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The Count of Saint­Germain

David Pratt

September 2012

Part 2 of 2

Contents

Part 1

Part 2 8. Prince Carl and the final years 9. Origins: Prince Rákóczy10. Messenger and adept11. Cagliostro and Mesmer

8. Prince Carl and the final years

Prince Carl (Charles) of Hesse­Cassel (1744­1836), the grandson of KingGeorge II of England, was brought up with relatives at the Danish court. In 1762,during the reign of Tsar Peter III, when Russian troops set out to invadeDenmark, he was given command under Field­Marshal le Comte (Claude­Louis)de Saint­Germain, and rode with him in Pomerania. There, news was received ofthe coup that replaced Peter III with Catherine, and the Russians withdrew. In1769, Carl was appointed ruler (landgrave) of the twin duchies of Schleswig andHolstein on behalf of the government of his brother­in­law, King Christian VII ofDenmark and Norway. He was received a Freemason in the lodge at Schleswigin spring 1774.

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Carl of Hesse­Cassel. (en.wikipedia.org)

Following the death of Elector Maximilian III, the last member of the Bavarianbranch of the House of Wittelsbach, on 30 December 1777, Austria invadedBavaria and, in retaliation, King Frederick II of Prussia invaded Bohemia. PrinceCarl had been taking part in peacetime manoeuvres with the Prussian army andnow found himself the daily companion of King Frederick, his cousin, in whatbecame the War of the Bavarian Succession. The Austrians retreated beforethem, and as Frederick considered the campaign over, Carl made his wayhomewards.

He arrived in Altona on his 34th birthday, 19 December 1778, and wasimmediately called on by the French Minister, Baron de la Housse. France wasAustria’s ally by treaty, though it had not lent it practical support during thehostilities. De la Housse expressed his doubts that Frederick would be willing toconclude a peace, but Carl, knowing of Frederick’s severe gout, assured himotherwise. Carl and de la Housse informed Frederick and Louis XV that peacewas possible, and the result was the Peace of Treschen, signed on 13 May 1779.De la Housse saluted Carl as the benefactor of humanity, but Carl could not havetaken the initiative if de la Housse had not approached him. It is curious that de laHousse had sounded Carl out, as he had not been instructed to do so from Paris.Bearing in mind that de la Housse was the only man in Altona whom Saint­Germain frequented, Saint­Germain may have been active behind the scenes.1

While in Altona, Carl met Saint­Germain, probably through de la Housse. In hismemoirs, Carl says that Saint­Germain ‘appeared to evince a growing

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attachment towards me, above all when he heard that I was not a hunter, andhad no other passions contrary to the study of the higher knowledge of nature’.Saint­Germain told him: ‘I shall come and see you at Schleswig and you will seethe great things we shall accomplish together.’2 However, Carl had heard all sortsof wild tales about Saint­Germain’s marvellous powers, and asked ColonelKoeppern to dissuade Saint­Germain from visiting him. Saint­Germain’sresponse was: ‘I have to go to Schleswig and will not give up.’ Carl asked aPrussian friend, Colonel Frankenberg, for his impression of Saint­Germain. Hereplied: ‘You can rest assured that he is not a trickster; he does possess highknowledge.’ He said that Saint­Germain had improved the stones in his wife’searrings, with the result that they had doubled in value.3

Saint­Germain visited Carl at his residence, Gottorp Castle, in Schleswig soonafterwards.

He spoke to me about the great things he wanted to do for humanity,etc. I was not particularly desirous of doing so, but in the end I had myscruples about rejecting knowledge which was in every way important(from a false idea of wisdom or of avarice) and I became his disciple.He spoke much of the improvement of colours, which would costalmost nothing, of the improvement of metals, adding that it wasabsolutely necessary to adhere faithfully to this principle. ... There isalmost nothing in nature which he did not know how to improve anduse. He confided to me something of the knowledge of nature, butonly the introductory part, making me then search for myself, byexperiments, for the means of succeeding, and rejoicing exceedinglyin my progress. That was the way with metals and precious stones;but as for the colours, he actually gave me them, as well as somevery important information.4

Carl believed that the lack of manufactures was keeping Denmark poor, andaccepted Saint­Germain’s proposal to set up a factory. He bought an abandonedone at Eckernförde (on the Baltic Sea), 30 miles from Gottorp, had it repaired,and ordered rolls of fabrics for Saint­Germain to dye. Carl often went to see himand learned how to make his dyes; Saint­Germain told Carl he was the only pupilhe had ever taken. Carl says that the venture ‘succeeded perfectly’.

Carl knew a silk merchant named Jean­Baptiste Willermoz, a fellow Mason, whowas working in Lyons, France, and in May 1781 sent him some samples of Saint­Germain’s work in the hope of interesting him in a joint venture. Willermozadmitted that the colours were better than his own and that he would like toparticipate in the enterprise, but also made disparaging comments, probably witha view to obtaining the products at a cheaper price. In the end, the plans went nofurther.5

In a letter to Willermoz of 7 February 1782, Carl writes that ‘Saint­Germain hasbeen very much occupied all the winter with other matters than with dyeing, otherenterprises and the giving of instruction’.6 He does not mention what the otherenterprises were, but they may have involved the preparation of medicines.

The papers left by Prince Carl include the recipe for Saint­Germain’s famous tea:it contained senna pods, elder flowers, and fennel, soaked in spirits of wine; ithad a laxative effect and general healthful properties. Carl recounts that oncewhen his wife was very ill with a catarrhal attack, in great pain and suffering afever, she took one of Saint­Germain’s medicines and within an hour she was

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perfectly healthy again. Saint­Germain was apparently working in the tradition ofancient herbalists, adding refinements of his own.7 Carl writes:

He knew thoroughly all about herbs and plants and had discoveredmedicines which he continually used and which prolonged his life andhis health. I still possess some of his recipes, but the physiciansstrongly denounced his science after his death. There was aphysician there named Lossau, who had been an apothecary, and towhom I gave twelve hundred crowns a year to work with themedicines which the Count of Saint­Germain gave him, amongothers; and principally with his tea, which the rich bought and the poorreceived gratis. This doctor cured a number of people, of whom none,to my knowledge, died. But after the death of this physician, disgustedwith the proposals I received from all sides, I withdrew all the recipes,and I did not replace Lossau.8

Several writers have claimed that Saint­Germain played a key role in occultsocieties such as those of the Rosicrucians and Freemasons. Isabel Cooper­Oakley says that it is evident that Saint­Germain ‘went from one society toanother, guiding and teaching’.9

According to Cadet de Gassicourt, he was travelling member for the‘Templars,’ going from Lodge to Lodge to establish communicationbetween them. M. de St. Germain is said to have done this work forthe Paris Chapter of the ‘Knights Templar.’ Investigation proves him tohave been connected with the ‘Asiatische Brüder,’ or the ‘Knights ofSt. John the Evangelist from the East in Europe,’ also with the ‘Ritterdes Lichts,’ or ‘Knights of Light,’ and with various other Rosicrucianbodies in Austria and Hungary; and also with the ‘Martinists’ in Paris.10

There is nothing to show that Gassicourt was speaking from first­handknowledge. It is certainly true that Saint­Germain was acquainted with individualsassociated with various occult organizations, but there is no solid evidence thathe played a leading role in any of them or took part in their rituals. As we haveseen, some lower­level Freemasons tended to be hostile to him, probablybecause they were jealous of his fame and knowledge and the fact that people inhigh places held him in such regard despite his having no Masonic titles. TopFreemasons, on the other hand, such as the late Comte de Clermont Prince,Grand Master of the Grand Orient in France, Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick,Grand­Master of the Strict Observance, and Prince Carl, held Saint­Germain inhigh esteem. Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick met Saint­Germain three times whilevisiting Carl in late 1779 and commented that Saint­Germain ‘has acquired greatknowledge through his researches into nature. ... His conversation contains muchinstruction.’11

On 12 December 1781 Prince Carl wrote to Duke Ferdinand von Haugwitz aboutnew rituals and an upcoming Convention of Freemasons from all nations to beheld in Wilhelmsbad. Jean Overton Fuller comments:

Had Saint­Germain been, as so many have imagined him, a highlyplaced Freemason, now if ever was the occasion for him to have beenseen playing the role attributed to him by Mrs Cooper­Oakley, goingfrom lodge to lodge to set up communications and, in particular,helping to overhaul The Strict Observance. It is very evident from thisletter who were the people overhauling it, Duke Ferdinand von

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Haugwitz, with contributory help from Willermoz. Saint­Germain,though in contact with all four of them, was not shown the new rituals,nor consulted and not expected to attend the conference atWilhelmsbad, and that because, despite the intimacy of his friendshipwith Prince Carl, they did not think of him as a Mason.12

Cooper­Oakley quotes an alleged letter to Count Görtz in which Saint­Germainsays: ‘I have promised to visit Hanau to meet the Landgrave Karl at his brother’sand work out with him the system of the “Strict Observance”’13 But this is notsupported by any letters that are known for certain to be authentic. She also citescomments about Saint­Germain by the Landgraf von Hessen­Phillips­Barchfeld,Prince Carl’s cousin:

[H]e is in connection with many remarkable men and has anextraordinary influence upon others. My cousin, Landgrave Karl ofHesse, is much attached to him, they work together in Freemasonryand other dark sciences. Lavater [famous Swiss physiognomist]sends him chosen men. He can speak in different voices and fromdifferent distances, can copy any hand he sees once, perfectly – he issaid to be in connection with spirits who obey him, he is physician andgeognost and is reported to have means to lengthen life.14

Even if this is a genuine letter, it might be based as much on rumour as on fact.

There is also a letter said to have been written by Prince Carl to Willermoz on 28May 1784, telling him of Saint­Germain’s death and of one of his lastconversations with Saint­Germain.

He had always acted as though he knew nothing of Masonry or highknowledge, though during the last year a number of things hadconvinced me to the contrary. ... [D]espite never having owned tobeing a Mason, he said something strange, that he was ‘Le plusancien des Maçons’ – ‘the most ancient of Masons’.

