Helmont might dream himself a bubble

Its only in recent times that a clearer assessment of the Belgian chemist and scientist, physician and alchemystical philosopher Jan Baptist van Helmont (1579-1644) in science and medicine has been made. Likewise, its only recently that the influence of J.B.van Helmont on the English physician-philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) has been recognised. 

Just as historians only slowly acknowledged the seminal influence which the Swiss alchemist-physician Paracelsus (1493-1541) exerted upon the development of medicine during the Renaissance, so too, J. B. van Helmont has long occupied an ambiguous place in intellectual history.

J.B. van Helmont's writings are couched in the language of Renaissance mysticism and his belief in alchemy and magic is in tandem to his rational, scientific enquiries. This has resulted in an unsympathetic attitude towards him by historians of science and his writings labelled as an 'un-scientific' miscellany of medicine, philosophy and alchemy. One leading historian of medicine somewhat resignedly calling him an enigmatic figure.[1]

Quite simply the enigma of J.B. van Helmont rests in the paradox to modern sensibilities of his being defined in near equal measure as much a scientist and physician as religious mystic and 'alchemystical' philosopher. All these compartmentalized definitions did not of course exist in J.B. Helmont's time; himself possessing an entirely holistic and unified view of science, religion, medicine and philosophy.

Throughout his life J.B. van Helmont endured much misfortune. In his youth he gallantly picked up a glove which a lady had dropped only to be infected by scabies from it. He consulted the writings of the famous physician Galen for a remedy but found it ineffective and a sulphur ointment prescription by Paracelsus  successful. He subsequently vowed to reject Galenic medicine and follow Paracelsus instead. J.B.van Helmont toured Europe, including London and worked in Antwerp during a plague epidemic in 1605. He graduated as Doctor of Medicine of the University of Louvain in 1599 but he was later denounced by his Alma Mater in 1623 as a heretic through the Spanish authorities occupying Flanders. His unorthodox views resulted in his arrest, trial and imprisonment in 1634 followed by house-arrest for the rest of his life. He almost died from Carbon monoxide poisoning in 1643 and contracted pleurisy in 1644. His good fortune however was to marry an heiress whose wealth enabled him to abandon his onerous medical duties and engage in scientific research for several years.

In essence, J.B. van Helmont is a transitional figure in the history of science. Like many other early scientists including Browne, he regarded all science and wisdom to be a gift from God.  J.B. Helmont was also highly influenced by the so-called 'Luther of Medicine' in his scientific thought and experiments. It was the Swiss alchemist-physician Paracelsus who proposed that the true purpose of alchemy was to investigate the properties of nature, advocating the 'art of fire' to distil 'quintessences' of mineral and vegetable-life in order to discover new medicines. J.B. Helmont has been defined as the foremost follower of Paracelsus, who, whilst highly critical of Paracelsian mysticism nevertheless subscribed to what the Swiss physician termed his 'Spagyric' medicine, the rudimentary beginnings of  iatrochemistry or medical chemistry no less, and as such J.B. van Helmont is credited, alongside the English scientist Robert Boyle (1627-91) as a 'Father of modern chemistry'.

Upon J.B. van Helmont's death in 1644 his son Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont (1614-98/99) randomly collated and edited his father's writings for the publication of Ortus Medicinae, or the 'Dawn of Medicine' in Amsterdam in 1648. An English translation by John Chandler entitled Oriatrike was published in London in 1662. 

In his brilliant and scholarly biographical study of Thomas Browne, the American academic Reid Barbour notes Browne is especially keen to include J.B.van Helmont's research on magnetism in the forthcoming second edition of his Pseudodoxia Epidemica in 1650. [2]  Other recent publications on Browne singularly fail to even mention J.B. van Helmont yet alone elaborate on his influence on Browne. However, scattered throughout his writings are several references to J.B. van Helmont which strongly suggest that the Norwich-based scientist and physician Thomas Browne held the Belgian scientist and physician  in high regard. It shouldn't be too surprising to discover that Browne took the medical ideas of J.B. van Helmont seriously. Circa 1629 he had completed his continental studies at Leiden University in Holland, an educational institute whose reputation for chemical medicine was centred upon J.B. van Helmont's Paracelsian science.

Although none of J.B. van Helmont's writings are listed in the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of Browne's library (there's a lapse of almost 30 years from Browne's death until his library contents are auctioned. Not a single one of the books advertised on the Auction Catalogue title-page as 'Books of Sculpture and Painting' ever arrived at the auction-house) Thomas Browne surely had access to Van Helmont's writings. For example, when speculating on the formation of kidney-stones, a disease long prevalent in East Anglia due to its many chalky water-courses, Browne  praises Van Helmont, albeit in parenthesis - '(as Helmont excellently declareth)'.[3] However, like J.B. van Helmont, Browne was also prone to read the 'Book of Nature' through the prism of esoteric schemata, the most elaborate being the microcosm-macrocosm correspondence, or from long-held folk-lore, as here-

'and Helmont affirmeth he could never find the spider and the fly upon the same trees, that is the signs of war and pestilence which often go together' [4]

Because early scientists such as Paracelsus, J.B. van Helmont and Thomas Browne encountered undefinable properties and phenomena in their scientific investigations they each had a propensity for coining and introducing new words, some of which remain in modern language. The word 'alcohol' is credited as originating from Paracelsus and that of 'electricity', amongst hundreds of others, to Browne. J.B.van Helmont's most famous neologism is undoubtedly the word 'gas' derived from the ancient Greek word for chaos. In fact, Van Helmont investigated and categorized a number of gases, including gas from belching, poisonous red gas (NO2) which is formed when aqua fortis (HNO3) acts on silver and sulfurous gas that “flies off” burning sulfur, amongst others. J.B. van Helmont proposed that gas is composed of invisible atoms which can come together by intense cold and condense to minute liquid drops; and that gases can be contained in bodies in fixed form, and set free again by heat, fermentation, or chemical reaction. In relation to combustion, he concluded there were two classes of gas which he named as Gas sylvestre – one that would not burn or support combustion (Carbon Monoxide) and Gas pingue – one that would burn (a combustible gas).

The most well-known of J.B. van Helmont's experiments involved his demonstration that water is the foremost element sustaining life.  He wrote of his famous experiment with a willow tree circa 1620, thus-

"That all plants immediately and substantially stem from the element water alone I have learned from the following experiment. I took an earthen vessel in which I placed two hundred pounds of earth dried in an oven, and watered with rain water. I planted in it a willow tree weighing five pounds. Five years later it had developed a tree weighing one hundred and sixty-nine pounds and about three ounces. Nothing but rain (or distilled water) had been added. The large vessel was placed in earth and covered by an iron lid with a tin-surface that was pierced with many holes. I have not weighed the leaves that came off in the four autumn seasons. Finally I dried the earth in the vessel again and found the same two hundred pounds of it diminished by about two ounces. Hence one hundred and sixty-four pounds of wood, bark and roots had come up from water alone".

Helmont's famous experiment was known to Thomas Browne. He alludes to it when speculating on water's ability to generate growth in The Garden of Cyrus-

'How water it self is able to maintain the growth of Vegetables, and without extinction of their generative or medical vertues; Beside the experiment of Helmont's tree, we have found in some which have lived six years in glasses'.

J.B van Helmont is only one of three 'moderns' who make the cut as worthy of mention in The Garden of Cyrus, the other two 'moderns' who also held in equal measure a rational and mystical view of science named in the discourse are the Swiss alchemist-physician Paracelsus (1493-1541) and the Italian esoteric scholar and polymath Giambattista Della Porta (1535-1615).

