Renaissance Magic and Mysticism

SPRING BOOKS NATURE|Vol 441|11 May 2006 beyond biology, and suggesting an evolution- us think about biology. And the latest volume, novels. Yet, perhaps because of the intricate ary approach to culture. Richard Dawkins, brings together testimonials mixture of paracelsian magic, metallurgy, However, as Robert Aunger observes in and reflections about Dawkins himself or medicine and alchemy, the historical Paracel- Grafen and Ridley’s book: “No significant body inspired by his work. Most of the contribu- sus has received comparatively little attention. of empirical research has grown up around the tions, by eminent scientists, philosophers and By presenting the work of Paracelsus, includ- meme concept … In fact the memetic litera- writers, are laudatory; a few are critical. The ing all the contradictions and neologisms, as ture remains devoted almost exclusively to book is a pleasant read and throws useful an intensely personal enterprise embedded theoretical antagonisms, internecine battles, light on the multiform impact of Dawkins’ in Renaissance life, Ball circumvents many of and scholastic elucidations of prior writing work on biology, philosophy, science writing the historical difficulties and comes up with an on memes.” Dawkins has essentially left the and the public debate on science and religion. excellent biography that is relevant for his- development of memetics to others. Instead, Particularly illuminating are Grafen’s chapter torians and general readers alike. together with Daniel Dennett, he has used the discussing the relationship between Dawkins’ Ball takes events in the life of Paracelsus as idea of the meme as a powerful tool in his crit- work and more mathematically oriented starting points for discussing the Renaissance icism of religious ideas, which he describes population genetics, and Ullica Segerstråle’s world. For instance, when discussing Para- as “viruses of the mind”. The effectiveness of chapter on Dawkins and sociobiology. Still, celsus’ life as a vagabond, Ball speaks about the criticism does not much depend on the in preparing this review, I re-read The Selfish the difficulties of travelling in early modern scientific details of a would-be memetics. Gene, and this was the real treat. ■ Europe. His discussion of the alchemy of Dawkins’ depth and clarity of vision, Dan Sperber is at the Centre National de la Paracelsus transforms into a discussion of intellectual honesty and passion, and superb Recherche Scientifique and the Institut Jean Nicod, economic growth and the power of miners, writing have indeed changed the way many of 1 bis avenue Lowendal, 75014 Paris, France. and his religious and political views are compared to those of reformers and princes. Ball speaks of Paracelsus’ views on astrology in relation to the astronomy of Copernicus and his followers. And last but not least, Renaissance magic and mysticism Ball writes extensively about the traditional (galenic) medicine and chemistry that Para- The Devil’s Doctor: Paracelsus and the occult forces were accepted parts of early mod- celsus challenged. The book’s illustrations World of Renaissance Magic and Science ern science. In addition, Ball acknowledges provide a vivid picture of the time and further by Philip Ball the close connection between early modern enliven Ball’s account. Heinemann/Farrar, Straus, Giroux: 2006. natural philosophy, Renaissance humanism This approach is brave and enriching but 448 pp. £20/$26 and Reformation religion. In so doing, he fol- is also a little overwhelming. At times Para- lows a fairly recent trend in the history of celsus disappears into the background, and the Rina Knoeff science and medicine in which religion and reader is in danger of getting lost in detailed One has to admire Philip Ball’s courageous science are seen as mutually shaping fields descriptions of Renaissance culture. Moreover, undertaking in writing a biography of Para- of knowledge. in a book as ambitious as this it is almost celsus, arguably the most controversial In The Devil’s Doctor, Ball convinc- unavoidable that the terminology becomes at medical writer in the Renaissance. Not ingly shows that in order to under- times confusing. Much of Paracelsus’ work only are the works of Paracelsus’ own stand Paracelsus’ work and personality teeters on the brink of the spiritual, and his hand extremely difficult to read and we must accept that “in the philosophy own vocabulary often seems puzzling to understand but, more importantly, histor- of Paracelsus science and rationalism do modern readers. ical reconstructions of his life and not compete with mysticism and The