particular plant with any particular ailment was exceedingly difficult. Plants can be highly poisonous, cause hallucinations, heart problems, or stimulate or depress bodily function- but when the right plant is chanced upon at the right dose and in the correct preparation, it may heal. Introduce quote:

How are nature's "secrets" to be discovered? The answer is that nature puts a mark on things: the outward appearances of things provide clues or signs pointing to the properties that would otherwise be totally hidden from view… Such signatures were not merely coincidences but were divinely ordained. They were woven into the fabric of nature, giving it meaning and intelligibility. Without signatures, nature would be baffling and impenetrable.2

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Ascertaining the exact origin of the term and concept of the doctrine of signatures is difficult. The term may be broken down into the two words: doctrine and signature. A doctrine is simply any principle presented for belief. The doctrine of signatures is a belief that may be applicable to many different groups; religious, scientific and philosophic. A signature is a feature or characteristic that identifies a thing.3a

Some think that the concept of the doctrine of signatures may have originated in early Egypt or China or some other exact location, while others suggest that it may have developed independently in several cultures. William Balee said that the doctrine of signatures is, “…universal, since similar patterns of ‘resemblance’ have been observed in ancient Asia, Classical Greece, medieval Europe, and pre-Columbian America.”2b Even without knowing the primary origin of the doctrine of signatures, the movement towards its brief period of popularization and acceptance during the Renaissance has clear impetus. At the time of the Renaissance, a new regard for the works of antiquity, questioning of established medicine, and a continued search for an understanding of God thrust the doctrine of signatures into the mainstream.

3 Eamon, William. Science and the Secrets of Nature. Princeton University Press, 1994. http://members.tscnet.com/pages/omard1/jp_eamon.html2a Based on definitions from: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.2b As quoted in: Tippo, Oswald and William Louis Stern. Humanistic botany. New York : W. W. Norton, 1977.

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Pre-Renaissance Trends in Medicine/Natural Philosophy4

Before the time of the Greek physician Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.E.), it was a common belief that most disease was of supernatural origin. Hippocrates, however, asserted that disease was caused by a physical imbalance of the body’s four humors (blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile), and that plants could be used to treat the imbalance, thereby treating the disease.

Next, Theophrastus (371-287 B.C.E.), student of Plato and Aristotle, dismissed some of the fantastical myths, popular at his time, that were associated with the collection of medicinal plants such as mandrake and peony. He created the Historia Planatarum which described the collection and preparation of some medicinal plants and was used as a reference for nearly two thousand years.

4 Works consulted for this section:Arber, Agnes Robertson. Herbals, their origin and evolution; a chapter in the history of botany, 1470-1670. Darien, Hafner, 1970. 2nd Ed.

Clarkson, Rosetta E. The golden age of herbs and herbalists. New York : Dover Publications, 1972.

Dyer, T. F. Thiselton. The folk-lore of plants. London, Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly, 1889. Detroit, Singing Tree Press, 1968.

Gordon, Lesley. Green magic : flowers, plants, and herbs in lore and legend. New York : Viking Press, 1977.

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Figure 2. 1530 woodcut by Hans Weiditz, of Borage, from Otto Brunfels’s, Herbarum Vivae Eicones.

In Renaissance Germany Leonard Fuchs created an herbal, De Historia Stirpium (1542) that was a compilation of the medicinal value of five hundred plant species, with accurate-to-life woodcuts illustrating some of the plants, drawn from real specimens. Much of the text, originally in Latin, was derived from the works of Dioscorides. Another Renaissance herbalist was Otto Brunfels who was a monk involved in medicine. He authored a three volume herbal, Herbarum Vivae Eicones (1530-1536), which included detailed drawings of live specimens done by Hans Weiditz (Figure 2)5. Hieronymus Bock was also led to medicine through the monastery. He produced the New Kraeuterbuch (1539), which did not have illustrations but did include detailed notes from field observations of the plants. Bock’ work was significant because he sought to verify botanical superstitions instead of repeating them word for word from previous herbalists, as was common practice, though he did not eliminate all mythical belief from his work. There were also many other herbals written during this time, perhaps encouraged by the ease of book production due to the invention of the printing press in 1450. In England, for example, Richard Bancke’s Herbal (1525) was quite popular and was frequently re-printed. For the first time ever, perhaps, herbals were produced in quantities and made available to the general public- they were one of the first “mass-marketed” books. In general, these herbals were wrought with superstition and myth, including belief in the doctrine of signatures.

5 Img. Src: http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/arth110-fall98/nature.htm

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The Church and Natural Philosophy of the Renaissance 6

Not only was there incentive to search for medical cures during the Renaissance, there was also religious impetus to uncover the essences of natural things:

In many cases, a firm belief in the goodness of God who put everything on earth for his people gave rise to the doctrine of signatures which held that the key to man’s use of plants was hidden in the form of the plant itself; one had only to look closely.7

The Church had strong influence on the society of Renaissance Europe. The direction of progress for natural philosophy, for instance, was greatly impacted by church approval or resistance. The church determined the validity of any scientific thought, as well as the context in which it should be considered. To complicate matters further, this was a time of great religious debate; the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the interaction between and within the Catholic and Protestant churches.

In western culture, it had been long established that natural philosophy should not conflict with theology. Philosophy was thought to be a science based on divine revelation, and so philosophy and theology should naturally be in agreement. If philosophical thought was not directly in line with religious doctrine, it was either

6 Sources consulted:Bono, James J. The word of God and the languages of man : interpreting nature in early modern science and medicine. Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, c1995. pp64-84, 123-166.

Dear, Peter. “The Church and the New Philosophy.” Science, culture, and popular belief in Renaissance Europe. Manchester ; New York : Manchester University Press ; New York, NY, USA : Distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St. Martin's Press, 1991. pp119-139.

Tippo, Oswald and William Louis Stern. Humanistic botany. New York : W. W. Norton, 1977.

7 Tippo, Oswald and William Louis Stern. Humanistic botany. New York : W. W. Norton, 1977.

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rejected or adapted to fit the guidelines of religion. With the Protestant Reformation in Catholic areas, it became increasingly unacceptable to stray from theology in natural philosophy. It was seen as near-heresy, and certainly as a threat to the authority of the establishment to stray too far from traditional thought.

