by Sax Rohmer
“You have all that is needed for happiness, Frenchmen.... All you want, my good friends, is one little thing: to be sure of lying in your own beds when you are irreproachable. To labour for this happy revolution is a task worthy of your parlements. It is only difficult to feeble souls....
“Yes, I declare to you... your States-General will be convoked, your Bastille shall become a public promenade, you... will achieve glory in the abolition of lettres de cachet....”
But now it was that Morande, editor of the Courrier de l’Europe (published in London) attacked Cagliostro unmercifully. The articles ran through several numbers of the paper, commencing September 1 and ending November 1, 1786. Although the attack proved fatal to its subject, the Count’s retort at least served to call down ridicule upon the journalist; for he challenged the latter to a duel of arsenicated sucking pig (cochon de lait)! This original mode of conflict Morande declined to essay.
Against this man, Morande, a recent inquirer — Trowbridge — makes a strange charge. In short, he attempts to prove (rightly or wrongly) that Balsamo and Cagliostro were two distinct personages, who had no connexion with one another beyond the fact of having married Italian wives bearing the same surnames. He writes:
“As late as the date of his trial in the affair of the diamond necklace no suggestion of the identity of the two characters was ever mooted. The story appears to owe its origin to the fertile brain of one of the greatest scoundrels of whom European history holds record, the notorious blackmailer Theveneau de Morande.”
He goes on to say that the editor of the Courrier de l’Europe was a spy and subsidized journalist in the pay of the French Government. The latter, fearing that Cagliostro’s acquittal in the necklace trial would reflect unfavourably on the Queen, instructed Morande to ruin Cagliostro’s reputation, which he forthwith attempted to do in his journal. It may be mentioned, too, that Cagliostro, in Une Lettre au Peuple anglais, 1786, denied having been in London in 1771, and asserted that he was not Balsamo.
But the Count’s reputation was damned. The following advertisement was inserted by him in the Morning Herald for November 1786:
To ALL TRUE MASONS
In the Name of 9, 5, 8, 14, 20,1, 8; -9, 5, 18, 20, 18.
The Time is at hand when the Building of the New Temple, or New Jerusalem 3, 8, 20, 17, 8, must begin; this is to invite all True Masons in London to join in the Name of 9, 5, 18, 20, 18 (the only one in whom is a Divine 19, 17, 9, 13, 9, 19, 23) to meet to-morrow Evening, the 3d instant, 1786 (or 5790) at Nine o’clock at Riley’s, Great Queen Street; to lay a plan for the laying the first stone of the foundation of the True 3, 8, 20, 17, 8; in this visible world, being the material representative Temple of the Spiritual 9, 5, 17, 20, 18, 11, 5, 12.
A Mason, and Member of the new 3, 8, 20, 17, 8.
It is an interesting advertisement, too, because it would appear that Cagliostro had the intention of forming a lodge of the Swedenborgian rite. The wording is suggestive; and we know that he consorted for some time with the Swedenborgians during his last visit to London.
But Morande had done his work too well. D’Almeras adds: “Vox damans in deserto! No one came to Reilly’s tavern to lay the foundation stone of the true Temple, and Jehovah, that night, did not pay expenses!”
The last mention made by Morande of Cagliostro occurred in the issue of his journal dated August 14, 1787, when he boasts of having succeeded in driving Cagliostro from England.
Figuier points out that, despite the persecution to which he was there subjected, Cagliostro committed a great error in leaving England, as he did, and in taking up an abode in Rome.
But that which brought about his downfall was the temerity with which he practised the principles of Freemasonry in the capital of the Catholic world; and although Lorenza advised him against this, he obstinately pursued his work, and ultimately founded a lodge after the Egyptian rite. He had only three members, but amongst them was found one false brother.
Denounced by this spy, Cagliostro was arrested on September 27, 1789, by command of the Holy Office.
His papers, including the MS. entitled Maçonnerie Égyptienne, were seized and placed under the seals, and the inquiry was commenced which lasted for no less than eighteen months. If one considers Cagliostro’s history, and admits his identity with Balsamo, there were several episodes which could not have borne scrutiny; but the majority of his misdeeds were committed outside Rome, and the others were covered by prescription.
