A Sage Whose Task
Had Something
In Common With
HPB’s Own Mission
Helena P. Blavatsky
Count Alessandro
di Cagliostro (1743?-1795?)
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Editorial Note:
We reproduce the following article
from the “Collected Writings”, Helena
P. Blavatsky, TPH, U.S.A., vol. XII,
pp. 78-88. It was also published in “Lucifer”
magazine, London,
in its edition of January 1890.
The word “Lucifer” is an ancient name for the
Planet Venus, whose meaning was distorted by
ill-informed theologians of the Middle Ages.
One would do well in taking into consideration
that HPB wrote in a letter to A.P. Sinnett, in 1885:
“Am I greater, or in any way better, than were
St. Germain, and Cagliostro, Giordano Bruno and
Paracelsus, and so many, many other martyrs whose
names appear in the Encyclopedias of the 19th century
over the meritorious titles of charlatans and impostors?
It shall be the Karma of the blind and wicked judges -
not mine. In Rome, Darbargiri Nath went to the prison
of Cagliostro at the Fort Sant’Angelo, and remained in
the terrible hole for more than an hour. What he did
there,
would give Mr. Hodgson the ground work for another
scientific Report
if he could only investigate the fact.” [1]
Darbargiri Nath was a disciple of the Mahatmas at the
time he visited the prison at the Fort Sant’Angelo. Richard
Hodgson fabricated accusations and called HPB a
charlatan.
After betraying her teacher Helena Blavatsky, Annie
Besant fabricated her own version of an “Egyptian
Rite”
and situated it above the Adyar Society’s Esoteric
School, as a secret
device for occult and political control.
(Carlos Cardoso Aveline)
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“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.”
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.
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 [2] 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 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.
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, [3] 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 (p. 95) 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!”
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.” [4]
In the Occult
phraseology of certain Occultists “Father, Son and Angels” stood for the
compound symbol of physical, and astro-Spiritual MAN. [5] 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. [6]
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 correspondence 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. [7]
This correspondence 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 of 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; himself
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.
H. P. B.
NOTES:
[1] “The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett”, TUP, Pasadena, 1973, 404 pp., see
p. 110. (CCA)
[2] “Last century”, from the point of view of 19th
century, which means, 18th century.
(CCA)
[3] NOTE BY H.P.B.: 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.
[4] NOTE BY H.P.B.: Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, p. 96.
[5] NOTE BY H.P.B.: See the Three Principles and the Seven
Forms of Nature by Böhme and fathom their Occult significance, to assure
yourself of this.
[6] NOTE BY H.P.B.: 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?
[7] NOTE BY THE EDITOR OF THE HPB’S COLLECTED
WRITINGS, BORIS DE ZIRKOFF: 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.
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Read the articles “Alexandre Dumas Describes Cagliostro”,
by CCA, and “Prince Talleyrand, On Cagliostro”, by William Q.
Judge. In Portuguese language, see “O Mistério de Alessandro Cagliostro”, by CCA.
Take a look at the French
language books “Cagliostro, Le Maître Inconnu” by Marc Haven, and “Rituel de la Maçonnerie Egyptienne”, by Cagliostro himself.
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In September 2016, after a careful analysis of the state of the
esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided to form the Independent Lodge of Theosophists,
whose priorities include the building of a better future in the different
dimensions of life.
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