A Dark Muse: A History of the Occult (3 page)

Cagliostro

Cagliostro started life in Sicily as Giuseppe Balsamo, although there is still some dispute over whether Cagliostro and Balsamo were in fact the same man. Like Rasputin, his name elicits a vague sense of someone sinister, yet few people have any concrete idea who or what he was. Carlyle's tags of "King of Liars" and "Great Quack Face" are understandable, given that the sole source of any information about Cagliostro in Carlyle's time was the biography written by his murderers, the Inquisition. Among other claims to fame, Cagliostro was the last person executed by the Inquisition, more than likely strangled by his jailer in the Castel San Leo in Rome. The picture of Cagliostro as a spiritual swindler even hit the big screen, when Orson Welles portrayed the Sicilian mountebank in the 1949 film, Black Magic. Even Goethe, no stranger to the occult sciences, satirized him in his play The Grand Copht. Yet if Cagliostro's reputation is understandable, it is not entirely accurate. Like many occult masters, Cagliostro didn't rule out fakery if it would secure his aims. Yet those aims were often noble, and there was something about his presence that suggested a certain dominance and personal force.'

Balsamo left home in his teens after being thrown out of his seminary school for improvising on a sacred text he was reading aloud to the class: he substituted the names of local prostitutes for those of saints. For the next twenty years he wandered across Europe, practising a variety of trades: forger, alchemist, copper smelter and travelling doctor touting a borax-based skin lotion. The wandering life was common to many hermetic philosophers: Paracelsus' travels are legendary, as were Cornelius Agrippa's, and at some point during his travels, Balsamo met another 18th century occultist, the celebrated rake, Giovanni Jacopo Casanova. (Decades later, in his declining years, Casanova spitefully recalled Cagliostro as `badly hung'.) Up until his thirty-fourth year there is little to distinguish Balsamo from the other adventurers who scrambled across Europe, living by their wits and trusting in the credulity and ennui of the well-heeled for their livelihood. Then, on a visit to London in 1776, Balsamo changed his name to Cagliostro and he literally became a different person. The central cause of this transformation was freemasonry.

Balsamo had always been attracted to the occult - his days as a travelling alchemist say as much. It is even possible that he may have met Swedenborg during his first visit to London in 1772; although in his last days by then, Swedenborg was lucid until his death, the date and time of which, incidentally, he accurately predicted. Certainly by his next visit in 1776 Cagliostro was frequenting Swedenborgian circles, and possibly visiting the kabbalist Falk. But after being admitted to the Esperance Lodge of Freemasons, on 12 April 1777 at the King's Head on Gerrard Street in Soho, he adopted freemasonry as his life's mission. He soon developed a curious new form of Masonic initiation, the so-called Egyptian Rite. Accounts differ as to how he came across this. Some say he was initiated into the Egyptian Rite by the Comte de SaintGermain. Better evidence suggests that the ubiquitous Falk was responsible. Cagliostro himself claimed that during a visit to London he discovered in a bookstall a manuscript arguing the Egyptian origins of freemasonry. This trope of the magical book appearing strangely at the right moment will be repeated several times in the history of magic: the `editor' of Bulwer-Lytton's Zanoni meets a Rosicrucian in a Covent Garden bookshop, the authenticity of the Hermetic order of the Golden Dawn stemmed from a bookstall in Farringdon Road, and Gustav Meyrink is saved from suicide by a magical pamphlet sliding under his door. Whether or not the book actually existed seems irrelevant. Cagliostro's belief in his Egyptian Rite was unshakeable, his oratorical gifts persuasive; he had found his life's calling, as well as an interesting way to make a living. Calling himself the Grand Copht - after the prophet Enoch, supposed founder of Egyptian masonry - Cagliostro took to the roads, doing the occult circuit, bringing a higher, more inspiring initiation into what had become for many a routine social club.

Cagliostro was very successful. Entering Venice, Berlin, Leipzig and St. Petersburg in his black coach covered in kabbalistic symbols, he must have been an impressive sight, as he headed for the local Masonic lodges. Yet not everyone was satisfied with his plan to heal the rifts and schisms in the craft. He received some resistance in 1784, during the general Convent of Freemasons called together in Paris by the lodge `Les Amis Reunis', otherwise known as the Philalethes, or `lovers of truth'. Cagliostro's demands that all of the lodges recognize the preeminence of his Egyptian Rite did not go down well, nor did his request that the Philalethes destroy all their records meet with much approval.