On March 21, 1791, the case, conducted at such wearisome length, was taken to the General Assembly of the Holy Office, and in accordance with custom, before the Pope, on the 7th of the following April. Judgment was rendered, and Cagliostro was condemned to death.
Pope Pius VI, to whom was reserved definitive judgment, pronounced it in the following terms:
“Giuseppe Balsamo, accused and convicted of many crimes, and of having defied the censures and penalties pronounced against heretics, dogmatists, masters, and disciples of superstitious magic, as well as the apostolic laws of Clement XII and Benedict XIV against those who, in any way whatsoever, support and form Societies of Freemasons... in Rome or in any other place in the Pontifical dominions: now, by special grace, the penalty which delivers the culprit into the secular arm is the committal to prison for life in a fortress, where he will be closely guarded, without hope of grace; and, after he has abjured heresy in the actual place of his detention, he will be absolved, and salutary penances will be prescribed, to which he must submit himself.”
These “penances” (I shall be more clearly understood if I term them tortures) were of so cruel a nature in the Castle of St. Angelo, where Cagliostro was confined, that in case the people, among whom he had many partisans, should commence a movement in his favour, the report was spread abroad that he had conspired to burn Rome as Nero had done.
The still beautiful Lorenza was treated with less severity; she was condemned to perpetual seclusion in a convent, and beyond its gates she, whom so many had loved, vanished for ever from the ken of man.
All Cagliostro’s papers were burned by the Holy Office; which institution, or what remains of it, preserves to this day the secret of its victim’s end. A rumour was circulated that, having become insane, he had endeavoured to strangle a confessor; later, that he had strangled himself.
Meanwhile, the Revolution, which the great thaumaturgist seems, evidently enough, to have divined, was an established fact. Approaching the Italian borders, the forces of the red bonnet, like an encroaching sea, burst upon the walls of the Eternal City and swept around the Castle of St. Angelo.
Several officers of the first battalions that advanced upon Rome had scarce entered the city ere they were seeking the dungeon of Cagliostro. They had hoped to release the man, prophet or charlatan, sorcerer or saint, who had cried “Frenchmen!... your Bastille shall become a public promenade!”
They were too late. They were told that Cagliostro was dead. In what manner did he meet with his death, and at what time? The Holy Office was dumb, and no man can ever hope to know.
“At this news,” says Figuier, “our officers realized that there was no comparison to be made between the former Parlement of France and the tribunal of the Inquisition of Rome; and although none regretted the destruction of the Bastille, they were forced to admit that it yielded up its prey far more readily than did the Château de Saint-Ange.”
So passed Cagliostro from an overcrowded stage. Of him a sound commentator has said:
That “he was a powerful mesmerist, that he could induce clairvoyance with facility in suitable subjects, that he had dabbled in Arabic occultism, that he had the faculty of healing magnetically, are points which the evidence enables us to admit, and these genuine phenomena supported his titanic impostures, being themselves supplemented, wherever they were weak or defective, by direct and prepared fraud. Thus his miraculous prophecies, delineations of absent persons, revelations of private matters, etc., may to some extent be accounted for by the ins
atiable curiosity and diligence which he made use of to procure knowledge of the secrets of any families with which he came into communication.”
With this the opinion of Lavater may profitably be compared. The great physiognomist had several opportunities of studying Cagliostro in the course of interviews which he had with him when at Strasburg. He formed the opinion that the “Grand Copt” was a man of wonderful endowments, possessed of mediumistic powers, but untruthful and a trickster. He writes, “So long as Cagliostro retains his forehead, and I mine, we shall never here below be confidential friends.” He says further: “I believe that nature produces a form like his only once in a century, and I could weep blood to think that so rare a production of nature should, by the many objections he has furnished against himself, be partly so much misconceived, and partly, by so many harshnesses and cruelties, have given just cause for offence.”
Lorenza declared upon oath during her examination that many of the pupils had been prepared beforehand by her husband, but that some had been brought to him unawares, and that in regard to them she could only suppose that he had been assisted by the marvels of magical art.
