PARACELSUS

(Quoted from the book:) The belief in the predestination of love had many supporters in ancient times. It explained a phenomenon that is otherwise quite difficult to explain. A phenomenon we could articulate in the following manner: “There are secret links of affection, that no reason can be rendered of.” This quote comes from an essay on matrimony written by a representative of seventeenth century Protestant Puritanism, the Englishman Thomas Gataker. Six hundred years before, a distinguished Andalusian poet and philosopher called Ibn Hazm of Cordoba, had expressed the same thing with these words: “If the cause of Love were physical beauty, the consequence would be that nobody defective in any shape or form would attract admiration; yet we know of many a man actually preferring the inferior article, though well aware that another is superior, and quite unable to turn his heart away from it. Again, if Love were due to a harmony of characters, no man would love a person who was not of like purpose and in concord with him. We, therefore, conclude that Love is something within the soul itself.” You might find that last sentence enigmatic now, but later you will understand what Ibn Hazm meant by it... We will wrap up the testimonies with a passage from an ancient sage I am sure you know. The sixteenth century Swiss doctor and alchemist, Paracelsus, who wrote: “when two beings search for each other and, without apparent explanation, unite in burning love, one must think their affection is neither born in, or a resident of the body, but that it comes from the spirit of both bodies, united by mutual links and superior affinities... To these, we call twin souls.” 



(Portrait of Paracelso)

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