In her Theosophical Glossary,
Blavatsky described the Comte of Saint-Germain as
follows:
« The Count of St. Germain. Referred to
as an enigmatical personage by modern writers. Frederic II., King of Prussia,
used to say of him that he was a man whom no one had ever been able make out.
Many are his “biographies”, and each is wilder than the other. By some he was
regarded as an incarnate god, by others as a clever Alsatian Jew.
One thing is certain, Count de
St. Germain —whatever his real patronymic may have been— had a right to his
name and title, for he had bought a property called San Germano, in the Italian
Tyrol, and paid the Pope for the title.
He was uncommonly handsome, and
his enormous erudition and linguistic capacities are undeniable, for he spoke
English, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian, Swedish,
Danish, and many Slavonian and Oriental languages, with equal facility with a
native.
He was also extremely wealthy,
never received a sou from anyone — in fact never accepted a glass of
water or broke bread with anyone made most extravagant presents of superb
jewellery to all his friends, even to the royal families of Europe.
His proficiency in music was
marvellous; he played on every instrument, the violin being his favourite. “St.
Germain rivalled Paganini himself”, was said of him by an octogenarian Belgian
in 1835, after hearing the “Genoese maestro”. “It is St. Germain
resurrected who plays the violin in the body of an Italian skeleton”,
exclaimed a Lithuanian baron who had heard both.
He never laid claim to spiritual
powers, but proved to have a right to such claim. He used to pass into a dead
trance from thirty-seven to forty-nine hours without awakening, and then knew
all he had to know, and demonstrated the fact by prophesying futurity and never
making a mistake. It is he who prophesied before the Kings Louis XV and XVI,
and the unfortunate Marie Antoinette.
Many were the still living
witnesses in the first quarter of this century who testified to his marvellous
memory; he could read a paper in the morning and, though hardly glancing at it,
could repeat its contents without missing one word days afterwards; he could
write with two hands at once, the right hand writing a piece of poetry, the
left a diplomatic paper of the greatest importance.
He read sealed letters without
touching them, while still in the hand of those who brought them to him. He was
the greatest adept in transmuting metals, making gold and the most marvellous
diamonds, an art, he said, he had learned from certain Brahmans in India, who
taught him the artificial crystallisation (“quickening”) of pure carbon.
As our Brother Kenneth Mackenzie
has it:
— “In 1780, when on a visit to
the French Ambassador to the Hague, he broke to pieces with a hammer a superb
diamond of his own manufacture, the counterpart of which, also manufactured by
himself, he had just before sold to a jeweller for 5500 louis d’or”.
He was the friend and confidant
of Count Orloff in 1772 at Vienna, whom he had helped and saved in St.
Petersburg in 1762, when concerned in the famous political conspiracies of that
time; he also became intimate with Frederick the Great of Prussia.
As a matter of course, he had
numerous enemies, and therefore it is not to be wondered at if all the gossip
invented about him is now attributed to his own confessions: e.g., that he was
over five hundred years old; also, that he claimed personal intimacy “with the
Saviour and his twelve Apostles, and that he had reproved Peter for his bad
temper ” — the latter clashing somewhat in point of time with the former, if he
had really claimed to be only five hundred years old, if he said that “he had
been born in Chaldea and professed to possess the secrets of the Egyptian
magicians and sages ”, he may have spoken truth without making any miraculous
claim.
There are Initiates, and not the
highest either, who are placed in a condition to remember more than one of
their past lives. But we have good reason to know that St. Germain could never
have claimed “personal intimacy” with the Saviour. How ever that may be, Count
St. Germain was certainly the greatest Oriental Adept Europe has seen during
the last centuries. But Europe knew him not. Perchance some may recognise him
at the next Terreur which will affect all Europe when it comes, and not
one country alone.
Mesmer was also an initiated
member of the Brotherhoods of the Fratres Lucis and of Lukshoor (or
Luxor), or the Egyptian Branch of’ the latter. It was the Council of “Luxor”
which selected him —according to the orders of the “Great Brotherhood”— to act
in the XVIIIth century as their usual pioneer, sent in the last quarter of
every century to enlighten a small portion of the Western nations in occult
lore.
It was St. Germain who supervised
the development of events in this case; and later Cagliostro was commissioned
to help, but having made a series of mistakes, more or less fatal, he was recalled.
