Book Description

Theophrastus Paracelsus, doctor, chemist, and mystic was born in Switzerland in 1493. He is celebrated as the man who, on his appointment as town physician and lecturer in the University of Basle in 1526, preceeded his lectures by a solemn burning of the books of his illustrious predecessors Galen and Avicenna. In the course of a tempestuous life, he helped to transform the highly abstract and theoretical view of medicine into one observation and experiment, diagnosis and treatment. At the same time, he was a visionary who believed that the life of man was inseparable from that of the universe; and that man is penetrated by the astral spirit as well as having a soul.Paracelsus' prophecies were first published in German in 1530 and enjoyed considerable popularity for about a century. Thereafter they fell into oblivion until rescued in the nineteenth century by the Kabbalist and Magician Eliphas Levi. The prophecies comprise 32 allegorical pictures each accompanied by a prognostication, a preface, and an elucidation. Paracelsus' images are usually obscure. It was as if he saw the future as a series of moving pictures on a film but was only able to describe them out of chronological sequence.Most of the events predicted are concerned with the church or state and the span of time involved seems to be 24 and 42 , or probably multiples thereof. Like other occult works of the period, the course of future events is never explicitly stated. It is up to the reader to use his insight and imagination to draw his own conclusions from the subtle hints that Paracelsus gives.