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detriment to the authority Waite holds in modern academia, perhaps this resource inadequacy is a silent reminder of
the overall obscurity and mystery that permeates the scholarship of Paracelsus. It is acknowledged by many scholars
that the research and scholarship on Paracelsus is of far less quality than it needs be, and one of the major issues is
the broken chain of historical references  that is, the lack of records showing the translations and publications of his
treatises through history  on which modern scholars must rely in order to justify their source materials and research.
But in accepting the historical obscurity of Paracelsus, and the study of Paracelsianism, as an unavoidable facet of
this thesis, I do take a certain level of confidence in Waite s promise to  render faithfully the treatises of
Paracelsus. This is because, as Cunningham notes, Waite s reputation as a thorough and methodical translator
extended far beyond his works on Paracelsus or alchemy in general. A prolific author on a broad range of topics
not unlike Paracelsus  Waite gained renown in the esoteric circles of England for his capability and dependency as
a scholar in many forms. It is for this reason that I chose to use Waite s edition of translations of Paracelsus
treatises on alchemy, and my hope is that the quality itself of his translations will merit the acceptance, and
approval, of this source despite its technical inefficiency to claim full authority in terms of historical source material.
33
Andrew Cunningham comments that this edition of collected works, although now over one
hundred years old, remains to this day the largest source of Paracelsian works available in
English (it was reprinted in the 1960 s). 61 As one of the most available resource on Paracelsus
primary texts on alchemy, I hope is to look critically at Waite s translations in an effort to see the
different dimensions of the complex, and highly esoteric, alchemical writings of Paracelsus.
Entitled The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus, Waite s edition is a two-volume
set, each 400 pages, which contain a great number of Paracelsus chemical, hermetic, and
alchemical recipes and discourses. It is from this edition that I studied the primary sources of
Paracelsus treatises: The Aurora of the Philosophers, The Coelum Philosophorum, The Book
Concerning the Tincture of the Philosophers, The Treasure of Treasures for Alchemists, The
Manual or Treatise Concerning the Medicinal Philosophical Stone, and The Archidoxies of
Theophrastus Paracelsus. As mentioned before, Waite wrote and translated extensively on
various topics in the field occultism, and therefore his compilation and translation of Paracelsus
works have been thought by some to be tainted with the spiritualistic and mystical tendencies of
nineteenth century British occultism. But there remains the fact that Paracelsus himself used a
highly esoteric vocabulary  indeed, much of his work was centered on such  occult secrets 
and thus perhaps it is unjustified to assume that Waite s own mystical bent should be an
opposition to the expression of Paracelsus own ideas. Finally, Waite s edition of Paracelsus
works is appropriate, at least in this context, because it is well aligned with the thread of this
thesis; namely the alchemical trend of Paracelsus philosophy and practice as opposed to the
historiographical accuracy of discovering the real,  bald Paracelsus.
61
Cunningham, Paracelsus Fat and Thin, 63
34
Following in the footsteps of the historian of sciences Karl Sudhoff, both Walter
Pagel and more recently the historian of medicine Allen G. Debus represent the clearest voices
on the scientific and historical scholarship of the works of Paracelsus. Representing the interest
in the emergence of Renaissance science and medicine, Walter Pagel - whose books Paracelsus:
An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance and The Smiling
Spleen, Paracelsianism in Storm and Stress I turned to for this paper remains a leading
authority on the history and development of chemistry, medicine, and pharmacology in the
medieval ages. Likewise Allen Debus  with his Chemical Philosophy: Paracelsian Science and
Medicine in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries  appears, at least in his preface, to be
somewhat of a disciple of Pagels ; for he also attempts to view Paracelsus more in terms of his
empiric experimentalism than his speculative philosophy. Finally, I turn to the historian of the
Reformation Andrew Weeks, historian of chemistry John Maxson Stillman, and Paracelsian
scholar Henry Pachter, among others, for additional views on Paracelsus practical and chemical
alchemy. Overall, these scholars represent the scientific and historical construal of Paracelsus
alchemy, and their opinions in many ways echo the centuries-old trend of interpreting his
importance through the impact of his chemical and medical contributions.
Finally, there remains the spiritual, psychological, and theological dimensions to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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