s not been hidden from the fauns and the nymphs and giants, but has been
revealed for a long time; whence they too, come. For from such homunculi,
when they come to the age of manhood come giants, dwarfs and other similar
great wonder people, [Just like Genesis vi, 4] that were used for a great
tool and instrument, who had a great mighty victory over their enemies and
knew all secret and hidden things that are for all men impossible to know.
For by art they received their life, through art they received body,
flesh, bone and blood, through art were they born. Therefore the art was
embodied and born in them and they had to learn it from no one, but one
must learn from them. For because of art are they there and grown up like
a rose or flower in the garden and are called the children of fauns and
nymphs because that they with their powers and deeds, not to men but to
spirits are compared." [It is characteristic that Paracelsus passes
immediately to the production of metals.]

In the description of the generation of the homunculus the power of
rotting material has been pointed out. There is clearly evident a feeding
with a magisterium from blood (water of life) corresponding to the
intrauterine alimentation. We note that from the homunculi come giants and
dwarfs and wonderful beings.

The idea of palingenesis appears to have no little significance for the
existence of the homunculus production. They imagine that a dead living
being could be restored, at least in a smokelike image, if they carefully
collected all its parts, triturated them and treated the composition in a
vessel with the proper fire. Then there would appear after a time, like a
cloud of smoke, the faint image of the former being, plant, bird, man. The
clouds vanish if the heating is interrupted. Further it would be possible,
even if more difficult, to pass beyond this mere adumbration, and cause
the former being to arise again from the ashes, fully alive. In the
recipes for this an important role is regularly played by horse manure or
some other rotting substance. Many authors tell fables of all sorts of
wonderful experiments that they have made. One tells that he has reduced a
bird to ashes and made it live again, another will have seen in his retort
and coming from the moldering corpse of a child its shadow image, etc. We
see here in actuality the mythical motive of dismemberment and
revivification expressed in a naive practice. It is quite noticeable that