To this I have nothing to add, save that, whatever his crimes, I pity from my very soul this man of undoubtedly great accomplishments who ended his days in the dungeons of the Holy Office.
MADAME BLAVATSKY
I. THE WISDOM RELIGION
IN the realm which those characters already dealt with had professedly set out and devoted their lives to explore, no one has claimed to have penetrated more deeply (I had almost said, so deeply) as Helena Petrovna Blavatsky.
Our conception of a priestess of the higher mysteries (which, by an automatic mental process, must be based upon classic ideals) will lead us wildly astray from the reality, as represented by this singular woman. The many stories current of the adventures of her stormy and wandering life ill prepare us for the H. P. Blavatsky who, her wanderings ended, was submitted to the soul-searching scrutiny of the Society for Psychical Research.
The strange being who attracted to herself such men as Crookes and Flammarion was no imposing, queenly figure, but a stout, plain woman, having a great frizzy haired head — the hair thick and bright and splashed with grey. Her complexion was muddy to a marked degree; but her large, pale blue eyes were wonderful eyes, eyes wherein burned the fires of a secret, hidden power.
Homely and coarse, ill-dressed, her puffy hands overloaded with jewellery, Madame H. P. Blavatsky more nearly corresponded in appearance with a seaside fortune-teller than with all one might have imagined the author of Isis Unveiled to be.
I have drawn your attention to the magnetic attractions of the beautiful Comtesse di Cagliostro. It is not difficult to imagine the salon of the Italian sorcerer in the Rue Saint-Claude filled with men of fashion, since it boasted an ornament so lovely. But this modern mouthpiece of the gods, lacking wholly those physical qualities which are, and have ever been, a loadstone, yet surrounded herself with men of learning and women of culture.
Wherein lay the attraction? In the golden promise of the Secret Doctrine, in the written word, or in the phenomena? Evidence goes to show that the latter were, at least, extensively contributory.
The justice or injustice wherewith Madame is included in this present gallery of historical portraits affords stimulating matter for debate; but having defined sorcery — which I did in an early chapter — I hold myself justified in classing H. P. Blavatsky amongst those who have practised it; and I propose to deal with the events — or with some of them — which bear upon this phase of her activity. Her youth, her married life, do not concern us; the Madame Blavatsky with whom we have to deal was created out of the ashes of that earlier woman.
In the preface to the second edition of The Occult World, by A. P. Sinnett, the following certificate appears:
“I certify by the present that Madame H. P. Blavatsky, now residing at Simla (British India), is from her father’s side the daughter of Colonel Peter Hahn, and grand-daughter of Lieutenant-General Alexis Hahn von Rottenstern-Hahn (a noble family of Mecklenburg, Germany, settled in Russia). And that she is from her mother’s side the daughter of Helene Fadeeff, and grand-daughter of Privy-Councillor Andrew Fadeeff and of the Princess Helene Dolgorouki; that she is the widow of the Councillor of State, Nicéphore Blavatsky, late Vice-Governor of the Province of Erivan, Caucasus.
(Signed) MAJOR-GENERAL ROSTISLAV FADEEFF (“of HI. Majesty’s Staff, “Joint Secretary of State at the Ministry of the Interior).
“ST. PETERSBURG, 29, LITTLE MORSKAYA, “September 18, 1881.”
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky claimed to be the chosen priestess of the “Wisdom Religion” — the most ancient cult in the world. In order fully to appreciate her pretensions, as set forth in The Secret Doctrine, Isis Unveiled, Key to Theosophy, and Voice of the Silence, it is necessary to come to some understanding upon the point: — what is this Wisdom Religion, or Secret Science?
Firstly, and comprehensively, it numbers among its initiates the Rishis Manu, Narada and others, Buddha, Confucius, Zarathustra, Pythagoras, Plato, Apollonius of Tyana, Christ, and other world-teachers. In the sixteenth century Paracelsus was its exponent, in the nineteenth Madame Blavatsky, who was initiated in Tibet. Her teachers were the Mahatmas Morya and Koot Hoomi.