The original of this alleged letter has not been traced; it is not among the knowncorrespondence between Carl and Willermoz.15 But this sounds like somethingSaint­Germain could well have said.

There are claims that Carl and Saint­Germain conducted alchemical experimentstogether in a tower on Carl’s Louisenlund estate. Christopher McIntosh says thatthe park at Louisenlund ‘was laid out in the form of an initiatic journey thatinvolved the candidate passing through a dense wood, finding his way through alabyrinth and encountering various alchemical and allegorical images along theway’.16 According to Manly Hall, Saint­Germain’s final years were ‘dividedbetween his experimental research work in alchemy with Charles of Hesse andthe Mystery School at Louisenlund, in Schleswig, where philosophic and politicalproblems were under discussion’.17 He does not provide any supportingevidence.

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Left: Louisenlund Tower, which no longer exists. Right: an idealizedpainting of how it may once have looked. The tower is said to havecontained an alchemist’s laboratory and a room where Masonic ritualswere conducted.

Close­up of the Egyptian stone doorway to the tower. The doorway was later moved to a different location.

Even though Saint­Germain was not officially a Mason, Prince Carl clearly sawhim as a companion spirit, and in fact as his teacher. In his memoirs, hedescribes Saint­Germain (whom he familiarly refers to as ‘old Papa Saint­

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Germain’) as follows:

He was perhaps one of the greatest philosophers that ever existed. Afriend of humanity; only desiring money to give it to the poor; also afriend of animals; his heart was never occupied except with the goodof others. He thought he was making the world happy in providing itwith new enjoyments, the most beautiful fabrics, more beautifulcolours, much cheaper than previously. For his superb dyes costalmost nothing. I have never seen a man with a clearer intelligencethan his, together with an erudition (especially in ancient history) suchas I have seldom found.18

Carl says that Saint­Germain’s ‘philosophical principles in religion were purematerialism’. So here we see Carl making the same mistake as Wurmb, anotherMason. We do not know the details of their conversations and Saint­Germain’steachings. But what we do know is that, as Carl puts it, Saint­Germain ‘was by nomeans an adorer of Jesus Christ’. Carl once told Saint­Germain that he found hisremarks about Jesus offensive, and Saint­Germain promised not to broach thesubject again.19 Most likely he had said that Jesus was a sage of holy life but notthe ‘only begotten Son of God’. Saint­Germain was clearly not a theist, a believerin orthodox Christian theology, but nor was he a materialist who believed in theexistence of nothing but dead physical matter. He may have adhered to apantheistic view of nature that sounded to conventional Freemasons more likeatheistic materialism.20

By 1783 Saint­Germain’s health was clearly failing. He had always been veryvulnerable to cold, and was suffering from rheumatism; Carl attributes this to thedamp basement room he lived in on arrival at Eckernförde. In the winter of 1783Carl had to go to Cassel in Germany on family business. Saint­Germain told himthat if he died before he returned he would leave a sealed letter for him, but thathe dared not reveal anything before he died.

According to the register of the St. Nicolai church in Eckernförde, ‘the so­calledComte de St. Germain and Weldon’ died on 27 February 1784, while Carl wasstill in Cassel, and was buried in tomb no. 1, inside the church, on 2 March1784.21 After the destruction caused by the great storm tide of 13 November1872, which also flooded the church, all the indoor tombs were filled with sandand most of the large tombstones were removed, so it is not known exactlywhere Saint­Germain’s body now lies.22

So poor was Saint­Germain at the time of his death that his estate did not coverthe cost of his burial, and he was therefore given free burial out of regard for hispatron, Prince Carl. All that he left was a packet of paid and receipted bills, asmall amount of cash, some clothing, and a few other items such as razors andtoothbrushes. The value of his estate in the English money of today would bearound £690.23 There were no diamonds, no paintings, no musical scores, nobooks, and no violin. Prince Carl took back all his own letters, but no othercorrespondence was found. Carl says that he failed to find the sealed letter Saint­Germain had promised to leave for him.

Notes

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1. Jean Overton Fuller, The Comte de Saint Germain: Last scion of the House ofRákóczy, London: East­West Publications, 1988, pp. 249­50.

2. The Theosophical Path, Nov 1914, p. 382.

3. Fuller, p. 251.

4. The Theosophical Path, Nov 1914, pp. 383­4.

5. Fuller, pp. 257­69.

6. Ibid., p. 266.

7. Ibid., pp. 270­3.

8. The Theosophical Path, Nov 1914, p. 383.

9. Isabel Cooper­Oakley, The Comte de St. Germain: The secret of kings,original ed. 1912, reprint, Escondido, CA: The Book Tree, 1999, p. 147. ManlyHall asserts that Saint­Germain was ‘the moving spirit of Rosicrucianism duringthe eighteenth century – possibly the actual head of that order’ (Manly P. Hall(ed.), The Most Holy Trinosophia of the Comte de St.­Germain, PhilosophicalResearch Society, 1933, p. 22; reprint: Aziloth Books, 2011, p. 16). Arthur E.Waite, on the other hand, says that the records of German Rosicrucianism at theclose of the 18th century ‘have not one word to tell us on the presence oractivities of the Comte de Saint­Germain’ (The Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross(1924), New York: University Books, n.d., p. 499).

10. Cooper­Oakley, pp. 151­2.

11. Fuller, p. 256.

12. Ibid., p. 275. Fuller gives the date of Carl’s letter as 12 December 1782, butthe conference in question opened on 16 July of that year. The conference was motivated by concerns about Masonry’s origins. Itdragged on until mid­September 1782. The participants finally decided to stopclaiming to descend from the Knights Templar, and to change the name fromStrict Observance to Beneficent Knights of the Sacred City (p. 285).

13. Cooper­Oakley, pp. 152, 155.

14. Ibid, pp. 153, 4.

15. Fuller, p. 289.

16. Terry Melanson, ‘Illuminati sightseeing: Karl and St. Germain at Louisenlund’,2008, bavarian­illuminati.info.

17. The Most Holy Trinosophia of the Comte de St.­Germain, 1933, p. 24 / 2011,p. 18. The inventory of Carl’s inheritance includes a large quantity of chemicalsfound in the ‘alchemy’ laboratory, where he is said to have made gold, first withSaint­Germain and later with several goldsmiths. Several pieces of this ‘Carlmetal’ and several pieces of jewellery made out of it were also found. Note thatthis ‘gold’ is Saint­Germain’s gold­like metal (which witnesses mention as earlyas his time in France in the late 1750s), which was not the result of thealchemical transmutation of lead. Carl established a profitable factory for this

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metal at Ludwigsburg. (G. van Rijnberk, Saint Germain in de brieven van zijntijdgenoot den Prins Karel van Hessen Cassel, Den Haag: Servire, ca. 1935, p.29; ‘Wer war “Graf Saint­Germain”: eine historisch­kritische Bestandsaufnahme’,Jahrbuch der Heimatgemeinschaft Eckernförde e.V., no. 5, 2004, pp. 32­3.)

18. The Theosophical Path, Nov 1914, p. 384.

19. Ibid., p. 384.

20. Baron von Gleichen, another Mason, wrote: ‘His [Saint­Germain’s] philosophywas that of Lucretius; he spoke with a mysterious emphasis of the profundities ofnature, and opened to the imagination a career, vague, obscure and immense asto the nature of science, its treasures, and the nobility of its origin’ (TheTheosophical Path, Dec 1914, p. 455). The 1st­century­BC Roman philosopherLucretius is usually described as a materialist who rejected all supernaturalexplanations of natural phenomena. However, his descriptions of the creativepower of nature sometimes seem to postulate ‘an immaterial life­force surgingthrough the universe and operating above or beyond raw nature’ (‘Lucretius’,Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, iep.utm.edu). H.P. Blavatsky calls theancient ‘atomist’ philosophers (Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius)‘spiritual, most transcendental, and philosophical pantheists’ (H.P. Blavatsky, TheSecret Doctrine, Pasadena, CA: Theosophical University Press (TUP), 1977(1888), 1:569). Some of their teachings are certainly open to a theosophicalinterpretation (G. de Purucker, The Esoteric Tradition, TUP, 2nd ed., 1973, pp.275­7, 385; G. de Purucker, Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy, TUP, 2nded., 1979, pp. 433, 464, 494; G. de Purucker, Man in Evolution, TUP, 2nd ed.,1977, pp. 33­5; The Secret Doctrine, 1:567­9). See The mahatmas on spirit, matter, God for comments by the mahatmasthat, taken out of context, might sound like materialism.

21. A certain Dr Biester claims that Carl later had Saint­Germain buried inSchleswig in the Friederiksberg churchyard ‘to consult his ghost late at night’!(Cooper­Oakley, p. 135.)

22. ‘Wer war “Graf Saint­Germain”: eine historisch­kritische Bestandsaufnahme’,p. 14.

23. Fuller, pp. 290­6. When Saint­Germain arrived in Schleswig in 1779, he issaid to have brought only a suitcase of clothes and a few other items (Rijnberk,Saint Germain in de brieven van zijn tijdgenoot den Prins Karel van HessenCassel, p. 7fn). Given the vast knowledge he displayed of history and science, hemust have had a prodigious memory.

9. Origins: Prince Rákóczy

Saint­Germain indicated to several people that he was the son of Francis(Ferenc) Rackozy II of Transylvania.1 Rákóczy (nowadays usually spelt Rákóczi;pronounced: rakotsi) was the name of a noble family in the Kingdom of Hungarybetween the 13th and 18th centuries. Francis II Rákóczy was the most famousmember of the family. He was born in 1676 in Royal Hungary, and died in exile in1735 in the Ottoman Empire. He led the Hungarian uprising against the Austrian

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Habsburgs in 1703­11 as the prince of the Confederated Estates of the Kingdomof Hungary and the Prince of Transylvania. After the defeat of the rebellion, theRákóczy family’s wealth was confiscated.

