An actress used to playing only bit parts becomes the center of attention when a movie director buys her life story as a film project, she is now faced with a psychological crisis.

The two main people in the story are Anna, a young girl, who is thought of having the ability to heal people mysteriously. Elisabeth is a young - middle aged aristocratic woman, that is disabled and puts all her hopes in meeting Anna and having her disability heal by her. A strange ambivalent relationship develops between the two women.

A 1943 German drama film directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst based on the life of Philippus von Hohenheim (Paracelsus). The film is one of several big nazi era productions with main characters regarded as propaganda-parables to Adolf Hitler (see also Ohm Krüger and Der grosse König).