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1 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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The Paracelsian medicine and theosophy of Abraham von Franckenberg and Robert Fludd

Jan 23, 2023

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Page 1: The Paracelsian medicine and theosophy of Abraham von Franckenberg  and Robert Fludd

1

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.