Francis Rákóczy married Princess Charlotte Amalie von Hesse­Rheinfels in1694, when he was 19 years old. They had three sons. The first son, LeopoldGeorge, died in 1700 at the age of 4. The second son, Joseph, was born in 1700and died in what is now Bulgaria in 1738, while the third son, George (György),was born in 1701 and died in France in 1756. Joseph and George were takenaway from their parents at an early age, and raised at the court of EmperorCharles VI, Francis’ enemy. George finally visited his father in 1727, but Josephdid not see him again. In his will, Francis mentioned his two surviving children butleft everything to George, who then shared his inheritance with his brother.2

In his memoirs, written down over 30 years after his conversations with Saint­Germain, Prince Carl says: ‘He told me he was the son of Prince Rákóczy ofTransylvania, by his first wife, a Thököly.’3 Carl must have misunderstood Saint­Germain. Rákóczy was only married once. It was his mother, Helen Zrinyi, whobecame, by a second marriage, a Thököly. Saint­Germain was clearly none ofRákóczy’s known sons, and Carl was right to think that Saint­Germain had adifferent mother from Joseph and George. As he occasionally hinted, Saint­Germain must have been the illegitimate son of Rákóczy. Perhaps Carl hadmisunderstood because this was explained to him in a delicate way.

Carl also writes that Saint­Germain

told me that he was eighty­eight years old when he came here. Hewas ninety­two or three when he died. ... He was placed under theprotection of the last Medici, who had him sleep, as a child, in his ownroom. When he learned that his two brothers, sons of the Princess ofHesse­Rheinfels or Rotenberg, ... had submitted to the EmperorCharles VI and taken the names St Charles and St Elizabeth inhonour of the Emperor and the Empress, he said to himself, ‘Ah well, Ishall call myself Sanctus Germanus, the holy brother.’4

If Saint­Germain was 88 years old when he came to Schleswig­Holstein in 1770,Rákóczy would have been only 15 when he conceived him. Jean Overton Fullercomments:

On the other hand, if the conversation took place in Eckernförde,Saint­Germain may have meant that he was eighty­eight when PrinceCarl established him at the works in Eckernförde, which must havebeen sometime in between 24 November, 1779, when ... he must stillhave been at Gottorp, and June, 1781, when ... he was atEckernförde. If it was in 1781 he told Prince Carl he had not longgone eighty­eight, that would give us a credible birth­date, in late1693 or early 1694, when Rákóczy would have been seventeen, and,moreover, in Italy, which would tie up with the otherwiseincomprehensible reference to the Medicis.5

The House of Medici (Famiglia de' Medici) was a political dynasty, banking familyand later royal house that began its rise to prominence in the Republic ofFlorence during the late 14th century. The Medicean dynasty came to an end inthe 18th century, with two unhappily married, childless brothers, Gian Gastoneand Ferdinando. The elder brother, Ferdinando, died of syphilis in 1713, and

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Gian Gastone succeeded his father, Duke Cosimo III, in 1723, becoming the lastMedicean Grand Duke of Tuscany. He died in 1737.

Saint­Germain once said that his country of origin was one that had never knownforeign rule; this has been taken to mean he must belong to the Wittelsbach royalhouse, as Bavaria is virtually the only European country, apart from France, towhich that applies. On another occasion Saint­Germain stated that only theBourbon royal house could rival his own, which again implied he was aWittelsbach, as only the Bourbon and Wittelsbach royal houses in Europecompared in terms of the antiquity of their reign.6 One theory is that Saint­Germain was the bastard of Queen Maria­Anna of Spain, since she was born aWittelsbach. However, she was never in a place within hundreds of miles ofRákóczy. Jean Overton Fuller offers a more plausible hypothesis:

[T]here was another Wittelsbach lady, of the senior branch of thefamily, Princess Violante of Bavaria, wife of Prince Ferdinando deiMedici, neglected and miserable in Florence where Rákóczy arrivedin May, 1693, and stayed four months. There is no documentary proofof their having met, but if one looks at the portraits of Rákóczy,Violante and Saint­Germain, one sees his face seems to combinefeature from theirs. He looks particularly like Violante around thebridge of the nose and eyebrows and the upper part of the facegenerally, and particularly like Francis Rákóczy in the chin andmouth.7

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Saint­Germain.

Francis Rákóczy (by Ádám Mányoki, 1724).

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Princess Violante.

Fuller therefore suggests that Saint­Germain was the son of Prince Francis IIRákóczy of Transylvania and Princess Violante.

This would give a reason for the Medicis to have brought him up, forwhy should they bring up a bastard of Francis Rákóczy unless themother was one of their own family? Where the family of a girl whohas borne a child out of wedlock chases after the man, it is usually inthe hope he will provide financial maintenance; but the Medicis wereso much wealthier than Rákóczy that, if they decided to keep the childand bring him up themselves, where the mother could see himsometimes, they may have thought it needless to send after Rákóczyand tell him anything about it. So he may never have known.8

Gian Gastone was always sympathetic to his neglected sister­in­law, Violante,and could have persuaded his and Ferdinando’s father, Cosimo, to take the childinto his household, among the many pages from good families whom he helpedto educate. This is in line with Saint­Germain’s remark that he had been‘tremendously protected’ and educated by Gian Gastone.9 The House of Medicipossessed great knowledge, but Saint­Germain told Carl that he had learned thesecrets of nature by his own application and researches.10 Saint­Germain’sconnection with the Dukes of Medici helps explain how he came to possess aRaphael and other valuable paintings, and how he came to be such anaccomplished composer and musician.

Notes

1. Jean Overton Fuller, The Comte de Saint Germain: Last scion of the House ofRákóczy, London: East­West Publications, 1988, pp. 200, 218, 225, 230, 280.

2. Ibid., pp. 57­9. Cooper­Oakley gives a very inaccurate account of Rákóczy’swill, saying that it mentions a third son – whom she equates with Saint­Germain –and leaves him a large legacy and rights to valuable property (see Isabel Cooper­Oakley, The Comte de St. Germain: The secret of kings, original ed. 1912,reprint, Escondido, CA: The Book Tree, 1999, p. 15; Fuller, p. 57).

3. Fuller, p. 280.

4. Ibid. Carl adds: ‘I cannot guarantee the truth of his birth; but that he wasgreatly protected by the last of the Medici I have learnt from another source’ (TheTheosophical Path, Nov 1914, p. 383).

5. Fuller, p. 280.

6. Ibid., pp. 170­1, 238­9.

7. Ibid., pp. 280­1. In his Confessions Rákóczy says that in Italy he did not meetthe Grand Duke, Cosimo, but does not say whether he met Ferdinand orViolante. He says he kept away from prostitutes to avoid the risk of infection. Headds that others saw him as chaste but that he was really a whited sepulchre. He

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writes: ‘Thou, alone, Lord, knowest my turpitude.’ (Ibid., p. 8.)

8. Ibid., p. 281.

9. Cooper­Oakley, p. 11.

10. The Theosophical Path, Nov 1914, p. 383.

10. Messenger and adept

As noted in the introduction, Helena P. Blavatsky referred to Saint­Germain as‘the greatest Oriental Adept Europe has seen during the last centuries’.1 Sheused the word ‘adept’ to refer to occultists and mystics of many different grades,not just mahatmas.

On the subject of how the mahatmas select their disciples or chelas, Blavatskywrites:

For centuries the selection of Chelas – outside the hereditary groupwithin the gon­pa (temple [Buddhist monastery]) – has been made bythe Himalayan Mahatmas themselves from among the class – inTibet, a considerable one as to number – of natural mystics. The onlyexceptions have been in the cases of Western men like Fludd,Thomas Vaughan, Paracelsus, Pico della Mirandola, Count de Saint­Germain, etc., whose temperamental affinity to this celestial sciencemore or less forced the distant Adepts to come into personal relationswith them, and enabled them to get such small (or large) portion ofthe whole truth as was possible under the social surroundings.2

She mentions Saint­Germain as an example of someone who ‘by early trainingand special methods’ reached the stage of a fifth­rounder and developed hishigher senses.3 She also writes:

The treatment that the memory of this great man, this pupil of Indianand Egyptian hierophants, this proficient in the secret wisdom of theEast, has had from Western writers is a stigma upon human nature.And so has the stupid world behaved towards every other personwho, like Saint­Germain, has revisited it after long seclusion devotedto study, with his stores of accumulated esoteric wisdom, in the hopeof bettering it and making it wiser and happier.4

Note that we know virtually nothing at all about the first 40 years of Saint­Germain’s life.

Blavatsky suggests that Saint­Germain may have been able to remember someof his past lives:

If he said that ‘he had been born in Chaldea and professed topossess the secrets of the Egyptian magicians and sages’, he mayhave spoken truth without making any miraculous claim. There areinitiates, and not the highest either, who are placed in a condition to

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remember more than one of their past lives.5

It is noteworthy that on several occasions while speaking about his past, Saint­Germain seems to have been talking about events in the life of his father, FrancisRákóczy, as if he were unconsciously drawing from his father’s memory.6 Saint­Germain was probably born in 1694 and his father died in 1735. Under specialconditions, a soul can take over the body of a child or adult by replacing the souloriginally connected with that body.7 However, it seems unlikely that the soul ofFrancis, on leaving his body at death, would have completely replaced the soulthat had already occupied his son’s body for over 40 years.8

When did he die?

In a letter to A.P. Sinnett written in August 1881, mahatma Kuthumi (KH) saidthat the French occultist Eliphas Levi (1810­75) studied from the Rosicrucianmanuscripts (of which only three copies remained in Europe).

These expound our eastern doctrines from the teachings ofRosenkreuz [founder of the Rosicrucian Order] who, upon his returnfrom Asia dressed them up in a semi­Christian garb intended as ashield for his pupils, against clerical revenge. ... Rosenkreuz taughtorally. Saint Germain recorded the good doctrines in figures, and hisonly cyphered MS. remained with his staunch friend and patron, thebenevolent German Prince from whose house and in whose presencehe made his last exit – HOME. Failure, dead failure!1

The meaning of ‘home’ in this context is the same as in the following remark byH.P. Blavatsky, another messenger of the Himalayan Brotherhood: ‘The writer ofthe present is old; her life is well­nigh worn out, and she may be summoned“home” any day and almost any hour.’2 The masters presumably saw Saint­Germain’s mission largely as a failure because they had hoped it would preventmore of the violence and bloodshed that accompanied the transition from feudal,aristocratic society, dominated by an absolute monarchy and dogmatic Church,to the new industrialized society, characterized by greater personal and politicalliberty.

