Paracelsus: Theosophy

Franck is a "crank," who loves his "private language game" of hermeneutics of opposition. Agrippa discovers the "Janus language game" with his hermeneutics of exoteric and esoteric meaning four centuries before Wittgenstein; but his work is regarded unjustly by Frances Yates as not a "profound philosophical work, as its title implies, and Cardanus, a really deep magican, despised it as a trivial affair" (Yates, 130). On the other hand, Franck regards Agrippa as a profound prophet in contrast to Cardanus. Yates is an intellectual historian in search of "influence," not a philosopher who is interested in Premodern language games about God. According to Williams and Mergal, Paracelsus, "the physician, alchemist, and natural theologian" (Williams and Mergal, 33) is the most important exponent of "rational Spiritualism," because he is named first in their taxon. Paracelsus almost produces a language game for natural philosophy, which is independent from the 15th century Florentine Neo-Platonic language game, that can provide an alchemist explanation for natural phenomena.  

In the Third Meditation (1632), Descartes exiles God from the material universe, by saying that God is infinite, while the material universe is indefinite. "Look at a stone and imagine it having sensations--One says to oneself: How could one so much as get the idea of ascribing a sensation to a thing" (Wittgenstein, 98). By exiling God from the material universe, Descartes creates a language game meant to describe nature, which makes utterances ascribing sensation and feelings to nature ridiculous. Descartes is modern. Paracelsus, on the other hand, is Premodern, where such utterances are not ridiculous, because God and revealed religion are essential to his natural philosophy, ergo, his interest in the cabala and the Trinity as variables in his alchemist explanations of natural phenomena. Paracelsus’ natural philosophy, on the other hand, is not overly dependent upon the the 15th century Florentine Neo-Platonic language game, because of his dependence upon the cabala, Trinity, and Hermetica. His favorite subject, alchemy, has distant Alexandrian roots, but is truly a product of Arabic natural philosophy. The word alchemy itself is Arabic. Paracelsus’ Trinitarian ontology and natural philosophy are clearly Premodern language games.     

 Unlike Descartes, Paracelsus does not believe in innate notions.  While Paracelsus may appear empirical due to his rejection of innate notions, he cannot separate God from nature. By not being able to separate God from Nature, Paracelsus' language game of an alchemist explanation cannot accomplish Wittgenstein's goal of philosophy: " What is your aim in philosophy?-- To shew the fly the way out of the fly-bottle." (Wittgenstein, 104). Descartes may fail in describing mental phenomena, but succeeds in producing mechanical explanations of nature, which eliminates the spiritus of nature. Accordingly, Descartes can show the fly out of the bottle with regard to natural phenomena, but preserves the sacred space of the soul with his mind and body dualism. Paracelsus, on the other hand, embraces the fundamental belief that nature has a spirit tied essentially to God, so, for Wittgenstein, he can never explain nature with his alchemist language game, because the fly is fully in the bottle.   

Paracelsus and Wittgenstein are at opposites sides of the spectrum. Wittgenstein mocks pain discourse by showing how it is equivalent to attributing pain to a stone: "Couldn't I imagine having frightful pains and turning to stone while they lasted" (Wittgenstein, 97). Ironically, Wittgenstein uses transformation as the foundation of ridiculing pain discourse or inner feeling discourse. Paracelsus' Premodern alchemist language game allows such attribution to the inside of man and outside of nature, so no Cartesian dualism and no mechanical universe. But a language game which allows for transformation, where nature is alive and the inside of man is tied to Nature by the unity of God. On Wittgenstein's view, Paracelsus' alchemist language game is keeping the fly in the bottle, but maybe the latter is eliminating the bottle altogether.