Martin Luther (Figure 3)8 thought that the lost language of Adam in Eden, in which he experienced a true understanding in knowing the true names of things, could never be fully recovered after Adam’s loss of dominion over nature in the Fall. He did, however, believe that humans should still work towards a better understanding of nature and the occult knowledge within it. In Luther’s opinion, human texts could never be the source of this lost or hidden divine knowledge. Instead, Luther thought that humankind should refer directly to the writings of God in His Book of Nature, the natural world itself. God

had stamped his symbolic language upon things, revealing their true essence, which mirrored the true nature of God. Luther’s suggestion led the search for divine knowledge to the Book of Nature.

We are now living in the dawn of the future life. For we are now again beginning to have the knowledge of the creatures which we lost in Adam’s fall. We…by God’s grace are beginning to see his glorious work and wonder even in the

flower… As he spoke, then it was, even in a peach-stone; for though the shell is hard, still it must in time give way to the tender kernel that is in it.

8 Img. Src: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/virtual/portrait/MartinLuther.gif

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Figure 3. Martin Luther (1483-1546), German theologian, professor, pastor, and church reformer who helped to begin the Protestant Reformation.

-Martin Luther, Tischreden, vol.1, item 1160.9

The next step, then, towards deciphering the word of God, was to learn to translate the divine Book of Nature. While some students during the Renaissance looked to human language for traces of the Adamic language, others referred directly to nature as the embodiment of the divine language. Not merely a symbolic representation or reflection of God’s words, the Book of Nature was thought to have been written by God Himself in the poetic language of His natural things. Eventually, it was thought, humans must learn to uncover the secrets of nature and represent them as well as is possible in language, and work towards a maturity of language in which the Word of God may be received from the Book of Nature.

Renaissance Trends in Natural Philosophy 10

“Renaissance” refers to a period in European history between about 1300C.E. and 1600C.E. which was characterized by a cultural rebirth in the arts and sciences. Medieval ideas of nature were questioned and there was a movement toward a study of nature based on direct observation. The magical and supernatural beliefs that had been the basis of man’s understanding of the natural world were slowing being replaced by the first glimmers of modern scientific thinking. Peter Severinus, a Paracelsian philosopher and physician to the King of Denmark, captures the Renaissance urging for a fresh exploration of nature as he encouraged the people in 1571 to9 Bono, James J. The word of God and the languages of man : interpreting nature in early modern science and medicine. Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, c1995.

10Works consulted for this section: Harman, P. M. The scientific revolution. London ; New York : Methuen, 1983. p6-10.

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sell your lands, your houses, your clothes and your jewelry: burn up your books. On the other hand, buy yourselves stout shoes, travel to the mountains, search the valleys, the deserts, the shores of the sea, and the deepest depressions of the earth; note with care the distinctions between animals, the differences of plants, the various kinds of minerals, the properties and mode of origin of everything that exists. Be not ashamed to study diligently the astronomy and terrestrial philosophy of the peasantry. Lastly, purchase coal, build furnaces, watch and operate with the fire without wearying. In this way and no other, you will arrive at a knowledge of things and their properties.11

This Renaissance trend of a new investigation of nature was also closely tied to natural magic. Magical forces were thought to be responsible for many things in the universe. The word “magic” at the time meant a sort of observational study of the occult elements of nature.12 An interest in natural magic was pervasive in Renaissance society as a tool for man to exercise his power over nature. Control over nature was to be gained by uncovering the divine truths that were hidden in the natural world. Renaissance natural philosophy was a desperate effort to uphold the harmony between religious and scientific thought.

11 As Cited in: Debus, Allen G. The English Paracelsians. New York, F. Watts [1966, c1965]. P2012 Debus, Allen G. The English Paracelsians. New York, F. Watts [1966, c1965]. P20

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Classical Influences in Renaissance ThoughtAlthough the Renaissance was a period of rebirth and forward-thinking, there was also a marked fascination with the rediscovery of texts of classical antiquity. Scholars spent their time searching for forgotten ancient manuscripts in isolated monasteries and many were compelled to study Greek in order to translate these lost treasures. There was also an effort by authors to create a stylistically pure Latin as opposed to the crude, unrefined Latin of the Middle Ages. By the latter part of the 15th century, focus had shifted to the ancient works of science and medicine. The works of Galen, Hippocrates, and Dioscorides were translated from Greek and the medical writings of Celsus were recovered. The outcome of this focus on the writings of the past was a new regard for and confidence in the truths of antiquity, including an increased popular following of the writings of Galen within the medical establishment.

Galen (129-ca. 210 C.E.)Believed that the body contains four fluids, or humors- blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile.13 Disease is caused by an imbalance of the humors and health is restored by humoral balance. The intention of medicine was to restore the balance through emetics, laxatives, bloodlettings, diet and other methods. There was also an astrological aspect

13 Works consulted for this section:Jacob, James R. The scientific revolution : aspirations and achievements, 1500-1700. Atlantic Highlands, NJ : Humanities Press, 1998. p24-25,

Figure 4. Many physicians of the Renaissance, like Paracelsus, preferred the teachings of Hippocrates over those of Galen. Justi Cortnummii Di morbo attonito liber unus ad HippocraticamImg. Src: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/paracelsus/paracelsus_2.html

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to Galenic theory, so that cures were to be administered at times of positive celestial effects.

Hippocrates of Cos (ca. 460- ca. 370 B.C.E.)

Hermetic Philosophy14

Among the recovered ancient works was the Corpus Hermeticum, which greatly influenced many physicians and philosophers of the time. The origin of the writings and the concepts within were uncertain. A common belief has been that Corpus Hermeticum was allegedly written by the mythical Hermes Trismegistus, an Egyptian priest during the time of Moses. Though it is thought that the Hermetic Texts may have actually been composed and purposely misrepresented by Neoplatonists in the late Roman era in order to support their efforts to fight a secular worldview. The Corpus Hermeticum stated that a true natural magician (or scientist) may be better able to understand the microcosm (man) through the study of the macrocosm (the world around him), as the latter is a perfect representation of the former. Hermetic ideas were well-received by Renaissance natural philosophers because they provided a solution to the Renaissance problem of melding Christian theology with a vision of the natural world. After the Corpus Hermeticum was rediscovered and translated in 1463, these Hermetic treatises presented concepts that many physicians adopted as a new foundation to their work. Because the Corpus Hermeticum texts were thought to have originated in ancient Egypt, the philosophy that it expounded was revered as the "Wisdom of the Egyptians.” The

14 Works consulted for this section:Pumfrey, Stephen; Paolo L. Rossi; Maurice Slawinski editors. Science, culture, and popular belief in Renaissance Europe. Manchester ; New York : Manchester University Press ; New York, NY, USA : Distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St. Martin's Press, 1991. pp58-59.

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respect that Hermetic philosophy gained allowed intellectual rebels, such as Paracelsus, to use its principles to defy the dominant Aristotelian scholasticism of the universities.