It was from Paracelsus that J.B. van Helmont evolved his own idea of an 'Archeus' or 'Master Workman' responsible for giving life and form to the human body. In Ortus Medicinae he situated the “archeus” in the upper opening of the stomach. All diseases according to J.B. van Helmont have their seat in the Archeus and every disease, he believed, had a vital principle of it own (archeus) which could be treated by a specific medical-spiritual response. Disease, J.B. van Helmont believed, could be overcome by  pacifying the disturbed Archeus. Medicines, in particular, minerals, targeted the disease and helped the host overcome its archeus. According to J.B. van Helmont-

'A Disease therefore is a certain Being, bred, after that a certain hurtful strange power hath violated the vital Beginning...and by piercing hath stirred up the Archeus unto Indignation, Fury and Fear'.[5]

'Fever is the effort of the chief Archeus to get rid of some irritant, just as local inflammation is the reaction of the local Archeus to some injury'.[6]

J.B.Helmont's contemporary, the Paracelsian physician and alchemist Martin Ruland the Younger (1569-1611) attempts to define the nebulous  term 'Archeus' in his Lexicon alchemiae (1612) thus-

ARCHEUS - is a most high, exalted, and invisible spirit, which is separated from bodies, is exalted, and ascends; it is the occult virtue of Nature, universal in all things, the artificer, the healer. Also Archiatros - supreme physician of Nature, who to every substance and member dispenses in an occult manner, by means of the air, its own individual Archeus. Also the primal Archeus in Nature is a most secret virtue producing all things out of Master, doubtless certainly supported by divine virtue. Or, Archeos is an errant, invisible species, the power and virtue of Nature's healing, the artist and healer of Nature, separating itself from bodies, and ascending from them. Archeus signifies, in addition, the power which reduces the One Substance from Iliaster, and is the dispenser and composer of all things. It individualizes in all things, including human nature.[7]

The medical ideas of J.B.van Helmont are linked to those of Thomas Browne in an astounding observation by the psychologist C.G. Jung (1875-1961).  Writing on the Belgian alchemist Gerard Dorn, Jung unites the Paracelsian/ Helmontian concept of the Archeus with Thomas Browne's medical image of an 'invisible sun'  which blazes at the apotheosis of  Urn-Burial  ('Life is a pure flame and we live by an invisible sun within us'.) C.G.Jung links Gerard Dorn, the foremost promoter of Paracelsian/Helmontian medicine to Thomas Browne's 'invisible sun' (an image Browne 'borrowed from his reading of Dorn) when stating-

In Dorn's view there is in man an 'invisible sun', which he identifies with the Archeus. This sun is identical with the 'sun in the earth'. The invisible sun enkindles an elemental fire which consumes man's substance and reduces his body to the prima materia.  [8]

As a child J.B. Helmont experienced apocalyptic visions in the cloisters of the Capuchins at Louvain. Devout and pious throughout his life, he was deeply  inspired by Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471) and his Imitation of Christ which urges the penitent to self-knowledge and a denial of the self for Christ.

The psychological element is ever-present in spiritual affairs, and in conjunction with his physiological studies J.B. van Helmont took the workings of the human psyche seriously. Indeed, J.B. Helmont may be credited as an Ur-psychologist, that is, any one of a number of well-educated and isolated individuals, often from the professions of physician or priest, scattered throughout Europe circa 1500-1700 who recognised a correct understanding and interpretation of one's personal dreams to be no small contributing factor towards self-awareness and individuation. To the present-day this spiritual-psychological dimension  remains of paramount importance, in particular,  not only for individual understanding of the self but equally, for the very future of humanity's existence. 'Alchemystical' physician-philosophers such as Paracelsus, J.B. van Helmont and Thomas Browne each engaged in the arduous yet rewarding task of self-realization, J.B. van Helmont declaring-

'Our soul's understanding  of itself, does after a sort, understand all other things, because all other things are in an intellectual manner in the Soul, as in the image of God. Wherefore indeed, the understanding of ourselves, is most exceedingly difficult, ultimate or remote, excellent, profitable, beyond all other things'.[9]

J.B. Helmont was aware of the numinous nature of dreams. In the Judaic Pentateuch, the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, dreams are sanctioned as conduits of revelation from God. The story in the book of Genesis of Joseph and his ability to interpret Pharaoh's dreams was seen as endorsement of divine dreams and the art of interpretation. Using theological symbolism J.B. van Helmont seems to anticipate, along with other Renaissance-era alchemystical philosophers and Ur-psychologists, the existence of the unconscious psyche and its relationship to God when stating-

'In sleep, the whole knowledge of the Apple (i.e. that which obscures the magical powers of pristine man ) doth sometimes sleep: Hence also it is, that our dreams are sometimes Prophetical, and God himself is therefore the nearer unto Man in Dreams, through that effect'. [10]

In his writings J.B.van Helmont recollects a dream which determined his choice to become a physician.  In this dream he saw himself as an empty bubble whose diameter reached from the earth to the heavens. Above the bubble hung a tomb, while below it was the dark abyss, a vision that horrified the young van Helmont. Upon waking he interpreted his dream and of being transformed into a giant bubble as representing his own boastful, vacuous self and a god-given sign that he must pursue the vocation of physician.

Thomas Browne was fascinated by dreams and was able to lucid dream, that is, able to orchestrate the events and action of a dream whilst in a state of dreaming, as he confesses in Religio Medici-

'Yet in one dream I can compose a whole comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof. Were my memory as faithful as my reason is fruitful I would chose never to study but in my dreams". [11]

Browne even wrote a short tract On Dreams in which he speculates upon 'symbolical adaptation' in dream interpretation thus-

'Many dreams are made out by sagacious exposition and from the signature of their subjects; carrying their interpretation in their fundamental sense and mystery of  similitude, whereby he that understands upon what natural fundamental every notional dependeth, may by symbolical adaption hold a ready way to read the characters of Morpheus'.

In his tract On Dreams Browne supplies his reader with examples of how dimensions can be greatly exaggerated in dreams,  humorously exclaiming-

'Helmont might dream himself a bubble extending unto the eighth sphere'.

A statement which indicates Browne was familiar with J.B. Helmont's accounts of his mystical experiences as well as his medical and scientific thoughts. Browne himself took an interest in bubbles as seen in his short writing On Bubbles in which he proposes-

'Even man is a bubble if we take his consideration in his rudiments, and consider the vesicular or bulla pulsans wherein begins the rudiment of life.

Ever the subtle thinker, perhaps the strongest evidence of Thomas Browne's interest in J.B. Helmont's science occurs in correspondence to his travel-loving eldest son Edward Browne (1644-1708). Discreetly fishing for an answer Thomas Browne enquires-

'What esteem they have of Van Helmont, in Brabant, his home country ? [12]

In the same letter Thomas Browne also remarks-

'When you were at Amsterdam, I wished you had enquired after Dr.Helvetius who writ Vitulus aureus, and saw projection made, and had pieces of gold to show of it.' [13]

J.B. van Helmont himself believed in the existence of  Philosopher's Stone and  claimed he was once given it by a stranger writing- 'It was of a colour such as is saffron in it powder yet weighty and shining like unto powdered glass. ....He who first gave the the gold-making powder had likewise also at least as much of it as might be sufficient to change two hundred thousand pounds of gold. For he gave me perhaps half a grain of that powder, and nine ounces and three quarters of quicksilver were thereby transchanged. [14]

Late in his life Browne articulated his critical opinion and estimate of J.B. van Helmont and Paracelsus in his advisory and moralistic Christian Morals  -

'many would be content that some would write like Helmont or Paracelsus; and be willing to endure the monstrosity of some opinions, for divers singular notions requiting such aberrations'. [15]

In other words, in Thomas Browne's view, the many original ideas which authors such as Helmont and Paracelsus express excuse them from 'monstrous opinions'  which can be found elsewhere in their writings.