Admittedly, Paracelsus is a better thinker than Franck and Agrippa, and he knows it, because the former knows that "natural magic" and the cabala are distinct arts: “Many even of our exalt Tritemius and Agrippa for magic and the cabala –two things apparently quite distinct—not knowing why they do so” (Paracelsus, 51). The cabala concerns itself with mysteries of the Bible, while natural magic deals the secrets of nature: “cabala is full of divine mysterious, even magic is full of the secrets of nature” (Paracelsus, 51). The true magi respects the distinct jurisdiction of the cabala and natural magic, but tries to use one to help understand the other. Both involve an interpretation of resemblances: the cabala concerns itself with the sacred numerical relations in Scripture, which reveal divine mysteries; while natural magic “foretells from the nature of things to come as well as things present, since the operation consists in knowing the inner constitution of all creatures, of celestial as well as terrestrial bodies” (Paracelsus, 51).

Accordingly, the cabala is an effort to work out the numerical harmonies and resemblances of Scripture, which reveal divine mysteries. Patriarchs of Genesis, for example, reflect Christ’s interaction with them, and that they are internally related to birth of Jesus Christ. Natural magic, on the other hand, is meant to find a secret of nature, which can be used repeatedly, to predict some natural outcome. Magi use the cabala and the secrets of nature to show the divine resemblances between Scripture and the secrets of nature. Instead of Descartes' mind and body dualism, Paracelsus' alchemist language game insists that divine Scripture, though separate from Nature, is crucial to understanding nature.       

Like Franck and Descartes, Paracelsus regards the Devil as an active agent who hides from man the secrets of nature. The demonic root is not exclusively Biblical. Hermes says that the Devil can trick and delude man’s mind: “Mind conceives every mental product: both the good, when the mind receives seeds from god, as well as contrary kind, when the seeds come from some demonic being” (Hermetica, 27). Franck accepts this Hermetic belief without reservation, while Paracelsus is more cautious and refines this Hermetic belief with the Bible. On Paracelsus’ view, The Devil does trick man; but he does not do so by deluding man’s perceptions per se, but cloaking the secrets of nature from his senses. The Devil is not that powerful in Paracelsus’ system. He is nuisance to the wise, and deceiver to the foolish. Unlike Franck, Paracelsus is not going to reject sense data as the delusions from the Devil, nor accept Descartes' doctrine of innate notions.

Instead, Paracelsus provides a genealogy to explain how the Devil hid the secrets of Nature from man. “Adam was the first inventor of arts, because he had knowledge all things as well after the Fall as before” (Paracelsus, 48). Even after the Devil had tricked Eve to deceive Adam to eat from the tree of knowledge, Adam retained his knowledge, and “predicted the world’s destruction by water” (Paracelsus, 48). The influence of the Devil on man was so great that Adam knew that God would wipe out all of man, but Noah, who retained one of Adam’s two tablets of wisdom written in “hieroglyphical characters” (Paracelsus, 48). The Devil eliminated half of Adam’s wisdom due to the Great Deluge. This tablet consisted knowledge of “astrology,” “magic,” “cabala,” and “alchemy.” The Devil further divided this wisdom among the various ancient peoples of the world. Astrology was pasted down to the Chaldeans. “Magic” was given to Persians (especially Zoroaster). “Cabala” was bestowed to the Hebrews. “The Egyptians, also, having obtained this magic and [astrology] from the Chaldeans and Persians” (Paracelsus, 49) also had knowledge of alchemy. The Devil was not pleased with the Egyptians. An Egyptian high priest reunited three of separated arts into one doctrine, “for this reason Hermes was so truly named Trismegistus [three times]” (Paracelsus, 49).

Frustrated by the wisdom of Trismegistus and his followers (Paracelsus included), the Devil tries constantly to hide the secrets of nature from man. God allows the Devil to cloak them, because He wants man to perfect himself from his fallen state. Franck believes that the world is mad from the perspective of God. Paracelsus insists, however, that the created world of this or that period is perfect from His perspective, but imperfect from man’s perspective. Paracelsus’ metaphysical perspective is fundamentally different from Franck’s: man is imperfect from God’s perspective, but has the potential to perfect himself over the sequence of time. God already knows Man’s actualized perfection, because He sees outside of time, but he wants to see activity or motion, or the process of perfection (alchemist metaphor) in man. God knows already who will be perfected and those who will not be perfected, because God has a predestined order.  God provides man with clues, which usually involves following Trismegistus’ method of correlating a concept from one of the arts to another. “Magic had its origin in the Divine Ternary and arose from the Trinity of God” (Paracelsus, 52).