The remarks by KH strongly imply that Saint­Germain did in fact die in Germanyduring the period of his close friendship with Prince Carl, though they couldconceivably also be interpreted to mean that he merely retired from public workand returned ‘home’ in his physical body.

There are several stories about Saint­Germain being seen after his presumeddeath in 1784. Some sources say that he attended an occult conference inWilhelmsbad in February 1785, and that in April 1785 he attended the conventionof the Philalètes (‘lovers of truth’) in Paris as a delegate of the Freemasons,along with Cagliostro, Saint­Martin and Mesmer.3 The Wilhelmsbad conferencewas supposedly intended to ‘bring about a conciliation between the various sectsof the Rosicrucians, the Necromantists, the Cabalists, the Illuminati, theHumanitarians’ and to prepare for the convention in Paris. There is someconfusion here, because the convention in Paris actually began on 15 February1785 and ended on 26 May. The convention of Freemasons in Wilhelmsbad tookplace three years earlier,4 and Saint­Germain is not known to have attended.

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In any event, and as already mentioned, there was another Saint­Germain –Robert­François Quesnay de Saint­Germain, a Mason and grandson of Mme dePompadour’s physician François Quesnay. In 1781 this Saint­Germain founded aClub d’Illuminés in Paris, at the address of the Lodge Les Amis Réunis, withinwhich the Rite des Philalètes was created.5 So this could be the Saint­Germainwho attended the meeting in Paris – but note that the actual list of participantsdoes not include the name ‘Saint­Germain’!6

In the forged and largely fictitious Souvenirs sur Marie­Antoinette et la cour deVersailles, published in 1836, Countess d’Adhémar, the supposed author, reportsthat ‘the Count de Châlons ... on returning from his Venetian embassy in 1788,told me of his having spoken to the Comte de Saint­Germain in the Place SaintMarc the day before he left Venice to go on an embassy to Portugal’.7

She also says that she herself saw Saint­Germain several times after 1784. Thefirst time was in 1789; she describes how Saint­Germain sent her a letter tellingher to meet him at a church. She says he looked just as he had in 1760. Hestated that he had come from China and Japan, and next had to travel to Swedento prevent a great crime. He predicted the murder of the French Queen and thecomplete ruin of the Bourbons, but said he could do nothing to prevent thisbecause ‘my hands are tied by one stronger than myself’. He also said theCountess would see him five more times. According to a handwritten noteattached to the original manuscript of the book and dated 12 May 1821, she sawhim at the execution of Queen Marie­Antoinette on 16 October 1793; during thecoup of 18 Brumaire, on 9 November 1799 (when Napoleon seized power); theday following the killing of the Duke d’Enghien (an opponent of Napoleon) on 21March 1804; in January 1813; and on 13 February 1820, the eve of the murder ofthe Duke of Berry (the younger son of the future Charles X of France).8 The (real)Countess died in 1822.

In Blavatsky’s opinion, if Saint­Germain really died in 1784, he would not havebeen buried quietly, but with the great pomp and ceremony befitting his rank. Onthe other hand, it could be argued that his quiet burial was fully in keeping withhis secluded lifestyle and low public profile in his final years. Writing in TheTheosophist in 1881, Blavatsky cites ‘alleged positive proof’ that he was still livingseveral years after 1784:

He is said to have had a most important private conference with theEmpress of Russia in 1785 or 1786, and to have appeared to thePrincesse de Lamballe when she stood before the tribunal, a fewmoments before she was struck down with a bullet, and a butcher­boycut off her head; and to Jeanne du Barry, the mistress of Louis XV, asshe waited on her scaffold at Paris the stroke of the guillotine in theDays of Terror, of 1793.9

Rudolph Gräffer tells a rather wild tale about meeting Saint­Germain in Vienna in1788, 1789 or 1790. He and others allegedly witnessed the ‘man of wonders’write simultaneously with both hands and when the two sheets were placed ontop of one another the writing was found to be exactly the same. Saint­Germainthen launches into the following dramatic monologue:

To­morrow night I am off; I am much needed in Constantinople; thenin England, there to prepare two inventions which you will have in thenext century – trains and steamboats. These will be needed inGermany. The seasons will gradually change – first the spring, then

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the summer. It is the gradual cessation of time itself, as theannouncement of the end of the cycle. I see it all; astrologers andmeteorologists know nothing, believe me; one needs to have studiedin the Pyramids as I have studied. Towards the end of this century Ishall disappear out of Europe, and betake myself to the region of theHimalayas. I will rest; I must rest. Exactly in eighty­five years [i.e.around 1873­75] will people again set eyes on me. Farewell, I loveyou.10

It is difficult to take this sort of drivel seriously. Even Cooper­Oakley says, ‘It is tobe regretted that Gräffer’s florid account opens the door to a slight suspicion ofcharlatanry’. But the charlatanry surely belongs to Gräffer alone.

If Saint­Germain did die in 1784 it would be quite possible for a mahatma toproject his mayavi­rupa (thought­body), make it assume the appearance andother characteristics of Saint­Germain, and appear to whoever he wanted.However, the stories about his postmortem appearances do not come fromcredible witnesses.

Writings

As noted earlier, Saint­Germain had promised to leave Prince Carl a sealed letterif he died before Carl returned from Cassel. In his memoirs, written betweenDecember 1816 and April 1817, Carl says he did not find any letter, and wonderswhether it had been ‘confided to unfaithful hands’; it is possible he found it afterpublication of his memoirs. The ‘cyphered manuscript’ to which KH refers couldbe a different document altogether. Since Carl was a Mason and knew how tokeep a secret, there is no reason to expect him to mention it. After Saint­Germain’s death, Carl became Grand Master of all the lodges in Denmark. Healso had a small inner group to which he gave special information from an‘unknown superior’ whom he had met in the flesh and came to know well.1

Blavatsky refers to ‘the cypher Rosicrucian manuscript left by Count St.Germain’, saying that it fully describes the location of the mythical Garden ofEden.2 In December 1879 she spoke of

a curious manuscript belonging to a Fellow of the TheosophicalSociety in Germany, a learned mystic, who tells us that the documentis already on its way to India. It is a sort of diary, written in thosemystical characters, half ciphers, half alphabet, adopted by theRosicrucians during the previous two centuries, and the key to whichis now possessed by only a very few mystics. Its author is the famousand mysterious Count de Saint­Germain ...3

Blavatsky also presents certain teachings on numbers and their mysticalsignificance which she attributes to ‘a MS. supposed to be by “St. Germain” ’ and‘St. Germain’s MS.’; she shows how the teachings resemble the thinking ofPythagoras, who ‘brought his wisdom from India’.4

Blavatsky says that nearly all the secrets of esoteric Masonry have disappearedsince Elias Ashmole (who died in 1692) and his immediate successors. ‘Ourgreatest secrets,’ she says, ‘used to be taught in the Masonic lodges the world

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over’, but ‘what remained written in secret manuscripts ... was reduced to ashesbetween the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century in England, aswell as on the continent.’5 Writing in March 1889, she reports that an aged‘brother’, a great kabbalist, had just died in London whose grandfather, arenowned Mason, was an intimate friend of the Count of Saint­Germain duringthe latter’s visit to England in 1760:

The Count de Saint­Germain left in the hands of this Mason certaindocuments relating to the history of Masonry, and containing the keyto more than one misunderstood mystery. He did so on the conditionthat these documents would become the secret heritage of all thosedescendants of the Kabbalists who became Masons. These papers,however, were of value to but two Masons: the father and the sonwho has just died, and they will be of no use to anyone else inEurope. Before his death, the precious documents were left with anOriental (a Hindu) who was commissioned to transmit them to acertain person who would come to Amritsar, City of Immortality, toclaim them.6

According to Blavatsky, in Europe a single copy of the Vatican manuscripts of theKabbala is said to have been in the possession of Saint­Germain. She says thatthe parchment contains the most complete exposition of how higher intelligences– who were later collectively turned into a creative God – fashioned the organicuniverse, and includes the views of the Luciferians and other Gnostics. She addsthat in it the ‘seven suns of life’ (solar logoi, dhyani­chohans) – only four of whichare mentioned in public editions of the Kabbala – are given in the order they arefound in the Hindu doctrine of the sapta­surya (‘seven suns’), indicating that theteaching originated in ‘the Secret Doctrine of the Aryans’.7

The authorship of the notable work La Très Sainte Trinosophie (The Most HolyTrinosophia / The Most Holy Threefold Wisdom) is controversial.8 It was allegedlyauthored by either the Count of Saint­Germain or Count Alessandro di Cagliostro.The 96­page manuscript is in the possession of the French library at Troyes. It ishandwritten, mainly in French, but also contains letters, words and phrases inseveral other languages, figures resembling Egyptian hieroglyphics, a few wordsin characters resembling cuneiform, and several pages at the end in cipher. Itspoetic prose is full of masonic and kabbalistic symbols, as are the drawings withwhich it is richly illustrated. The work deals in a veiled and allegorical mannerwith the mysteries of initiation.

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The front cover. (bibliodyssey.blogspot.com)

Illustration for the 12th and final section.

