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The Paracelsian medicine and theosophy of Abraham von
Franckenberg
and Robert Fludd
by Urszula Szulakowska
Paper presented at conference, Universal Reformation:
Intellectual Networks in Central and Western Europe, 1560-
1670, St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford, 21-23
September, 2010 (Cultures of Knowledge: An Intellectual
Geography of the Seventeenth-Century Republic of
Letters), http://universalreformation.history.ox.ac.uk//?
page_id=30)
The paper is presented without footnotes which may be cross-referenced with
Urszula Szulakowska, The Sacrificial Body and the Day of Doom. Alchemy and
Apocalyptic Discourse in the Protestant Reformation, Brill: Leiden (2009)
The focus of the present argument will concern the conceptual
inter-relation between the Silesian nobleman Abraham von
Franckenberg (1593-1652), the chief disciple and biographer of
Jacob Boehme, and the English medical practitioner and
alchemist Robert Fludd (1574-1637). Fludd seems to have been
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influenced by Boehme and, in turn, to have influenced the
ideas of Franckenberg, an influence which has not been
examined by scholars to date. Franckenberg has been largely
neglected by scholarship, with only one or two recent studies
in German and nothing at all in English.
1Franckenberg had inherited the title of lord of Ludwigsdorff
in Lower Silesia where his family is first recorded in 1297 as
having been given the village of Rosen near Byczyny. They were
a noble family originating in Frankenberg near Chemnitz in
Pleissenland and on moving to Silesia they served the princes
1 Cornelis von Stockum, Theodorus, Zwischen Jakob Bohme und Johann Scheffle: Abraham von
Franckenberg (1593-1652) und Daniel Czepko von Reigersfeld (1605-1660) (Amsterdam, 1967)
Bruckner, J. , Abraham von Franckenberg: A bibliographical catalogue with a shortlist of his library,
Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 1988.
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of Glogow. In succeeding generations the original family
divided into many different cadet branches who accumulated
considerable amounts of land between them, by the late
fourteenth century making them one of the most important
families in Lower Silesia. They are recorded as contributing
to the patronage of the arts and architecture in the following
two centuries.
Franckenberg had been educated in the gymnasium in Brieg in
Lower Silesia until 1611 where he was an exceptional student.
Before he joined the university, he left his inheritance to
his brother as a result of a spiritual conversion resulting
from his private reading of the scriptures. According to his
earliest biographer Gottfried Arnold the pietist, in 1617
Franckenberg experienced the "inner faith, the still sabbath,"
claiming to have found Christ himself in place of dogma: "das
Adam in uns streben und Christus in uns leben muss." According
to his own letters, Franckenberg had been studying the German
mystics Johannes Tauler and Thomas à Kempis, as well as the
Spirituals, Schwenckfeld and Weigel, then finally in 1612, he
read Boehme’s Aurora. During the plague in Silesia in 1634, he
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worked to cure the sick using Paracelsian medicine. In 1645,
he travelled to Danzig in order to join his friend the natural
philosopher, Johann Hevelius, from whom he learned astronomy
and mathematics. He also corresponded with the Jesuit
historian Athanasius Kircher in Rome, as well as with the lord
of Schweidnitz and Claudio Salmasio. Initially he wrote under
the pseudonym "Amadeus von Friedleben," his writings appearing
in public only after his death in Amsterdam. His most
distinguished and original work is the Raphael oder Artzt Engel,
written in 1639 and published in Amsterdam in 1676.
A letter written by Franckenberg on 21 October, 1641 in the
Oakley edition contains a discussion of the imminent Second
Coming of Christ and the signs associated with it. Paracelsian
alchemy was related integrally to this apocalyptic context and
Franckenberg like Boehme was a true follower of the Paracelsus
and his school of theosophy and medical alchemy. However, to
these influences Franckenberg added many elements of his own
including an inventive cryptography, specifically in his
Raphael oder Artzt Engel (1639) where marginal diagrams, notes and
almost casual graffiti amplify the text. Franckenberg was a
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cabbalist, but unlike Robert Fludd he was not heavily engaged
with either the original Judaic source or its Christianised
version devised by Johannes Reuchlin. Rather he modelled his
cryptography on that of Cornelius Agrippa in the Occult Philosophy
and on that of John Dee in the Monas Hieroglyphica (1564).
