Theosophical Hall of Wonders

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Paracelsus, to whom we primarily owe chemistry Chymie: in this era, the term encompassed both laboratory chemistry and alchemy, focusing on the hidden spiritual properties of matter or natural science in Germany, has brought a riddle to light in his so-called Book of Puzzles: The house is always dead, but the inhabitant lives and gives life. original Latin: "Domus est semper mortua, sed eam inhabitans vivit & vivificat." That is: The house is always dead, but the inhabitant is living and makes it living as well. Over this, the philosophers Refers to natural philosophers and alchemists of the medieval and Renaissance periods. have dreadfully racked their brains to guess the riddle’s meaning, and have often brought forth such mad stuff that it could have given the largest elephant a bellyache. However, Theophrastus The first name of Paracelsus, born Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim. intends to say and indicate through this riddle how the power of creatures and bodies does not consist in the dead and perishable body, but rather that one must seek it in the wondrous spiritual life hidden under the shadow of the body. This life is nothing other than the aforementioned blue substance consisting of light, air, and a magnet, and is also quite fittingly and rightly called the Breath of Li-