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The first fly­leaf of the manuscript bears a note saying that it belonged to thefamous Cagliostro and was found by Massena in Rome at the Grand Inquisitor’s.A stuck­on note, signed by a philosopher calling himself ‘I.B.C. Philotaume’, saysit is the sole existing copy of a work by Saint­Germain. Manly Hall believes it wasindeed written by Saint­Germain, and was seized by the Inquisition whenCagliostro was arrested in Rome in 1789. Jean Overton Fuller, on the otherhand, suggests that it was written by Cagliostro while incarcerated in the CastelSant’Angelo.9

Section 1 of the manuscript begins: ‘It is in the retreat of criminals in thedungeons of the Inquisition your friend writes these lines which are to serve foryour instruction.’ The author goes on to say that his body is ‘broken by torture’.Unlike Cagliostro, Saint­Germain was never a prisoner of the Inquisition. ManlyHall, however, see these references as symbolic: the first chapter ‘depicts the“relapsed” state of the human soul’, the dungeon being ‘the sphere of man’sanimal consciousness’; ‘The physical world, dominated by inquisitional impulses,constitutes the soul’s torture chamber and house of testing.’10

Manly Hall wonders whether the work is in any way connected with the Masonicbrotherhood of the Trinosophists, founded in 1805 by the distinguished BelgianFreemason Jean­Marie Ragon. He says that the Egyptianized interpretation ofFreemasonic symbolism so evident in the writings of Ragon and other FrenchMasonic scholars of the same period is also present in the figures and text of themanuscript.11 According to H.P. Blavatsky, ‘It is also told, confidentially, that thefamous founder of the Lodge of Trinosophists, J.M. Ragon, was also initiated intomany secrets by an Oriental, in Belgium, and some say that he knew Saint­Germain in his youth.12

The Manly Palmer Hall Collection of Alchemical Manuscripts at the GettyResearch Library contains two triangular books (MS 209 and MS 210), similar incontent but not entirely identical, whose title page mentions Saint­Germain. MS209 has 31 leaves (of which four are blank), and MS 210 has 24 leaves; each ofthe three sides of the pages measures about nine inches. With the exception ofthe title page, the books are written in cipher. Iona Miller writes:

The cipher itself is quite simple, belonging to the class found inMasonic documents, and decodes into French. ... The writing itselfbelongs to a class known as Grimoire or Manuals of CeremonialMagic. ... The balance of the manuscript is devoted to theconsecration of magical implements and prayers to spirits. ... Most ofthe formulas are magical rather than alchemical and so involved inobscure symbolism and Cabalistic names as to be impractical to themodern reader. ... It is not known for sure if St. Germain actuallywrote these rites or adapted them from an older magical text in hispossession.13

We do not know for certain whether the Count of Saint­Germain had anything dowith these manuscripts.

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First page of the manuscript: ‘By the gift of the most wise Comte de St.­Germain who passed through the circle of the earth.’ (trianglebook.weebly.com)

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A page in cipher.

Neotheosophy

The neotheosophical tradition of Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater showsseveral fundamental differences with the theosophical teachings put forward byH.P. Blavatsky and the mahatmas, and other theosophical teachers such asWilliam Quan Judge and Gottfried de Purucker.1 There are few people nowadayswho think there was no self­deception at all involved in Besant and Leadbeater’svarious clairvoyant observations – e.g. their descriptions of the past lives ofthemselves and their associates, their meetings with mahatmas and initiatoryexperiences on the astral plane, and their descriptions of the inhabitants of otherplanets in our solar system.2 Leadbeater’s statements about Saint­Germain,which were endorsed by Besant, are outlined below.3

They both identify the Count of Saint­Germain known to history as MasterRákóczy, or The Count, who nowadays usually lives in an ancient castle inEastern Europe. The Hungarian adept who was one of the masters who helpedBlavatsky to write Isis Unveiled is said to be the same mahatma.4 Drawing on hisclairvoyant observations/fantasies, Leadbeater lists The Count’s previousincarnations: he was Francis Bacon in the 17th century, Robertus the monk in the16th century (there is a Robert the Monk who is famous as a chronicler of theFirst Crusade, but he lived in the 12th century), Hunyadi Janos (a general andRegent­Governor of the Kingdom of Hungary) in the 15th century, ChristianRosenkreuz in the 14th century (the lives of Hunyadi Janos and Rosenkreuzprobably overlapped in time), and Roger Bacon in the 13th century. Before that

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he was supposedly the Neoplatonist Proclus, and before that Saint Alban.

Leadbeater claims that he once met The Count in the flesh, walking down theCorso in Rome, ‘dressed just as any Italian gentleman might be’: ‘He took me upinto the gardens on the Pincian Hill, and we sat for more than an hour talkingabout the Society and its work ...’ He describes The Count as ‘not especially tall’,with an olive­tanned face, close­cut brown hair, and a short, pointed beard. He is‘very upright and military in His bearing’, and has ‘the exquisite courtesy anddignity of a grand seigneur of the eighteenth century’.5

Master Rákóczy is said to be one of the seven masters responsible for the ‘sevenrays’, the others being Kuthumi, Morya, Jesus, Hilarion, Serapis, and theVenetian. He is supposedly the head of the seventh ray (associated withceremonial magic and ordered service).

He works to a large extent through ceremonial magic, and employsthe services of great Angels, who obey Him implicitly and rejoice to doHis will. ... In his various rituals He wears wonderful and many­coloured robes and jewels. ... He is also much concerned with thepolitical situation in Europe and the growth of modern physicalscience.6

Whoever it is that Leadbeater claimed to have met in Italy, it is hardly likely to bethe Saint­Germain who eyewitnesses said was ailing and suffering fromrheumatism in the period leading up to his presumed death in 1784. Theseeyewitness accounts give the lie to Besant’s claim that in the early 20th centurySaint­Germain was ‘still living in the same body the perennial youth of whichastonished the observers of the 18th century’.7

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This painting, by an unknown artist, supposedly shows Blavatsky and‘her three teachers’ (Kuthumi, Morya, and Saint­Germain). However,Blavatsky never referred in print to ‘Master Saint­Germain’ or ‘MasterRákóczy’, and never called Saint­Germain her teacher.

The ‘ascended master’ craze warrants only a very brief mention. In 1930, GuyBallard (1878­1939) claimed to have met ‘ascended master Saint­Germain’ onMount Shasta. He supposedly took Ballard and his wife to a convention ofVenusians in the Grand Tetons. Ballard founded the ‘I AM’ Activity, and he andhis wife and son became Saint­Germain’s ‘sole accredited messengers’ andpublished many ‘channelled’ messages from him. Nowadays, numerouschannellers and cults claim to be receiving messages from ‘Saint­Germain’ andother ‘ascended masters’, usually living in higher realms. Many related productsare available for sale, such as a silk bookmark ‘infused with Saint­Germain’senergy’, and various sprays and essences to facilitate ‘ascension to higherrealms’ and communication with Saint­Germain. Donations are gratefullyreceived ...

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‘Ascended Master Saint­Germain’

‘Ascended Master Saint­Germain’ with a different hairstyle.

Notes

1. H.P. Blavatsky, The Theosophical Glossary, Los Angeles, CA: Theosophy Co.,1973 (1892), p. 309.

2. H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, TPH, 1950­91, 4:607.

3. Blavatsky Collected Writings, 5:144­5. According to theosophy, earth iscurrently midway through the fourth of the seven rounds of evolutionary

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development, and humanity is in its fifth root­race. The mahatmas have alreadyreached the state of consciousness that most of humanity will not attain until farinto the fifth round, while in a few rare cases, such as Gautama the Buddha, theyhave become sixth­rounders. More numerous are those who have reached astate of intellectual development that will characterize the early stages of the fifthround (G. de Purucker, Fountain­Source of Occultism, TUP, 1974, pp. 512­6).

4. Blavatsky Collected Writings, 3:128­9.

5. The Theosophical Glossary, p. 309.

6. Jean Overton Fuller, The Comte de Saint Germain: Last scion of the House ofRákóczy, London: East­West Publications, 1988, pp. 107­8, 136, 279, 303.

7. This is said to have happened in the case of two former leaders of theTheosophical Society: William Quan Judge and Gottfried de Purucker. See SvenEek & Boris de Zirkoff, ‘William Quan Judge: his life and work’, in: William QuanJudge, Echoes of the Orient, 1st ed., San Diego, CA: Point Loma Publications(PLP), 1975, 1:xix­lxviii / 2nd ed., TUP, 2009­10, 1:xvii­lxvii; Dick Slusser, ‘Anesoteric look at William Q. Judge’, The High Country Theosophist, Aug 1991, pp.1­7; Dick Slusser, ‘The mystery of G. de Purucker’, The High CountryTheosophist, Jul 1991, pp. 1­7.

8. A mahatma can temporarily ‘overshadow’ an individual and speak or workthrough them directly, as sometimes happened with H.P. Blavatsky, e.g. duringthe writing of Isis Unveiled (H.S. Olcott, Old Diary Leaves, TPH, 1900­1941,1:202­54). The same mahatma could have overshadowed Francis Rákóczy (anoble, humble, unselfish and deeply religious individual) and later his son, Saint­Germain, but this would probably not explain how Saint­Germain could accesshis dead father’s memory.

When did he die?

1. The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, TUP, 2nd ed., 1975, p. 280 / TPH, chron.ed., 1993, pp. 70­1. Note that if Saint­Germain really died at Eckernförde on 27February 1784, he did not die in the presence of Prince Carl, who was then inCassel and did not return home until October 1784.

2. Fountain­Source of Occultism, p. 682; Daniel H. Caldwell (comp.), TheEsoteric Papers of Madame Blavatsky, Kessinger, 2004, p. 55.

3. Isabel Cooper­Oakley, The Comte de St. Germain: The secret of kings,original ed. 1912, reprint, Escondido, CA: The Book Tree, 1999, pp. 134, 137.

4. ‘Wilhelmsbad, Congress of’, encyclopediaoffreemasonry.com.

5. Fuller, p. 299.

6. ‘Wer war “Graf Saint­Germain”: eine historisch­kritische Bestandsaufnahme’,Jahrbuch der Heimatgemeinschaft Eckernförde e.V., no. 5, 2004, p. 23. Baronvon Gleichen’s name does appear on the list of participants, and in the chapter ofhis memoirs dealing with Saint­Germain, he does not say that the latter attendedthe Paris convention (p. 39).

7. Cooper­Oakley, p. 136.

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8. Cooper­Oakley, pp. 54, 74­93.