Table from John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica
Like them Franckenberg enjoys playing visual and audial puns on
the appearance of Latin or German words and their phonetic
consonances and dissonances. In actuality, however, Dee's
emblematic magic was quite different in its visual appearance
from Franckenberg's system, but the basic idea was similar,
namely, taking a sign and dismantling its component parts, as
well as playing with the linguistic structures. Common to both
alchemists was the idea that in the manipulation of the sign,
the adept was working a magical ritual that would change the
physical world.
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For example, in Franckenberg’s analysis of the word "ARTZNEI"
("alchemical medicine") he produces assonances such as "HART,"
"HERTZ," including the name of the Roman goddess, "CERES"
which is an allusion to wheat and hence to the communion bread
of the mass. Franckenberg does not allude to any alchemists or
magicians, only to biblical sources, which suggests that there
is a particularly sacred aspect to the Raphael. In this text,
Franckenberg pursuses one central theme, that of the healing
tincture or elixir produced alchemically which is a divine
substance that parallels, or even is the same as, Christ
present within the communion wine and bread.
Franckenberg seems to have been influenced in this by the
alchemist Heinrich Khunrath belonging to the previous
generation who also wrote of the alchemical elixir in
Christological terms, equating the Paracelsian concept of the
quintessence and of the magnesia with the body of Christ. As
in Khunrath’s cabblistic alchemy Franckenberg's spiritual and
medical alchemy is dependent upon the cosmic and microcosmic
operations of the "GEISTE GOTTES," the Spirit of God.
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Franckenberg refers to esoteric waters (evil and good), white
and red tinctures ("roht / und weise universal TinctUR des
LAMMES"), sacred oils and balsams, such as a Balsam of Life,
taken from the Tree of Life (the cross of Christ), both of
these springing from the Word of God. He refers to the "MUM
IAH," whose essence is "IAH," the Judaic name of God
Christianised as the name of Christ’s healing Spirit.
Franckenberg’s "MUMIAH" (mummy) originates in Paracelsian
medical alchemy and it was a not uncommon, if extremely
expensive, material derived from human corpses (it was fed to
Charles II of England on his deathbed). Robert Fludd mentions
the same substance. In Franckenberg’s text, there is a picture
of a skull in the nearby illustration.
Franckenberg's concept of the red and white elixir is derived
from Paracelsus' account of the "azoth" or quintessence, or
alkahest. In his Liber Azoth he referred to it as an aerial
nitre, or saltpetre, transmitted by the rain to the earth from
the spirit of the sun. His followers, Severinus, de Vigenere,
Sendivogius, Quercetanus and Fludd developed the full idea of
the aerial saltpetre. Paracelsus had examined the alchemical
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role of the sun in his Neun Bucher Archidoxis (circa 1526-1527) in
which he compared the earthly fire in the alchemical furnace
to the sun's heat. He stated that the alchemical tincture, or
elixir, obtained its virtues from the spirit of the sun which
was present within it as a reflection of the heavenly orb, its
imminent "astra".
Franckenberg is pre-occupied above all with the theme of the
healing elixir which he calls the "Wasser des Lebens" (water
of life), or the "Brunnen des Lebens" (stream of Life),
deliberately equating these fluids with the water of Christian
baptism, as well as with the communion wine and the blood of
Christ. These are said to be the same as the River Jordan
running through the midst of the New Jerusalem as in
Revelation 22: 1-2.