Whatever its source, Cagliostro's motives for promulgating the Egyptian Rite were noble, and for all their occult character, in keeping with Enlightenment ideals of egalitarianism and brotherhood. Like Zinzendorf and Falk, who was known to associate freely with Christians, Cagliostro's aim was to unite disparate groups under a common Masonic goal: the regeneration of mankind. With this in view, the Egyptian Rite admitted Jews and, in a radical break with Masonic tradition, women as well.

As well as a Mason, Cagliostro was something of a healer, and the transformation from fly-by-night adventurer to the Grand Copht seemed to have increased his powers consider ably. Unlike Mesmer, who was criticized for treating only wealthy patients and for ignoring the needy, Cagliostro often refused to serve the rich. In European capitals, he would head to the poor district, take humble lodgings, distribute money and treat the sick, refusing any payment. In his displays of clairvoyance, he often employed children as mediums, and it is true he resorted to trickery on occasion. Yet, there are numerous accounts of his accuracy. Baroness D'Oberkirch, who was not one of his supporters, admitted that he was right about several items he communicated to her at their first meeting, facts which he could not have known; and later, while in Strasbourg, when he announced to her the death of the Empress of Austria, the news of the empress's demise only arrived three days later. Other evidence of Cagliostro's powers was given by the Marshall von Medem, the orientalist Count de Gebelin and the Cardinal Rohan.

Mention of Rohan brings us to the `Diamond Necklace Affair'. Although Cagliostro played an insignificant part in the swindle, he was shattered by it. When the scandal broke, his reputation was in shreds, and his magnificent self-confidence never recovered. He defended himself, and was acquitted, but this was only after a year in the Bastille awaiting trial. The impression he made destroyed his reputation. In court he launched into a long soliloquy, speaking of his aristocratic parentage, calling himself "a noble voyager, Nature's unfortunate child." This drew laughter, not sympathy, and with his long hair and green taffeta coat, he cut a ridiculous figure. His life story, complete with accounts of his mystic travels in Asia, Africa and Arabia failed to impress, and he was banished from France.

Cagliostro became a wanderer again, but his bad publicity preceded him and he was thrown out of practically every place he sought refuge. Strangely, in London, where his Egyptian Rite did not draw many initiates, he wrote a Letter to the French People. It sold well in Paris, and seems in some ways to predict the coming deluge. He speaks of not returning to Paris until the Bastille is torn down, and hints at a drastic change in government. It was perhaps these prophecies that made the Vatican regard him as a dangerous political revolution. Attempting to promote freemasonry in Rome, Cagliostro was arrested and charged with plotting to overthrow the Church, something that the Illuminati indeed had in mind. In 1789 he was thrown into prison. At the age of 52, he was executed. Reports of his death were not believed, and in 1797, when French soldiers captured the San Leo prison, they searched for him. It was not until a report ordered by Napoleon confirmed his death that the world finally accepted that the Grand Copht was gone.

Le Comte de Saint Germain

In the 18th century wit, a knack for conversation, an ingratiating manner and the ability to seem perpetually fascinating, were as much in demand as kabbalistic knowledge and alchemical skill. The man who was known as the Count of Saint-Germain, or le Comte de Saint-Germain, or, on occasion, `der Wundermann', had these qualities and, like many occultists who followed him, he purposely encouraged an air of mystery about his past. Little is known of his origins. He may or may not have been born in 1710 in Portugal, into a family of Sephardic Jews. It's also possible that he was Frances Ragoczy, a Transylvanian prince who died in SchleswigHolstein, Germany, in 1784, only to be seen five years later, in 1789, in Paris, during the Revolution. Lastly, he may still be alive today, secure in a Himalayan inner sanctum, awaiting the right moment for his return. Certainly since the 19th century he has become, like the Wandering Jew, a figure of myth, restored and revamped in different fashions to fill a place in various occult pantheons. His central occult claim was to have perfected the alchemical elixir vitae, which cured all ills and bestowed immortality. Madame Blavatsky included him among her Tibetan masters, and in more recent years the right-wing American spiritual teacher Elizabeth Clare Prophet dusted off the count and employed him as spokesman for her less than inspiring pronouncements. Indeed, if the count were alive today, he would more than likely find a comfortable niche for himself as a talk show host, or at least a frequent guest among those who are famous for being famous.

