AS ONE COMING FROM the South and the brilliant light of noon, with full knowledge of nature and active communion with God, I now go toward the North into the fog and, abandoning at every step a piece of myself, giving way, diminishing at each stop, leaving a little more light for you, a little more clarity and warmth, a little more vitality, until the end of my journey when the Rose blossoms in its fullness on the Cross.1 I am Cagliostro.
THE MAN
More than 200 years have passed since Cagliostro’s death in the Vatican prison of San Leo and we are still not much nearer to solving the riddle that is the identity of the infamous Alessandro, Conte di Cagliostro (pronounced kalyo-stro). Many have tried to fathom his true origins but at every turn there are contradictions that call into question even the latest evidence. Trowbridge states that there is ‘no other equally celebrated figure in modern history whose character is so baffling to a biographer.’2
There have been a number of accounts of the life of Cagliostro and many of his biographers have come, during the course of their research, to either love or hate him.3 The contemporary evidence against the Count is represented in an almost entirely hostile manner and therefore obscures any positive sides of his character. No one, or so we believe, is all bad, but this is what we are confronted with when researching the life of Cagliostro. It is almost impossible to find early references that do not defame or mock, except those which have been written by the Count himself. This does not prove that he was all bad, merely that the campaign to blacken his name worked. Within letters written by dignitaries from the various countries he visited, there is much more positive information about him. The majority of these correspondents praise his altruistic and kind nature, his almost devoted attitude towards caring for the poor and needy.
Exploited and caricatured since his death, this extraordinary figure burst onto the European stage, a peacock of a man, resplendent in theatrical cloth and character. To his detriment he was lacking in discretion and maturity. His flamboyant nature and, at times, bombastic speech were enough to raise the hackles of the more restrained members of the communities which he sought to impress. But perhaps we should remind ourselves that this was the century of great change, of flamboyance and deadly decadence that was to lead a head of state, aristocrats and others to the guillotine, and cause wars to erupt between classes, states and continents.
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881), a cynical essayist of the time, described the era as:
… the very age of impostors, cut-purses, swindlers, double-goers, enthusiasts, ambiguous persons, quacks simple, quacks compound; … quacks and quackeries of all colours and kinds. How many Mesmerists, Magicians, Cabalists, Swedenborgs, Illuminati, Crucified Nuns, and Devils of Loudon!4
In the still bright light of the once glittering Renaissance period, alchemists, sorcerers and mesmerists (named after the hypnotist Franz Anton Mesmer who used the power of animal magnetism to induce a trance-like state in his patients, hence the term ‘mesmerized’) were much in vogue, although they were slightly more cautious of the ever-roaming eye of the papal Church, which finally caught its esoteric quarry embodied in the fateful Comte di Cagliostro.
Cagliostro’s travels took him and his young wife Seraphina (1756–96) across Europe; from Rome to London, where he was initiated into a form of Freemasonry known as the Rite of Strict Observance in Ésperance Lodge, in Soho. They then moved on to Holland, Germany, Poland, Russia and Strasbourg before returning to France. In Paris once again he ignited the political fire by being implicated in a plot to defame the Queen, Marie Antoinette in the celebrated Affair of the Diamond Necklace of 1785. Proclaimed innocent of theft and misdemeanour, but banished from French shores by a furious King Louis, we can see that perhaps not only was he quite a sensation in the Masonic and social circles but he was also an inflammatory presence in Europe – a Europe that was like a powder keg set to explode. Within just a few years the French Revolution would begin and the very people who had banned the Count from the country would be led to that terrifying instrument of death – the guillotine.
MYTH OF THE WANDERING JEW AND IMMORTALITY
Cagliostro’s life was part of the dramatic events of the century which saw wars, revolutions, agricultural and industrial innovations, all of which preceded the emergence of modern industrialized Europe. It was an era of intrigue, flamboyant decadence and a whole host of ‘alternative’ ideals and fashions – he was not the only alchemist, philosopher or radical thinker to be considered outspoken or eccentric. There is an almost endless list of characters that flitted across the Western world during the 18th century, one of which, the Comte de Saint Germain (c.1710–84), was to fare slightly better than Cagliostro in reputation.