9. ‘Count de Saint­Germain’, Blavatsky Collected Writings, 3:125­9 (p. 129). Thestandard account of the death of Princess de Lamballe (Princess Marie Louise ofSavoy) is that after appearing before a tribunal on 3 September 1792, she was‘thrown to a group of men who killed her within minutes. Some reports allege thatshe was raped and that her breasts were cut off, in addition to other bodilymutilations, and that her head was cut off and stuck on a pike’ (en.wikipedia.org).Jeanne du Barry was executed on 8 December 1793. After the words quoted above, Blavatsky continues: ‘A respected member ofour Society, residing in Russia, possesses some highly important documentsabout the Count de Saint­Germain, and for the vindication of the memory of oneof the grandest characters of modern times, it is hoped that the long­needed butmissing links in the chain of his chequered history, may speedily be given to theworld through these columns.’ Blavatsky is probably referring to the (forged)Souvenirs, a copy of which was in the library of her aunt, Nadyezhda Andreyevnade Fadeyev. In her book on Saint­Germain, Isabel Cooper­Oakley includestranslations of several extracts from the manuscript, obtained from the copy inFadeyev’s possession (see Cooper­Oakley, pp. 53­4). In an article written in 1875, Blavatsky said that the French Revolution of 1793was ‘predicted in every detail by the Count de St.­Germain, in an autograph MS.,now in possession of the descendants of the Russian nobleman to whom hegave it’ (Blavatsky Collected Writings, 1:107fn). Blavatsky’s great­grandfatherPrince Pavel Dolgorukii, who had belonged to the Rite of the Strict Observance,was rumoured to have met Cagliostro and Saint­Germain (K. Paul Johnson, TheMasters Revealed, State University of New York Press, 1994, p. 4). Her auntNadyezhda was one of his descendants. But it sounds like Blavatsky is referringhere to a manuscript in Saint­Germain’s own hand, not the handwrittenSouvenirs. Either Blavatsky garbled her account, or her aunt also possessedanother manuscript, written by Saint­Germain himself. The Souvenirs containalleged prophecies by Saint­Germain about the French Revolution. In 1884 Blavatsky stayed with Countess d’Adhémar (a US citizen anddescendant of the supposed author of the Souvenirs) and her husband at theirresidence at Enghien, just outside Paris. The Countess later told Cooper­Oakleythat there were documents relating to Saint­Germain in her family papers (in theUS) (Cooper­Oakley, p. 53fn).

10. Cooper­Oakley, pp. 144­5. The first working steamboat was invented inFrance around 1774, and the steamboat era properly got under way in Americain 1787.

Writings

1. Fuller, p. 305.

2. H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, TUP, 1977 (1888), 2:202; H.P. Blavatsky,Isis Unveiled, TUP, 1972 (1877), 1:575.

3. Blavatsky Collected Writings, 2:193.

4. The Secret Doctrine, 2:582­3.

5. Blavatsky Collected Writings, 11:183.

6. Ibid., 11:184

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7. The Secret Doctrine, 2:239.

8. Manly P. Hall (ed.), The Most Holy Trinosophia of the Comte de St.­Germain,Philosophical Research Society, 1933; reprint: Aziloth Books, 2011.

9. Fuller, p. 309.

10. The Most Holy Trinosophia of the Comte de St.­Germain, 1933, p. 94 / 2011,p. 71.

11. Ibid., 1933, p. 30 / 2011, pp. 23­4. He also notes that the teachings onnumber symbolism that Blavatsky attributes to a manuscript by Saint­Germain‘are in substance similar to Puissance des nombres d’après Pythagore by JeanMarie Ragon’ (pp. 27­8 / 21).

12. Blavatsky Collected Writings, 11:184. Ragon was born in the last quarter ofthe 18th century, was initiated in the Lodge Réunion des Amis du Nord in 1803,and died in 1866, so he would have been only a child if he did meet Saint­Germain, assuming the latter died in 1784 (encyclopediaoffreemasonry.com).

13. Triangle book of St. Germain, by Iona Miller, 2012, Provenance, Translations.

Neotheosophy

1. Margaret Thomas (comp.), Theosophy versus Neo­Theosophy, 2003 onlineedition.

2. See ‘Leadbeater, Charles Webster’, Theosophical Encyclopedia, Quezon City,Philippines: TPH, 2006, pp. 367­73; Gregory Tiller, The Elder Brother: Abiography of Charles Webster Leadbeater, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,1982.

3. C.W. Leadbeater, The Masters and the Path, TPH, 1925, pp. 11, 44, 269, 286­8, diagram 4. The corresponding page numbers in the abridged 4th edition(1983) are pp. 7, 26, 187, 196­7, 203, but some of the material on ‘The Count’ isomitted.

4. Henry S. Olcott, too, believed that Saint­Germain was one of the masters whocollaborated in the writing of Isis Unveiled (‘The Count de Saint­Germain andH.P.B. – two messengers of the White Lodge’, The Theosophist, July 1905).

5. The Masters and the Path, 1925, pp. 11, 44. Doug Skinner mentions thecoincidence that in September 1923 the infamous occultist and ceremonialmagician Aleister Crowley wrote in his diary: ‘Shall I “become” Comte de StGermain with a wig & beard – and start a New Legend?’ (‘The Count of St.­Germain’, Fortean Times, June 2001.)

6. The Masters and the Path, 1925, pp. 286­7.

7. Preface to Cooper­Oakley, p. xiii.

11. Cagliostro and Mesmer

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Saint­Germain, Cagliostro and Mesmer were all 18th­century messengers of theHimalayan Brotherhood, just as H.P. Blavatsky was their messenger in the 19thcentury.1 KH says that Saint­Germain and Cagliostro were both ‘gentlemen of thehighest education and achievements – and presumably Europeans’, but wereregarded at the time, and still are by posterity, as ‘impostors, confederates,jugglers’.2 He condemns the ‘conceit and mental obscuration’ of the academicswho ‘persecuted Mesmer and branded St. Germain as an impostor’.3

Born in Germany in 1734, Franz Anton Mesmer4 studied at the University ofVienna and became a doctor of medicine in 1766. In 1773 he began treatingpatients with magnets, but within a few years he stopped using magnets,believing that his cures involved the transfer of a subtle fluid or life­force, whichhe called ‘animal magnetism’. In 1777 he left Vienna and the following year heset up practice in Paris. His fame grew rapidly and within a few years he wastreating several thousand patients annually and with great success.

His success infuriated the medical establishment, and as his clientele was mainlydrawn from the upper middle classes, he was accused of extracting cash byexploiting their gullibility. In 1784 a commission made up of members of theFrench Faculty of Medicine and the Royal Academy of Sciences declared that hiscures were entirely attributable to his patients’ imagination; they did bother tointerview Mesmer during their investigation. He died in 1815, resentful of the factthat his discovery had not been officially recognized and that some of his formerdisciples had distorted his teaching. The common practice of equatingmesmerism with hypnotism is a big mistake.5

Helena Blavatsky describes Mesmer as follows:

The famous physician who rediscovered and applied practically thatmagnetic fluid in man which was called animal magnetism and sincethen Mesmerism. ... He was an initiated member of the Brotherhoodsof the Fratres Lucis6 and of Lukshoor (or Luxor), or the EgyptianBranch of the latter. It was the Council of ‘Luxor’ which selected him –according to the orders of the ‘Great Brotherhood’ – to act in the 18thcentury as their usual pioneer, sent in the last quarter of every centuryto enlighten a small portion of the Western nations in occult lore. Itwas St. Germain who supervised the development of events in thiscase; and later Cagliostro was commissioned to help, but havingmade a series of mistakes, more or less fatal, he was recalled. ...Mesmer founded the ‘Order of Universal Harmony’ in 1783, in whichpresumably only animal magnetism was taught, but which in realityexpounded the tenets of Hippocrates, the methods of the ancientAsclepieia, the Temples of Healing, and many other occult sciences.7

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Franz Anton Mesmer (marilynkaydennis.files.wordpress.com)

There are several stories about Mesmer having known Saint­Germain. In anarticle written in 1908, A. Mailly claims that Mesmer knew Saint­Germain wellfrom his stay in Paris, and asked him to come to Vienna so he could study animalmagnetism with him; Saint­Germain supposedly stayed there secretly, providinghim with a great deal of help, and Mesmer wrote down his teachings there.8 It isnot clear what the evidence is for these statements.

Rudolph Gräffer claims that Mesmer met Saint­Germain in Vienna, sometimebefore he moved to Paris, a day after supposedly receiving a letter sent by Saint­Germain from The Hague, and he proceeds to ‘quote’ the conversation betweenthem. Saint­Germain promised to help Mesmer with his ideas about magnetism.They discussed how to obtain ‘the elements of the elixir of life by the employmentof magnetism in a series of permutations’. After talking for three hours theyallegedly arranged a further meeting in Paris. We have already seen thatGräffer’s tales are rather wild, but that does not rule out the possibility that Saint­Germain and Mesmer did meet in Vienna, Paris or elsewhere.9

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Count Alessandro di Cagliostro. (sil.si.edu)

Cagliostro (pronounced: cally­ostro) was an occultist, Freemason, philanthropist,and healer. HPB calls him ‘a famous adept’ whose ‘real history has never beentold’.

His fate was that of every human being who proves that he knowsmore than do his fellow­creatures; he was ‘stoned to death’ bypersecutions, lies, and infamous accusations, and yet he was thefriend and adviser of the highest and mightiest of every land hevisited. He was finally tried and sentenced in Rome as a heretic, andwas said to have died during his confinement in a State prison [in1795].10

His real name was supposedly Giuseppe (Joseph) Balsamo, born in Palermo,Sicily, in 1743, who became a notorious thief and was finally banished fromPalermo, yet was later accepted into the highest social circles. However, theidentification of Cagliostro with Balsamo derives from the Inquisition, and seemsto have been intended to blacken his name.

