Opus Paramirum

Opus Paramirum sets out Paracelsus's reformed account of the causes of disease and the constitution of the human being, framed by his vision of the person as a microcosm of the cosmos. Its central claim is that imagination, imaginatio, is not idle fantasy but a genuine operative force in body and world.

The work argues from a Hermetic medicine in which inner conviction and faith shape the body's condition, and in which a charged imagination can serve as the medium of real effects. The spirit directs, the imagination works as its tool, and the body is the material shaped.

By giving mental and imaginative states an explicit causal role in health, Paracelsus anticipated mesmerism, mental healing, and the later New Thought claim that mind heals the body. His microcosm framework and fusion of alchemy with medicine also shaped Böhme and the wider tradition.