There remains one last remarkable connection between J.B. van Helmont and Thomas Browne, seldom, if ever noted before now. It exists in the form of the German translator, scholar of Hebrew and the kabbalah, Christian Knorr von Rosenroth (1636-1689). At the request of the kabbalist and wandering hermit Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont (1614-98/99) who had, together with Henry More of the Cambridge Platonists annotated Knorr von Rosenroth's translations of kabbalistic texts, Knorr von Rosenroth, in return for Franciscus van Helmont's favour, helped him translate, edit and publish into Latin his father J.B. van Helmont's writings.

Christian Knorr von Rosenroth (1636-89)

In his relatively short life Christian Knorr von Rosenroth somehow found time to also translate Thomas Browne's vast-ranging work of scientific journalism, Pseudodoxia Epidemica  totalling over 200,000 words into German, completing this task in 1680 for publication in Frankfurt and Leipzig. Its therefore quite possible that discussion of Thomas Browne's scientific writings could have occurred between Knorr von Rosenroth and J.B. Helmont's eldest son, Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont. A large field is yet to be explored in this matter.

In any event Christian Knorr von Rosenroth surely recognised  J.B. van Helmont and Thomas Browne  as sharing values in Paracelsian medicine and scientific thought. Indeed, the Belgian scientist, physician and Christian mystic J.B. Helmont may even lay claim to being  along with Francis Bacon, one of the foremost scientific influences upon the physician-philosopher Thomas Browne. 

Notes

[1] Roy Porter 'The Greatest benefit to Mankind': A medical history of humanity from antiquity to the present. pub. Harper Collins 1999 describes Helmont as enigmatic.
[2] Reid Barbour - Sir Thomas Browne A Life
pub. Oxford University Press 2013
[3] Pseudodoxia Epidemica Book 2 chapter 4
[4] P.E. Bk. 2 chapter 7
[5] Johannes Baptista van Helmont- Alchemist, physician and philosopher by H. Stanley Redgrove  pub. William Rider and son London 1922
[6] Ibid.
[7] Martin Ruland's Dictionary of alchemy is listed in the 1711 sales auction catalogue as once in Browne's library page 22. no 119
[8] Collected Works of C.G.Jung Volume 14:49
[9] Redgrove 1922
[10] Ibid.
[11] Religio Medici Part 2 Section 11
[12] Correspondence dated September 22nd 1668 to Edward Browne
[13] Ibid.
[14] The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science pub. Heinemann 2006 by Philip Ball
[15] Christian Morals Part 2 Section 5

Not consulted

The standard, comprehensive of J.B.Helmont, prohibitively priced is-
* Joan Baptista Van Helmont: Reformer of Science and Medicine (Cambridge Studies in the History of Medicine) Walter Pagel pib.Cambridge University Press 1982

But possibly the most modern interpretation of  J.B. van Helmont yet is-
* An Alchemical Quest for Universal Knowledge: The 'Christian Philosophy' of Jan Baptist Van Helmont  (Studies in Intellectual History, 1550-1700)  Routledge 2016 by Georgiana D. Hedesan
See also -

*    Paracelsus and Sir Thomas Browne
*   Paracelsus and the interpretation of dreams
*   Thomas Browne and the Kabbalah

Elective Affinities : Johann Goethe and Thomas Browne

Today on the 270th anniversary of the birth of  Johann Goethe (August 28th 1749-1832) its exciting to reveal and elaborate upon the fascinating relationship between the brightest star of German literature to the English physician-philosopher Thomas Browne (1605-82). 

Goethe and Browne were  both polymaths who shared a lifelong interest in topics as diverse as botany, anatomy, optics and antiquity. They also held a shared interest in esoteric topics such as Neoplatonism, Pythagorean numerology and alchemy; subjects vital to their scientific thinking and which influenced their literary symbolism.

Goethe and Browne's affinity in anatomical and botanical studies is remarkably close; for example, whilst Browne acquired the skeletal leg-bone of an elephant for his anatomy studies, Goethe somehow acquired an elephant's skull for study; whilst Browne's botanical studies included sea-holly, a plant found on Norfolk’s coastal sand-dunes, Goethe made botanical observations on sea-holly found on the sand-dunes of the Venice lido.

In his botanical studies Goethe  developed the theory that the characteristics from which all plants grow are variations which are modelled upon a prototype plant or Urpflanze. His theory that Nature follows a pre-ordained pattern, or  'inner form' is in accordance with the popular early nineteenth century German school of Naturphilosophie.Writing in terms comparable to Goethe's Urpflanze or 'Prototype plant' of German Naturphilosophie Browne  in Religio Medici proposed that nature has an invisible, prototype 'inner form' thus-

'In the seed of a Plant to the eyes of God, and to the understanding of man, there exists, though in an invisible way, the perfect leaves, flowers, and fruit thereof'.  [1]

German Naturphilosophie adhered to the Renaissance belief that Creation consists of a hierarchical ladder, as described by Browne thus -

'First we are a rude mass,........next we live the life of plants, the life of animals, the life of men, and at last the life of spirits, running on in one mysterious nature those five kinds of existences, which comprehend the creatures not only of the world, but of the Universe' [2].

German Naturphilosophie based itself upon the rigid numerical system of five 'evolutionary' forms of life, from there being five senses, five planets and from the many references to the number five in the Bible.  A full century and half earlier Browne in The Garden of Cyrus (1658) celebrated  'fiveness' in  Art and Nature via the quincunx pattern. Browne's idea that Nature is permeated by the number of five may have originated either from his reading of Della Porta's Villa (1592) in which the quincunx is stated to be a universal archetype  or simply from his noticing that many flowers consist of five petals. The Garden of Cyrus includes numerous sharp-eyed observations, and names in total over 140 herbs, flowers, trees and plants. 

German Naturphilosophie held the pre-Darwinian belief that Nature possesses an 'inner form' , a belief which is central to both Goethe's and Browne's botanical studies. Goethe's theory that Nature has a fixed, pre-ordained 'Inner Form' was asserted a full century and half earlier by Browne in Religio Medici (1643).

'I hold moreover that there is a phytognomy, or physiognomy, not only of men, but of plants and vegetables; and in every one of them some outward figures which hang as signs of their inward forms. [3]

The two early scientists also shared an interest in Optics; Goethe, as is well-known, stubbornly refuted Newton's theory of Colour, and his motivation for challenging Newton's discoveries remains much discussed. His Fahrenlehre (Theory of Colours) was not received as favourably by the scientific community as its author had hoped. Browne's own study of optics resulted in strikingly original optical imagery in his literary works.

For Goethe science was a source of imaginative insight which had developed from poetry;  the hasty, breathless, fractured tone of an early draught and the published text of Browne's Garden of Cyrus strongly suggests the physician-philosopher's detection of an archetype in nature, the Quincunx pattern, may,  like Goethe's  scientific insights, have originated from a sudden, quasi-poetical, vision.

Browne's mystical insight that the Quincunx pattern embodies the mysteries of nature is not so dissimilar from Goethe's Fahrenlehre (Theory of Colours)  in which the German scientist wanders into contemplation on symbols, in particular the triangle and  the hexagon, thus-

'Colour may have a mystical allusion....The mathematician extols the value and applicability of the triangle; the triangle is revered by mystics;  much admits of being expressed in it by diagrams, and amongst other things, the law of the phenomena of colours: indeed we presently arrive at the ancient mysterious hexagon'.

