Meet Paracelsus, the Based Alchemist & Populist Physician
The genius known as Paracelsus. Art by Tanzanian Wojak
Who was Paracelsus? What is the significance of his name? And why was he based? These are all questions that may have just entered your mind. While the names of some internet anons often reference obscure historical figures, we couldn’t help but notice two dissident scholars—one an archeologist and the other a practicing doctor—both using the name “Paracelsus” in their Twitter handles. Turns out, the real Paracelsus (1493-1541) was a European medieval alchemist and physician known as the father of toxicology and chemotherapy. We reached out to Stone Age Herbalist (@Paracelsus1092) and Doc Paracelsus (@ParacelsusDoc) to ask about the life and times of this medical pioneer and iconoclast, what we can learn from him today, and what made him so based.
Stone Age Herbalist, why did you choose Paracelsus for your Twitter handle?
Stone Age Herbalist: I have a soft spot for strange and eccentric polymaths who seem driven by some internal quest to create order from the chaos of the universe. Paracelsus was one of those guys. Even in an age which barely respected academic boundaries and specializations, he mastered so many professions (medicine, alchemy, botany, astrology) and drew them together through his own intellectual power. That kind of energy and vitality is sorely lacking in modern research, as is his emphasis on real skill and experience, travel, and becoming familiar with the practical and the pragmatic.
Doc Paracelsus, why did you choose the writing pseudonym Paracelsus?
Doc Paracelsus: During my years of clinical practice and especially during COVID-19, the more I learned about the real Paracelsus, the more he became a hero. He rejected the medical and academic establishment of his medieval times (there was an establishment even back then). I remember going to medical school and thinking, “This is it? You mean I just memorize everything you say, regurgitate it, and I become a doctor?” It turns out Paracelsus felt the same way. After apprenticing with his father, a physician, and then with metallurgists, he bounced around different universities in Basel, Tübingen, Wittenberg, Leipzig, Heidelberg, and Cologne. He stormed out of each because, in his words, “the high colleges manage to produce so many high asses.”
So Doc, in other words, the medical establishment is elitist and snobby?
Doc Paracelsus: That, and it doesn’t teach you actual medicine. Corporate Medicine today teaches doctors to be reactive and treat disease with pills and/or surgery. Medicine should be about preventing disease and getting healthier. Although Paracelsus did eventually get a medical degree from a university, he always believed that medicine was a trade that required apprenticeships. He roamed around Europe seeking out gypsies, medicine men, and old wives, because “The universities do not teach all things…a doctor must be a traveler. Knowledge is experience.”
“Death is the midwife of very great things....it brings about the birth and rebirth of forms a thousand times improved. This is the highest mystery of God.”
Would Paracelsus be all over frog Twitter?
Stone Age Herbalist: Perhaps. He would certainly have had an obscure blog, with no fancy graphics but just daily streams of ideas and thoughts which over time would attract the sort of frog one finds on Twitter. He was too unorthodox for Reddit certainly. His contempt for formal knowledge, high theory, received academic wisdom, and even basic manners at times would have drawn many modern followers. Were he to have been on Twitter, you'd probably find him attacking every standard medical account in their replies.
Doc Paracelsus: Frog Twitter yes, but all types of naturalist and homeopathic accounts too. He was obsessed with metals and their healing powers, though he was not one of those medieval sorcerers trying to turn everything into gold. He is known as the father of chemotherapy because he treated cancers with metals. He recognized that goiter was an iodine problem, not an evil humor. Importantly, he was a champion of letting nature be in charge. A common medieval practice was to tightly wrap up wounds, preventing pus and bacteria from draining. Paracelsus let wounds drain with great success and declared, “If you prevent infection, nature will heal all wounds itself.” His self-confidence and wit would’ve made for some great Tweets. In fact, his name might’ve been the original “poast.” His real name was Philippus Theophrastus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim (quite the mouthful). His adopted name of Paracelsus was an amalgamation of “Para,” meaning “beyond,” and “Celsus,” referring to a famous Roman physician.
Stone, you say Paracelsus was a based alchemist, how so?
Stone Age Herbalist: To be effective in the long run, one must be on the side of truth, no matter how cold or harsh it may be. Paracelsus was always concerned with the practical efficacy of his ideas and experiments, in a way that perhaps a more philosophical or ivory tower alchemist may not have been. He also subscribed to theories that are seen as heretical today, such as the truth of physiognomy. The existence of a macrocosm and microcosm, “as above so below,” meant that he accepted heuristics like: "The shape of a man is formed in accordance with the manner of his heart.”