St Germain was, like Cagliostro, another highly enigmatic and mysterious fellow who trailed myths and wonder in his wake. Attributed with initiating Cagliostro into a Rosicrucian Order, he too travelled throughout Europe and beyond, changing names as often as his contemporary. In the 18th century it was common to have several aliases, whether to avoid creditors or merely to employ intrigue. It has even been intimated that Cagliostro was one of a number of guises adopted by St Germain. Quite often these men of mystery also manufactured romantic or mystical past lives to further add a frisson to their image. In fact these supposed ‘fantasies’ were often linked to various spiritual traditions that included initiatory rituals or rites of passage and were allegorical and symbolic in nature. Interestingly enough, the Comte de St Germain, when faced with those unlikely to take his version of immortality seriously without due evidence, commented to the Baron de Gleichen:
Those stupid Parisians imagine that I am 500 years old … and I encourage them in that thought because I see it pleases them.
Due to their claims of supernatural ability and claims of immortality, both Cagliostro and St Germain have been compared to ‘The Wandering Jew’, a figure from a medieval Christian mythos which has persisted into the modern age. Supposedly ‘the Jew’ is the man who offended Jesus on his way to the Crucifixion, and was subsequently cursed by the Son of God to walk the Earth alone until the Second Coming. The character tends to vary from tale to tale; he appears as a shoemaker or other tradesman, the doorman on Pontius Pilate’s estate or occasionally, Jew becomes Roman. He goes by an assortment of names, the three most common are Malchus, Cartaphilus and Ahasuerus (Ahasverus). There are innumerable renditions of the tale and each one is slightly different, but in every case the Jew’s‘crime’ varies. According to one legend, as a man bearing the name of Cartaphilus, he mocks Jesus on the way to Calvary, striking him with the back of his hand and sneering ‘Go quicker, Jesus, go quicker; why do you loiter?’ and Jesus, looking back on him with a severe countenance, said, ‘I am going, and you shall wait till I return.’5
A later European version of around 1547 tells of a sighting of the Wandering Jew. Now named Ahasverus, who was originally a shoemaker, he is described as having:
… lived in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion of Christ, whom he had regarded as a deceiver of the people and a heretic … [On the road to Calvary, Christ passed by Ahasverus’ house and], bowed under the weight of the heavy cross, He tried to rest a little, and stood still a moment; but the shoemaker, in zeal and rage, and for the sake of obtaining credit among the other Jews, drove the Lord Christ forward and told him to hasten on His way. Jesus … looked at him and said, ‘I shall stand and rest, but thou shalt go till the last day.’6
From a biblical standing, there are two points of reference that could be attributed to the traditional myths. Immortality becomes a curse and eternal punishment when in John 18:22, Malchus, the servant of the High Priest ‘strikes Jesus with the palm of his hand’ no doubt incurring the same punishment as Ahasverus. However, in Matthew 16:28, eternal life is given as a blessing and a reward, when Jesus promises a disciple: ‘Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.’
The tale of the Wandering Jew may be an allegorical representation of the Jewish Diaspora, the expulsion of the Jews from their homeland and the subsequent scattering of the people across the globe. If it indeed represents the displacement of the Jewish people, as a Christian punishment for their part in the Crucifixion, then the myth becomes a perfect vehicle for anti-Semitism. Another theory is that ‘the Jew’ represents the personification of anyone who has come to see the error of their ways and forever walks in punishment of their sins against humanity until they receive absolution. Whatever the case, there have been numerous reputed sightings and encounters with the Wandering Jew over the centuries, leading to the premise that it is in fact an allegory for a pilgrim in need of redemption.
An excellent account of a conversation concerning his immortality between Cagliostro and the Duc de Richelieu is quoted by Sax Rohmer, writer and member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, in an anecdote from his book, published in 1914. Regarding Cagliostro, he relates the following:
Among the many anecdotes bearing upon this phase of his career, the following is worthy of citation, if only because so many versions exist, and for the reason that an episode almost identical is related of the celebrated Comte de Saint Germain.
One day, then, whilst passing along the picture-gallery in the Louvre – so one account tells us – Cagliostro halted before the picture by Jouvenet, The Descent from the Cross, and began to weep. Several of his companions questioned him as to the cause of his emotion. ‘Alas!’ he replied,‘I shed tears for the death of this great moralist, for this man so good with whom I have had intimate intercourse. Indeed, we dined together at the house of Pontius Pilate.’ ‘Of whom do you speak?’ inquired the Duc de Richelieu, stupefied. ‘Of Jesus Christ. I knew him well!’