Hermetic natural philosophy was also readily applicable to the science of alchemy. An important feature of alchemy at the time, and further support of the Hermetic “scientist as natural magician”, was the effort to separate by chemical means the pure essence of a substance from its impurities. By practicing chemical separation (commonly distillation) the true divine signature of the substance, including its proper use as meant by

God, would be “rediscovered.” It was thought that by studying a natural substance and separating out its pure essence, one might learn more about God in the process of retrieving His gifts (medical cures, etc.) at the cost of our labor. Paracelsus espoused this theory as well, with emphasis on its usefulness in finding medical cures.

By the year 1500C.E. the cultural effects of the newly recovered texts took two paths. On one, the natural philosophers and scholarly physicians of the universities had developed a greater respect for the ancient thinkers, such as Aristotle and Galen. Many scientific thinkers at the time were newly focused on studying nature with traditional medicine, mathematics and the mechanical physics. Others took on a more mystical and religious

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Figure 5. A Renaissance portrait of Hermes Trismegistus, from the floor of the cathedral at Siena, 1488; attributed to Giovanni di Maestro Stefano. The legend beneath the central figure reads "Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus, the contemporary of Moses.”Img./text Src: :www.gnosis.org/hermes.htm

focus, relying on chemistry as a key to man and nature alike. They turned toward natural magic in which one could seek divine truths through studies of nature, including the relationship of man (microcosm) to the universe (macrocosm).

Astrological Botany/ Medical Astrology15

The doctrine of signatures is closely related to the popular belief in Astrology during the Renaissance. Astronomy can be defined as the study of the movement of heavenly bodies in their orbits, and astrology is the influence of the heavenly bodies on the earthly world. At the time of the Renaissance, astronomy and astrology were essentially the same thing. Astrology was part of the overarching natural philosophy that supposed that all things in nature were a reflection of the macrocosm, the universe- all things in the world could be explained by correspondences between the two worlds. Astrology assumed that the stars and planets influenced all earthly goings-on; the earth was a passive receiver of these celestial effects. It was one element of a philosophy that portrayed the world as having a highly predictable and regular order to it. Astrology, and the other doctrines of correspondence, offered the possibility of the explanation of every possible worldly occurrence. The astrologer William Lilly wrote in his Christian Astrology (1647)16 that there was “nothing appertaining to the life of a man in this world which in one way or other hath not relation to one of the twelve houses of heaven.” At the time of the Renaissance, the disciplines of biology, medicine or other areas of thought could not yet offer an alternate method of understanding nature, and so the Astrological view persisted. The simple correspondence made between the heavens and

15 Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic. P283-357.16 as cited in Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic. p324

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the earth led to a whole systematic scheme of natural order, based on limited knowledge of astronomy.

Renaissance science had not advanced to the point of being able to perceive the vast distances between stars or the countless solar systems outside of our own. The seven bodies that they knew of - the Sun, earthly Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury were placed in reference to the twelve signs of the zodiac in order to assess the influence that the celestial may have on the terrestrial at any given time. Mainstream belief held that the planets were responsible for the continuous change in the four elements of the world- earth, fire, air and water. Further, this was also applicable to the plants of the earth, as in “botanical astrology”, so that a plant may be affiliated with a particular heavenly body. Walter Pagel explains:

Paracelsian herbal remedies, via the system of astral parallels, went by the principle that each organ and each herb is bound with its own planet, and maladies could be cured sympathetically by employing plants belonging to the planets causing the disease. Each plant had a signature of its medical application, usually resembling the part of the body or the ailment that it could cure--for instance, lentils and rape-seed were thought sympathetically to cure the smallpox, a lunar disease, because the seeds were similar to the spots of the moon. Alternatively, some cures for a disease caused by a particular morbificant planet could be healed antipathetically by a herb of the opposing planet. For example, lunar diseases with their abundance of cold and moist humors could be cured via solar herbs, which were hot and drying.17

Astrological beliefs followed closely from the Renaissance doctrines of macrocosm and microcosm, as Culpeper puts it:

17 Walter Pagel, Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance (Basel: S. Karger, 1958), p. 144.

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If you do but consider the whole universe as one united body, and man as the epitome of this body, it will seem strange to none but madmen and fools that the stars should have influence upon the body of man, considering he, be[ing] an epitome of the Creation, must needs have a celestial world within himself… Every inferior world is governed by its superior, and receives influence from it. –Culpeper, Pharmocopoeia Londinensis: or the London Dispensatory. (1654) 8

Macrocosm-Microcosm Analogy As Greek philosopher Anaximenes (d. 528 BCE) explained the interconnectedness of man and universe:

Just as our soul which is air holds us together, so it is breath and air that encompasses the whole world.” Anaximenes (cited in Hermeticism and the Renaissance, p268)

Hermes Trismegistus is credited with the phrase, “what is below is like that which is above.” Paracelsus said, “man contains everything found in either sidereal or elemental regions, man contains more than a thousand species of minerals, manna, and metals, and has the qualities of all animals.”REF This macrocosm/microcosm analogy, like the doctrine of signatures, stems from Hermetic principle and from the Renaissance search for a “natural order of things.”18 It was widely held belief during the Renaissance that there exists an overall unity of nature. There were multitude correspondences drawn between the celestial and terrestrial, and man as the microcosm of these outer worlds. Simply, all things were thought to be connected to one another in some way. The macrocosm/microcosm analogy was prevalent in Renaissance nature philosophy, in all its varying degrees of metaphor- from the literal to abstraction.

18 Works drawn from for this section:

Vickers. Hermeticism and the Renaissance, On the Function of Analogy in the Occult. Pp265-290

Debus, Allen G. The English Paracelsians. New York, F. Watts [1966, c1965]

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A premise of Hermetic philosophy is that man is a natural magician, the link between matter and spirit. A mirror of the universe, he was able to control the natural world through alchemy and natural magic. The unity of the natural world, prescribed by Hermetic thought, was described with simple analogies and correspondences. The macrocosm/microcosm analogy led Renaissance philosophers to search for correspondences in the natural world and the doctrine of signatures is one example of such analogies drawn from simple observation.

Paracelsus (1493-1541)19

He who understands and knows much of nature’s work is high in faith, for the Creator is his teacher. What sanctified Peter but Christ’s works which made him believe? What [sanctifies] nature? The activities of the plants. The greatest one is he who knows, learns, and experiences natural wonders. Each believer should be such a philosopher, or have a neighbor who is such, so that he knows what maintains the health of his life… He should know what it is that he eats and drinks… He should know all the impressions so that he may know how it is possible to make something out of nothing… He should know about the earth, what grows on it, of the sea and sky, so that he knows the Creator of all the things… then is he wealthy, for he knows Him through His works, and believes from them to Him.