Accordingly, just as God is one ousia and has three persons reducible to that ousia, nature is one substance (quintessence) and has the tria prima (salt, sulpher, mercury) reducible to the quintessence. “For God marked all His creatures with his (Trinity) and engraved its hieroglyph on them with his own figure. Nothing in nature of things can be assigned or produced that lacks the magisterial form of the Trinity, or not does not even prove it” (Paracelsus, 52). Paracelsus’ tria prima is rooted in the Hermetic threefold distinction of soul, spirit, and body: “Mind, therefore, has taken soul as a shroud, and the soul, which is itself something divine, uses spirit as a sort armoring agent-servant. The spirit governs the living being” (Hermetica, 34). Paracelsus is not using hieroglyphs to describe Noah’s recovered tablet or God’s three-fold hieroglyphic mark on nature accidentally or figuratively. Instead, he is specifically referring to this Hermetic doctrine about substance: the soul descends from the mind (quintessence), spirit descends from soul, and body descends from spirit. He is also correlating this Hermetic doctrine to Christian Trinity.

On his alchemist language game, he is using the Trinity to understand natural magic (Hermetica) in order to uncover the secrets of nature hidden by the Devil. Like the Hermetic myth of substance, Calvin uses descending and ascending order as a characteristic of the hypostatical nature of Trinity; he also uses roles and functions as distinctive subsistences in their respective person-hood in the Trinity. Paracelsus applies the Hermetic principle of substance to derive tria prima, because he regards this as a genuine secret of nature, because they function as hypostases on Empedocles’ four elements and are reducible to one singular substance quintessence. Two of Paracelsus' essays, Economy of Minerals (1515) and Concerning the Generation of the Elements (1514) will be explicated in order to show how Paracelsus' alchemist language game explains minerals specifically and elements in general. The reader may want to consider both, one or the other, or skip to conclusion depending upon interest.

In the Economy of Minerals (1515), Paracelsus provides another genealogy to explain the origin of minerals from the quintessence, the three hypostatical agents of the tria prima (salt, sulpher, and mercury) and their effect upon Empedocles’ four elements in the generation of minerals. Just as the Old Testament explains the origin of the Hebrew people by genealogies from Hebrew Patriarchs by their numerical descent and ascent, the minerals of earth can also be explained by genealogy from the metals descent from quintessence to various minerals, of which metal is included. Paracelsus is trying to combine the a) cabalist structure of genealogy to explain the i) origin of minerals (a secret of nature) with the b) Trinity and c) the Hermetic concept of substance. God is the One, who all things descend, and are transformed to their specific purpose: “God willed to be One in all, that is, to be the one primal and ultimate matter of all things” (Paracelsus, 91). 

Paracelsus is neither clear nor consistent whether God is primal matter (or quintessence) or is above primal matter as the agent creating. Sometimes God is above quintessence and has a secondary agent doing the creating, who is called either Archeus or Iliaster. Iliaster has a nice cabala twist, because the root Ilia is the same as Hebrew root Elia, which means God. Since Paracelsus uses Archeus in this Essay as the secondary agent, it would be safe to assume that God the One is above quintessence or is quintessence per se, and that Archeus is the great active agent of creation preforming alchemist separations in God as prime matter to use three hypostatical agents: salt, sulpher, and mercury.  “Now, all natural colors proceed from Salt of Nature, in which they exist together with balsam of things coagulation. Sulphur exhibits the substance of bodies and their building up; Mercury, their virtue and arcana” (Paracelsus, 96).

