Iliaster

The Iliaster is one of Paracelsus’s most plastic concepts — not only has a wealth of meanings but appears in variant form as Iliastrum, Iliastes, Iliadus, Yleides, Yleidus, etc. (Jung 1967). Sometimes it is the principium, the prima materia, the chaos, the prima compositio, consisting of the three basic substances, Mercurius, sulphur, and salt; sometimes the aer elementalis or coelum, ‘the true spirit in man, which pervades all his limbs’; sometimes the occult virtue of nature, by which all things increase, are nourished, multiply, and quicken; sometimes the spiritus vitae, which is none other than vis Mercurii (Jung 1967, citing Ruland’s Lexicon).

The variability is not vagueness; it is the trace of a single substance under several aspects. Paracelsus names it omne fumosum et humidum in quovis corpore, the moist, breathlike or vaporous soul dwelling in all bodies (Jung 1967). In its highest aspect, the Iliaster signifies the passage of the mind or soul into another world, as took place with Enoch, Elias, and others.

The concept is load-bearing for ratio-pneuma because it shows how thoroughly the alchemical-Paracelsian tradition had absorbed and renamed the pneumatic substance the Stoics theorized. The Iliaster is the Latin alchemical πνεῦμα: vaporous, life-giving, pervasive, and capable in its highest operation of carrying soul into eternity.

Relationships

Primary sources

alchemical-studies (Jung 1967)