-Paracelsus in Prologus in die Bücher Meteorum, 8, pp. 280ff, quoted by Stoudt, p27.

19 Works drawn from for this section:

Debus, Allen G. The chemical philosophy : Paracelsian science and medicine in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. New York : Science History Publications, 1977.

Debus, Allen G. The English Paracelsians. New York, F. Watts [1966, c1965]

Debus, Allen G. Paracelsus and the Medical Revolution of the Renaissance. The University of Chicago, 1993. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/paracelsus/paracelsus_1.html

Debus, Allen G. and Michael T. Walton, Editors. Reading the book of nature : the other side of the Scientific Revolution. Kirksville, MO : Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1998.Pachter, Henry Maximilian. Magic into science : the story of Paracelsus. N. Y. Henry Schumann, 1951.

Stoddart, Anna M. The life of Paracelsus, Theophrastus von Hohenheim, 1493-1541. London, J. Murray, 1911.

Stoudt, John Joseph. Sunrise to eternity; a study in Jakob Boehme's life and thought. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1957.

Waite, Arthur Edward. Alchemists through the ages. New York, Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1970.

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Paracelsus, a German-Swiss mystic and physician, called for a return to the Hippocratic theorem that diseases can be cured by medicines which are similar in nature to the disease to be treated. He was also strongly influenced by Hermetic philosophy, including the microcosm/macrocosm analogy of man to universe. By some he was thought of as the “father of modern chemistry,” to others, a quack.

Born Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim in 1493C.E., he eventually adopted the nickname Paracelsus. A possible meaning for this name was that he felt himself to be “greater than Celsus”. Celsus was a first-century-C.E. Roman medical author, who believed in humoral medicine, similar to the concepts of Galenic medicine, which Paracelsus strongly disputed. Paracelsus was born in Switzerland, the son of a German doctor. From his father he learned not only the basics of general education, but also some practical medicine, folk medicine and alchemy. Paracelsus grew up in the mining town of Einsiedeln where he surely witnessed the practices of miners as well as their occupational diseases. It is said that as a young boy he was taught by several bishops and Johannes Trithemius, the occultist abbot of Sponheim. When he turned 14, he left home and traveled Europe as a wandering student looking for progressive-minded professors, though there is no definite proof that he ever earned a medical degree. Some sources indicate that at about age 23 he received his doctoral degree before again setting out to travel. He spent 10 more years exploring Europe, Russia, England, North Africa and more, befriending fascinating people (magicians,

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Figure 6. Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim : Paracelsus (1493-1541)Image source http://azothgallery.com/images/paracelsus.jpg

alchemists, necromancers).20 Along the way, he gained practical medical knowledge by acting as a surgeon in several mercenary armies.

In 1527 Paracelsus’ medical “expertise” was requested in Basel, Switzerland to treat Johannes Frobenius, a well-known humanist printer whose condition, it was feared, necessitated the amputation of his foot. Paracelsus saved him from amputation and by doing so earned the role of town physician of Basel. He also began lecturing at the University, though it is unclear whether he was ever officially appointed as medical professor. By this time, the confidence that Paracelsus had gained through his travels and experience emerged as extreme arrogance. He once said that his, “beard had more experience than other professors” and “the down on his neck was more learned that his auditors.” As a member of the University, he disregarded tradition. “He gave serious offense by lecturing in the vulgar tongue, by burning the writings of Avicenna and Galen, and by interpreting his own works instead of those of the ancients.”REF He used German instead of the traditional Latin in his writings and he preferred to “experiment” with new ideas rather than to honor the authority of his predecessors. As if he wasn’t already disliked by his fellow university members, the burning of precious ancient medical texts such as Avicenna’s Canon surely ensured their ill feelings. His stay in Basel ended speedily when his patient Frobenius died at the same time the University filed a lawsuit against Paracelsus- he even left behind his manuscripts. Paracelsus was generally remembered as a angry, unlikable man- though he undeniably made his mark on history.

20 Necromancy: 1. The practice of supposedly communicating with the spirits of the dead in order to predict the future. 2. Black magic; sorcery. -The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

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Paracelsian Philosophy21

Renaissance Paracelsians, the followers of Paracelsus, wanted to upset the traditional Aristotelian-based curriculum of the universities. They claimed that Aristotle’s notions of nature were inconsistent with Christianity. They also argued that Aristotelian medical philosophy had been adopted by Galen without question or criticism. Galenic medicine continued to be the dominant system into the Renaissance. Paracelsians found the universities particularly at fault for their unyielding grip on antiquated thought. They sought to introduce Christian neo-Platonic and Hermetic philosophy to explain natural phenomena. Under this method, the true physician and chemical philosopher was to gain insight by studying scripture as well as through chemical and observational studies. Paracelsians were occupied with biblical analysis while simultaneously searching for a new philosophy of nature- one that was based on experiment and first-hand observation.

While the new Paracelsian chemical philosophy was used to explain all of nature, it had special relevance to medicine. Paracelsian belief held that God creates physicians and that this divine origin of medicine makes it superior to the other sciences. It’s possible that the source of this notion may be in Ecclesiaticus 38:1, “Honor the physician for the need thou hast of him: for the Most High hath created him.”REF Paracelsus thought that the physician represented a true natural magician.

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? Works consulted in this section:Bono, James J. The word of God and the languages of man : interpreting nature in early modern science and medicine. Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, c1995. pp129-140.

Debus, Allen G. Man and Nature in the Renaissance. Cambridge University Press, 1978.

Debus, Allen G. Paracelsus and the Medical Revolution of the Renaissance. The University of Chicago, 1993. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/paracelsus/paracelsus_1.html

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Paracelsus thought that nature, too, was created directly from the power of God. This esoteric natural philosophy emphasizes something that Paracelsus referred to as the “light of nature.” He understood the “light of nature” as something that exists within us that can reveal the interdependencies and relationships (called magnalia Dei) between humans, the earth and stars with metals or chemical elements. As our physical bodies may benefit from the elements, so too may the invisible cosmic bodies be nourished by the action of the Gestirn (spirit of the stars) upon them. Physicians as well as people in general may benefit by inviting the “Light of Nature” into their own being, Paracelsus thought.

Paracelsus wrote in Vide Compendiun Philosophae, 1568: (From:Gordon, 1977)

The similars cure similars, the scorpion cures scorpion, mercury cures mercury. the poison is mortal for man except, if in the organism there is another poison with which it may fight, in which case the patient regains his health.

