In the following article, Blavatsky reveals several unknown aspects of who
was one of the most important occultists of the 18th century.
To send the injured unredressed away,
How great soe’er the offender, and the wrong’d.
Howe’er obscure, is wicked, weak and vile —
Degrades, defiles, and should dethrone a king.
How great soe’er the offender, and the wrong’d.
Howe’er obscure, is wicked, weak and vile —
Degrades, defiles, and should dethrone a king.
SMOLLETT
The mention of Cagliostro’s name
produces a twofold effect. With the one party, a whole sequence of marvellous
events emerges from the shadowy past; with others the modern progeny of a too
realistic age, the name of Alexander, Count Cagliostro, provokes wonder, if not
contempt.
People are unable to understand that
this “enchanter and magician” (read “Charlatan”) could ever legitimately
produce such an impression as he did on his contemporaries. This gives the key
to the posthumous reputation of the Sicilian known as Joseph Balsamo, that
reputation which made a believer in him, a brother Mason, say, that (like
Prince Bismarck and some Theosophists):
-
“Cagliostro might well be said to be the best abused
and most hated man in Europe.”
Nevertheless, and notwithstanding
the fashion of loading him with opprobrious names, none should forget that
Schiller and Goethe were among his great admirers, and remained so to their
deaths. Goethe while travelling in Sicily devoted much labour and time to
collecting information about “Giuseppe Balsamo” in his supposed native land;
and it was from these copious notes that the author of Faust wrote his play
“The Great Kophta.”
Why this wonderful man is receiving
so little honour in England, is due to Carlyle. The most fearlessly truthful
historian of his age —he, who abominated falsehood under whatever appearance— has
stamped with the imprimatur of his honest and famous name, and thus sanctified
the most iniquitous of historical injustices ever perpetrated by prejudice and
bigotry. This owing to false reports which almost to the last emanated from a
class he disliked no less than he hated untruth, namely the Jesuits, or — lie
incarnate.
(Note: in a letter Master Kuthumi wrote: “They [the
Jesuits] work, toil, and deceive,
for the sake of worldly power in this life, while we work solely to help humanity advance.” ML30, p.231)
The very name of Giuseppe Balsamo,
which, when rendered by cabalistic methods, means “He who was sent,” or “The
Given,”also “Lord of the Sun,” shows that such was not his real patronymic. As
Kenneth R. H. MacKenzie, F.T.S., remarks, toward the end of the last century it
became the fashion with certain theosophical professors of the time to
transliterate into Oriental form every name provided by Occult Fraternities for
disciples destined to work in the world.
Whosoever then, may have been
Cagliostro’s parents, their name was not “Balsamo.” So much is certain, at any
rate. Moreover, as all know that in his youth he lived with, and was instructed
by, a man named, as is supposed, Althotas, “a great Hermetic Eastern Sage” or
in other words an Adept, it is not difficult to accept the tradition that it
was the latter who gave him his symbolical name. But that which is known with
still more certainty is the extreme esteem in which he was held by some of the
most scientific and honoured men of his day.
In France we find Cagliostro —having
before served as a confidential friend and assistant chemist in the laboratory
of Pinto, the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta— becoming the friend and
protégé of the Prince Cardinal de Rohan. A high born Sicilian Prince honoured
him with his support and friendship, as did many other noblemen. “Is it
possible, then,” pertinently asks MacKenzie, “that a man of such engaging manners
could have been the lying imposter his enemies endeavoured to prove him?”
The reality about the accusations made against him
The chief cause of his life-troubles
was his marriage with Lorenza [or Serafina] Feliciani, a tool of the Jesuits;
and two minor causes, his extreme good nature, and the blind confidence he
placed in his friends — some of whom became traitors and his bitterest enemies.
Neither of the crimes of which he is
unjustly accused could lead to the destruction of his honour and posthumous
reputation; but all was due to his weakness for an unworthy woman, and the
possession of certain secrets of nature, which he would not divulge to the
Church.
Being a native of Sicily, Cagliostro
was naturally born in a family of Roman Catholics, no matter what their name,
and was brought up by monks of the “Good Brotherhood of Castiglione,” as his
biographers tell us; thus, for the sake of dear life he had to outwardly
profess belief in and respect for a Church, whose traditional policy has ever
been, “he who is not with us is against us,” and forthwith to crush the enemy
in the bud.
