Paracelcus (1493-1541)

Paracelcus was born with the original name Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, probably the longest name I have ever heard.  He was a German-Swiss physician and during his life he was linked to botany, alchemy, astrology and the occults.  He took the name of Paracelcus, which meant 'equal to or greater than Celsus', Celsus being the 1st century Roman Aulus Cornelius Celsus, possibly a man to which Paracelsus was inspired by.

Paracelcus made vast contributions to toxicology, psychotherapy, medicine and philosophy and inspired such people as Jacob Boehme.  He traveled widely across Europe, Africa and Asia Minor with the goal of finding hidden knowledge.  Many rumours circulated about his knowledge, and he was highlighted as possibly being the true identity of a major alchemist Christian Rosenkreutz.

He published a number of manuscripts during his lifetime, most notably for me, was the manuscript called Prognostications in 1536 which depicts prophecies and cryptic images. However Paracelcus had a reputation for being arrogant, inciting anger by publicly burning medical books.

If you would like to read more about Prognostications CLICK HERE

Old Document Review 'The prophecy of Raynard Lolhardus'

I am reviewing the contents of this prophecy as part of my studies on the Mirabilis liber prophecy collection, this is the eighth part of the collection published in 1522, and this is very different to the other prophecies in the collection that I have already reviewed.

This prophecy is very specific, even stating that the events will happen between 1496 and 1598, and yes I did say that this was published in 1522 yet I would assume that the original pre-dates 1496, yet very little is known about Raynard apart that he is mentioned as being a hermit, and there have been other prophets in time that were also hermits such as Hermas.

The theme of the prophecy concerns the wars between Europe and the Turks when the Turks shall 'slaughter the priests at the altar', yet seeing as though the Ottoman Wars started from about 1299 it cannot be said that this prophecy foretold the slaughter of the priests, as the slaughter may have already started by the time that the prophecy was written.

However the next section of the prophecy leaves no doubt, it states that 'an invincible leader shall emerge from Spain' to fight.  In 1571, John of Austria, the half-brother of the King of Spain led a fleet containing an army of the Holy League which consisted of over 200 ships and defeated the Ottomans in the Battle of Lepanto.

Yet there are sections of the prophecy that never came to be, it stated for example that the 'Church of Saint Sophia shall revive', this church was in Constantinople and had been conquered by the invaders and turned into a mosque and stayed as such until the modern era when it was converted into a museum.  Another prophecy that failed to come true was the rise of another Emperor called Doglosius.

To read more about the other prophecies in the Mirabilis liber CLICK HERE