But as the American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and historian of science Stephen Jay Gould (1941 - 2002) stated -

'The human mind delights in finding pattern - so much so that we often mistake coincidence or forced analogy for profound meaning'.

In the preface to his Origin of Species (1859) Charles Darwin included Goethe as one who in some way or other anticipated his own ideas. But it was also Darwin who destroyed the 'rule of five' theory of German Naturphilosophie. Before Darwin Creation theories were represented by Classical deities, notably Neptunism and Vulcanism to represent life's origins. Goethe subscribed to the view that life evolved from the element of water, as symbolised by the sea-god Neptune.  However, its the Roman god of fire Vulcan who held significance to Browne, utilizing highly-original proper-name symbolism he alludes to the Roman god in The Garden of Cyrus, in opening, second chapter and apotheosis closing chapter .

Recent scientific evidence suggests life's origins may in fact be a combination of fire and water. Fossil remains of microbes which colonised deep sea hydrothermal volcanic vents more than three billion years ago have been discovered in a region of Western Australia which was once covered by ocean.

Science for Goethe was, equally for Browne, a source of revelation which permitted the enquirer, 'to see how and where God reveals himself that is heaven on earth'. Goethe's scientific outlook has been described as peculiar for being neither inductive or deductive. As an 'intuitive' scientist, one who was suspicious of systems and mathematics in science, his scientific views, like Browne's, have been questioned.

Goethe has been described as - 'one of the last of the universal scientific minds still able to encompass the whole of nature'  and as 'a pantheistic poet wanting to create in science also'. His science has been defined as, 'Platonic ideas in the mind of a creative spirit', all of which is equally applicable to the pre-Newtonian, scientific enquiry of Thomas Browne. An accurate assessment of Goethe's science by John. R. Williams and also applicable to Browne's science, states -

'Goethe's science is an integral part of his life and work,  its flaws are those both of the man and of the age, of his personality and of the current state of knowledge'. [4]

* * * * *

However much  previously overlooked, misunderstood or denied,  both Goethe and Browne were extremely well-versed in esoteric topics such as Hermetic philosophy, Neoplatonism, the kabbalah and alchemy. This deep interest in esotericism influenced their scientific and philosophical thinking as well as their literary creativity.

Goethe first came into contact with esoteric literature while recuperating from a mystery illness during his adolescence when his doctor introduced the budding poet to the occultist circle of Fraulein von Klettenberg. Klettenberg encouraged the young poet to read the esoteric writings of Paracelsus, Boehme and Bruno. However, Goethe's interest in the occult waned once recovered, but in a letter to Klettenberg dated August 26 1770 he wrote, -'Alchemy is still my veiled love' and of her recommendation to read Agrippa the budding poet confessed - 'it set my young brains on fire for a considerable time'.

In 1786 Goethe read Christian Rosenkreutz's allegorical tale The Chymical Wedding which may well have been the inspiration for him to write his Marchen fairy-tale of 1795. Goethe's Tale of the Green Snake and the White Lily is crowded with references to various esoteric beliefs and veiled allusions to the Egyptian mysteries of Isis and Osiris, the cults of Typhon and Horus, the Vision of Zosimus, and the Gnostic Naassenes.  

Goethe found in alchemical terminology apt figures of speech which he utilized in his writings. He once stated, ‘If one deals with the poetic side of alchemy with an open mind it leads to very pleasant reflections’.

Elsewhere, in a statement allusive to the primary template of much esoteric thought, that of polarity or opposites, Goethe declared -

'To sever the conjoined, to unite the severed, that is the life of Nature; that  is the eternal drawing together and relaxing, the eternal syncrisis and diacris'. 

Goethe's allusion to Nature's forces drawing together and separating, strongly resembles the polarity of the alchemical maxim 'solve et coagula'  to dissolve and bind, a fact not unnoticed by a younger English contemporary, the poet and scholar Coleridge (1772-1834).  An enthusiastic admirer of Thomas Browne, Coleridge in 1818 speculated-

Sometimes, it seems as if the alchemists wrote like the Pythagoreans on music, imagining a metaphysical and inaudible music as the basis of the audible. It is clear that by sulphur they meant the solar rays or light, and by mercury the principle of ponderability, so that their theory was the same with that of the Heraclitic physics, or the modern German Naturphilosophie, which deduces all things from light and gravitation, each being bipolar; gravitation = north and south, or attraction and repulsion: light = east and west, or contraction and dilation; [5]

German 'Naturphilosophie' advocated the principle of polarity or opposition, one of the last attempts to reconcile the symbolism of the alchemists to modern chemistry. In Polarity, that is oppositions in nature, German 'Naturphilosophers' perceived the rhythm of the Universe.

As long ago as 1895 the critic R.M.Meyer in the Goethe Jahrbuch proposed that German Naturphilosophie resembled Browne's 'inner form' and that the Swiss theologian Johann Caspar Lavater (1741-1801) may have recommended Browne's Religio Medici to Goethe. [6] Browne spiritual testament was first translated into German in 1746. Lavater read it enthusiastically, primarily for its assertive physiognomic statements, such as-

'there are mystically in our faces certain characters which carry in them the motto of our souls, wherein he that cannot read A.B.C.may read our natures'. [7]

Physiognomy,  the questionable belief that the human face can be interpreted is mentioned in each of Browne's major literary works; as an unreliable, yet theoretical diagnostic tool for physicians, Browne's interest in physiognomy was kindled from his reading the Italian polymath Giambattista Della Porta's (1535-1615)  Celestial Physiognomy.

Lavater vigorously promoted physiognomy, became a famous author on the subject and was subsequently shunned by a skeptical Goethe. It remains unknown as to whether or not Goethe read Browne's Religio Medici.

Goethe's many esoteric interests included numerology which originated from his admittance, shortly before his residence in Weimar, to the Order of the Illuminati, whose teachings were based upon Pythagoras. In his novel Der Wahlverwandtscaften (Elective Affinities) of 1809. Goethe describes the number five as - 'a beautiful odd, sacred number'. Browne's own interest in numerology is admitted frankly in Religio Medici thus - ' I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret magic of  numbers.'  [8]

In essence, Goethe's personal philosophy was not unlike Browne's, home-spun, flexible and idiosyncratic. In his semi-autobiographical Dichtung und Wahrheit (Poetry and Truth) Goethe confessed -

'Neoplatonism lay at the foundation of my personal religion, the hermetical, the  mystical, the cabalistic, also contributed their share; and thus I built for myself a world that looked strange enough'.

The restless scholar Faust in Goethe's tragic drama shares some psychological traits to those exhibited by the newly qualified Doctor Browne.  After completing many years of study at Oxford and abroad at the Universities of Padua, Montpellier and Leiden, Browne utters as wearily as Faust -

'There is yet another conceit that hath sometimes made me shut my books; which tells me it is a vanity to waste our days in the blind pursuit of knowledge'. [9]

Not unlike Faust, Browne expresses occasional, intense spiritual angst in Religio Medici.

'I feel sometimes a hell within myself, Lucifer keeps his court in my breast'.  [10]

Faust, not unlike the enquiring Browne, yearns in his study of Nature for, 'a glance into the earth! To see below its dark foundations / Life's embryo seeds before their birth / And Nature's silent operations'. [11] 

In his quest for forbidden knowledge Faust 'ponders over spells and signs, symbolic letters, circles and signs'. Such hieroglyphs fascinated Browne who declared -

'surely the Heathens knew better how to join and read these mystical letters than we Christians, who cast a more careless eye on these common Hieroglyphics'. [12]

Although Browne's confessional shares traits exhibited by Goethe's Faust it departs abruptly from it once the pact is made between Faust and Mephistopheles. Browne located Mephistopheles as dwelling internally rather than externally, stating - 'The heart of man is the place the devil dwells in'. [13]

Browne's Christian faith lays at the heart of his medical practise, enquiries into nature and even his rare excursions into the literary world.  Goethe however held an ambiguous and luke-warm opinion of Christianity, objecting to the clanging sound of church-bells in particular.