And yet, just for this, is
Cagliostro even today accused of having served the Jesuits as their spy; and
this by Masons who ought to be the last to bring such a charge against a
learned Brother who was persecuted by the Vatican even more as a Mason than as
an Occultist. Had it been so, would these same Jesuits even to this day vilify
his name?
Had he served them, would he not
have proved himself useful to their ends, as a man of such undeniable
intellectual gifts could not have blundered or disregarded the orders of those
whom he served. But instead of this, what do we see?
Cagliostro charged with being the
most cunning and successful impostor and charlatan of his age; accused of
belonging to the Jesuit Chapter of Clermont in France; of appearing (as a proof
of his affiliation to the Jesuits) in clerical dress at Rome.
Yet, this “cunning impostor” is
tried and condemned —by the exertions of those same Jesuits— to an ignominious
death, which was changed only subsequently to lifelong imprisonment, owing to a
mysterious interference or influence brought to bear on the Pope!
Would it not be more charitable and
consistent with truth to say that it was his connection with Eastern Occult
Science, his knowledge of many secrets —deadly to the Church of Rome— that
brought upon Cagliostro first the persecution of the Jesuits, and finally the
rigour of the Church?
It was his own honesty, which
blinded him to the defects of those whom he cared for, and led him to trust two
such rascals as the Marquis Agliato and Ottavio Nicastro, that is at the bottom
of all the accusations of fraud and imposture now lavished upon him. And it is
the sins of these two worthies —subsequently executed for gigantic swindles and
murder— which are now made to fall on Cagliostro. Nevertheless it is known that
he and his wife (in 1770) were both left destitute by the flight of Agliato
with all their funds so that they had to beg their way through Piedmont and
Geneva.
Kenneth MacKenzie has well proven
that Cagliostro had never mixed himself up with political intrigue — the very
soul of the activities of the Jesuits. “He was most certainly unknown in that
capacity to those who have jealously guarded the preparatory archives of the
Revolution, and his appearance as an advocate of revolutionary principles has
no basis in fact.” He was simply an Occultist and a Mason, and as such was
allowed to suffer at the hands of those who, adding insult to injury, first
tried to kill him by lifelong imprisonment and then spread the rumour that he
had been their ignoble agent. This cunning device was in its infernal craft
well worthy of its primal originators.
He was a messenger of the Transhimaya Masters
There are many landmarks in
Cagliostro’s biographies to show that he taught the Eastern doctrine of the
“principles” in man, of “God” dwelling in man — as a potentiality in actu (the
“Higher Self”) — and in every living thing and even atom — as a potentiality in
posse, and that he served the Masters of a Fraternity he would not name because
on account of his pledge he could not.
His letter to the new mystical but
rather motley Brotherhood, the (Lodge of) Philalethes, is a proof in point. The
Philalethes, as all Masons know, was a rite founded in Paris in 1773 in the
Loge des Amis Réunis, based on the principles of Martinism(1), and whose members made a special study of the Occult Sciences. The
Mother Lodge was a philosophical and theosophical Lodge, and therefore
Cagliostro was right in desiring to purify its progeny, the Lodge of
Philalethes.
This is what the Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia
says on the subject:
« On the 15th of February, 1785,
the Lodge of Philalethes (or Lovers of Truth), in solemn Session —with
Savalette de Langes, royal treasurer; Tassin, the banker, and Tassin, an
officer in the royal service— opened a Fraternal Convention at Paris . . .
Princes (Russian, Austrian, and others), fathers of the Church, councillors,
knights, financiers, barristers, barons, Theosophists, canons, colonels,
professors of magic, engineers, literary men, doctors, merchants, postmasters,
dukes, ambassadors, surgeons, teachers of languages, receivers general, and
notably two London names —Boosie, a merchant, and Brooks of London— compose
this Convention, to whom may be added M. le Comte de Cagliostro, and Mesmer,
“the inventor,” as Thory describes him (Acta Latomorum, Vol. II. p.95), “of
the doctrine of magnetism!”
