The
French Writer Adopted Only Part of
the
Vatican Lies Against The Great Mystic
Carlos Cardoso
Aveline
Alexandre Dumas, father (1802-1870)
The five-volume
novel “Joseph Balsamo” is part of a larger work by Alexandre Dumas, entitled “The
Memoirs of a Physician”.
The story was initially published as a newspaper
serialized novel between 1846 and 1849, more than two decades before the
foundation of modern theosophical movement in 1875. The fact that its main
character Joseph Balsamo, or Alessandro Cagliostro, uses as we will see the
term “theosophist” to describe himself indicates the pioneering character of
the work.
Whoever looks at the book from a literal point of view
can only conclude that Alexandre Dumas is unfair and scarcely truthful
regarding masonry and Cagliostro. In order to gain literary success, the writer
avoided criticizing the worldly powers of his time. Dumas decided to be politically correct and largely adopted
as true in his fiction work the shameless lies fabricated by the Jesuits and
the Vatican.
In every historical novel he wrote, Dumas allowed
himself complete liberty to create his own facts. Using other words, H.P.
Blavatsky said that if seen as a historian, Dumas proves to be more creative
than even the famous Baron Munchhausen.[1]
Dumas never pretended to be a historian.
When someone accused him of writing about events which he never really studied, he retorted, in
his ironical and candid style:
“If I had studied events, then when should I have
found time to write?” [2]
In spite of its obvious limitations, the novel “Joseph
Balsamo” contains elements of authentic esoteric philosophy. Dumas freely
combines truth and falsehood. Using a deliberate ambiguity to avoid
persecution, he expresses a significant amount of true facts in the work, not
always in an ostensive way. He studies and describes the facts of human soul,
not the facts of history.
The French novelist wrote, ascribing the words to his
character Joseph Balsamo:
“…I was a
theosophist at last.”
“My journeyings
ended; but in truth all that I had seen had awakened in me no astonishment,
because for me there was nothing new
under the sun, and in my preceding thirty-two existences I had visited the
cities before, through which I lately passed. All that struck me was some
change in their inhabitants. Now I would hover over events and watch the
progress of man. I saw that all minds tend onward, and that this tendency leads
to liberty. I saw that prophets had been raised up from time to time to aid the
wavering advances of the human race; and that men, half blind from their
cradle, make but one step towards the light in a century. Centuries are the
days of nations.”
“Then, said I to
myself, so much has not been revealed to me that it should remain buried in my
soul; in vain does the mountain contain veins of gold, in vain does the ocean
hide its pearls, for the preserving miner penetrates to the bowels of the
mountains, the diver descends to the depths of the ocean, but better than the
mountain or the ocean, let me be like the sun, shedding blessings on the whole
earth.”
“You understand,
then, that it is not to go through some masonic ceremonies I have come from the
East. I have come to say to you, brethren, take the wings and the eyes of the
eagle; rise above the world, and cast your eyes over its kingdoms.”
“Nations form
but one vast body. Men, though born at different periods, in different ranks,
arrived all in turn at that goal to reach which they were created. They are
continually advancing, though seemingly stationary, and if they appear to
retreat a step from time to time, it is but to collect strength for a bound
which shall them over some obstacle in their way.” [3]
Had Dumas challenged the Jesuits by clearly defending
the esoteric tradition, he would have been at least boycotted as an author, and
probably arrested, perhaps assassinated. That was not his purpose in life. Yet
Dumas’ work has many an interesting page from a theosophical and psychological
point of view.
NOTES:
[1] “Collected Writings” of H. P.
Blavatsky, TPH, vol. II, p. 130.
Title of the article: “Persian Zoroastrianism”.
[2] “Living Biographies of Famous Novelists”,
by Henry Thomas and Dana Lee Thomas, Blue Ribbon Books, Garden City, New York,
USA, copyright 1943, 1946 edition, 305 pages, see p. 134.
[3] Reproduced from “Joseph Balsamo”, New York, P.F.
Collier and Son, 1902, pp. 19-20. This
English version was compared to the original in French, “Joseph Balsamo”,
Mémoires d’un Médecin, Paris, Calmann-Lévy, Éditeurs, a five-volume undated
edition, see vol. I, pp. 23-24.
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“Alexandre Dumas Describes Cagliostro” was published in the associated websites on 03 April
2020. An initial version of the article is part of the February 2020 edition of
“The Aquarian Theosophist”, pages
1-3.
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In French language,
see the books “Cagliostro, Le Maître Inconnu” by
Marc Haven, and “Rituel de la Maçonnerie Egyptienne”,
by Cagliostro
himself.
Read the articles “Was Cagliostro a Charlatan?”, by
Helena P. Blavatsky, and “Prince Talleyrand, On Cagliostro”,
by William Q. Judge. In Portuguese
language, see “O Mistério de Alessandro Cagliostro”, by Carlos
Cardoso Aveline.
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