In the tria prima, salt is body or substance; "suphur" is soul; and mercury is spirit. These are three hypostatical principles which work on prima matter or quintessence to individuate genus and species. Since they are hypostatical principles, they are distinct in order, function, quality, but not in quintessence. Under the tria prima, salt is the principle of incombustibility; sulpher is flammability or fire; and mercury is fusibility. Paracelsus classifies metals, gems, stones, magnet under the general genus of mineral. With regards to metal, the chief hypostatical agent is mercury: “Every metal, it is true contains within itself Sulpher, and Salt, but Mercury holds the principle place therein” (Paracelsus, 91). The chief Empedocles’ element to minerals (metals, stones, gems, and the loadstone) is water: “[mineral] was made into the seed, which is the seed of water” (Paracelsus, 91).       

Dominate hypostatical agent mercury generates minerals with the element of water in the element of earth. Water is always falling downward, and infiltrates the core of the earth. Just as water infiltrating the earth causes plants to grow and pushes them upward to the air, water infiltrates the earth generates minerals and pushes them inside the earth. “The generation of minerals, then, from water are produced into the earth, just as from the element of earth all fruit are pushed forward into the air, but the root remains in the earth” (Paracelsus, 92). Paracelsus’ view of generation of minerals is based upon analogy with plants, but reverses their direction. Minerals and plants are separate genus, but still contain tria prima, which means both are capable of growth and movement. Just as plants have roots, trunks, leaves, minerals have veins that are extended throughout the earth's underground. 

Unlike Aristotle, Paracelsus believes that minerals grow, because they contain dominate hypostatical agent of mercury (as well as salt and supher), which is spirit. To the Premodern mind, anything that has spirit will move and grow. Paracelsus rails Aristotle for not understanding the generation of minerals and specifically charges his misunderstanding on the grounds that his view is strictly tied to observation, and does not relies upon any hypostatical agents to explain their generation. “Such is the physical science of the Greeks, deduced only from what is seen, recognizing nothing occult (or invisible) by mental experiment” (Paracelsus, 93). Aristotle’s natural philosophy is limited to observation and does use any invisible (or occult) agent to explain the generation of minerals from the element of water in the matrix of earth. Paracelsus’ view that metals grow, like plants, is grounded upon invisible dominate hypostatical principle mercury, which operates upon the visible element of water in the matrix of earth. Aristotle is limited to observation in his scientific speculations, because he did not understand the secret of nature that every substance has three invisible hypostatical agents operating on the four elements, because he does not know the (b) divine secret of the Trinity, nor does he understand the (c) Hermetic view of substance.

Paracelsus with the benefit of (b) Trinity, (c) the Hermetic triadic view of substance, and a) the cabala can surpass Greek science in the explanation of generation of minerals with the doctrine of aqueous tree. The aqueous tree is grounded upon the a) Biblical metaphor of the tree of knowledge, b) the invisible hypostatical agent of mercury, and c) the Hermetic view of spirit. The aqueous tree is the invisible force that grows the veins of metals or minerals found in the earth out of the element of water. The aqueous tree is spirit (mercury) which is hidden or invisible to the eyes, but is the hypostatical agent that causes the generation of minerals out of water in the earth. “So also some aqueous trees produce their gold, silver, corals, and other metals [or minerals] of that kind, free and naked according to the condition and nature of water” (Paracelsus, 93). Just as the upward side of earth has trees that bear fruit, the downward side of earth has aqueous trees, which produce minerals, such as the metals. 

Aristotle could perceive the growth of fruit on trees and attributed this to a vegetative spirit due to growth; but he failed to understand that minerals have spirit as well. Therefore, we could never grasp the aqueous tree as explanation for the generation of minerals. “In the case of minerals, the spirit of the metal is recognized, though hidden, beneath its corporeal or mineral bark” (Paracelsus, 94). Minerals have three hypostatical agents: the spirit (mercury), body (salt), and soul (sulpher). Mercury and salt are the most important agents in the minerals generation. “The spirit of the aqueous element produces the body, of one kind in the mineral, of a different kind in the fruit” (Paracelsus, 94). The body and spirit of the mineral are inseparable, because they are two hypostatical principles contained in one quintessence. Paracelsus can use the Divine Trinity and the Hermetic triadic view of substance to support his claim about the inseparability of the spirit and the body of the mineral or metal.