That Cagliostro spoke of his immortality came to the attention of the Inquisition:
To some he affirmed that he was born before the deluge, and to others that he had assisted at the Marriage of Cana in Galilee … He spoke of his travels, his studies, his learning, in a manner at once emphatic and sublime. His conversation was normally replete with his travels to Arabia, Egypt and he also frequently mentioned his discoveries in regard to the pyramids and the various secrets of nature which he had obtained knowledge. When his name or condition was demanded he would answer ‘I am what I am’ and would show his cipher – a serpent pierced by an arrow holding an apple in its mouth.7
The Inquisition makes specific reference to the fact that when asked his name, Cagliostro replied ‘I am what I am’, and they would instantly have realized that this was almost identical to that part of Exodus when Moses asked God for his name as the reply is: ‘I am that I am’ (Ex. 3:13–14). It is unlikely that Cagliostro, in using these words, was actually claiming to be the Creator. What then was he doing? It seems more than likely that he was trying to find out if the person asking the question was an adept of some kind (‘I AM’ pertaining to be a symbolic term of having reached a state of perfection). In other words he was expecting a specific response.
These claims to apparent immortality offended some, including Duc de Richelieu, but no doubt this intrigued others. At the very least this kind of statement got the attention that Cagliostro craved. Note, however, that he does not claim to be immortal. Instead he refers to dining in the house of Pontius Pilate with Jesus Christ. The implication reached by many would be that he was claiming to have been alive some 1,800 years earlier. However, when it is remembered that by this time Cagliostro had been admitted to a lodge belonging to the Rite of Strict Observance and would be well acquainted with the Masonic use of allegory (saying one thing to explain something else) things begin to become a little clearer. He allegedly said: ‘Of Jesus Christ. I knew him well.’ This might be interpreted as meaning that Cagliostro was well acquainted with Christ’s teachings and his mission among humankind.
As well as making shocking statements to gain attention he may well have been taking note of the reaction of people to such apparently outrageous statements. Those who reacted badly would be quietly avoided whereas those whom he thought receptive would be cultivated and encouraged.
Cagliostro was rumoured, at this time (a similar rumour was attributed St Germain), to have had in his service a valet who, by his mysterious silence, considerably added to the impression created by his master. M. d’Hannibal, a German noble, one day seized this fellow by the ear, and in a tone half jesting and half angry cried:
‘Rascal! You will tell me now the true age of your master!’ But the valet was not to be bullied; and after a few moments of earnest reflection he replied: ‘Listen, monsieur – I cannot tell you the age of M. le Comte, as it is unknown to me. He has always been to me as he appears to you; young, gay, buvant sec. All I can tell you is that I have been in his service since the decline of the Roman Republic; for we agreed upon my salary on the very day that Caesar perished at the hand of the assassin in the Senate!’8
Many people wonder why supposedly adept magicians seem unable to defend themselves when caught in the ultimate situation whereby ruination, imprisonment and death are inevitable. Why does their Divine Providence not intercede and save them? Why do they not make themselves vanish using their magical powers or conquer their enemies with a single word? Why did the clairvoyant not know she was going to be hit by a truck? Simply, their ‘magic’ is not what most people believe it to be.
Magic, to the mystics, occultists or Hermetists was not in the image of ‘black magic’ or ‘witchcraft’; it was to perfect the art of manipulating the natural elements and/or attaining a state whereby they could achieve resonance or oneness with the Mind of God. The higher purpose was not to personally escape or be saved from death or misfortune, it was something quite different – it was to help save humanity, achieve divine perfection and be spiritually immortal. If this were not so wouldn’t Jesus have escaped crucifixion? Osiris would not have been slain and all the other martyrs and adepts would have escaped their terrible fates. Joan of Arc (1412–31) and Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) would have extinguished the flames; Czech healer and magician Franz Bardon (1909–58) would have liberated himself from prison.
