DiotimosReading Desk

A foreign spirit in an alien body

peregrinus; alieno; suae naturae; alienus

The magnet explanation describes a foreign spirit in a body alien to it drawing a body of its own nature.

From the book

Nine Books on the Nature of Things

Attributed to Paracelsus · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Meaning

The magnet explanation describes a foreign spirit in a body alien to it drawing a body of its own nature. The relational adjectives identify three roles: the displaced spirit, its present host and the matching body attracted. “Foreign” does not by itself mean demonic or geographically foreign. Preserving the possessive relation prevents the attraction principle from being paraphrased as a vague claim that everything attracts everything else.

Places to read

  1. Book 3 · Preservation · Passage 6Latin“peregrinus spiritus, qui in alieno est corpore”