 Archeus is the minster who plants the aqueous trees in their respective matrix of the earth, where the element of water grows in the earth producing branches and stalks throughout the ground. “Archeus, the dispenser of the minerals, has minsters under him” (Paracelsus, 97). Archeus uses tria prima as minsters to determine size and generation of aqueous trees. Just as some trees are larger than others, some aqueous trees are larger than others. Some veins of metal extend throughout the earth for several miles continuously, while others are much smaller, and are not continuous. Some gem deposits are larger than others. Like trees, aqueous trees can also generate and degenerate, because they have spirit (mercury), body (salt), and soul (sulpher). Paracelsus has the unusual belief due to his acceptance of tria prima that minerals can die and regenerate. “So, then, the first matter of minerals consists of water: and it comprises only Sulphur, Salt, and Mercury. These minerals are the element’s spirit and soul, containing in them all minerals, metals, gems, salts, and other things of that kind (Paracelsus, 95). 

The three hypostatical agents work invisibly upon the Empedocles’ element of water in order to generate every distinct genus and species of minerals. The element of water cannot determine genus or species of mineral, because the soul of the mineral determines the specific genus or species of a mineral. In the Nature Concerning Things, Paracelsus speaks more specifically about the function of the hypostatical principle soul: the soul also unites the opposites of spirit and body: “the metal between spirit and the body concerning which Hermes speaks, is the soul, which is indeed Sulphur. It unites those two contraries, the body and spirit, and changes them into one essence” (Paracelsus, 125).

Unity of body (salt) and spirit (mercury) through the soul causes the determination of the genus and species of the mineral. The element of water cannot grow the aqueous tree, because the spirit generates and causes the body of the mineral due its unity by way of the soul. Archeus is the minister, who makes this symphony of generation and degeneration of minerals possible. A philosopher, who knows how to correlate a) cabbalist image of a tree with b) the invisible divine trinity and c) the Hermetic triad view of substance, can explain the generation of minerals (a secret of nature). “To the minds and mental sight of true philosophers, no less than to their carnal eyes, the clear light appears. To them the occult becomes manifest” (Paracelsus, 95). 

In Concerning the Generation of the Elements (1514), Paracelsus applies a similar syntax (or language game) to explain the origin of the elements as he did in his explanation of origin of minerals. He relies upon the Trinity, Cabala, and the Hermetic triadic view of substance to explain the origin of the elements. Again, he believes that the Greek (Empedocles, Aristotle, etc) understanding of the four elements to be flawed, because they do not have the benefit of the Trinity, Cabala, and Hermes to explain the four elements. Archeus is not the minister in this essay. Instead, we find Iliaster as the grand coordinator of the four elements, as the receptacles, to the tria prima. Iliaster is cabala invention of Paracelsus, Ilia is Hebrew root for God; but Iliaster is not God, because he is divine nothingness.

In Genesis, God created the universe from nothing. Iliaster is the eternal nothingness of Genesis. Since this nothingness is divine, Iliaster is intelligible, eternal, perfect, and preforms the eternal creation and recreation of the cosmos(s). “In the beginning, Iliaster, which is nothing, was divided, thus giving and arranging the four elements” (Paracelsus, 201). Iliaster is divided by God, but simultaneously gives birth and arranges the four elements: “The four elements are the growth produced from Iliaster” (Paracelsus, 201). In Iliaster, the four elements become mothers, receptacles, because the elements give birth to things. “So then that is an element which produces. An element is a mother, and there are four of them, air, fire, water, and earth” (Paracelsus, 202). The elements are matrixes which produce all things in the terrestrial world. Just as Christ is born from a woman, so the Word creates with three hypostatical agents (tria prima) the cosmos out of Iliaster and his daughters, the four elements.