Surely such an able set of men to
set the world to rights, as France never saw before or since! »
(p. 95)
The grievance of the Lodge was that
Cagliostro, who had first promised to take charge of it, withdrew his offers,
as the “Convention” would not adopt the Constitutions of the Egyptian Rite, nor
would the Philalethes consent to have its archives consigned to the flames,
which were his conditions sine qua non.
It is strange that his answer to
that Lodge should be regarded by Brother K.R.H. MacKenzie and other Masons as
emanating “from a Jesuit source.” The very style is Oriental, and no European
Mason —least of all a Jesuit— would write in such a manner. This is how the
answer runs:
« The unknown Grand Master of
true Masonry has cast his eyes upon the Philaletheans . . . Touched by their
piety, moved by the sincere avowal of their desire, he deigns to extend his
hand over them, and consents to give a ray of light into the darkness of their
temple. It is the wish of the unknown Grand Master to prove to them the
existence of one God—the basis of their faith; the original dignity of man; his
powers and destiny . . . . It is by deeds and facts, by the testimony of the
senses, that they will know GOD, MAN and the intermediary spiritual beings
[principles] created between them; of which true Masonry gives the symbols and
indicates the real road.
Let then, the Philalethes embrace
the doctrines of this real Masonry, submit to the rules of its supreme chief,
and adopt its constitutions. But above all let the sanctuary be purified, let
the Philalethes know that light can only descend into the Temple of Faith
[based on knowledge], and not into that of scepticism. Let them devote to the
flames that vain accumulation of their archives; for it is only on the ruins of
the Tower of Confusion that the Temple of Truth can be erected. »
(Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, p.96)
In the Occult phraseology of certain
Occultists “Father, Son and Angels” stood for the compound symbol of physical,
and astro-Spiritual MAN. (2)
John G. Gichtel (end of XVIIth
cent.), the ardent lover of Böhme, the Seer of whom de Saint-Martin relates
that he was married “to the heavenly Sophia,” the Divine Wisdom—made use of
this term. Therefore, it is easy to see what Cagliostro meant by proving to the
Philalethes on the testimony of their “senses,” “God, man and the intermediary
Spiritual beings,” that exist between God (Atma), and Man (the Ego).
Nor is it more difficult to
understand his true meaning when he reproaches the Brethren in his parting
letter which says:
« We have offered you the truth;
you have disdained it. We have offered it for the sake of itself, and you have
refused it in consequence of a love of forms . . . Can you elevate yourselves
to (your) God and the knowledge of yourselves by the assistance of a Secretary
and a Convocation? » etc. (3)
Much is still unknown about Cagliostro
Many are the absurd and entirely
contradictory statements about Joseph Balsamo, Count de Cagliostro, so called,
several of which were incorporated by Alexander Dumas in his Mémoires d’un
Médecin, with those prolific variations of truth and fact which so characterize
Dumas père’s romances. But though the world is in possession of a most
miscellaneous and varied mass of information concerning that remarkable and
unfortunate man during most of his life, yet of the last ten years and of his
death, nothing certain is known, save only the legend that he died in the
prison of the Inquisition.
True, some fragments published
recently by the Italian savant, Giovanni Sforza, from the private
correspondance of Lorenzo Prospero Bottini, the Roman ambassador of the
Republic of Lucca at the end of the last century, have somewhat filled this
wide gap. (4)
This correspondance with Pietro
Calandrini, the Great Chancellor of the said Republic, begins from 1784, but
the really interesting information commences only in 1789, in a letter dated
June 6, of that year, and even then we do not learn much. It speaks that:
« The celebrated Count di
Cagliostro, who has recently arrived with his wife from Trent via Turin to
Rome. People say he is a native of Sicily and extremely wealthy, but no one
knows whence that wealth. He has a letter of introduction from the Bishop of
Trent to Albani . . . . So far his daily walk in life as well as his private
and public status are above reproach. Many are those seeking an interview with
him, to hear from his own lips the corroboration of what is being said of him. »
From another letter we learn that
Rome had proven an ungrateful soil for Cagliostro. He had the intention of
settling at Naples, but the plan could not be realised. The Vatican authorities
who had hitherto left the Count undisturbed, suddenly laid their heavy hand
upon him.
