Avoiding Superstition and There’s No Need to Take Rumors Seriously if There’s No Evidence That They Ever Happened
Kevin R. Henke
October 31, 2022
Henke (2022bg) largely deals with alchemy and how some people held superstitious views about Theophrastus Paracelsus of Vienna. In Henke (2022bg), I said the following:
“Apparently, Mr. Lundahl changed his mind at some point and no longer considers it likely that Theophrastus Paracelsus of Vienna actually changed a copper coin into gold or was possibly involved in some sort of a “demonic sham.” Good for him.”
Yet, in Henke (2022bg), I also criticized Mr. Lundahl’s other activities:
“As I stated before in Henke (2022b) and Henke (2022ba), why is Mr. Lundahl wasting his time classifying different kinds of baseless supernatural claims? Instead, he should be trying to find good evidence for just one miracle.”
Lundahl (2022u) then responds to my comments in Henke (2022bg):
“Because I bothered to classify legends - and this one is from the Enlightenment era, when:
· they began (wrongly) to be regarded overall as fiction
· and as a result fictional "parallels" to this literature started to appear.
I have not verified that Paracelsus' contract with the devil was similarily probably fiction.
It may very well have been a real rumour about him at the time, just as their was one on Gerbert (Pope Sylvester II) and on Janko Šajatović (the model, indirectly, for Otfried Preußler's Krabat). But my whole point in citing it in this connection would have been
· either:
a demon would have been even better at a sleight of hand;
· or:
even a demon could not have actually changed the copper into gold.
Finding out that this particular story was from the Enlightenment gave me the needed aha to avoid the looming uncomfortable alternative.
And yes, Paracelsus is not a fictional, but a perfectly historic character. He invented the modern pharmaceutics.”
Mr. Lundahl, I can recognize that Paracelsus was a real individual without accepting any groundless superstitious rumors that he could possibly change copper into gold or that he had a contract with the devil. It’s far more probable that these supernatural stories about Paracelsus are nothing more than false rumors or people being deceived by his hand tricks. There’s no need to speculate about what demons could do, if demons don’t exist. If people wanted to believe that Paracelsus was in league with the devil or had the ability to actually change copper into gold, they needed to find evidence to support their claims. Otherwise, the advantageous abandonment of superstition and the development of skepticism of the supernatural, which began in the Enlightenment, are the right approach.