We have no way of knowing what these people’s divine mission entailed in their entirety. We can understand the Christian concept of ‘free will’, and therefore we can surmise that Divine Providence or God assists in the plan but cannot interfere with mankind’s own machinations. This is not to say that those who did not escape the gallows, the stake or the Inquisition were impostors and fakes, we must merely conclude that there were greater forces at work. There are however, rumours that Cagliostro and his wife did indeed escape from their prisons and were seen to be dining in Paris some 70 years later. According to Endreinek Agardi of Koloswar:
Count d’Ourches, who as a child had known the Cagliostros, swore that Monsieur and Madame de Lasa, the toast of Paris in 1861, were none other than the Count and Countess Cagliostro.9
There has also been talk that the Count was liberated from his cell by fellow Masons and that he fled to India where he continued his spiritual path and, indeed, is rumoured to be still living as the immortal he always claimed to be. It was whispered that due to Cagliostro’s miraculous disappearance, the authorities were forced to issue a declaration of his demise. On 6 October 1795, a small paragraph appeared in the Paris Moniteur announcing the news ‘it is reported in Rome that the famous Cagliostro is dead’. However, reports of his death were not believed and it took an official investigation ordered by Napoleon to eventually quell further rumours.
THE CONSPIRACY THEORIES
Much has been made of the various conspiracy theories relating to Cagliostro and his Egyptian Freemasonry. There are three main theories that can be explored further to attempt to understand why he was and remains reviled by some.
Revolutionary and Agent of the Illuminati
One theory is that Cagliostro was an agent of the Illuminati and a major cause célèbre in the downfall of the monarchy of France and the instigation of the French Revolution.10 This is a very convoluted theory and involves many of the major players in Cagliostro’s life, but does that confer responsibility on him by association? If we unravel the various threads we can begin to see some obvious but tenuous links.
Cagliostro knew several of the leading names said to have been involved in some way in the Revolutionary proceedings – Paul Savalette de Langes (1746–98); Duke of Montmorency-Luxembourg (1737–1803) (chief administrator of the Grand Orient of France and official protector of Cagliostro’s Rite); Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (1674–1723) (King Louis’ cousin and the Grand Master of Grand Orient Freemasonry); Benjamin Franklin (1705–90); Antoine Court de Gébelin (1725–84); Mirabeau (1749–91).
The Loge des Neufs Soeurs (The Lodge of Nine Sisters (or Muses) was founded in 1776 in Paris by Joseph Jérôme Lefrançais de Lalande (1732–1807) and l’Abbé Cordier de Saint-Fermin and was one of the most influential Lodges in France. The French mathematician, poet and philosopher Claude Adrien Helvétius (1715–71), although not recorded as being a Freemason, was a prominent member of the same social circle. After his death in 1771, his wife, Anne-Catherine, supported Lalande in establishing the Nine Sisters Lodge as well as organizing Le Salon de Madame Helvétius. Anne-Catherine was well known in Parisian society for her ‘salons’ held to discuss philosophy and these were much respected by the intellectuals who became members.
The Nine Sisters Lodge attracted a similar membership including the writer Voltaire (1694–1778), Court de Gébelin, the sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741–1828) and Benjamin Franklin, who joined during his time as ambassador in Paris. He later went on to become Master of the Lodge in 1779. Franklin also used these gatherings to find like-minded men who would be of use to him and the emerging New World of America. The Marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834), a young man of 19, was a frequent visitor to Mme Helvétius’ salons and was soon recruited by Franklin and sent to America to serve under George Washington. He was a Freemason by the time he arrived in America in 1777. It appears that there was enough activity between the French Masons and those involved in the American Revolution to give the impression that there was a definite link to the following years of upheaval in France. However, it does not give solid evidence to link Freemasonry with the catastrophic events that were to erupt. There were obviously a multitude of factors involved – social, economic and political. It would be unsurprising if groups of free thinkers debating on how best society should be run, or envisaging a Utopian dream of equality and tolerance, would be prime suspects when radical change occurred. It was clear to see that the ‘ordinary’ folk of France were already thoroughly disillusioned by the oppressive weight of monarchy, ruling bourgeoisie and unproductive clergy. It would not take too much to explode the already ticking time bomb of revolution. King Louis (1754–93) and his extravagant wife, Marie Antoinette (1755–93), had done little to hide their grossly decadent lifestyle and if Cagliostro’s ‘heroism’ of escaping life imprisonment in the Bastille during the Affair of the Diamond Necklace was anything to go by, the general populace were already looking for a hero who would become the bomb’s fuse. Was it merely a case of being in the wrong place at the right time or was Cagliostro rather more to be reckoned with?