In a letter dated 2nd January, 1790,
just a year after Cagliostro’s arrival, it is stated that:
« Last Sunday secret and
extraordinary debates in council took place at the Vatican. It (the council)
consisted of the State Secretary and Antonelli, Pallotta and Campanelli,
Monsignor Vicegerente performing the duty of Secretary. The object of that
Secret Council remains unknown, but public rumour asserts that it was called
forth owing to the sudden arrest on the night between Saturday and Sunday, of
the Count di Cagliostro, his wife, and a Capuchin, Fra Giuseppe da S. Maurizio.
The Count is incarcerated in Castel Sant’ Angelo, the Countess in the Convent
of Santa Apollonia, and the monk in the prison of Ara Coeli. That monk, who
calls himself ‘Father Svizzero,’ is regarded as a confederate of the famous
magician. In the number of the crimes he is accused of is included that of the
circulation of a book by an unknown author, condemned to public burning and
entitled, “The Three Sisters.” The object of this work is “to pulverize certain
three high-born individuals. »
The real meaning of this most
extraordinary misinterpretation is easy to guess. It was a work on Alchemy; the
“three sisters” standing symbolically for the three “Principles” in their
duplex symbolism. On the plane of occult chemistry they “pulverize” the triple
ingredient used in the process of the transmutation of metals; on the plane of
Spirituality they reduce to a state of pulverization the three “lower” personal
“principles” in man, an explanation that every Theosophist is bound to
understand.
The trial of Cagliostro lasted for a
long time. In a letter of March the 17th, Bottini writes to his Lucca
correspondent that the famous “wizard” has finally appeared before the Holy
Inquisition. The real cause of the slowness of the proceedings was that the
Inquisition, with all its dexterity at fabricating proofs, could find no weighty
evidence to prove the guilt of Cagliostro. Nevertheless, on April the 7th, 1791,
he was condemned to death.
He was accused of various and many
crimes, the chiefest of which were his being a Mason and an “Illuminate,” an
“Enchanter” occupied with unlawful studies; he was also accused of deriding the
holy Faith, of doing harm to society, of possessing himself by means unknown of
large sums of money, and of inciting others, sex, age and social standing notwithstanding,
to do the same.
In short, we find the unfortunate
Occultist condemned to an ignominious death for deeds committed, the like of
which are daily and publicly committed now-a-days, by more than one Grand
Master of the Masons, as also by hundreds of thousands of Kabbalists and
Masons, mystically inclined.
After this verdict the “arch
heretic’s” documents, diplomas from foreign Courts and Societies, Masonic
regalias and family relics were solemnly burned by the public hangmen in the
Piazza della Minerva, before enormous crowds of people. First his books and
instruments were consumed. Among these was the MS. on the Maçonnerie
Egyptienne, which thus can no longer serve as a witness in favour of the
reviled man. And now the condemned Occultist had to be passed over to the hands
of the civil Tribunal, when a mysterious event happened.
A stranger, never seen by any one
before or after in the Vatican, appeared and demanded a private audience of the
Pope, sending him by the Cardinal Secretary a word instead of a name. He was
immediately received, but only stopped with the Pope for a few minutes.
No sooner was he gone than his
Holiness gave orders to commute the death sentence of the Count to that of
imprisonment for life, in the fortress called the Castle of San Leo, and that
the whole transaction should be conducted in great secrecy. The monk Svizzero
was condemned to ten years’ imprisonment; and the Countess Cagliostro was set
at liberty, but only to be confined on a new charge of heresy in a convent.
But what was the Castle of San Leo?
It now stands on the frontiers of
Tuscany and was then in the Papal States, in the Duchy of Urbino. It is built
on the top of an enormous rock, almost perpendicular on all sides; to get into
the “Castle” in those days, one had to enter a kind of open basket which was
hoisted up by ropes and pulleys. As to the criminal, he was placed in a special
box, after which the jailors pulled him up “with the rapidity of the wind.”
On April 23rd, 1792, Giuseppe
Balsamo —if so we must call him— ascended heavenward in the criminal’s box,
incarcerated in that living tomb for life.
