Sparling Andrew
Independent scholar.
Ambix. 2020 Feb;67(1):62-87. doi: 10.1080/00026980.2020.1720358.
A scholarly consensus has long held that in redefining alchemy, Paracelsus rejected metallic transmutation. I show here, however, that for most of his career Paracelsus believed that it was possible to change one metal into another, and even late in his short life he did not break with that view. Furthermore, in certain places in his works he also represented himself, occasionally directly and more often obliquely, as a practical transmutationist. Because Paracelsus not only acknowledged that metallic transmutations were theoretically possible but also claimed to have carried them out in practice, we must regard him as (among other things) a transmutational alchemist. As such, he had more in common than historians have generally admitted with both his medieval predecessors and his posthumous followers. The Paracelsian alchemists of the late-sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were not wrong to situate Paracelsus within the alchemical tradition, nor to connect their own goldmaking interests to his.
长期以来，学术共识认为，在重新定义炼金术时，帕拉塞尔苏斯摒弃了金属嬗变。然而，我在此表明，在其职业生涯的大部分时间里，帕拉塞尔苏斯都相信将一种金属变成另一种金属是可能的，甚至在其短暂生命的晚期，他也未放弃这一观点。此外，在其著作的某些地方，他还直接或更常间接地将自己描述为一名实践中的嬗变术士。由于帕拉塞尔苏斯不仅承认金属嬗变在理论上是可能的，还声称自己在实践中进行过，因此我们必须将他视为（除其他身份外）一名嬗变派炼金术士。这样一来，他与中世纪的前辈以及身后的追随者所共有的东西，比历史学家通常所承认的要多。16世纪末和17世纪的帕拉塞尔苏斯派炼金术士将帕拉塞尔苏斯置于炼金术传统之中，并将他们自己的造金兴趣与他联系起来，这并没有错。