The existence of such a secret knowledge, inaccessible, because dangerous, to the ordinary mortal, but portentous and supremely potent, has been acclaimed by every mystic, from the most remote to the most modern. Eliphas Lévi defined Magic as the traditional science of nature’s secrets which has come down to us from the wise men of old.
But the term Wisdom Religion, apparently, was applied to this great science by Madame Blavatsky, in Isis Unveiled, that is to say, in the year 1877, when the book first saw the light in America. The world was then asked to accept the existence of certain higher intelligences, incarnate, but constrained by none, or by few, of the common bonds of humanity; was introduced to the Adepts, or Masters, who had chosen Madame to be their mouthpiece.
Later, Mr. A. P. Sinnett, in The Occult World and Esoteric Buddhism, enlarged upon the subject, showing how, whilst the Western world — by divine design — had devoted its genius to the physical sciences, the East had been conducting inquiries in the science of the soul, and had made progress at least parallel with that accomplished by the West.
In Europe, Asia, Africa, and America are branches and lodges of the Wisdom Religion; few large centres are without lesser Adepts. But the earthly residences of the Super-Adepts or Masters are set far from the hives of busy humanity. Thus, one centre from whence radiates the arcane illumination is said to be some remote spot in the Tibetan highlands; and, according to Mr. Sinnett, the oldest lodge in the world is situate in, or near to, the silent, swamp-bound temples of Yucatan. The head-centre I understand to be the great White Lodge, but I am without other information respecting it.
The Masters are not exclusively Orientals; all distinctions of race and of creed have ceased to exist among them. For the most part, they are unseen, although they have from time to time manifested themselves to the initiate. They possess the power of translating themselves from place to place, as did Apollonius of Tyana, and are products of many generations of searchers, who have so refined the fleshly envelope as to have transcended the phenomenal.
Death has no meaning to them, and whilst some are said to have lived, in the same incarnation, for several centuries, others, discarding one carnal mantle, have endued another and thus remained in the sphere which required their continuous ministration.
In India, the existence of such beings, known there as Rishis or Mahatmas, is an article of popular faith, and Gautama Buddha is regarded as the greatest Adept in the world’s history and in the history of the Secret Doctrine.
What may be learned, then, of the Wisdom Religion by direct inquiry into Indian tradition remains to be established by experiment, but, so far as can be determined by the ordinary student, who relies almost wholly upon written recor
ds, all our knowledge of the Masters comes to us through the mysterious Madame Blavatsky.
II. COLONEL OLCOTT AND THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
It is in the year 1874 that we first hear definitely of Madame Blavatsky. Her wanderings, covering I know not where, led her to America and to the village of Chittenden, Vermont, celebrated by reason of the mediumship of the farmer, William Eddy. Here she met Colonel Olcott.
In this year — says the latter —
“Madame Blavatsky and I met. I had been a student of practical psychology for nearly a quarter of a century. From boyhood no problem had interested me so much as the mystery of man, and I had been seeking for light upon it wherever it could be found. To understand the physical man I had read something of anatomy, physiology, and chemistry. To get an insight into the nature of mind and thought, I had read the various authorities of orthodox science, and practically investigated the heterodox branches of phrenology, physiognomy, mesmerism, and psychometry.... In the year above mentioned, I was investigating a most startling case of mediumship, that of William Eddy... in whose house were nightly appearing, and often talking, the alleged spirits of dead persons....
“With my own eyes I saw, within the space of about three months, some five hundred of these apparitions, under circumstances which, to my mind, excluded the possibility of trickery or fraud. Madame Blavatsky and I met at this farmhouse, and the similarity of our tastes... led to an intimate acquaintance. She soon proved to me that, in comparison with the chela of an Indian Mahatma, the authorities I had been accustomed to look up to knew absolutely nothing. Little by little she opened out to me as much of the truth as my experience had fitted me to grasp. Step by step I was forced to relinquish illusory beliefs, cherished for twenty years. And as the light gradually dawned on my mind, my reverence for the unseen teachers who had instructed her grew apace. At the same time, a deep and insatiable yearning possessed me to seek their society, or, at least, to take up my residence in a land which their presence glorified and incorporate myself with a people whom their greatness ennobled.