I have ofttimes declared, how by the outward shapes and qualities of things, we may know their inward virtues, which God hath put in them for the use of man.

Do not trouble yourself over the etymology of names, such as dropsy, in Latin, Greek, Arabic, Chaldean; for languages play with one another and joke, like a cat with a mouse. Such exercise is of no use. –Paracelsus, quoted in Bono FIND 1st source

The concept of the lost Adamic language or the true nature of things is of great importance in Paracelsian thought. Paracelsus considered a wise man to be one that refers directly to nature (God’s Book of Nature) rather than to human text. A wise man, Paracelsus thought, should strive to become a “new Adam.” He believed that after Adam’s loss of dominion over nature in the Fall, man must strive to regain some of that

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lost power. The only way to do this was to learn to become like Adam who was a master of the ars signata, the signature of natural things. Mastery of the ars signata, Paracelsus thought, meant that man must be able to distinguish signs and manipulate natural things so as to exploit their inner virtues.

In Paracelsus’ opinion, the language of Adam in the Garden of Eden was not a social construction like other languages. Rather, it was pure, free from sin. Adamic language was close to the verbum Dei, the Word of God. God, Paracelsus thought, had bestowed upon Adam the art of signatures, ars signata, and Adam’s purity before the Fall enabled him to utilize the ars signata correctly. The ars signata was not knowledge in itself, but a tool that Adam used to learn a perfect understanding of the names of things by direct interaction with the natural world, where he may read the “signatures” of things. In knowing the true names of things, Adam understood also the hidden properties and virtues of things- and thereby had knowledge of their true nature or essence. Adam’s ability empowers him to rule over all creatures as a microcosm of God’s universe, and enables him access to the divine blueprint of nature.

How then might postlapsarian man, corrupt and sinful, gain access to the secrets behind the ars signata? It is that “light of nature”, lumen naturale, that God provides within man that allows him, with his proper respect and preparation, to regain the right to nature’s secrets. With direct encounters with nature and his attunement to the light of nature, postlapsarian man may eventually become the new Adam.

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It is the exterior thing alone that gives knowledge of the interior; otherwise no inner thing could come to be known. –Paracelsus, 1529,22

The “doctrine of signatures,” to Paracelsus provided a means to correlate the outer to the inner, it was the way that the postlapsarian man was meant to read nature directly. Paracelsus believed that nothing in nature is without its signature. Further, he insisted that “those who wish to depict natural things must grasp their signs and understand the same through their signatures.”21 Paracelsus promoted the doctrine of signatures and claimed that those who work to become adept at deciphering the ars signatura might use their insight to help better the world for all humans:

The expert practitioner of the art of signs may recognize by means of the signature the virtue inhabiting each material being- that which is in herbs and in trees, in sensible and in insensible things. For consequently such expert signators discover a great many medicaments, remedies and other powers in natural things. –Paracelsus21

This notion ties in with the previous reference to physicians as the true natural magician, ordained by God himself. Physicians and scientists who follow the Paracelsian theory and become illuminated by the light of nature and utilize the doctrine of signatures are of a truly superior occupation.

These beliefs were so strong for Paracelsus that they resulted in his violent rejection (book burning, for example) of the “bookish” learning of medicine from Galen, Avicenna and other early medical thinkers. He felt that the “light of nature” was the only legitimate way to knowledge of the natural world, through the ars signata, that he felt no shame in burning the ancient medical texts that were so valued by most of his 22 As quoted in Bono, James J. The word of God and the languages of man : interpreting nature in early modern science and medicine. Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, c1995. p134-135

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contemporaries. God’s Book of Nature was written by God himself, and those who did not follow the lumen naturae, Paracelsus thought, were doomed and condemned.

Paracelsus took a particularly literal view of the macrocosm/microcosm analogy- to the point that the two were nearly interchangeable. Paracelsus believed strongly in the interconnectedness of the universe, i.e. the stars in the sky are much within man as they are outside of him. He, like others of his time, held the Hermetic belief that the microcosm of man was a reflection of the macrocosm of the external world (universe). Therefore, each human was a reflection of everything external including the stars and the planets. He thought that any imbalance in man, which produces disease could be cured by a substance or element in nature, balancing the “universe” within the man. It was considered quite useful to seek out the sympathetic and antipathetic connections between the greater universe and man. Along these lines, Paracelsians believed that action at a distance was possible; whereas Aristotelians only accepted the notion of action through contact. As applied to medicine, action at a distance meant that direct contact with the patient was not always necessary. The weapon salve cure is an example of action at a distance; in sympathetic association, the weapon was treated rather than the wounded person.Quote intro:

Francis Bacon said in 1605:The ancient opinion that man was Microcosmus, and abstract or model of the world, hath been fantastically strained by Paracelsus and the alchemists, as if there were to be found in a man’s body certain correspondences and parallels, which should have respect to all varieties of things, as stars, planets, minerals, which are extant in the great world.

The Alchemists, when they maintain that there is to be found in man every mineral, every vegetable, &c., or something corresponding to them, take the word

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microcosm in a sense too gross and literal, and have spoiled the elegance and distorted the meaning of it. P286, 287

True, Paracelsus’ seemingly over-literal understanding of the Macrocosm/Microcosm conflicts with his other principles. Paracelsus’ view of man as microcosm may be so literal that it focuses more on the accurate comparison between man and universe, ignoring his commitment to a study of nature that’s based on direct observation.

Paracelsus’ notion of the causes of disease involved the macrocosm/microcosm analogy as well. He rejected the Galenic theory that disease is caused by an internal imbalance of the bodily humors. To Paracelsus, disease in the body was caused by external seed-like entities that could enter the body in three ways: air, food or drink. His belief was that there are “seeds” in the earth that grow into metallic veins that are analogous to the “seeds” of disease that spread within specific organs of the body, threatening the life-force of the organ.

As an aspect of the practical use of the doctrine of signatures by physicians, the signatures found in nature were applied to the microcosm of man. Paracelsus did not accept the Galenic opinion that “contraries cure” and he instead was influenced by Germanic folk medicine, proclaiming that similars cure, “like cures like.” While the Galenic theory directed physicians to seek out and prescribe innocuous vegetable cures (contraries to unpleasant disease), Paracelsian physicians sought to treat their patients with the very poison that caused their disease. The prescribed poison would, of course, be prepared in such a way that its toxic properties would be eliminated. Perhaps understandably, the notion of using poisons to treat the sick was not enthusiastically received.