Whilst Browne's Urn-Burial shares Goethe's antiquarian interests, The Garden of Cyrus shares a number of thematic and symbolic traits to Goethe's late masterpiece Faust II.  As digressive and disjointed in its construction as Goethe's drama and in its associative thought and imagery, with little concern of intelligibility to its reader, it too employs proper-names from Greek mythology to represent scientific and psychological speculations.

During their long, settled, and relatively undisturbed lives, Goethe and Browne became extremely well-read, not only in the scientific advances of their era, but also in Classics of Greek and Roman literature, as the catalogues of their respective libraries reveal. The Classical world, especially Ancient Greece, with its scientific discoveries was for both scholars of great interest and both display a thorough knowledge of Classical literature. The same symbolic names can be found in their respective yet neglected works of fantasy, Faust II and The Garden of Cyrus.

The Greek mythological god Proteus is a good example of a symbolic name shared by the two literary figures. In Cyrus Proteus is 'the symbol of the first mass' whilst  in Faust II   Proteus represents organic metamorphosis. The warrior Achilles, the wanderer Ulysses and the nature-god Pan are also mentioned in both works, as is Greek philosopher and botanist Theophrastus, the first to attempt to categorise plants. But  perhaps above others it may be the Greek god Apollo ruler of beauty of form, order, prophecy, medicine and music who represents symbolic significance and artistic importance to both literary polymaths.

Browne's survey of the artistic, natural, botanical and mystical precedents of the Quincunx  in The Garden of Cyrus may be described in Goethe's words as a delight in-

                         

'Formation, transformation, The eternal Mind's eternal delectation' [14] 

The learned doctor in a drowsy soliloquy concluding The Garden of Cyrus observes that, 'the phantasms of sleep which often continueth precogitations making cables of cobwebs', alerts one to Faust's meditation that -

'How logical and clear the daylight seems

Till the night weaves us in its web of dreams'.

This shared imagery of dreams and  the illusory web is evidence that, like the alchemists before them, Goethe and Browne utilized highly-charged poetic symbolism in their attempt to portray  the unconscious psyche.

Goethe's monumental drama Faust held great meaning to C.G.Jung. For the Swiss psychologist Faust is a work which from its beginning to end is full of alchemical themes and imagery. C.G.Jung even regarded his work on alchemy as a sign of his inner relationship to Goethe and never suppressed or denied the persistent rumour that his grandfather was an illegitimate offspring of Goethe's.

Jung often referred to Goethe's drama Faust in order to amplify a psychological observation.  Of Part II of Faust  he stated -

'The second part of  Faust, was more than a literary exercise. It is a link in the Aurea Catena (The Golden or Homeric Chain in alchemy is the series of great wise men, beginning with Hermes Trismegistus, which links earth with heaven) which has existed from the beginnings of philosophical alchemy and Gnosticism down to Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. Unpopular, ambiguous, and dangerous, it is a voyage of discovery to the other pole of the world. [15]  

Although Goethe's Faust Part I and Browne's Urn-Burial are firmly established works of world literature, their respective, other halves, Faust II and The Garden of Cyrus have baffled and perplexed most readers, resulting in neither work achieving the popularity of their counterparts.

However, 'though overlooked by all', Goethe's dramatic works, Faust parts 1 and II have a remarkable relationship to Browne's Urn-Burial  and The Garden of Cyrus.  For just as  Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus are structured upon the time-honoured schemata of Hermeticism, namely the polarity of Microcosm and Macrocosm, so too are Goethe's Faust I and II 

In conversation with Eckermann Goethe provided clues for employing the concept of polarity in the 'conjoining of Faust I with 'the second part of the tragedy' as he termed it.

'Not all our experiences can be expressed in the round and directly communicated. For this reason I have chosen the means of revealing the more secret meanings to attentive hearts by creative formations which face each other and mirror each other'.

Goethe's understanding of the alchemical quest for Unity necessitated that the 'small world' or Microcosm of Part 1 of Faust, with its subjective world of Faust's love for Gretchen, needed to be balanced with the larger objective world or Macrocosm of Part 2 which, as it wanders through time and space, concludes with Faust's redemption.

Browne's diptych discourses also adhere to the basic tenet of Hermeticism, that of the correspondence between Microcosm and Macrocosm.  Just as Urn-Burial's concern is the earth-bound 'little world' of Man, his suffering, mortality, unknowingness and death, in essence the Microcosm,  The Garden of Cyrus in complete symmetry and polarity features many examples of the Eternal forms and  astral imagery of the heavens, the Macrocosm no less. Equally, just as Faust I concerns itself with the small, little world of man so too the extraordinary settings ranging through time and space of Faust II represent the Macrocosm at large.   As with Goethe’s literary diptych so too with Browne’s diptych Discourses. Only when 'conjoining' the two respective halves of each literary work can  one fully understand and appreciate their total artistic vision.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Goethe's many duties and social life in the Weimar Court, his travels and love-affairs, mark him  a much worldlier person than the devout physician. Ultimately Goethe was a humanist, his message being – He who strives on and lives to strive can earn redemption still. Thomas Browne was likewise affirmative of all that is good in man, asserting  - 

'Me thinkes there is no man bad, and the worst, best; that is, while they are kept within the circle of those qualities, wherein they are good:there is no mans mind of such discordant and jarring a temper to which a tuneable disposition may not strike a harmony.  [16] 

Julian Huxley in Religion without Revelation (1967) nominated Goethe, alongside Blake, Wordsworth, Thomas Browne and Dante as, 'one of the immortal spirits waiting to introduce the reader to his own unique and intense experience of reality'. Today Goethe and Thomas Browne are remembered not so much for their scientific endeavours but for the originality of their literary creativity.  Through their respective literary creations both writers have bequeathed their own special vision of Humanity and reality which distinguishes them as 'Universal Citizens', or 'World Sages'.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, like Browne before him, belongs to the category of men to whom the improvement of Mankind was a deep concern. Goethe's science and literary creativity has a close, if little recognised elective affinity to Thomas Browne’s.


Notes
[1] R.M.Part I:50
[2] R.M Part 1:34
[3] R.M. Part 2:2

[4] The Life of Goethe: A Critical Biography by John R. Williams pub. John Wiley  and Sons Ltd. Blackwell 2001
[5] Lecture notes of 1818 Lecture XII Miscellaneous criticism Collected works of Coleridge
[6] Richard Meyer 'Zur inner form?' Goethe Jahrbuch 1895 vol. 16 pp. 190 - 191
[7] R.M.Part 2:2
[8] R.M.Part I.12
[9] R.M.Part 2:8
[10] R.M.I:51
[11] Faust Part I Night
[12] R.M.Part 1:16
[13] R.M. Ibid
[14]  Faust Part 2  ed. David Luke Oxford University Press 2008  lines 6287-8
[15]  Memories, Dreams, Reflections C.G.Jung  chapter 6
[16] R.M. 2 :11

Sir Thomas Browne and Japan

The physician-philosopher Thomas Browne (1605-82) can truly be said to have achieved worldwide fame with his inclusion in the Japanese author Natsume Sōseki’s novel Sanshirō (1908-09).

Natsume Sōseki (夏目 漱石, 1867 – 1916) is considered to be one of Japan's greatest writers. He studied at what was the Tokyo Imperial University and became Japan's first official English Literature scholar, spending two unhappy years resident in England circa 1900-2. Eventually Sōseki became a professor of English literature at Tokyo Imperial University. It would appear however, that no earlier English translation of Sanshirō was made before Jay Rubin's 2009 translation, perhaps due to negative historical/cultural reasons.