In Cagliostro’s ‘Letter to the French People’, written after his release from the Bastille where he had been falsely imprisoned during the trial of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, he has often been quoted as saying that the people of France should make a ‘peaceful revolution’, asking that the Bastille be destroyed and that it should be replaced with a temple to Isis. Other writers, particularly the Inquisition biographer (see Chapter 3), have gone as far as quoting him as writing ‘the Bastille shall be destroyed and become a public walk …’ and that ‘a prince shall reign in France who will abolish Lettre de Cachet, convoke the States-general and re-establish the true religion’. As mentioned in previous chapters, Cagliostro’s brilliance for predicting future events was extraordinary, but was this particular outburst a psychic pre-diction or a chilling warning?
Cagliostro’s biographer W H R Trowbridge believes that there is a different reality:
Nearly all who have written on Cagliostro have erred in stating that the letter contained [predictions] all of which occurred three years later, in 1789. The predictions are the invention of the Inquisition biographer, to whose shortcomings, to put it mildly, attention has frequently been called. Cagliostro merely says that if in the future he was permitted to return to France he would do so only provided the Bastille was destroyed and its site turned into a public promenade.
Needless to say the letter caused a profound reaction regardless of its true intentions.
Arthur Edward Waite said with regard to the Revolutionary conspiracies aimed at Cagliostro:
Egyptian Masonry was an occult Rite, belonging to Hermetic Masonry and more especially designed to sustain the claims of Cagliostro as possessing the Great Secret of the Universal Medicine. I observe the egregious author of the article under notice identifies unconditionally the ‘Grand Copht’ with Joseph Balsamo, so he has not read the evidence against this view produced by Mr W R Trowbridge, who is not a Mason and has no job in Romanism or Revolution questions.
Jesuit Agent
This was a rumour from one of Cagliostro’s former disgruntled students wishing to discredit him in the lead-up to the French Revolution. This theory was patently absurd as Helena Blavatsky stated:
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!11
Cagliostro and the New World Order
This is a more modern take on Cagliostro’s life and beliefs. His Egyptian Rite is rumoured to have been an influence on the fraternal societies such as The Order of Skull and Bones, founded at Yale University in 1832 (previously known as The Brotherhood of Death). This would not be a preposterous idea considering the influx of Masonic teachings into the USA during the late 1700s, early 1800s, which had a major influence on a number of the fraternal societies still functioning today. There are also some rather more bizarre connections insinuated by conspiracy theorists on the web, very spuriously connecting the use of the ‘Pentagon’ in Cagliostro’s magical operations, created for physical and moral perfection, with that of the US government – i.e. the design of the Pentagon building and the supposedly esoteric geometric layout of Washington DC.
It is also inferred that Cagliostro’s teachings have been incorporated into the teachings of the Mormon Church (Church of the Latter Day Saints of Jesus Christ) via their founder Joseph Smith Jr (1805–44). Smith was an ardent student of Hermetics and Cabala, had strong interests in Egyptology and, as mentioned previously, Masonic ceremonies had a profound effect on many 19th-century free thinkers.
THE MAKING OF A LEGEND
Cagliostro’s enemies and detractors may have sought to blacken his name. There were others who perpetuated his memory in a variety of ways, portraying him as a supernatural or sinister figure, but every so often the higher ideals and his humanity shine through, such as in Mozart’s The Magic Flute and the persona in the popular comic book and film Spawn.
The following are important examples of the influence Cagliostro has had on the creative minds of the past 220 years.
The celebrated French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon made an eternally famous bust of The Divine Cagliostro in 1786, which graced the mantle of many a Parisian home during the Count’s more popular years and numerous artists’ engravings were available from street vendors of the 1780s.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) wrote a play about him entitled Der Gross Cophta. One of three satirical comedies based on Freemasonry, it was not particularly successful when staged in 1791. It was effectively a thinly disguised version of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, with Cagliostro portrayed as the main culprit of the event.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91) was said by some to have based the character of Sorastro from The Magic Flute (1791), on Cagliostro. An opera dedicated to Freemasonry with some Egyptian themes, it can hardly have been based on anything other than Cagliostro’s Egyptian Rite. It has been implied that in the opera, the reason for female infiltration of Sorastro’s Lodge was inspired by Cagliostro’s determination that women should be allowed to be admitted to the mysteries. If one looks deeply at The Magic Flute, the connections to the Egyptian Rite are obvious and will be discussed further in Chapter 8.