In his own account of his life,11 Cagliostro says he does not know the place of hisbirth or the identity of his parents. He relates that, under the name of Acharat, hespent his childhood at Medina in Arabia, in the palace of the Mufti Salahayn, thechief of the Muslims. His tutor, Althotas, taught him botany, chemistry and other

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sciences.12 Althotas told him he had been left an orphan when only three monthsold, and that his parents were Christians of noble birth. At the age of 12, heaccompanied Althotas to Mecca, where they stayed three years. He thentravelled to Egypt and, by the time he was 18, he had visited the principalkingdoms of Africa and Asia.

In 1766 Cagliostro accompanied his tutor to the Isle of Malta, where he firstassumed European clothes and the name of Count Cagliostro. He stayed in thepalace of Pinto de Fonsesca, the then Grand Master of the Knights of Malta.After the death of his tutor he began his travels in Europe. In Rome, in 1770, hemarried Seraphina Feliciani, a devout Roman Catholic who could neither readnor write. Cagliostro’s travels took him to Spain, Portugal, England, Holland,Courland, Germany, Russia, Poland, France and Italy. He sometimes used othernames (e.g. Comte Starat, Comte Fénix, Marquis d’Anna). He spent his timehelping the poor, curing the sick, meeting high­ranking members of society, andconducting Masonic work. Most of the time Cagliostro seemed to possess anendless source of money, and Charles Sotheran suggests that the funds ofsecret societies were placed at his disposal.13

Cagliostro was admitted to the Esperance Lodge of the Order of the StrictObservance in London in 1777. He founded his own Egyptian Rite and in manyplaces he established lodges of Egyptian Masonry, with varying degrees ofsuccess; contrary to Masonic custom, the lodges admitted women. His missionwas to purify and elevate Masonry, and engraft Eastern philosophy onto it;without such a union, says Blavatsky, ‘Western Masonry is a corpse without asoul’.14 Sometimes he performed occult phenomena, but he found that this onlyled to ever greater demands for more wonders. For Cardinal de Rohan, hepredicted the exact hour of the death of Empress Maria Theresa. Rohan said hehad witnessed Cagliostro produce gold in the alchemist’s crucible on severaloccasions.15

During the three years Cagliostro spent at Strasbourg in Alsace, from 1780 to1783, his house was constantly besieged by the sick and suffering. He treated15,000 patients, only three of whom died. He never charged a penny, and oftengave money to poor patients so that they could buy food and pay off debts.16Many cases had been declared incurable by orthodox physicians; for instance, itis well attested that he cured the Marquis de la Salle and the Prince de Soubiseof gangrene after their physicians had given up on them.17 Nevertheless, he wascommonly labelled a ‘quack’ and every effort was made to undermine his work.Cagliostro prepared his own medicines and elixirs, and was also familiar withanimal magnetism. A key element in his success was his ability to instil hope andconfidence in those he treated.

His work inevitably aroused opposition from unscrupulous, greedy and enviouspeople. For instance, during his visit to England in 1776­77, thieves and corruptjustice officials robbed him of a huge sum of money, valuable occult manuscripts,and his store of drugs and chemicals.18 On his second visit to England in 1786­87, he had to spend part of his time defending himself in print against hisenemies, after a series of slanderous articles appeared in the Courrier del’Europe.19

There is a tradition that Cagliostro was a pupil of Saint­Germain, though nocontemporary document has been found that confirms this. A ‘memoir’ byCagliostro – actually a hoax by Jean­Pierre­Louis de Luchet (1785) – presents anaccount of the initiation of Cagliostro and Seraphina by Saint­Germain into the

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Rosy Cross in a grotto in Schleswig­Holstein; they were supposedly taught thatthe art of governing people is never to tell them the truth. Jean Overton Fullercomments:

Plainly, the narration is fictitious. Yet de Luchet had been from 1777librarian and chamberlain to Frederick II of Hesse, the father of ...Prince Carl, and may have picked up some indication that the couplehad been in his employer’s son’s domains, and fleshed it with hisimagination.20

From 15 February to 26 May 1785 a convention of Freemasons and occultistsfrom France, Germany, Switzerland and other countries was held in Paris by theLodge of the Philalèthes. Cagliostro was one of the participants. He hadpromised to take charge of the Lodge in order to reform and purify it but withdrewhis offer because the Philalèthes rejected his demands: that they adopt ‘trueMasonry’ (i.e. the Egyptian Rite) and consign the ‘vain accumulation of theirarchives’ to the flames; this was necessary, said Cagliostro, because ‘it is only onthe ruins of the Tower of Confusion that the Temple of Truth can be erected’.21

In 1785 Cagliostro became embroiled in the diamond necklace affair in France.22By means of deception, the Countess Jeanne de la Motte­Valois, posing as aconfidante of Queen Marie­Antoinette, convinced Cardinal de Rohan that theQueen, with whom he wished to gain favour, wanted him to secretly purchase adiamond necklace worth 1,600,000 livres on her behalf. The necklace wasdelivered to de la Motte, but the jewellers were unable to collect the paymentfrom the Queen because it turned out she knew nothing about it. De la Motte soldthe individual diamonds and she and her husband pocketed the money. Rohanshowed Cagliostro a letter in which the Queen had promised to pay byinstalments, but Cagliostro told him it was a forgery.

In August 1785 Rohan, Cagliostro, the de la Mottes, and several other individualswere arrested and consigned to the Bastille for many months. At the trial,Cagliostro mounted a brilliant defence and he and Rohan were acquitted. Mmede la Motte was found guilty and sentenced to be branded with a hot iron,publicly whipped while naked, and imprisoned for life. She later escaped toEngland, but in 1791 the sight of several constables who wanted to talk to herabout a debt led her to jump out of a window and she was seriously injured. Shedied two months later, on the anniversary of Cagliostro’s arrest.

The necklace affair is sometimes said to have contributed to the outbreak of theFrench Revolution because it highlighted the Queen’s wealth at a time when thepoor were in need of bread. After his acquittal, Cagliostro was forced to leaveFrance. Thousands of people from all walks of lives turned up in Boulogne to bidfarewell to ‘the divine Cagliostro’ (as he was popularly known) when he set sailfor London. There, he wrote an open letter to the French people, denouncing thecruelty and injustice of the Bastille, where people could be locked away for lifewithout trial by means of a ‘lettre de cachet’ signed by the King, and he lookedforward to a time when the prison would be turned into a public promenade.23 Theletter caused a great sensation, and may have been a factor in the storming ofthe Bastille – the first blow struck by the people during the 1789 revolution, threeyears later. If so, it was Cagliostro rather than Saint­Germain (as is sometimesclaimed) who helped to precipitate the revolution.24

In May 1789 Cagliostro and his wife arrived in Rome. His enemies sent twoJesuits who pretended to be converts to Egyptian Masonry. On 27 December

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Cagliostro was arrested for practising Masonry – an offence in the Papal States.He was imprisoned in the Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome, where he was manacledand chained by the neck. His wife was also arrested and was induced to informon him and ‘confess’ everything; she died in a convent a few years later.Cagliostro’s trial before the Holy Inquisition lasted 15 months. On 7 April 1791, hewas condemned to death. His ‘crimes’ included being a Freemason and a‘heretic’. His papers, effects and Masonic paraphernalia were burned beforeenormous crowds of people, including his manuscript on Egyptian Masonry. Thena mysterious event occurred:

A stranger, never seen by any one before or after in the Vatican,appeared and demanded a private audience of the Pope, sending himby the Cardinal Secretary a word instead of a name. He wasimmediately received, but only stopped with the Pope for a fewminutes. No sooner was he gone than his Holiness gave orders tocommute the death sentence of the Count to that of imprisonment forlife, in the fortress called the Castle of San Leo, and that the wholetransaction should be conducted in great secrecy.25

In the Fortress of San Leo, Cagliostro’s captors, afraid he might escape,sometimes placed him in an ‘oubliette’ (a ‘place forgotten’), essentially a well,instead of his stone chamber. He was also physically tortured. He is reported tohave produced a marvel at San Leo. He took a long rusty nail taken out of thefloor and transformed it without the help of any instrument into a triangularstiletto, as smooth, brilliant and sharp as if it were made of the finest steel, exceptfor the head of the nail, which was left intact to serve as a handle. The statesecretary gave orders for it to be taken away from Cagliostro and brought toRome, and to double the watch over him.26

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The hilltop fortress of San Leo in the Apennine Mountains. InCagliostro’s day, the only way to reach it was by being hoisted up in akind of basket by means of ropes and pulleys.

Cagliostro is officially said to have died of apoplexy at San Leo on 26 August1795.27 But Blavatsky denies that he died in the cells of the Inquisition.28

[T]here are Masons who to this day tell strange stories in Italy. Somesay that Cagliostro escaped in an unaccountable way from his aerialprison, and thus forced his jailors to spread the news of his death andburial. Others maintain that he not only escaped, but, thanks to theElixir of Life, still lives on, though over twice three score and ten yearsold!29

Commenting on Cagliostro’s life, Blavatsky says:

The chief cause of his life­troubles was his marriage with Lorenza [orSeraphina] Feliciani, a tool of the Jesuits; and two minor causes, hisextreme good nature, and the blind confidence he placed in hisfriends, some of whom became traitors and his bitterest enemies. ... It was his connection with Eastern Occult Science, his knowledgeof many secrets – deadly to the Church of Rome – that brought uponCagliostro first the persecution of the Jesuits, and finally the rigour ofthe Church ...30

The Jesuits later spread the false rumour that he had been their spy, but there isno evidence he was ever involved in any political intrigue.

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He was simply an Occultist and a Mason, and as such was allowed tosuffer at the hands of those who, adding insult to injury, first tried tokill him by lifelong imprisonment and then spread the rumour that hehad been their ignoble agent. ... There are many landmarks in Cagliostro’s biographies to show thathe taught the Eastern doctrine of the ‘principles’ in man, of ‘God’dwelling in man – as a potentiality in actu (the ‘Higher Self’) – and inevery living thing and even atom – as a potentiality in posse, and thathe served the Masters of a Fraternity he would not name because onaccount of his pledge he could not.31

The Vatican document about Cagliostro’s trial and condemnation is the basis forassuming that Giuseppe Balsamo and Cagliostro are the same person. G. dePurucker says that there is certainly a mysterious connection between the twomen.