In Sōseki's semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel, Sanshirō is a naive and dreaming student who discovers his rural upbringing to be a disadvantage in the metropolitan city of Tokyo. The early twentieth century witnessed a period of rapid industrialisation and adoption of Western ways in Japan. A photo dated circa 1905 (top) gives some indication of how rapid the industrialisation of Japan was, resulting in a certain amount of psychic dissonance, as indicated in the above photo, with both traditional costume and  modern electrification visible.

Sanshirō's class-mate Yojirō expresses the excitement of modern Tokyo when he exclaims to him - 'Get on the streetcar and ride around Tokyo ten or fifteen times. After a while it'll just happen -you'll become satisfied'.   

In what is a narrative of gentle awakening in matters of romance, sex and learning, Sir Thomas Browne's Hydriotaphia plays a small part in Sōseki's novel. It is the enigmatic scholar Professor Hiroto who makes psychological observations such as - 'Look at England. Egotism and altruism have been in perfect balance there for centuries. That's why she doesn't move. That's why she doesn't progress. The English are a pitiful lot - they have no Ibsen, no Nietzsche. They're  all puffed up like that, but look at them from the outside and you can see them hardening, turning into fossils'.

Professor Hiroto lends Sanshirō an edition of Hydriotaphia (Urn-Burial). Browne's philosophical discourse assists the youthful’s protagonist’s intellectual development, for during his meditation upon it, he witnesses a child’s funeral. The combination of Browne's stoical prose and child's funeral awakens in the dreaming student an acute awareness of his own mortality. Here's the full, relevant text, including a passage in which Browne's literary voice is likened to the lingering reverberation of a giant temple bell sounding faintly throughout the centuries, a particularly original homage.

 Buddhist  Bell Temple, Nara, Japan

'He read the concluding paragraph of Hydriotaphia as he ambled down the street toward Hakusan. According to Professor Hirota, this writer was a famous stylist, and this essay the best example of his style. ‘That’s not my opinion, of course,’ he had laughingly confided. And in fact Sanshirō could not see what was so remarkable about this style, The phrasing was bad, the diction outlandish, the flow of words sluggish. It gave him the feeling of looking at some old temple. In terms of walking distance, it had taken him three or four blocks to read, and still he was not very clear about what it said'.

'What he had gained from the paragraph wore a patina of age, as if someone had rung the bell of the Great Buddha in Nara and the lingering reverberation had faintly reached his ears in Tokyo. Rather than the meaning of the passage itself, Sanshirō took pleasure in the shadow of sentiment that crept over the meaning. He had never thought keenly about death; his youthful blood was still too warm for that. A fire leapt before his eyes so gigantic that it could singe his brows, and this feeling was his true self.........'

'As he glanced in through the gate, Sanshirō twice muttered the word hydriotaphia. Of all the foreign words he had learned thus far, hydriotaphia was one of the longest and hardest. He still did not know what it meant...... Just to learn hydriotaphia was a time-consuming effort, and saying it twice caused one’s pace to slacken. It sounded like a word the ancients had devised for Professor Hirota’s personal use'.

Tokyo 1905

Although Browne wrote on almost every topic under the sun,  little on the Land of the Rising Sun (Nippon) can be found in his writings, other than  mention of the Northeast passage to China and Japan, via the Arctic circle (Miscellaneous Tract 12). Browne's relative silence on Japan is reflective of Japanese insularity from Western missionaries, traders and explorers during his era. 

In May 2011, the University of East Anglia (UEA) which is located in Sir Thomas Browne's home-city of Norwich, established a new Centre for Japanese Studies. The University of East Anglia is also where the Nobel-laureate Sir Kazuo Ishiguro (b. Nagasaki, 1954) studied for his Master's degree in creative writing.  

A final connection between Japan and Sir Thomas Browne remains. One of the very first installations by the site specific installation artist Tatzu Nishi (西野達) (born 1960 Nagoya, Japan) was at the Art East International at Norwich in 1998. Using scaffolding, cladding, wood, and furniture, Nishi constructed a 'living-room' around Henry Pegram's 1905 statue of Thomas Browne, effectively allowing the Norwich philosopher-physician a brief respite from the season's weather to rest and philosophize indoors for a short while.

See also 

Kazuo Ishiguro

Sir Thomas Browne and China

Tatzu Nishi

Paracelsus and Sir Thomas Browne

The Swiss physician and alchemist Paracelsus (1493-1541) has a fascinating, yet little explored relationship to the 17th century physician, hermetic philosopher, scientist and literary artist, Sir Thomas Browne.

It’s only relatively recently in the light of modern understanding, notably by scholars such as Carl Jung, Frances Yates and Jean Seznec that the profound influence of hermetic and esoteric thought upon scientists, artists and physicians during the Renaissance has been recognized.

Following the early death of the 'German Hermes', as his advocates termed him, the writings of Paracelsus, a conglomerate of practical advice on how to develop new chemicals for medicine, mixed with proto-psychology and mystical theology attracted many followers.  The new Spagyric medicine which Paracelsus taught during his short, wandering life, retained a potent influence upon alchemists, early scientists and in particular, physicians. Indeed, the radical physician has been called- "the precursor of chemical pharmacology and therapeutics and the most original medical thinker of the sixteenth century."[1]

The two favoured professions of would-be alchemist and hermetic philosopher alike were those of priest and physician. These two professions witnessed a wide spectrum of the human condition. Daily in contact with suffering and the inner spiritual man, priest and physician often worked in tandem, notably in attendance at the sick-bed. Indeed, the very title of Browne’s Religio Medici, (The Religion of a Doctor) is indicative of the intimate connection between the two vocations. It cannot be under-stated that as devout Christians, both Paracelsus and Browne shared a deep piety and viewed the healing of the sick as a religious duty. In Paracelsus’s own words - ‘Compassion is the physician's teacher’; while in his voluminous theological writings there can be found a theologian as original and free-thinking as his contemporary, Martin Luther.

In all probability Thomas Browne was introduced to Paracelsian literature during his student years when studying medicine either at the university of Padua, Montpelier or Leyden circa 1627-1630. Originally written upon completion of his medical studies, Religio Medici reveals its author as one well-acquainted with the ideas of Paracelsus.

Although objecting that –

‘the singularity of Paracelsus be intolerable reviled all learning before him’,

Browne nevertheless also confesses in Religio Medici to having- 'perus'd the Archidoxis and read the secret Sympathies of things' the Archidoxis being a treatise by Paracelsus on medical cures by means of magical properties attributed to gems and amulets. Likewise, although vehemently refuting Paracelsus' claim to have created a Homunculus, the fabled test-tube human of alchemy, declaring -

'I am not of Paracelsus mind that boldly delivers a receipt to make a man without conjunction' [2] 

Browne nevertheless did believe in the Swiss physician's claim to have performed the alchemical feat of Palingenesis, that is, the revival of a plant from its ashes-

A plant or vegetable consumed to ashes, to a contemplative and school Philosopher seems utterly destroyed and the form to have taken his leave for ever. But to a sensible Artist the forms are not perished, but withdrawn into their incombustible part, where they lie secure from the action of that devouring element. This is made good by experience, which can from the ashes of a plant revive the plant, and from its cinders recall it into stalk and leaves again. [3]

The poet Coleridge, who was an early and enthusiastic reader of Browne, rose to his defence, annotating his  personal copy of Religio Medici thus-