Artists, too, longed to capture the mysterious enigma – Cagliostro’s friend Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg created over 100 illustrations representing the spiritual teachings and reminiscences of Cagliostro. In his work The Ascent of Elijah (1814–15) he depicts Cagliostro being taken up to heaven in a chariot adorned with Masonic symbols, representing the ‘raising’ of the Master into the immortal realms of paradise. His most important work included eight watercolours depicting the initiatory steps of the female Egyptian Rite.
The poet and artist William Blake (1757–1827) was deeply inspired by Cagliostro’s philosophy and created many pieces that depicted these ideals.
Alexandre Dumas, père, made Cagliostro a main character in his novels Memoirs of a Physician (aka Joseph Balsamo, and The Elixir of Life, 1846) and The Queen’s Necklace (1849), which was a romantic dramatization of the disastrous events of 1785 when Cagliostro was implicated, amongst others, to be the orchestrator of a plot to deceive the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette. In his novels Dumas made much of the conspiracy theory of the time that Cagliostro was the leader of the Illuminati and portrayed him and seven European Chiefs pledging almost demonic oaths to the effect of bringing about Revolution and the downfall of the monarchy.
During 1875 Johann Strauss wrote an operetta called Cagliostro in Vienna. Some years later the Soviet writer Alexei Tolstoy (1883–1945) wrote a supernatural romance called Count Cagliostro where a long-dead Russian princess is brought back to life by the Count using only her portrait. Baron Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–73) wrote a Masonic Rosicrucian novel called Zanoni in 1842, including a character reminiscent of Cagliostro.
The roll call of honours continues with the accounts from various renowned spiritualists and magicians either laying claim to being his new incarnation or to having direct psychic dealings with him, amongst them:
Eliphas Lévi (Alphonse Louis Constant 1810–75) – the famous French occultist studied the work of Cagliostro and was believed to have direct psychic communion with him.
Hélène Smith (Catherine Elise Müller 1816–1929) was a renowned French psychic who believed that she was in direct contact with Cagliostro. Her séances included her channelling the Count, replete with double chin and Italian accent and performing automatic writing. Unfortunately her credibility was questioned when she failed to come up with any consistent dates or information that could be verified as being Cagliostro’s and there were several inconsistencies between the writing of the ‘visiting’ Cagliostro and the real one. Hélène also laid claim to being the reincarnation of Marie Antoinette.
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–91) – the Founder of the Theosophical Society believed that Cagliostro had been misunderstood and unfairly maligned. In 1890 Blavatsky made it clear that she did not agree with the writings of Theveneau Morande or the Inquisition biographer, boldly declaring that ‘whoever Cagliostro’s parents may have been, their name was not Balsamo!’ She attributed his downfall to his weakness for an unworthy woman [Seraphina] and to his possession of certain secrets of nature which he had refused to reveal to the Church. Although she felt that ‘having made a series of mistakes, more or less fatal, he was recalled’, she also declared that Cagliostro’s justification ‘must take place in this century!’
Cheiro (aka Count Louis Hamon 1866–1936) – a famous clairvoyant and palmist of the 20th century. Helena Blavatsky believed he was the reincarnation of Cagliostro. He went on to become extraordinarily popular as a psychic, working for many prominent names in entertainment and eventually wrote a book on the Count called The Romance of Cagliostro.
Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) – the author and magician claimed an impressive line-up of past lives, Cagliostro being one.