How strange is it that Giuseppe Balsamo is the Italian form of thename Joseph Balm, suggesting a healing influence; and that‘Balsamo,’ whether rightly or wrongly, can be traced to a compoundSemitic word which means ‘Lord of the Sun’ – ‘Son of the Sun’; whilethe Hebrew name Joseph signifies ‘increase’ or ‘multiplication.’ Howstrange it is that Cagliostro’s first teacher was called Althotas, acurious word containing the Arabic definite article ‘the,’ suffixed with acommon Greek ending ‘as,’ and containing the Egyptian word Thoth,who was the Greek Hermes – the Initiator! How strange it is thatCagliostro was called an ‘orphan,’ the ‘unhappy child of Nature’! Everyinitiate in one sense is just that; every initiate is an ‘orphan’ withoutfather, without mother, because mystically speaking every initiate isself­born. How strange it is that other names under which Cagliostrois stated to have lived at various times have in each instance asingular esoteric signification! ... [T]o every Cagliostro who appears there is always a Balsamo.Closely accompanying and indeed inseparable from every Messengerthere is his ‘Shadow.’32 With every Christ appears a Judas.33

Blavatsky says that Cagliostro’s end ‘was not utterly undeserved, as he had beenuntrue to his vows in some respects, had fallen from his state of chastity andyielded to ambition and selfishness’.34 G. de Purucker comments:

Cagliostro’s failure was not one of merely vulgar human passion, norwas it one of vulgar human ambition, as ordinary men understandthese terms. ... [T]here are at times more tragedies in the life of aMessenger than you could easily understand, for a Messenger issworn to obedience in both directions – obedience to the general lawof his karma from which he may not turn aside a single step, andobedience equally strict to the Law of those who sent him forth. ... Be, therefore, charitable in your judgment of that great andunhappy man, Cagliostro!35

Notes

1. W.Q. Judge, The Ocean of Theosophy, TUP, 1973 (1893), pp. 11­2; W.Q.

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Judge, Echoes of the Orient, 1st ed., PLP, 1975­87, 2:27, 286­7, 349 / 2nd ed.,TUP, 2009­10, 2:31, 301, 365­6.

2. The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, TUP, 2nd ed., 1975, p. 306 / TPH, chron.ed., 1993, p. 290.

3. Ibid., 2nd ed., p. 281 / chron. ed., p. 71.

4. Richard Milton, Forbidden Science: Suppressed research that could changeour lives, London: Fourth Estate, 1994, pp. 62­4; Franz Mesmer,en.wikipedia.org; H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, TUP, 1972 (1877), 1:171­7.

5. In ‘mesmeric’ or ‘magnetic’ healing, the healer conveys prana or vitality fromtheir own body to the diseased person, usually by stroking the afflicted organ orpart of the body. Provided the magnetiser is healthy and morally upright, no harmcan be done. The cure is sometimes permanent, but often only temporary. In thecase of hypnotism, the hypnotist subjugates the hypnotee’s mind to his own will;this is almost always bad as it weakens the will of the person concerned. (See G.de Purucker, Studies in Occult Philosophy, TUP, 1973, pp. 622­5, 652­4; H.P.Blavatsky Collected Writings, TPH, 1950­91, 12:214­28.)

6. According to Kenneth Mackenzie, the Fratres Lucis (Brothers of Light) was amystic order established in Florence in 1498. Its members included Pasqualis,Cagliostro, Swedenborg, St. Martin, Eliphas Lévi and many other eminentmystics, who were very much persecuted by the Inquisition (H.P. Blavatsky, TheTheosophical Glossary, Los Angeles, CA: Theosophy Co., 1973 (1892), p. 188).

7. The Theosophical Glossary, pp. 213­4.

8. Isabel Cooper­Oakley, The Comte de St. Germain: The secret of kings,original ed. 1912, reprint, Escondido, CA: The Book Tree, 1999, p. 158.

9. Ibid., pp. 138­40.

10. The Theosophical Glossary, p. 72.

11. The Theosophical Path, May 1932, pp. 417­28. This is part of a series of 19articles on Cagliostro by Philip A. Malpas, which appeared in The TheosophicalPath, v. 41, Apr 1932 to v. 45, Oct 1935, and in The Theosophical Forum, v. 8,Feb & Mar 1936.

12. Charles Sotheran, who was associated with numerous esoteric and Masonicsocieties and was a founding member of the Theosophical Society, says thatCagliostro was born in 1748, the offspring of Emanuel de Rohan, Sixty­eighthGrand Master of Malta, by a lady of Turkish extraction (Alessandro di Cagliostro:impostor or martyr?, New York: D.M. Bennett, 1875; electronic ed., 2008). Hebases his biography of Cagliostro on ‘many manuscripts and historicaldocuments not hitherto made public’ and information obtained through his‘connection with various European secret societies of which Cagliostro was amember’ (p. 9). Sotheran calls Althotas ‘an erudite Greek, learned in all Orientallore and science, but especially in the hidden Eastern mysteries of TheurgicMagic (magnetism and clairvoyance), Medicine and Chemistry (alchemy)’, andsays that he had Cagliostro ‘initiated into the doctrines of the Eastern Illuminatiand other philosophical fraternities’ (p. 10).

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13. Alessandro di Cagliostro: impostor or martyr?, p. 41. G. de Purucker saysthat it is very rare for the Himalayan Brotherhood to provide money for the workcarried out by its agents; this only happens in isolated cases: ‘Such was the casewith Cagliostro and such was the case in even larger measure with him of whomyou have heard under the name of the Count of Saint­Germain. They had certainand specific duties to perform and the treasuries were opened to them.’ (G. dePurucker, Esoteric Teachings, PLP, 1987, 2:113.)

14. Blavatsky Collected Writings, 1:310. In answer to a correspondent whowondered whether practical instruction along the lines of Cagliostro’s EgyptianRite should be instituted in theosophical lodges, Blavatsky said that, unless theparticipants were utterly chaste and pure in body and mind, such a plan ‘wouldbe far more likely to end in mediumship than adeptship’. The practical instructionoffered by Cagliostro ‘brought direful suffering upon his head, and has left nomarked traces behind to encourage a repetition in our days’ (ibid., 10:126­7).

15. Cagliostro, theosophytrust.org.

16. The Theosophical Path, Apr 1933, pp. 526­7; Jul 1933, pp. 106­17.

17. The Theosophical Path, Oct 1933, pp. 235­47.

18. See Cagliostro’s ‘Letter to the English people’, The Theosophical Path, July1932, pp. 101­20.

19. The Theosophical Path, Oct 1934, pp. 235­46; Jan 1935, pp. 373­84; Apr1935, pp. 506­16.

20. Jean Overton Fuller, The Comte de Saint Germain: Last scion of the Houseof Rákóczy, London: East­West Publications, 1988, p. 307; see also Arthur E.Waite, The Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross (1924), New York: University Books,n.d., p. 500. Sotheran says the alleged initiation took place soon after Cagliostro’smarriage, and that they stayed with Saint­Germain ‘at Sleswig in the palace ofthe Prince of Hesse Cassel, whom he had known formerly in Germany, and whohad forced him to leave France and remain at his Court’ (Alessandro diCagliostro: impostor or martyr?, p. 14). However, Cagliostro married in 1770 andSaint­Germain did not go to stay with Carl of Hesse­Cassel until the end of 1779,not long after they had first met.

21. ‘Was Cagliostro a “charlatan”?’, Blavatsky Collected Writings, 12:78­88 (p.82). The Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia says that Mesmer attended the convention,but Karl R.H. Frick says that Mesmer declined the invitation to attend (Karl R. H.Frick on The Philalèthes, freimaurer­wiki.de; Ida Postma, ‘The birth of a neworder’, Sunrise, Oct 1980).

22. The Theosophical Path, Jan 1934, pp. 389­99; Apr 1934, pp. 518­25; Jul1934, pp. 89­102.

23. The Theosophical Path, Jul 1934, pp. 98­101.

24. Blavatsky writes: ‘[I]t is our firm conviction based on historical evidence anddirect inferences from many of the Memoirs of those days that the FrenchRevolution is due to one Adept. It is ... the Count de St. Germain – who broughtabout the just outbreak among the paupers, and put an end to the selfish tyranny

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of the French kings’ (Blavatsky Collected Writings, 6:19). The root causes of therevolution were, however, poverty, tyranny and injustice. Moreover, other sources(including the fictional memoirs of the Countess d’Adhémar) suggest that Saint­Germain wanted to promote peaceful change, and avoid revolution, notencourage it.

25. Blavatsky Collected Writings, 12:86­7.

26. Ibid., 12:87.

27. If Cagliostro really died in San Leo, says Blavatsky, ‘why should thecustodians at the Castel Sant’Angelo of Rome show innocent tourists the littlesquare hole in which Cagliostro is said to have been confined and “died”?’(Blavatsky Collected Writings, 12:88). In a letter written in August 1885,Blavatsky writes: ‘In Rome, Darbargiri Nath went to the prison of Cagliostro at theFort Sant Angelo, and remained in the terrible hole for more than an hour. Whathe did there, would give Mr. Hodgson the ground work for another scientificReport if he could only investigate the fact’ (The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky to A.P.Sinnett, TUP, 1975 (1925), p. 110). Dharbagiri Nath was a chela of mahatma KH.Richard Hodgson was an investigator sent by the British Society for PsychicalResearch to study paranormal phenomena connected with the TheosophicalSociety. He published a report in 1885 that condemned Blavatsky as an impostor(see The theosophical mahatmas, http://davidpratt.info).

28. Blavatsky Collected Writings, 14:278.

29. Ibid., 12:88.

30. Ibid., 12:80­1.

31. Ibid., 12:81­2.

32. See A.L. Conger (ed.), The Dialogues of G. de Purucker, TUP, 1948, 3:11­2.

33. Studies in Occult Philosophy, p. 31.

34. The Theosophical Glossary, p. 72.

35. Studies in Occult Philosophy, p. 31.

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