'This was, I believe, some lying Boast of Paracelsus, which the good Sir T. Browne has swallowed for a Truth'. [4]

An even greater number of statements on Paracelsus can be found in Browne's encyclopaedic endeavour Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646-1672).  In an early example of scientific journalism, Browne  revised each of the six editions of his best-selling encyclopaedia in his life-time, duly up-dating reports of his 'elaboratory' experiments, for example -

It is not suddenly to be received what Paracelsus affirmeth, that if a Loadstone be anointed with Mercurial oil, or only put into Quicksilver, it omitteth its attraction for ever. For we have found that Loadstones and touched Needles which have laid long time in Quicksilver have not amitted their attraction. And we also find that red hot Needles or wires extinguished in Quicksilver, do yet acquire a verticity according to the Laws of position in extinction.[5]

Although in Pseudodoxia Epidemica  Browne debunks Paracelsus’s fervid quest for the Philosopher’s Stone –

More veniable is a dependence upon the Philosophers stone, potable gold, or any of those Arcana's whereby Paracelsus that died himself at forty seven, gloried that he could make other men immortal.  [6]

when writing on the mythical creature the Phoenix, he reveals himself to be well-acquainted with Paracelsus and esoteric literature in general-

Some have written mystically, as Paracelsus in his Book De Azoth, or De ligno & linea vitæ; and as several Hermetical Philosophers, involving therein the secret of their Elixir, and enigmatically expressing the nature of their great work  [7]

Strong evidence of Browne's own adherence to the goals of alchemy occurs in the so-called 'Alphabetical Table' to Pseudodoxia Epidemica which includes the index entry - 'Philosophers Stone, not impossible to be procured' a statement which seems to be unequivocal evidence of Browne's cautious and critical, yet believing, approach to alchemy. [8]

It's from Paracelsus' interest in Austrian folk-lore that Browne wrote-

and wise men may think there is as much reality in the pygmies of Paracelsus; that is, his non-Adamical men, or middle natures betwixt men and spirits.[P. E. 4:11].

The Swiss alchemist-physician proposed that a particular spirit resided over each element. Nymphs ruled the water, the Salamander, fire, Sylphides, the air, and citing Germanic folk-lore, he claimed that deep in the earth there exists a race of dwarf- like Earth-spirits, which he named Gnomes. According to Paracelsus these little people were the guardians of the earth who knew where precious metals and hidden treasure were buried. The word gnome, another neologism of Paracelsus, originates from a  play on the Greek words of gnomic meaning knowledge and intelligence and genomus meaning 'earth-dweller'. Paracelsus described Gnomes thus-

The gnomes have minds, but no souls, and so are incapable of spiritual development. They stand about two feet tall, but can expand themselves to huge size at will, and live in underground houses and palaces. Adapted to their element, they can breathe, see and move as easily underground as fish do in water. Gnomes have bodies of flesh and blood, they speak and reason, they eat and sleep and propagate their species, fall ill and die. They sometimes take a liking to a human being and enter his service, but are generally hostile to humans.

Browne concluded his speculation upon the existence of little people open-mindedly stating -

we shall not conclude impossibility, or that there might not be a race of Pygmies, as there is sometimes of Giants.  [P. 4:11].

The first ever Gnome named in literature was Umbriel in Alexander Pope's poem The Rape of the Lock (1712). An eerie aural depiction of the Gnome can be heard in the Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky's suite Pictures at an Exhibition which was imaginatively orchestrated by the French composer Maurice Ravel.

Paracelsus, the self-styled 'Luther of Medicine' was an early advocate of opium in medicine. Throughout the history of alchemy a considerable knowledge of substances, minerals and drugs can be found. Widely in use since the sixteenth century, opium was used to relieve such disorders as dysentery and respiratory ailments. By the seventeenth century, physicians required a license in order to obtain Opium, the only available pain-killer and tranquillizer in medicine of the day. Such was its widespread usage in seventeenth century medicine that Browne's contemporary, Thomas Sydenham (1624-89) declared-

Among the remedies which has pleased the Almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium.

In 1959, the critic Peter Green suggested that one reason why Browne's prose is stylistically unlike any of his contemporaries, may have been due to his experimenting with drugs. Green noted that the twin Discourses of 1658 were penned by a Royalist who was under intense emotional and psychological distress, and proposed that the last chapters of both Discourses were written in a trance-like condition. On several occasions in Urn-Burial Browne poetically links opium's effects with the  theme of the unknowingness of the human condition such as-

The iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her Poppy. 

while crucial evidence that he observed the psychological effects of opium can be found in his medical-philosophical declaration-

'There is no antidote for the Oblivion of Time which temporally considereth all things'

The phrase 'temporally considereth all things'  is Browne's succinct observation of opium's psychological effects, whilst the moralist in him however denounced all trafficking in substances, sternly declaring later -  'Oblivion is not to be hired'.

Today there's strict legislation and laws on drug consumption, however, this was not so during the seventeenth century, which saw the foundation of addictions now long-standing in Western society with the widespread introduction and consumption of the newly-discovered tobacco-leaf and Coffee throughout Europe. Although it is difficult nowadays with our politically correct thinking to accept that a devout Christian and respected doctor may have written his 'deep, stately, majestic' prose (De Quincey) with its slow, sombre contemplations under the influence of Opium, for the empiricist, such as Browne, as for the alchemist, the self and the sensory impressions were the seat of all experiment. There are several notes upon the effects of dosages of narcotics in Browne's common-place books but whether his empirical nature endorsed experimenting with drugs it is not documented, however he may well have done so accidentally, or as part of his alchemical quest. It's also worth remembering that as a botanist with an interest in toxicology, Browne may well have been able to identify psilocybin  and fly agaric fungi.

Whether or not Browne ever had his hand in the medicine-cabinet will never be known, however it’s certainly a big coincidence that his labyrinthine prose was 're-discovered' by the early Romantic figures of Coleridge and De Quincey, both of whom suffered from the ravages of drug-addiction at cost to their longevity and artistic productivity.

The 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of Browne and his son Edward’s libraries, supplies further evidence that the ideas of the Swiss Renaissance physician were an influence upon the Norwich physician. Not only does it list an edition of the complete Opera of Paracelsus, but also many books by followers of spagyric medicine, including the chief protagonist of Paracelsian medicine, Gerard Dorn, as well as books by Alexander von Suchten, Theodore Turquet de Mayerne, Joseph Duchesne, Martin Ruland, Petrus Severinus and John French. In fact it would have been near impossible for any medical practitioner  of the seventeenth century not to have had a  strong view upon Paracelsus. England saw slower acceptance of what was perceived to be continental medicine. In any event such a number of books by medical advocates  in Browne's library once again suggests more than a casual interest in Paracelsian medicine. [9]

Paracelsus was fond of inventing new words to describe his alchemical/astrological form of medicine. For example he described himself as a pagoyum a neologism composed from the combing the words "paganum" and the Hebrew word "goy". Similarly, Paracelsus described his type of medicine as an 'Yllaster' a word coined from plaster and astrum a star ; in this context its worthwhile looking at the verse inscribed upon the Coffin-plate of Sir Thomas Browne's lead Coffin.

It’s not known who composed the inscription verse upon Browne's Coffin-plate. It may have been written by Browne's eldest son Edward, one of the few people who really knew him well, or the author may have been Browne himself. But whether written by father or son, the fact remains that the Paracelsian word, spagyrici the name of Swiss alchemist-physician's distinctive brand of alchemy, is engraved upon Browne's coffin-plate. The word spagyrici is a typical Paracelsian neologism which is believed to derive from the fusing of the Greek words  Spao, to tear open, and  ageiro, to collect

Browne’s coffin-plate inscription alludes to the commonplace quest of alchemy, the transformation of metals which for the spiritual alchemist signified a far deeper goal - the transformation of the base matter of man to acquire spiritual gold –

Hoc locuolo dormiens, corporis spagyricci pulvere plumbum in aurum convertit

translated reads-

Sleeping here the dust of his spagyric body converts the lead to gold.