Were Paracelsus alive, he would certainly be considered a based eccentric: translating arcane texts, reading and practicing occult arts, writing medical manuals outside of the bounds of academia. His research into the weird and wonderful is credited with founding ideas and disciplines of their own, such as chemotherapy and toxicology. He tested compounds and remedies on himself and others in a way that only biohackers and bodybuilders would recognize in the present and, despite his populist sentiments, he also retained a deep love for all things esoteric, provided they could prove themselves useful to him.
“It is possible that my spirit, without the help of my body, and through an ardent will alone, can stab and wound others. It is also possible that I can bring the spirit of my adversary into an image and then fold him up or lame him at my pleasure.”
Diagnosis: Based.
Doc, you say Paracelsus was a populist physician, why?
Doc Paracelsus: He was truly the people’s doctor. Although his father was the illegitimate son of a noble, his mother was a serf, so he grew up poor and was treated as a “semi-serf.” That shaped his rejection of the elite world he eventually was exposed to. One of my favorite Paracelsus quotes is, “Nature has not made me subtle, nor have I been raised on figs and white bread, but rather on cheese, milk, and oat bread, and therefore I may well be uncivil to the hyperclean and the superfine; for those who were brought up in soft clothes, and we, who were brought up among fir-cones, do not understand each other well.”
Paracelsus lived an adventurous life. He was a true independent thinker and rejected the establishment. He didn’t desire to have great wealth, fame, or comfort; he just wanted people to get better. After he became famous, he was given an appointment at the University of Basel. That lasted a total of six months because he refused to play nice. He lectured in German, not Latin, so the common folk could listen and learn how to heal themselves. Not surprisingly, his colleagues derided his teachings as “peasant wisdom.” He fought back by publicly burning the standard medical textbooks of the day and resigned. Paracelsus would probably tell us to print out all the different CDC, NIH, and FDA guidance from the past two years and burn them.
What would Paracelsus say about COVID-19 today?
Doc Paracelsus: He was very blackpilled about the medieval medical establishment, perhaps from his experiences during the Black Plague. He would say that what happened with COVID-19 was entirely predictable, in terms of the inept response. In fact, Paracelsus is quoted as saying, “If disease put us to the test, all our splendor, title, ring, and name will be as much help as a horse’s tail.” And that’s 100% true. Anthony Fauci from the NIH and Rochelle Walensky from the CDC have titles, accolades, and honors, but have done nothing but harm.
Paracelsus would also reject our modern concept of safety and our government’s current zero-risk tolerance policies. He is known as the father of toxicology for his philosophy of “the dose makes the poison.” For example, in a Northern Italian village, he gave plague patients bread containing a tiny amount of the patient’s own feces. While certainly gross, the feces likely contained beneficial gut bacteria and/or antibodies to the plague, and nearly the whole town was cured. That story made Paracelsus famous across Europe. In medicine, as in life, you cannot have great reward without risk.
Would Paracelsus have a whitepill to offer, perhaps hidden in a loaf of bread?
Stone Age Herbalist: Paracelsus lived between science and magic, neither accepting fully nor rejecting either premise. His life should leave us with this intoxicating feeling that the world is not yet tamed, not yet mastered, not yet dead or sterile. On the contrary, nature is deeply magical and deeply material in a way that we moderns struggle to understand. Paracelsus' adventures should inspire us to that roaming life of freedom: freedom of the mind and intellect, freedom from the domesticated muck of progress. So read—let his alchemy feed you whitepill after whitepill and believe that we can build something so much better than this.
Doc Paracelsus: Like many of his day, Paracelsus was deeply religious. But rather than blind faith, he believed acquiring wisdom was a gift from God. He said that evil can be understood and fought with knowledge and experience: “Human beings needed to know what the Devil knew.” He believed in the healing powers of alpine mineral springs. Perhaps wandering around the Alps was what inspired him to teach that science was the search for divinity among us. The whitepill I’d take from Paracelsus is that we should stay open and creative, and forge our own path separate from the establishment and the elites—better yet if it’s while roaming around beautiful alpine springs.
Stone Age Herbalist is a UK-based archaeologist and researcher. Follow him on Twitter.
Doc Paracelsus is a US-based physician. Follow him on Twitter.