The Count’s name has also been adopted in the world of stage magic for various conjury items – including the Cards of Cagliostro, the Casket of Cagliostro and more recently one called the Skull of Cagliostro which involves the ‘skull’ being ‘imprisoned’ in red cords symbolizing his incarceration in the prison of San Leo. Using ‘magic’ you then release the skull from its bonds! The famous conjurer Robert-Houdin used to perform a séance for King Louis Philippe, which made splendid use of Cagliostro’s serpent seal. In 1891, two magicians calling themselves the ‘Wizard of the South’ held a magical show in London bombastically named Cagliostromantheum. A stage magician named Caroly performed an ingenious trick called the ‘Mask of Balsamo’ at his conjuring exhibition at the Capucine Theatre in 1893. Henry Ridgley Evans, a historian and conjury expert, witnessed the performance:
The prestidigitator brought forward a small, undraped table, which he placed in the centre aisle of the theatre; and then passed around for examination the mask of a man, very much resembling a death-mask, but unlike that ghastly memento mori in the particulars that it was exquisitely modelled in wax and artistically coloured. ‘Messieurs et mesdames,’ remarked the professor of magic,‘this mask is the perfect likeness of Joseph Balsamo, Comte de Cagliostro, the famous sorcerer of the eighteenth century, modelled from a death-mask in the possession of the Italian Government. Behold! I lay the mask upon this table in your midst. Ask any question you please of the oracle and it will respond.’ The Mask rocked to and fro with weird effect at the bidding of the conjurer, rapping out frequent answers to queries put by the spectators. It was an ingenious electrical trick!
There is also a tarot card deck named in his honour. Initially manufactured in Italy in 1912, the deck was later released using the name ‘Cagliostro’, probably due to its Egyptian theme. There is nothing to assume that it has any real link to the man himself other than the symbolic nature of the cards.
The Count’s spectre lived well on into the 20th century. Two films were made in 1910 and 1912 respectively, by Pathé films – the first was Cagliostro, Aventurier, Chemiste et Magician, the second, Le Paravent de Cagliostro (Cagliostro’s Folding Screen – English version). In 1916 Mikhail Kuzmin wrote a novella entitled The Marvellous Life of Giuseppe Balsamo, Count Cagliostro.
A black-and-white silent horror movie, Der Graf von Cagliostro, was made in Germany in 1920 by Micco Film. Following in 1929 was Cagliostro – Liebe und Leben eine Grossen Abenteurers (Life and Loves of a Great Adventurer).
He was immortalized by Orson Welles in the 1949 horror movie, Black Magic (released in Italy under the name Cagliostro). An episode in the US series Suspense, starring Jack Palance, appeared in 1953 with the intriguing title of Cagliostro and the Chess Player. The Italian artist, filmmaker and biographer Piero Carpi featured Cagliostro in his famous comic books Cagliostro (1967) and Il Maestro Sconosciuto – the Unknown Master (1971). He also penned the screenplay for a film based on his own novel, simply entitled Cagliostro, which was made in 1974 by Twentieth Century Fox. Howard Vernon portrayed him in Erotic Rites of Frankenstein, 1972. Cagliostro was portrayed in the fantasy film Spawn. His role as mentor to Spawn appears as a mystical fiery glow and a voice from the ether. The characters battle against the unholy creatures from hell; a portrayal Cagliostro would have been most amused and hopefully complimented by! In 1988, Cagliostro featured in the comic book, The Phantom. The story ‘The Cagliostro Mystery’ was written by Norman Worker and illustrated by Carlos Cruz.
DC Comics also took on the character of Count Cagliostro, featuring him as an immortal descendant of Leonardo da Vinci in JL Annual 2, whereas Marvel Comics ‘hired’ him as Dracula’s archenemy in the Tomb of Dracula series.
Further fictional titles include – The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles, by Robert Anton Wilson. In Foucault’s Pendulum (1988) by Umberto Eco, he is mentioned on several occasions and he also appears as a character in Alfred Bester and Roger Zelazny’s novel Psychoshop (1998).
The most recent big-budget film to have portrayed Cagliostro is The Affair of the Necklace (Warner Brothers 2001) starring Hilary Swank as the notorious Madame de la Motte and an excellent performance by Christopher Walken in the role of the Count. Cineco Cinema produced Il Ritorno di Cagliostro starring Robert Englund in 2003.
Probably the most comprehensive and comparative study of the life of Cagliostro was published in 2003. The Seven Ordeals of Count Cagliostro (also under the title The Last Alchemist) by Iain McCalman, covers many of the theories and portrayals of the Count throughout his life.
Whoever Cagliostro really was and however fascinating we have found his enigmatic persona, this is only one aspect of his life; what we are really interested in is his vision of the ‘Rejuvenation of Mankind’ to which end he created Egyptian Freemasonry. We will return to the Egyptian Rite in Part Three, but to understand fully why Cagliostro chose Freemasonry as the vehicle for his ‘Rejuvenation’, we will now examine the origins and history of Freemasonry.