Bruce T. Moran is Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is Editor of Ambix: the Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry and the author of Distilling Knowledge: Alchemy, Chemistry and the Scientific Revolution (2005) and Andreas Libavius and the Transformation of Alchemy (2007).
"Paracelsus: An Alchemical Life is an important addition to the
Renaissance Lives series. In this concise yet pivotal book, Moran
situates Paracelsus both in his own complex sixteenth-century
worldview and in his rightful place in the historiography of
medicine: not as a precursor to Nazism or Freudian psychoanalysis,
but as a healer of the layperson who understood and interpreted the
natural world in the context of alchemy, natural magic, and
Christianity. Moran expertly tackles the overwhelming, and
oftentimes incorrect, five-hundrerd-year literature on Paracelsus's
life and work by organizing his book to mirror Paracelsus's Septem
defensiones (Seven Defenses), allowing Paracelsus to have the last
word against his many critics."-- "Isis"
"Deeply involved in the radical reshaping of early modern ideas and
practices regarding medicine, faith, science, and philosophy,
Theophrastus von Hohenheim, or Paracelsus as he is best remembered,
offers up a life story that is endlessly fascinating as well as
revelatory about the world in which he worked. Moran employs his
Renaissance subject as a door to multiple aspects of the early
modern world in which he lived and worked. This slim but utterly
engaging volume is less a biography and more a guided tour of
Paracelsus's life and times, beautifully informed by Moran's own
profound understanding of the alchemical philosophy that informs
his subject's wide-ranging work. . . . Paracelsus: An Alchemical
Life is an engaging, sometimes audacious, eclectic life story
well-suited for readers outside the academy but also rewarding for
those within."-- "Renaissance and Reformation"
"Moran's Paracelsus: An Alchemical Life considers a
sixteenth-century figure with one foot planted in the world of
occult philosophy and the other in what, for all its limitations,
definitely counts as medical science. He 'traveled constantly,
learning and teaching a new form of medicine based on the
experience of miners, bathers, alchemists, midwives, and
barber-surgeons, ' while also cultivating 'mystical speculations,
an alchemical view of nature, and an intriguing concept of
creation.' The latter apparently included the belief in a female
deity. All things considered, the most surprising thing about
Paracelsus is that he managed to die a natural death. Perhaps he
traveled too much for religious authorities to do him in."--Scott
McLemee "Inside Higher Ed"
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