Paracelsus: An Alchemical Life

Throughout his controversial life, the alchemist, physician, and social-religious radical known as Paracelsus combined traditions that were magical and empirical, scholarly and folk, learned and artisanal. He read ancient texts and then burned “the best” of them. He endorsed both Catholic and Reformation beliefs, but he also believed devoutly in a female deity. He traveled constantly, learning and teaching a new form of medicine based on the experience of miners, bathers, alchemists, midwiv...