difficulty in understanding Paracelsus’ thoughts complicate the picture superstition but blend with neologisms and expressions is clearly visible in to such an extent that it it, producing a world that this book. Ball, for instance, is often wobbly in is hard to write a ‘fair’ now seems at the calling details of Paracelsus’ work ‘mechanical’, biography. same time wonder- ‘spiritual’ or ‘materialistic’. Sometimes it is not Paracelsus is known ful and bizarre”. clear whether he adopts Paracelsus’ own words for being a failed physi- Paracelsus, or or gives them a modern, and therefore differ- cian; a psychiatric sub- Philippus Aureolus ent, meaning. For example, Ball maintains that ject in the casebooks Theophrastus Bom- Paracelsus’ concentration of nature’s potencies of the psychoanalyst bastus von Hohen- in the preparation of medicines was “not Carl Jung; a German heim, spoke to the mechanical” (presumably in a modern sense), national hero during the imagination. He is but on the next page he states that, according Nazi period; and the said to have ridden a to Paracelsus, the powers of the stars permeate founder of biochemis- magical white horse, to “mechanically” through the Universe (thereby try. Ball, however, sets have cured many incur- referring to Paracelsus’ own words). In both Paracelsus in the social, able diseases, and to have cases Ball refers to the working of invisible religious and cultural life carried an enormous sword powers, but apparently these are mechanical in of his time, a refreshing with magical powers, as well one case but not in the other, leaving it unclear move away from the ten- as the secret elixir of life. His what Paracelsus meant when he spoke of the dency to describe early ‘sci- name was linked with those of mechanical working of the invisible forces of entists’ as the forerunners of Faust and Martin Luther, and nature. The same goes for the important today’s scientific developments. among the many miracles he paracelsian distinction between the material Ball is aware of the historio- allegedly performed was the crea- and the spiritual, which at times makes Ball’s graphic difficulties surrounding tion of a living, human-like being. description of Paracelsus’ thoughts somewhat the life and work of Paracelsus. Today, Paracelsus appears bewildering. His account starts with a brief as a hero in the magical world To be fair to Ball, he does explain many of discussion of how magic and of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Paracelsus’ neologisms, but he also has the

152 © 2006 Nature Publishing Group NATURE|Vol 441|11 May 2006 SPRING BOOKS tendency to follow Jung in maintaining that This criticism notwithstanding, The Devil’s sent that afternoon to Rubin and Francis the language used by Paracelsus must be seen Doctor is a fascinating read, rich in content Collins have passed into legend. Rubin was symbolically as an expression of his uncon- and hugely entertaining. Moreover, it shows found, Venter confronted. To the fury of scious mind. It is too easy to argue that, for that magic was as much at the root of modern Celera’s business-development team, Venter this reason, the lexicons provided by scholars science as were the famous discoveries of backed down, and within 24 hours the fly of Paracelsus must be taken “with a pinch of our modern scientific heroes. It is this aware- sequence was freely available on GenBank. Paracelsian salt”. To my mind, one of the most ness that makes Ball’s account of Paracelsus Arguably, this was the moment when it urgent tasks of the historian is to find out what essential reading for historians and scientists became clear that nobody would make serious precisely Paracelsus meant. Without making alike. ■ money from genome sequencing; the pressure this effort, the description of his work can only Rina Knoeff is in the Faculty of Arts, University of to share would prove irresistible. Indeed, given remain superficial. Leiden, 2300 RA Leiden, the Netherlands. the way the world was going that autumn, maybe it was an omen for the whole ‘dot com’ frenzy in whose slipstream Celera’s share price had accelerated. Celera was not the only over- valued company with a flawed business model The soldier’s tale for making money out of digital information. Not that Ashburner portrays himself as Won for All: How the Drosophila Genome Crete, Florida, Heidelberg, Washington (twice), a hero or Venter as a villain. The delightful was Sequenced Iceland (a bird-watching holiday), Heidelberg sequel is that within a week of this stressful by Michael Ashburner again, Florida again, Washington, Zurich, incident, Ashburner was at the Celera