The four elements are females or “mothers,” hypostatical agents of mercury, sulpher, and salt are male. This distinction is essential to understanding Paracelsus’ Trinitarian ontology, because of its correlation with Christ. Just as Christ is born from a woman, so the cosmos must be born from daughters o Iliaster and their respective matrixes. Just as Christ is God, the cosmos has the Trinitarian sign by the Word in creation through the tria prima. Paracelsus is balancing his Christology in micro and macro analogy with his Trinitarian ontology. Jesus Christ is born from Mary. His birth mirrors his creation of the Cosmos as the Word. The Cosmos mirrors Christ’s birth, because the four elements are the mothers to which tria prima create all things in their respective matrixes.  

Paracelsus’ view of four elements is radically different from Empedocles’ and the other Greek natural philosophers. On the Greek view, each element consists of primary and secondary quality: 1) fire’s primary quality is hot, and its secondary quality is dry; 2) air’s primary is wet, and its secondary is hot; 3) water’s primary is cold and its secondary wet; 4) earth’s primary is dry and its secondary is cold. Paracelsus does not organize any of the four elements under primary or secondary qualities. “You can understand it: earth is cold and dry, cold and moist, warm and dry, warm and moist” (Paracelsus, 202). The elements are matrixes, which produce all things of the celestial and terrestrial worlds, and are not restricted to Empedocles’ division of opposite primary and secondary qualities.

 “Water is humid, sensible, tangible, but not corporeally, not materially” (Paracelsus, 203). Water’s qualities contain contraries to another inside the same matrix, insofar as “humid, sensible, and tangible” are opposed to “incorporeally and immaterial.” Water is matrix of minerals, particularly metal. Paracelsus is an alchemist, who needs the flexibility of opposition in such a matrix in order to make transformation possible. You see this metal as this a set of “sensible and tangible” qualities. Metal, on the other hand, belongs to matrix of water, which can transform one metal into another. This transformation is immaterial and incorporeal, because you changed the corporeal and material nature of the metal. “The fire is a firmament, and is the element of fire, though it can be in one place warm, in another cold” (Paracelsus, 203).

Paracelsus’ matrix of fire is clearly Biblical inspired, because the firmament is created by God to separate the water above (rain) the earth and the water below the earth. Firmament is the sky as a solid dome. If fire is firmament, then fire can be cold above and warm below, or vice versa. Bosh’s outside panels of Earthy Delights depict the firmament of the earth, or Paracelsus’ element of fire. “The air is a heaven, which comprises all things, and is moist, warm, cold, or dry” (Paracelsus, 203). The element of air is the matrix of heaven of celestial entities. Since celestial entities influence all things terrestrial entities, they can have all the qualities of terrestrial entities.

Iliaster has created four female wombs out nothing and has transformed them into the four distinct elements: "air, which is heaven embracing all things; fire, which is, a firmament producing night and day, cold and heat; earth, which affords fruits of all kinds and a solid foundation of our feet; and water from whence are given all minerals and half the means of nutrition”(Paracelsus, 203). These four elemental matrixes are fertilized in the production of their respective creation of things by the tria prima. Mercury, for example, is the dominate hypostatical agent in the production of minerals in the elemental matrix of water.  These elemental matrixes provide two types of nourishment: air and fire provide spiritual and invisibly nourishment; while earth and water provide material and corporeal nourishment. Fire or firmament is contained in air, which means sphere of the earth is contain in Cosmos; while water is contained in earth. “Air and fire hold water; while these two hold air and fire” (Paracelsus, 203).

Paracelsus’ obscure remark about the elemental matrixes only makes sense as long as the assumption ‘that which is above is also below is maintained,’ because air and fire are above and earth and water are below, but both can found inside of each other. Accordingly, these elemental matrixes form a circle, where one mutual nourishes the other. Air and fire nourish the earth and water with spiritual and incorporeal qualities, while earth and water nourish air and fire. Celestial entities (air) nourish metals with spiritual qualities in the elemental matrix of water contained in the elemental matrix of earth; while water nourishes fire with rain. 