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The medical establishment thought of the Paracelsian practitioners as unlearned quacks who recklessly prescribed poisons as medicine. Thomas Erastus (1524-1583), a Swiss Protestant theologian and physician, held the opinion that Paracelsus was an advocate of the internal use of lethal poisons. John Donne (1573-1631), a poet and religious figure, thought that Paracelsus was the leader of a “Legion of homicide Physicians.” Despite the fact that Hermetic physicians and the Galenists were in great conflict, some of the Paracelsian ideas gradually gained the interest of the medical establishment.23

Alle Ding sind Gift und nichts ohn Gift; alein die Dosis macht das ein Ding kein Gift ist[all things are poison and not without poison; only the dose makes a thing not a poison]

As a result of the significant Paracelsian rebellion against tradition, a movement arose in the 17th century to examine both old and new forms of medicine…

Boehme (1575-1624)24

Jakob Boehme was a German philosopher and mystic, a “proponent of a theology which stresses feeling and intuition instead of reason and intellect.” (Stoudt, p22) Boehme is commonly associated with folklore of his extensive divine illuminations and visions, leading some people to discount his ideas as fanciful and flimsy. In 23 Debus, Allen G. Man and Nature in the Renaissance. Cambridge University Press, 1978.24 Weeks, Andrew. Boehme : an intellectual biography of the seventeenth-century philosopher and mystic. Albany : State University of New York Press, 1991. pp187

Stoudt, John Joseph. Sunrise to eternity; a study in Jacob Boehme's life and thought. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1957. (quote p.23)

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Figure 8. Jakob Boehme (1575-1624)Img. Src: http://www.kheper.net/topics/christianmysticism/Boehme.jpg

the opinion of some, the mythological interpretation of Boehme might have been borne of his inability to clearly convey his ideas in his writing. Early 20th century French Philosopher Émile Boutroux said that Boehme’s writing was “a mixture of abstruse theology, speculations on the indiscernible and the incomprehensible, fantastic poetry and mystic confusion; in fact, a dazzling chaos.” He was nonetheless considered by most to be a significant figure in Western thought. The church, however, had a more severe reaction to the work of Boehme, condemning it as fanatical and unclear. Boehme himself was aware that his language was often unclear:

In a letter to (Christian Bernhard):I am sorry that you find my writings so difficult in some points, and I wish I could impart my soul to you so that you may grasp my meaning… for I understand that it deals with the deepest points where I have used some Latin words; but my sense rests in truth, more in the natural language than in Latin… 24

Boehme had little formal education and like others of his time, he approached antiquity with reverence but also with a fresh sincerity. He was born in an Upper Lusatian villiage south of Görlitz, Germany, Jakob Boehme was the son of German farmers. A small, weak boy, Boehme was not inclined to work on the farm, however he took well enough to book-learning. He was an eager student of the Bible and he studied with interest the works of Paracelsus and others, though he only stayed in school until age fourteen. He attended a Protestant church, which incidentally became Catholic the year the Boehme died. When he was fourteen, Boehme began an apprenticeship to a cobbler and he later ran his own shop in Görlitz, Saxony, where he resided for much of his life.

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Boehme’s folklore contains numerous accounts of his experiences with divine visions and inspiration. One such tale, the truth of which is uncertain, explains a lengthy divine experience in which he was, “surrounded with the divine light for the space of seven days successively.” Boehme’s “second illumination” involved his brief glance at a pewter dish which happened to reveal to him the “innermost ground or center of the …hidden nature.”25 A more terrestrial influence on these spiritual experiences, as well as in the formation of Boehme’s later philosophical thought, may have been Martin Moller, Boehme’s pastor. Boehme was inspired by Moller to lead a highly devotional life, and Moller’s ideas of mysticism and pure Christianity might be seen reflected in Boehme’s writings.

In the year 1600, while still spiritually influenced by Moller, that Boehme had the most significant mystical experience of his life. Boehme’s “second illumination” was so profound that it shifted the life-course of this young cobbler, leading him to pursuits in philosophy and theology. While the account has been described by others as an experience with a pewter dish, Boehme offers a better explanation in his book Aurora. This moment of spiritual enlightenment offered Boehme insight into the true nature of God and of nature:

When this had given me many a hard blow… I finally fell into deep melancholy and sadness when I contemplated the great deep of this world… and considered in my spirit all the world’s creation.Then I found evil and good, love and wrath in all things, in irrational creatures, in wood, stones, earth, and elements as well as in men and beasts. -Aurora xix, 1-6

25 Stoudt, John Joseph. Sunrise to eternity; a study in Jacob Boehme's life and thought. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1957. (quotes from p.23, 47, 50)

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As he describes, this “second illumination” led Boehme to understand that evil and good are in all things, and this idea troubled him, leading him further into the experience:

I therefore became very melancholy and highly troubled. No Scripture could comfort me, though I was quite well versed in it… When in such sadness I earnestly elevated my spirit into God and locked my whole heart and mind, along with all my thoughts and will, therein, ceaselessly pressing in with God’s Love and Mercy, and not to cease until He blessed me…, then after some hard storms my spirit broke through hell’s gates into the inmost birth of the Godhead, and there I was embraced with Love as a bridegroom embraces his dear bride.-Aurora xix, 7-11

Boehme felt the presence of God within him as a sort of direct communication. He maintained that this presence culminated in his ability to break through the “gate in the deep center of nature,” where he, “attained much joy.” (Preface, 22-25) Boehme’s “second illumination” allowed him to see directly through all things and to know “God in and by all creatures, even in herbs and grass.” In this brief spiritual moment, Boehme felt that he had discovered the divine purpose of man, and a great understanding of nature. Boehme, “saw and knew more in a quarter of an hour,” then if he had, “been many years in the universities.” (Epist. xxi, 5-7)

While it is impossible to judge whether Boehme’s actually experienced such an “illumination,” his revelations that came of it were not extraordinary for the time. The themes of Boehme’s mystical experience, mystical devotion and natural philosophy, were popular during Renaissance times. So, one might wonder how much Boehme’s divine illuminations were influenced by his own interests and mind-set, and by his pastor

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Moller. Nonetheless, the ideas and literature that Boehme produced following this “second illumination” were innovative and significant in Renaissance thought and natural philosophy.