The man called Saint-Germain did possess a genuine charm and culture, as well as an impressive knowledge of chemistry and history, which allowed him to speak with authority both on alchemy and the past, and this in a way that suggested he actually did witness the events in question. He seemed to always dress in black and white, was an accomplished violinist with a good singing voice, had a fluent command of several European languages, and a knack for perfecting dyes for silk and leather. That he could also transform base metals into gold, remove flaws from diamonds, had, two thousand years earlier, invented freemasonry and hence was much older than he looked are more doubtful claims. Saint-Germain's youthful appearance may have been a result of a practice that probably accounts for his habit of not eating at the many banquets and feasts he nevertheless enlivened with his wit and acumen. It is more than likely that he was a vegetarian and genuinely did not relish the ample portions that made up the well-heeled 18th century menu. He claimed to eat only a special elixir that he prepared himself, but it is also possible that he ate a normal meal beforehand unobserved.

The first mention of Saint-Germain is in a letter from Horace Walpole in 1743, where he remarks of his appearance in London. Soon after he was expelled from. England on suspicion of being a spy for the Stuart pretenders. He then went to France and became a favourite of Louis XV, more than likely through the influence of Madame de Pompadour. Saint-Germain was an accomplished ladies' man; he would often make a present of an eau de toilette that he claimed prevented wrinkles, saying it was a small token of his esteem. Like Casanova, who thought him a charlatan (but admired his skill with the female sex) and Cagliostro - who may have received the Egyptian Rite from him - Saint-Germain floated across Europe, working as a magician, wit and spy. He was known in Vienna as a confidant of Counts Zabor and Lobkowitz, and it was in their company that he met and befriended the French Marshal de Belle-Isle, who brought him to France. Before meeting Louis XV, he moved to Holland and called himself Count Surmount; there he set up several successful factories for the ennobling of metals. In 1762 he arrived in St. Petersburg, and became involved in the conspiracy to make Catherine the Great Queen of Russia. He became a great friend of Count Alexei Orlov, and was even made a Russian general, calling himself General Welldone - whether in jest or earnest is unknown. In Nuremberg in 1774 he received the support of the Margrave of Nuremberg, Charles Alexander, and it was here that the story of his being Prince Ragoczy began. When the margrave discovered that this particular Prince Ragoczy was dead, along with his brothers, SaintGermain had to move on. He was by now in his sixties. Luck was with him, and in 1779 he came under the protection of the landgrave Charles of Hesse-Cassel. At the landgrave's castle in Schleswig-Holstein, Saint-Germain tutored his patron in the occult sciences, a position he held for five years, until his death - or most recent disappearance - in 1784.

Descriptions of Saint-Germain range from "the completest charlatan, fool, rattle-pate, windbag and swindler" (Count Warnstedt), to "perhaps one of the greatest sages who ever lived" (Charles of Hesse-Cassel), to "a highly gifted man with a very alert mind" who nevertheless was "completely without judgment" and who gained his notoriety through "the lowest and basest flattery of which a man is capable . . ." (Count Alvensleben, Prussian Ambassador to Dresden). He was, it seems, a man of considerable culture and wit, with a sincere interest in chemistry, who used the mystification of the occult to open doors that may otherwise have remained closed. What actual contribution he made to the hermetic arts, however, is unclear.

The Unknown Philosopher

The life of Louis Claude de Saint-Martin had none of the eventfulness of Mesmer or Cagliostro, and although he moved among them, he did not try to ingratiate himself with the aristocracy as did Saint-Germain. Saint-Martin was a true hermetic philosopher, deeply concerned with mankind's spiritual destiny, a profoundly serious individual. Like Swedenborg, he had a message. He is not out to impress or mystify, but to educate and inspire. His central theme is one that will blossom with the Romantics of the next generation. Man, he tells us, is really a god, or at least has the potential to be one, a belief he shared with his contemporary William Blake. With Blake, Saint-Martin believed that the external, physical world of space and time is the result of some primeval catastrophe, a `fall' from our inherent divinity, into the limits of finitude. And like Blake, Saint-Martin sees the magician's task as the opening of the doors of perception, and a return to our birthright.