Originally, God had one substance, and left Iliaster to develop the four elemental matrixes; God used the quintessence to develop three hypostatical agents’ mercury, salt, and sulpher, so these three agents could from a body or ousia. “Of these three are composed all thing things which are produced in the four elements” (Paracelsus, 204). These hypostatical agents have the force and power to create all things (ousia) in the elemental matrixes, but they are visible. They lie hidden in “the mineral, day, night, heat, cold, stone, the fruit and everything else, even while not formed” (Paracelsus, 204). Not only is tria prima invisible and essential to ousia, but tria prima is also all potentiality of ousia.

A piece of wood has contained in itself the potentiality of being something else, because of the tria prima. This piece of wood can be transformed by the tria prima to be stone, animal, or a fruit. Paracelsus’ creation story moves in succession: “first the air was arranged, afterwards the fire, then the earth and lastly the water” (Paracelsus, 205). The elemental matrixes move forward due to the interaction of tria prima; in the following manners. With the force and power of tria prima, air produced “chaos, the throne, the chain, the foundation” (Paracelsus, 205). From fire, the tria prima produced “night and day, the sun and the moon” (Paracelsus, 205). Paracelsus is not clear. The elemental matrix of fire is meant to be firmament, which separates the earth from the cosmos; but he includes the moon and sun is in this elemental matrix, which should be inside of air because the moon and sun are celestial entities. “From earth, trees, herbs, grasses and fruit [are produced]. From the water, the minerals and stones [are produced” (Paracelsus, 205). Iliaster linked air and fire as one, earth and water as one.

Interestingly, Paracelsus’ view is a cabalist cosmology. You have four female elemental matrixes and three hypostatical agents which create everything in their respective elemental matrix. Add four to three, and you derive seven. Just as Genesis says that God created the world in seven days, Paracelsus organizes the cosmos with seven parts. This is not a coincidence, but very deliberate. “So there are four elements, but only three primary ones; three in the air, three in fire, three in earth, and three in water” (Paracelsus, 206). One elemental matrix can be transformed into another by the power of tria prima. “If wood is burnt, it passes into smoke. So this passes into air, remains in its air to the end of its elements, and becomes Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt, which are substantially consumed and turned into air” (Paracelsus, 209). So the female part of the cosmos (the four elemental matrixes) is transformable, such as Mary; while the invisible Trinity is permanent, all powerful, and determines everything in the elemental matrix (God, Christ, and Holy Spirit). 

Paracelsus is using the division between female (changeable) and male (unchangeable) to create a cosmos that can constantly destroy its ousia, and transform ousia into a new ousia, because he has a triad outside of ousia (tria prima). Analogously, the womb of Mary is transformed by the Holy Spirit to contain Christ. Like the four elemental matrixes, the womb of Mary can be transformed by the Trinity as well as any other ousia can be transformed by the tria prima. God creates and destroys the cosmos eternally in the four elemental matrixes through tria prima. Accordingly, the birth of Christ points to the greatest secret of nature. Just as Jesus Christ is born from the changeable womb of Mary, the cosmos is born from four changeable elemental matrixes in the great Iliaster. Just as the Trinity makes Jesus Christ’s birth possible from the womb of Mary, so the tria prima makes the birth and rebirth of cosmos from four elemental matrixes possible.

In conclusion, Paracelsus' organic Nature is a marvel, which is internally related by the Trinity and tria prima language game. Although Descartes' mechanical language game is more useful in explaining nature, he will never have the unity of Paracelsus' alchemist language game. Agrippa and Franck's language games are not as unique or as complete as Paracelsus'. The fly may be in the bottle, but what an interesting bottle; or, more radically, the bottle may have been nothing more than Descartes' effort to alienate man from nature, so to form his mechanical language game. Modern philosophers are wise to stay away from Paracelsus, because he is as much of an enigma as Bruno. While Paracelsus uses the Trinity to form his vision of nature, Bruno will reduce God to nature itself.