One of Boehme’s first writings was Aurora (or The Morning Redness Arising), written in 1612, which focused primarily on the ideas that came directly from his “second illumination.” This and other works of his were received as heretical by his local religious and civil authorities, and Boehme was eventually forced to leave Görlitz. He fled to Dresden, Saxony where the charges of heresy were lifted and he was allowed to return to Görlitz, but he was banned from writing more. This ban forced Boehme into a period of silence from 1612 to 1619, where he proposed to, “do nothing but to keep myself still in God and let the devil roar.” His most famous works that followed this period are Of the Three Principles of the Nature of God, (1619) and The Way to Christ, (1624), Signatura Rerum (The Signature of all Things), and Mysterium Magnum. Signatura Rerum is most important to the discussion of the doctrine of signatures:

How that all whatever is spoken of God without the knowledge of the signature is dumb and without understanding; and that in the mind of man the signature lies very exactly composed according to the essence of all essences (being of all beings). –Boehme, Signatura Rerum chapter 1, section 1, pp 9.

In Signatura Rerum Boehme explained the doctrine of signatures as a complete philosophy. The writings describe how a unifying order to the natural world may be revealed by uncovering its hidden divine design. Boehme’s intent was to describe a much more fundamental and universal kind of knowledge than that which is embedded

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in religious doctrine, so as to mend the rift in the Christian world. The signature, Boehme thought, was a way to access the essence of scripture, and was evidence that all humankind emerges from same divine One. Like the Adamic or “nature language,” the signature is a connection between all humans. “By this we know, that all human properties proceed from one; that they all have but one only root and mother.” (Boehme, ch.1, section 2, pp9)

The best treasure that a man can attain unto in this world is true knowledge; even the knowledge of himself : For man is the great mystery of God , the microcosm, or complete abridgement of the whole universe : he is the mirandum Dei opus, God`s masterpiece, a living emblem and hieroglyphic of eternity and time; and therefore to know whence he is, and what his temporal and eternal being and well-being are, must needs be that one necessary thing, to which all our chief study should aim, and in comparison of which all the wealth of the world is but dross, and a loss to us. -Boehme, Signaturum Rerum

Boehme’s Signatura is the disclosure of the hidden inner being of something, shown in its external character. What was concealed, Boehme thought, was the will and essence of the thing. The external characteristics or signatures, might be manifest in the form of a plant, the sound of a language, the traits of animals or humans. All things, Boehme asserted, are recognized by their signatures- by the outward expression of form, language, sound. The signatures were a method by which a thing’s concealed essence is expressed, they were an external mark of the inner spirit of the divine within each thing.

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The resulting world with its separate creatures is a figurement of the inner world. Internal characterizes external; spiritual manifests itself in body, clothes itself in form. (sig. Rerum ix, 11)

The whole outward, visible world with all its being is a signature or figure of the inward spiritual world; whatever is internally, and however its operation is, so likewise it has its outward character. (sig. Rer. Ix, 1).

Boehme sought to “reconcile his religious intuitions with the metaphysics of his nature philosophy” (Stoudt, p243) through his concept of the doctrine of signatures.More…

Other Proponents of the Doctrine of Signatures

As a relatively popular belief during the Renaissance, the doctrine of signatures had a number of followers…

Giambattista (or Giovan Battista) Della Porta (1535-1615)26 The doctrine of signatures was the foundation of the Italian occult philosopher, astrologer and alchemist Della Porta's theory. He wrote in his Phytognomica (1588) about plants with heart-shaped parts, such as leaves and fruits that were indicated for disease of the heart, for example. Della Porta was characteristic of his time in his reverence for classical knowledge, and he combined logic, science, magic and superstition to provide a simple method of prescribing

26 Works consulted this section:Pumfrey, Stephen; Paolo L. Rossi; Maurice Slawinski editors. Science, culture, and popular belief in Renaissance Europe. Manchester ; New York : Manchester University Press ; New York, NY, USA : Distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St. Martin's Press, 1991. pp80-81.

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Figure 9. Giambattista Della Porta (1535-1615)Img. Src: http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/PictDisplay/Porta.html

medicinal plants. He explained that moss gathered from a human skull could be used for disease of the head, and that plants with a lengthy life could improve a person’s longevity.

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Della Porta was not much of a mainstream academic figure, but is most known for his

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Della Porta was not much of a mainstream academic figure, but is most known for his work in optics and magnetism. He also was involved in physiognomy (see figure 10)

Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654)The English physician Nicholas Culpeper was an proponent of astrological botany and the

doctrine of signatures. Born- London, England

John Gerard (xxxx-xxxx)Gerard proclaimed in 1597 that eyebright juice applied to the eyes, "taketh awaie the darknesse and dimnesse of the eies and cleereth the sight."

John Gerard states in his herbal about St. John's Wort, "The leaves, flowers and seeds stamped, and put into a glass with oile olive, and set in the hot sunne for certaine weeks together and then strained from those herbes, and the like quantity of new put in, and sunned in like manner, doth make an oile of the colour of blood, which is a most precious remedy for deep wounds..."

Dispute of the Theory27

There are Paracelsians who use signatures freely in determining illnesses and their cures, but there are many more doctors who dispute their universality and argue for a diagnosis and therapy grounded in a plurivalent theory of signs (i.e., one in which signs do not always, and in all circumstances, carry the same etiological information). Aristotle's doctrine of

27 Works consulted this section:Arber, Agnes Robertson. Herbals, their origin and evolution; a chapter in the history of botany, 1470-1670. Darien, Hafner, 1970. 2nd Ed. pp247-263.

Ian Maclean. Foucault's Renaissance Episteme Reassessed: An Aristotelian Counterblast. Journal of the History of Ideas 59.1. 149-166. 1993.

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signs is based on the distinction between "certain signs" (tekmhvria) and "uncertain signs" (shme'ia), the latter requiring the use of syllogistics and judgment in their interpretation.

Inconsistencies of Theory- tenuous links-cuckoo-pint, long-lived plants-long lives-logic of many links seemed faulty:

-God wasn’t thorough, not all plants have sig -purposely left some plants w/o (henry more/cole quote)-plant could resemble body part or disease (loose assoc.) or astrological bot.-herbs of already-established med. Plants sometimes had no sig.

John Ray (1627–1705)English naturalist John Ray was concerned with creating organization in the study of the natural world.28 He set the course for the development of systematic biology. Ray was not a believer in astrology or alchemy, and he strongly disagreed with the doctrine of signatures even at a time when the concept was still fashionable. He argued at around the time when Nicholas Culpeper’s Herbal (1653) and Robert Turner’s Botanologia (1664) that the popular conviction was false:

We have paid close attention to the matter and are moved to assert that the signatures are not indications of natural qualities and powers impressed on plants by nature. 29

Further, Ray goes on to discuss his specific points against the idea of plant signatures. He notes the doctrine of signatures is inconsistent because many plants are left without signatures.