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Stefan Michelspacher, Cabala
Stefan Michelspacher, Cabala
There is a connection in Franckenberg’s alchemical discourse
also with that of the Austrian alchemist and physician Stefan
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Michelspacher’s ideas in his alchemical treatise, the Cabala
(Augsburg, 1616). Here there is a cryptogram in the second and
third engravings consisting of the letters "VWIWV," standing
for "Unser Wasser ist Wasser Unser." This old alchemical axiom
is related to the text of John 4: 14: "Whosoever drinketh of
the water that I shall give him shall never thirst: but the
water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water
springing up into everlasting life." In the 1706 Amsterdam
edition of Franckenberg's Raphael, an anonymous author has
appended a text to this effect, entitled, "De aqua – V W+WV
sapientum."
Unser Wasser ist Wasser Unser: ein himlisch Wasser/ ein Wasserdes Lebens: ein Schlisch Wasser/ welchem alle Geister lieben .. .
Franckenberg’s introduction to the Raphael speaks of the "gift"
of medicine, which is the transformation of the "bitter
water," or "evil water," into the spring of Israel and the
Light and Spirit of the Lord and his name "IeHoVaH." Just like
Robert Fludd in the Utriusque Cosmi Historiae, he begins with the
story of the creation in Genesis in which the Word, Christ or
the "Ruach Elohim," the Spirit of the Lord, moved over the
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waters to begin the creation. Original sin corrupted the
creation and was the source of human ills and evils (an
accepted universal idea). Franckenberg adopts from Boehme's
cosmology his triple division of the qualities of creation -
the Spiritual/ Soul-like/ Mortal ("Geistlich Seelisch
Leiblich"). Franckenberg discusses the resurrection of "Die
Neue Creatur", the "new man" who has been saved from death and
freed from his sins through the blood of Christ which forgives
and washes away all diseases of life, soul and spirit. Fludd
writes exactly the same through-out his medical treatise the
Medicina Catholica (1621-23) and the Anatomiae Amphiteatrum (1623).
Health is the result of faith, which arises from hearing the
Word, the "Ruach Elohim" who was pictured as a bird by the
Chaldeans. This cabbalistic name was given to the Spirit of
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Christ, the Creator-God, by Heinrich Khunrath in his
alchemical treatise, the Amphiteatrum (1595). This Word of
Faith, in Franckenberg’s system, is the holy name of "JESU
JEHOV." The waters over which the Spirit moves are the
heavenly, fiery element of the quintessence, identified
alchemically with alchemical oil and sulphur. Franckenberg
may even be thinking of Fludd’s famous illustration of the
Word of God moving out from the Word "Fiat" over the face of
the deep. Franckenberg recapitulates in the Raphael that the
medicine of the wise is nothing other than water, powder, or
plaster derived from nature, or found by human wit. This water
springs from God’s Spirit, the "Ruach Elohim" and operates
through God’s Word, the name of Jesus, to heal human illness.
It is also a balsam, or oil.
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Comparable ideas may be found at the heart of Robert Fludd’s
alchemy in the Medicina Catholica and the Anatomiae Amphitheatrum.
Here there is found a recipe for an elixir which Fludd
describes as being a "catholic," that is, a universal
medicine. It is the quintessence of both Nature and of the
human soul and is identifiable with the Holy Spirit of the
resurrected Christ. He describes the production of this
astonishing chemical in the "Tractatus de Tritico" ("Tractate
on Wheat"), the first part of a longer work, the Anatomiae
Amphitheatrum (1623). It is said to be the alchemical
equivalent of human blood, a tincture extracted from the red-
oil of wheat. This elixir is the body and blood of Christ in
alchemical form. The sun plays the central role in Fludd’s
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procedure, transmitting the virtue of the heavens into the
substance. His distilled spirit of wheat has virtues
corresponding to those of the sun and gold. Fludd notes that
the first substance produced in the course of distillation is
a white liquid, which, placed in the open air, turns red in
the rays of the sun. Due to the fiery nitre in the solar rays
these chemicals become the universal panacea, whose generative
celestial fire had been drawn out of the sun. Fludd may have
gained this idea from Boehme’s work which was being
transmitted in manuscript and Fludd probably knew German. In
Boehme’s work of the same date as Fludd’s De testamentis Christi, oder
Von Christi Testamenten (1623) he teaches that Christ is present in
the Eucharist in the same manner as the sun is in vegetation
through its warmth. The communion miracle is an alchemical
transmutation produced by the spiritual forces of Nature (in
which Christ's Spirit is present) on the elemental
construction of the communion materials. Boehme compares the
wine to the alchemical tincture. In the same manner, Fludd
states that the sun is the altar of Christ the Messiah, the
"anima mundi," in his form as the messianic angel Metattron
(following Johannes Reuchlin’s cabbalistic account).