Of these three men who were at
first regarded as quacks, Mesmer is already vindicated. The justification of
the two others will follow in the next century. »
(p. 214 y 308-309)
Blavatsky
also wrote a large article about the Count of
Saint-Germain that you
can read in the preceding post. And apart from those two
texts, Blavatsky gave more punctual information in others articles:
The Count of Saint-Germain is not a legend
« The “Count de Saint-Germain” is, until this very time, a living
mystery, and the Rosicrucian Thomas Vaughan another one. The countless
authorities we have in literature, as well as in oral tradition (which sometimes
is the more trustworthy) about this wonderful Count’s having been met and
recognized in different centuries, is no myth. Anyone who admits one of the
practical truths of the Occult Sciences taught by the Cabala, tacitly admits
them all. It must be Hamlet’s “to be or not to be,” and if the Cabala is true,
then Saint-Germain need be no myth. »
(CW 1, p.109)
He was a highly evolved human
« It is highly unreasonable, therefore, to expect for the men of the 5th (actually)
to sense the nature and essence of that which will be fully sensed and
perceived but by the 6th —let alone the 7th race— i.e., to enjoy the
legitimate outgrowth of the evolution and endowments of the future races with
only the help of our present limited senses.
The exceptions to this quasi
universal rule have been hitherto found only in some rare cases of
constitutional, abnormally precocious individual evolutions; or, in such, where
by early training and special methods, reaching the stage of the 5th rounders,
some men in addition to the natural gift of the latter have fully developed (by
certain occult methods) their sixth, and in still rarer cases their seventh,
sense.
As an instance of the former
class may be cited the Seeress of Prevorst; a creature born out of time, a rare
precocious growth, ill adapted to the uncongenial atmosphere that surrounded her,
hence a martyr ever ailing and sickly. As an example of the other, the Count
St. Germain may be mentioned. »
(CW 5, p.144-145)
And it is for that reason that he was contacted by
the Transhimalayan Masters
« For centuries the selection of Chelas —outside the hereditary group
within the gon-pa (temple)— has been made by the Himalayan Mahatmas themselves
from among the class —in Tibet, a considerable one as to number— of natural
mystics.
The only exceptions have been in
the cases of Western men like Fludd, Thomas Vaughan, Paracelsus, Pico della
Mirandola, Count de Saint-Germain, etc., whose temperamental affinity to this
celestial science more or less forced the distant Adepts to come into personal
relations with them, and enabled them to get such small (or large) proportion
of the whole truth as was possible under their social surroundings. »
(CW 4, p.607)
He was instructed by great adepts
« He was pupil of Indian and Egyptian hierophants, this proficient in the
secret wisdom of the East. »
(CW 3, p.128)
And unfortunately it was, and has continued to be,
tried
like a liar
« Mesmer is classed to this day (in the Encyclopaedias) along with
Cagliostro, and St. Germain, as a charlatan and impostor. »
(DS II, p.156)
« Saint-Germain is called the “Prince of Impostors,” and “Cagliostro”— a
charlatan. But who has ever proved that? »
(CW 4, p.339)
« And so has the stupid world behaved towards every other person who like
Saint-Germain, has revisited it after long seclusion devoted to study, with his
stores of accumulated esoteric wisdom, in the hope of bettering it and making
it wiser and happier. »
(CW 3, p.128)
And Blavatsky suspects that Comte
de Saint-Germain played a very important role in the events that led to the
French Revolution, and what she said you can read in this other article (link).
And Blavatsky also gave some
details about the manuscripts of the Count of Saint-Germain, which I detail in
this other article (link).
And finally Blavatsky ended by
saying:
« Magic exists and has existed ever since prehistoric ages. Begun in
history with the Samathracian mysteries, it followed its course
uninterruptedly, and ended for a time with the expiring theurgic rites and
ceremonies of christianized Greece; then reappeared for a time again with the
Neo-Platonic, Alexandrian school, and passing, by initiation, to sundry
solitary students and philosophers, safely crossed the mediaeval ages, and
notwithstanding the furious persecutions of the Church, resumed its fame in the
hands of such adepts as Paracelsus and several others, and finally died out in
Europe with the Count de St.-Germain and Cagliostro. »
(CW 1, p.141)