The usage of the Paracelsian word spagyrici meaning to tear apart and to bind, a polarised maxim not dissimilar to the commonplace maxim of alchemy solve et coagula is perhaps the strongest concrete evidence which refutes claims that Browne's interest in Paracelsian medicine was merely marginal.

Far from being opposed to Paracelsian medicine, all the evidence suggests, that like the German chemist Andreas Libavius (1564-1616) Browne possessed a thorough and critical knowledge of Paracelsian literature, in both its practical and mystical forms, and just like Libavius (who is approvingly alluded to by Browne in P.E.) he was a critical follower of Paracelsian medicine.

But perhaps of far the most important influence of Paracelsus upon Browne is that of the Swiss physician's usage of proper-names from mythology in order to describe the psyche and its components. Most striking of all is Paracelsus's choice of symbolic proper-names to represent the alchemical art, namely Vulcan, the Roman god of fire. A flavour of Paracelsian alchemy can be gleaned from this extract-

This process is alchemy; its founder is the smith Vulcan… And he who governs fire is Vulcan, even if he be a cook or a man who tends a stove….To release the remedy from the dross is the task of Vulcan…This is alchemy, and this is the office of Vulcan; he is the apothecary and chemist of the medicine. Everything is at first created in its prima materia, its original stuff; whereupon Vulcan comes, and by the art of alchemy develops it into its final substance….Alchemy is a necessary, indispensable art…It is an art and Vulcan is its artist. He who is a Vulcan has mastered this art; [10]

It can hardly be coincidental that the very opening sentence of Browne’s The Garden of Cyrus depicts the Roman god Vulcan as an alchemist of the Creation.

That Vulcan gave arrows unto Apollo and Diana the fourth day after their Nativities, according to Gentile Theology,may passe for no blinde apprehension of the Creation of the Sunne and Moon, in the work of the fourth day; When the diffused light contracted into Orbes, and shooting rayes, of those Luminaries.

The Roman god Vulcan, patron 'saint' of alchemists is named twice more in The Garden of Cyrus, crucially at the discourse's apotheosis in which Browne states his determinants for acquiring scientific certainty.

Flat and flexible truths are beat out by every hammer, but Vulcan and his whole forge sweat to work out Achilles his Armour.

Scattered, throughout both Urn-Burial  and The Garden of Cyrus there can be found observations made from two of Browne's amateur pursuits, namely archaeology and botany which add empirical depth to the  alchemical theme of the discourse's study of 'solve et coagula' or decay and growth; more importantly Browne's diptych discourses, not unlike passages of the Ur-Psychologie of Paracelsus, attempt to delineate components of the psyche. Indeed, not only does one of the very earliest usages of the word 'archetype' occur in The Garden of Cyrus but throughout the discourse highly original proper-name symbolism is employed to designate components or archetypes of the psyche.

In the twentieth century C. G. Jung held a deep interest in Paracelsus. The Swiss physician was well-aware of his earlier compatriot's importance in the history of the understanding of the psyche, an understanding which only began with a tentative recognition of the psyche itself, in writings by hermetic philosophers such as Paracelsus and Sir Thomas Browne. Jung's two essays on Paracelsus remain rewarding reading. Indeed, during the darkest hours of World War II in 1943 Jung calmly lectured upon Paracelsus in Zurich. Jung also shares with Browne a remarkably similar assessment of Paracelsus for while he described Paracelsus' writings as –

'long dreary stretches of utter nonsense (which) alternate with oases of inspired insight'.[11]

Browne, late in his life considered –

'many would be content that some would write like Helmont or Paracelsus; and be willing to endure the monstrosity of some opinions, for divers singular notions requiting such aberrations. [12]

Today, Jung’s assessment of the relevance of Paracelsus to our own time has become equally applicable to the growing interest in Sir Thomas Browne-

Paracelsus was, perhaps most deeply of all, an alchemical "philosopher" whose religious views involved him in an unconscious conflict with the Christian beliefs of his age in a way that seems to us inextricably confused. Nevertheless, in this confusion are to be found the beginnings of philosophical, psychological, and religious problems which are taking clearer shape in our own epoch.

Notes

[1]  Manly Hall

[2] R.M. I: 36

[3] R.M.  2:35

[4] R.M. 1 :45

[5] P.E Bk 2 :3

[6] Bk 3:12

[7] Bk 3 :12

[8] 1658 edition in author's possession.

[9] 1711 Sales Catalogue

[10] Paracelsus - Selected Writings Jolande Jacobi pub. Princeton 1988

[11] C.W. 15

[12] Christian Morals  2:6

Kepler and Sir Thomas Browne

There are a surprising number of hitherto undetected connections between the German mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) to the English physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682).

Kepler’s life, like Browne’s, spanned a watershed in scientific thought. Kepler not only advocated  rational inductive science and the astronomical discoveries of Galileo but also augmented his scientific enquiries with Neoplatonic and Pythagorean ideas. Kepler’s astronomical discoveries were as much structured upon precise mathematical calculation as deeply held theological beliefs and God-given revelation; his scientific perspective, not unlike Browne’s own scientific perspective a full half century later, were an admixture of Christian awe of the Creation, precise mathematical analysis and Platonic and Pythagorean concepts of the ancient Greek world.

Listed as once in Sir Thomas Browne’s library is an edition of Kepler’s first published book, Mysterium Cosmographicum (Prague 1596) [1]. Kepler's ‘Mysteries of the Cosmos’ is the direct result of a vision the young mathematician experienced in which he believed God’s geometrical plan of the universe had been revealed to him. In his mystical revelation Kepler discovered the geometric solids as first described by Plato, the tetrahedron (4 sided) cube (6 sided) octahedron (8 sided) dodecahedron (12 sided) and icosahedron (20 sided) could each be uniquely represented by spherical orbs; each solid nesting within and encased in a sphere, would in total produce six layers, corresponding to the six known planets—Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. By ordering the Platonic solids in their correct numerical sequence Kepler also discovered  that the spheres could be placed at intervals which corresponded to his own calculations of the relative size of each planet’s path, as each planet circled the Sun.

                                                    

Kepler’s great patron was the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II (1552 -1612). During his long reign Rudolph II gathered at his relocated court at Prague, some of the most remarkable figures in the world of art and science. He was a generous patron to artists of the Mannerist school such as Archimboldo, Bartholomeus Spranger and Adrian de Vries, and to the astronomers Kepler and Tycho Brahe. Indeed, Rudolph II's pairing of the observational genius of the Dane Tycho Brahe to the mathematical gifts of Kepler has been considered his major contribution towards the advancement of astronomy.

Kepler’s residence at the court of the Holy Roman emperor from 1600 to 1612 resulted in his naming and dedicating his major work of scientific notation of planetary motion, the Rudulphine Tables, to Emperor Rudolph. Other visitors to the court of the melancholic, alchemy-loving Emperor and connoisseur of the arts include the Elizabethan mathematician and major figure of esotericism, John Dee (1527 -1608)  and the poet Elizabeth Jane Weston.  

The division between astrology and astronomy in Kepler’s day was quite blurred and not as sharply delineated as nowadays. Throughout his life Kepler supplemented his income by regularly publishing calendars which predicted future events from astrology. For the year 1595 he prophesied a particularly cold winter, an attack by the Turks from the south and a peasant uprising: all of which occurred.