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The earliest influence on these types of Christological
Paracelsians may have been the work of a Hungarian alchemist,
Melchior Cibinensis, in the early sixteenth century (and he
was not alone in his ideas). He had written a treatise in
which the rite of the Eucharist had served as a metaphor for
alchemical transmutation. Cibinensis can be identified with
Nicolaus Melchior Szebeni of Hermannstadt (formerly the
Hungarian city of Sibiu or Cibiu). He became a chaplain and
astrologer from 1490 at the royal court of King Ladislaus II
of Hungary and subsequently served Louis II (1516-26). In
1526, Cibinensis joined the court of Emperor Ferdinand I in
Vienna and was executed by him in 1531 for his Protestant
affiliations.
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He was included by the alchemist and Imperial physician
Michael Maier in his compendium of famous alchemists, the
Symbola Aureae Duodecim Nationum (1617) and Maier commissioned an
illustration from the artist, Matthieu Merian. Maier, a
Lutheran, had himself travelled to England in early 1612 where
he was attached to the court of James II until 1618 and
probably met Robert Fludd. Merian’s picture illustrates a
Roman Catholic mass in an apocalyptic context. The scene is
primarily an allegory of the alchemical process of "cibatio"
("feeding") in which the distilled spirits are re-united with
the calcinated ashes. The woman and child represent the
Apocalyptic Woman of Revelation 12:1-6, 13-17. Cibinensis's
discrete original text had been discontinued at the Credo,
prior to the consecration of the bread and wine in the Words
of Institution, probably to avoid accusations of desecrating
the mass. Cibinensis never specifically identified Christ with
the philosopher's stone, as did Khunrath in his Amphiteatrum
nearly a century later and Maier's engraving continues this
identification, clearly identifying Christ with the "lapis
philosophorum" and the elixir of life.
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There was a proto-type for Maier's apocalyptic Eucharist in an
engraving from Khunrath’s Amphiteatrum (1595) which shows an
alchemist praying in his laboratory before an altar on which
stands a book displaying two geometrical diagrams. This volume
represents the missal. Both of the diagrams are Pythagorean
emblems of Christ incarnated both in Nature and in the
communion materials of the mass.
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All images with the permission of the British Library, London
To conclude: In medieval and Renaissance religious belief the
divine flesh and wine of the
Communion was regarded as a mysterious healer of physical
human ailments, providing
supernatural food and health, the "heavenly manna" or "panis
angelicum" ("bread of the angels").
The materials were also equated in popular culture with
alchemical potions and the communion
in two kinds was given popular alchemical names such as
"balsam," "pharmakon," "elixir vitae"
and "medicina sacramentalis." The alchemist and dissident
evangelical John of Rupescissa in the
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1370s had introduced into western Europe the Arabian concept
of the alchemical elixir as the
liquid form of the astral fifth essence. It was to be
distilled from wine and thus had a sacramental
aura. Paracelsian alchemists adopted this idea adding
additional Christological elements drawn
from Christian cabbalism and from Roman Catholic Eucharistic
doctrine. Christ as the
Messiah, the universal healer of both soul and body, was the
fundamental principle of
Fludd’s alchemical medicine. His system is so similar to
Franckenberg’s which was
devised slightly later that a direct influence on Franckenberg
from Fludd cannot be
discounted.