jam- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press: 2006. Maine, Bloomington, Washington again… I boree playing happily in the toybox that was 107 pp. $19.95 may have missed a few. Being a scientist, Ash- the fruitfly genome, exhilarating in the new burner hates hotels (especially Marriotts), knowledge and even joshing with Venter. At Matt Ridley Microsoft, bad coffee and suits — the ones one point, while celebrating the end of the When the history of genome sequencing at the who negotiate on behalf of turn of the millennium is written, it will centre Celera. He likes or needs sushi, on two battles. The battle over the sequencing espresso, Lewis Carroll, beer and of the human genome was bigger and more bit- bouts of bird-watching. ter than the one over sequencing the fruitfly The book rattles along with genome; if the human genome was Waterloo, immediate, chaotic, rambunc- Drosophila was barely even Ligny or Quatre tious prose, digressing several Bras. So why would anybody trouble to read, times on every page into chatty let alone write, a book about the lesser battle? and irreverent footnotes to Michael Ashburner’s answer is simple: for explain who people are, how and the story, not the history. He has written — or why to find a certain restaurant, rather, he wrote, for these are his immediate or where an aphorism comes reactions, mostly committed to paper at the from (‘Box and Cox’ is from an time — an idiosyncratic, gonzo romp through Arthur Sullivan operetta, appar- the crazy days of 1998–99. His purpose, he ently). Ashburner says that his writes, “frankly, was therapy”. This is not like education in the works of Geof- General John Sulston’s biographical justifica- frey Chaucer taught him the tion of the genome campaign,The Common value of footnotes. Thread, written with Georgina Ferry (National The wheels came off the Academies, 2002), or James Shreeve’s compen- sequencing project on 1 Novem- dious war report from the camp of Marshal ber 1999, when Ashburner was Craig Venter, The Genome War (Alfred A. frantically trying to finish sev- Knopf, 2004). Rather, this is a field diary from eral tasks before leaving for the a colonel in the infantry. jamboree. On that day, Celera The story is by now a familiar one. In 1998 released the fly genome to the Venter burst into the human genome project, NCBI’s GenBank database, but with restricted jamboree, Ashburner persuaded Venter to pose promising to produce a sequence quickly, access — to see any sequence, the user had to in headphones like a NASA flight director in privately and commercially, thanks to new agree not to copy, re-sell or distribute it. This Celera’s mission-control room. sequencing machines and the shotgun tech- was not the open access that Venter had The history of genome sequencing drives nique he had used on bacteria. He announced promised Rubin the year before. Venter was in home the message that science is usually the that he would test his method first on fruitflies, a bind, desperate to show his backers that daughter, not the mother, of technology. winning the cooperation of Gerry Rubin, sequence data could have commercial value, Sequencing the human, fruitfly and all other hitherto the chief sequencer of Drosophila, by and anxious to prevent rivals such as Incyte genomes was made possible by new machin- promising the immediate release of data. Many from selling Celera’s data to others. So Venter ery. The resulting information was a glorious arguments later, in November 1999, a flock of tried it on. “The best way to find out if he was and far-reaching addition to human knowl- scientists gathered to witness an eleven-day crossing the line,” wrote Shreeve in his history edge, but only a distant harbinger of new ‘jamboree’, organized mainly by Ashburner, at of the event, “was to stick out a toe and see if commercial applications. But at least it has the Maryland headquarters of Venter’s Celera, any alarms went off.” generated some enjoyable literature, of which to find, understand and count the genes in the This moment is a little hinge in history. Ven- this is a good example. ■ finished fruitfly sequence. ter might have got away with it. Rubin was trav- Matt Ridley is at Blagdon, Seaton Burn, Ashburner’s book covers the year-and-a-half elling. The NCBI thought this was what had Newcastle upon Tyne NE13 6DD, UK. His between these two events. It is a time of con- been agreed. It was Ashburner in Cambridge biography of Francis Crick will be published in stant travel for the author: Cold Spring Harbor, who exploded. His expletive-ridden e-mails June. www.mattridley.co.uk

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