This article tries to answer the two recently heatedly debated historical questions, whether ‘the introspective self’ has already emerged in the premodern era and what an ontological place emotions had. It analyses various essays by Pracelsus, in particular those on the pest plagues and mental disorders. Paracelsus explained more often than not, that the pest took place in the persons who feared the pest. The odd argument that the fear of a illness were its etiological cause, could be only explained by probing into his viewpoint of world. Paracelsus argued that an emotion could be identified with an image, an image located itself as well as uttered words among earthly and heavenly things, which communicated with each other emphatically and contemplatively. Viewed from this neo-platonic perspective, there could be no place for an introspective self, because human beings were composed of earthly and astronomical influences. The ontological place of an emotion also could not be identified, because it located itself across the human flesh, earthly things, and heavenly stars. The same applies to the explanation by Paracelsus about the melancholy and other mental disorders.