28 Raven, Charles E. John Ray, naturalist, his life and works. Cambridge [Eng.] University Press, 1950. 29 As cited in Raven, Charles E. John Ray, naturalist, his life and works. Cambridge [Eng.] University Press, 1950. p98-99

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Of the plants specifically said to be appropriate to a particular portion of the body or to a disease far the greater number have no signature. 28

Also, he argues that the plants that do have signatures are often imbedded with contradictions:

Different parts of the same plant have signatures not merely different but contradictory. Many plants resemble natural or artificial objects for which they have no affinity as Orchid flowers look like flies, spiders, frogs, bees or butterflies. Parts of some plants represent parts of the body with which they violently disagree: the juice of the Spurges is like milk, but no one is so imbecile as to give it to nursing-mothers. There is such a vast number of plants that, even if they had come into existence altogether at haphazard, and ingenious and imaginative person could have found as many signatures as are known to-day.28

William TurnerThe English physician William Turner was one of the first people to refute the doctrine of signatures, along with other myths, in his New Herball (1551-1562). Though he debunked some myths, some mystical belief remained in him, “For what climate soever is subject to any particular Disease, in the same place there grows a Cure”

Dodoens (1517-1585) A belgian botanist and physician, he wrote in his Pemptades, 1583, “the doctrine of the Signatures of Plants has received the authority of no ancient writer who is held in any esteem: moreover it is so changeable and uncertain that, as far as science or learning is concerned, it seems absolutely unworthy of acceptance.”

Helmont (1579-1648)30

30 Works consulted this section:Mora, George. Immaginazione e malattia: Saggio su Jan Baptiste van Helmont. Bulletin of the History of Medicine - Volume 75, Number 3, Fall 2001, pp. 567-568.

Vickers, Brian editor. Occult and scientific mentalities in the Renaissance. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire] ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1984.

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The macrocosm/microcosm analogy was not supported by some Renaissance thinkers on both Christian and scientific grounds. Helmont, a follower of Paracelsus, rejected the theory because it was not in line with Christian doctrine. Man is made in the image of God rather than the image of the universe, as the macrocosm/microcosm analogy states. Helmont also thought that Paracelsus’ literal interpretation made little scientific sense because the elements in the earth and universe are not interchangeable with the elements in man.

Away with thy trifles: For we have no fountains of Salt, no reducements of venal bloud into feigned and lurking metals. Neither are there minerals in us… Neither also are there microcosmical Lawes in us, any more than the humors of four Elements mutually agreeing in us, and the fights or grudges of these. – Helmont, quoted in Vickers, p284

The Fleming Jan Baptiste Van Helmont (1579-1648) is generally acknowledged as one of the main medical exponents of the Baroque era. He is particularly known for having coined the term gas, a major advancement in chemistry, then emerging as one of the basic tenets of medicine. Interested in various areas of knowledge, he obtained a medical degree at Louvain, but preferred to devote himself, single-handed, to the study of "natural magic"--a catchphrase for an [End Page 567] assortment of mystical, Neoplatonic, occult, and popular notions, along Paracelsian lines. Van Helmont's medical philosophy: his fundamental belief that the intellect--the image of God--rather than reason, should be the light guiding man in search of truth. –mora

“I believe that God doth give the knowledge of Simples, to whom he will, from a supernatural grace: but not by the signes of nature! For what Palmestrical affinity hath the Boars tooth, the Goats blood, the peisle of a Bull, the dung of a Horse, or the Herb Daysie, with a Pleurisie? Or what signature have those Simples with each other?-quoted in Vickers, p285- hermeticism and the renaissance

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He also refuted the concept of astrological botany, saying that it was incorrect to classify and determine the use of herbs based on “astral influence”:

“But in what sort could so few Stars contain the essences, seeds, faces, and properties perhaps of five hundred plants, differing in their species and internal properties?.. . The properties of Herbes are in the Seeds, but not in the Heaven or Stars.” -Ibid, pp286.

Guy de la Brosse (1585-1641)Guy de la Brosse was a French physician, botanist and medical reformer. He respected Paracelsus, and, like him, he believed chemistry to be the key to nature and medical reform, though he did no agree with Paracelsus on everything. Guy de la Brosse wrote in 1628, “I have worked for the space of twenty-five years” in search of the truth; instead of accepting what Paracelsus, Severinus and others have written “I have rather chosen to delve into the bowels of Nature” to test their assertions. “Using my hands, I found that many of them wrote falsely; that even Paracelsus, at least if all the books bearing his name are his, was not always trustworthy, that he often gave us things we should distrust, and that all the others did the same or even worse.” -Guerlac pp186

Conclusion

Works ConsultedAlleman, George Mervin. A critique of some philosophical aspects of the mysticism of Jakob Boehme. Philadelphia, 1932.

Arber, Agnes Robertson. Herbals, their origin and evolution; a chapter in the history of botany, 1470-1670. Darien, Hafner, 1970. 2nd Ed.

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Bailey, Margaret Lewis. Milton and Jakob Boehme; a study of German mysticism in seventeenth-century England. New York, Oxford University Press, American Branch, 1914.

Blair, Ann. The theater of nature : Jean Bodin and Renaissance science. Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 1997.

Böehme, Jakob. The signature of all things: with other writings. London, J. M. Dent & Sons, ltd.; New York, E. P. Dutton & co., 1912.

Bono, James J. The word of God and the languages of man : interpreting nature in early modern science and medicine. Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, c1995.

Clarkson, Rosetta E. The golden age of herbs and herbalists. New York : Dover Publications, 1972.

Clement Salaman et al. Translator. The way of Hermes : new translations of The Corpus Hermeticum and The definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius. Rochester, VT : Inner Traditions, 2000.

Culpeper, Nicholas. Culpeper's complete herbal and English physician. Leicester, UK : Magna Books, 1992.

Dampier, William Cecil Dampier, Sir. A history of science and its relations with philosophy & religion. New York, Macmillan, 1935.

Debus, Allen G. The chemical philosophy : Paracelsian science and medicine in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. New York : Science History Publications, 1977.

Debus, Allen G. The English Paracelsians. New York, F. Watts [1966, c1965]

Debus, Allen G. and Michael T. Walton, Editors. Reading the book of nature : the other side of the Scientific Revolution. Kirksville, MO : Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1998.

Debus, Allen G. Editor. Science, medicine, and society in the Renaissance; essays to honor Walter Pagel. New York, Science History Publications, 1972.

Debus, Allen G. Man and Nature in the Renaissance. Cambridge University Press, 1978.

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