Giuseppe Balsamo is mentioned for
the last time in the Bottini correspondence in a letter dated March 10th, 1792.
The ambassador speaks of a marvel produced by Cagliostro in his prison during
his leisure hours. A long rusty nail taken by the prisoner out of the floor was
transformed by him without the help of any instrument into a sharp triangular
stiletto, as smooth, brilliant and sharp as if it were made of the finest
steel. It was recognized for an old nail only by its head, left by the prisoner
to serve as a handle. The State Secretary gave orders to have it taken away
from Cagliostro, brought to Rome, and to double the watch over him.
And now comes the last kick of the
jackass at the dying or dead lion. Luigi Angiolini, a Tuscan diplomat, writes
as follows:
« At last, that same Cagliostro,
who made so many believe that he had been a contemporary of Julius Caesar, who
reached such fame and so many friends, died from apoplexy, August 26, 1795.
Semproni had him buried in a wood-barn below, whence peasants used to pilfer
constantly the crown property. The crafty chaplain reckoned very justly that
the man who had inspired the world with such superstitious fear while living,
would inspire people with the same feelings after his death, and thus keep the
thieves at bay. ... »
But yet — a query!
Was Cagliostro dead and buried
indeed in 1795, at San Leo?
And if so, why should the custodians
at Castel Sant’ Angelo of Rome show innocent tourists the little square hole in
which Cagliostro is said to have been confined and “died”?
Why such uncertainty or — imposition,
and such disagreement in the legend?
Then there are Masons who to this
day tell strange stories in Italy. Some say that Cagliostro escaped in an
unaccountable way from his aerial prison, and thus forced his jailors to spread
the news of his death and burial. Others maintain that he not only escaped,
but, thanks to the Elixir of Life, still lives on, though over twice three
score and ten years old!
« Why,” asks Bottini, “if he
really possessed the powers he claimed, has he not indeed vanished from his
jailors, and thus escaped the degrading punishment altogether? »
We have heard of another prisoner,
greater in every respect than Cagliostro ever claimed to be. Of that prisoner
too, it was said in mocking tones, “He saved others; him self he cannot save...
let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe.”
How long shall charitable people
build the biographies of the living and ruin the reputations of the dead, with
such incomparable unconcern, by means of idle and often entirely false gossip
of people, and these generally the slaves of prejudice!
So long, we are forced to think, as they remain ignorant of the Law of Karma and its iron justice.
So long, we are forced to think, as they remain ignorant of the Law of Karma and its iron justice.
NOTES
1. The Martinists were Mystics and Theosophists who claimed to have the
secret of communicating with (Elemental and Planetary) Spirits of the
ultramundane Spheres. Some of them were practical Occultists.
2. See the Three Principles and the Seven Forms of Nature by Böhme and
fathom their Occult significance, to assure yourself of this.
3. The statement on the authority of Beswick that Cagliostro was connected
with the Loge des Amis Réunis under the name of Count Grabianca is not proven.
There was a Polish Count of that name at the time in France, a mystic mentioned
in Madame de Krüdner’s letters which are with the writer’s family, and one who
belonged, as Beswick says, together with Mesmer and Count de Saint-Germain, to
the Lodge of the Philalethes. Where are Savalette de Langes’ Manuscripts and
documents left by him after his death to the Philosophic Scottish Rite? Lost?
4. H.P.B.’s statement to the effect that the fragments she is about to
quote had been recently published, presents a problem which has never been
fully solved. Some of the excerpts which she quotes in this article have been
published over the signature of Giovanni Sforza in a communication entitled: “La Fine di Cagliostro,” which appeared
in the Archivio Storico Italiano, 5th Series, Vol. VII, February, 1891, pp.
144-151.
This Archive was published in Florence by G. P. Vieusseux. Obviously,
this source is over a year later than H.P.B.’s own article, and could not have
been used by her at the time. She also brings up several points which are not
mentioned in the above source. Further research is therefore required to
identify the source she used. (Zircoff note)
(This article was first published in Lucifer, Vol.
V, No. 29, January, 1890, pp. 389-395; later in Blavatsky Collected Writings, Vol. XII, pp. 78-88)
