Theos-Talk Archives (April 2004 Message tt00454)

March 13 2004

Re: COUNT CAGLIOSTRO

Dear Friends:

As some mention of Cagliostro has emerged in recent postings I though it
a god idea to post what HPB wrote about him.



----------------------------------------

CAGLIOSTRO. A famous Adept, whose real name is claimed (by his enemies)
to have been Joseph Balsamo. He was a native of Palermo, and studied
under some mysterious foreigner of whom little has been ascertained. His
accepted history is too well known to need repetition, and his real
history has never been told. His fate was that of every human being who
proves that he knows more than do his fellow- creatures; he was “ stoned
to death ‘ by persecutions, lies, and infamous accusations, and yet he
was the friend and adviser of the highest and mightiest of every land he
visited. He was finally tried and sentenced in Rome as a heretic, and
was said to have died during his confinement in a State prison. (See “
Mesmer”.) Yet his end was not utterly undeserved, as he had been untrue
to his vows in some respects, had fallen from his state of chastity and
yielded to ambition and selfishness." T Glos 72


LIGHT, BROTHERS OF. This is what the great authority on secret
societies, Brother Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie IX., says of this
Brotherhood. “A mystic order, Fratres Lucis, established in Florence in
1498. Among the members of this order were Pasqualis, Cagliostro,
Swedenborg, St. Martin, Eliphaz Lévi, and many other eminent mystics.
Its members were very much persecuted by the Inquisition. It is a small
but compact body, the members being spread all over the world.”	T. Glos
188


LUXOR, BROTHERHOOD OF. A certain Brotherhood of mystics. ...The name is
derived from the ancient Lookshur in Beloochistan, lying between Bela
and Kedjee. The order is very ancient and the most secret of all."
T Glos 193


MESMER, Friedrich Anton. The famous physician who rediscovered
and applied practically that magnetic fluid in man which was called
animal magnetism and since then Mesmerism. He was born in Schwaben, in
1734 and died in 1815. He was an initiated member of the BROTHERHOODS OF
THE FRATRES LUCIS AND OF LUKSHOOR (OR LUXOR), or the Egyptian Branch of’
the latter. 

It was the Council of “Luxor” which selected him—according to the orders
of the “Great Brotherhood”—to act in the XVIIIth century as their usual
pioneer, sent in the last quarter of every century to enlighten a small
portion of the Western nations in occult lore. 

It was St. Germain who supervised the development of events in this
case; and later Cagliostro was commissioned to help, but having made a
series of mistakes, more or less fatal, he was recalled. Of these three
men who were at first regarded as quacks, Mesmer is already vindicated.
The justification of the two others will follow in the next century.
Mesmer founded the “Order of Universal Harmony” in 1783, in which
presumably only animal magnetism was taught, but which in reality
expounded the tenets of Hippocrates, the methods of the ancient
Asclepieia, the Temples of Healing, and many other occult sciences."
T Glos 213-4

------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------


WAS CAGLIOSTRO A "CHARLATAN"?



To send the injured unredressed away,
How great soe'er the offender, and the wrong'd
Howe'er obscure, is wicked, weak and vile--
Degrades, defiles, and should dethrone a king.
--SMOLLETT


THE mention of Cagliostro's name produces a two-fold effect. With the
one party, a whole sequence of marvellous events emerges from the
shadowy past; with others the modern progeny of a too realistic age, the
name of Alexander, Count Cagliostro, provokes wonder, if not contempt.
People are unable to understand that this "enchanter and magician" (read
"Charlatan") could ever legitimately produce such an impression as he
did on his contemporaries. 

This gives the key to the posthumous reputation of the Sicilian known as
Joseph Balsamo, that reputation which made a believer in him, a brother
Mason, say, that (like Prince Bismarck and some Theosophists)
"Cagliostro might well be said to be the best abused and most hated man
in Europe." 

Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the fashion of loading him with
opprobrious names, none should forget that Schiller and Goethe were
among his great admirers, and remained so to their deaths. Goethe while
travelling in Sicily devoted much labour and time to collecting
information about "Giuseppe Balsamo" in his supposed native land; and it
was from these copious notes that the author of Faust wrote his play
"The Great Kophta."

Why this wonderful man is receiving so little honour in England, is due
to Carlyle. The most fearlessly truthful historian of his age--he, who
abominated falsehood under whatever appearance--has stamped with the
imprimatur of his honest and famous name, and thus sanctified the most
iniquitous of historical injustices ever perpetrated by prejudice and
bigotry. This owing to false reports which almost to the last emanated
from a class he disliked no less than he hated untruth, namely the
Jesuits, or--lie incarnate.

The very name of Giuseppe Balsamo, which, when rendered by cabalistic
methods, means "He who was sent," or "The Given," also "Lord of the
Sun," shows that such was not his real patronymic. As Kenneth R. H.
Mackenzie, F.T.S., remarks, toward the end of the last century it became
the fashion with certain theosophical professors of the time to
transliterate into Oriental form every name provided by Occult
Fraternities for disciples destined to work in the world. 

Whosoever then, may have been Cagliostro's parents, their name was not
"Balsamo." So much is certain, at any rate. Moreover, as all know that
in his youth he lived with, and was instructed by, a man named, as is
supposed, Althotas, "a great Hermetic Eastern Sage" or in other words an
Adept, it is not difficult to accept the tradition that it was the
latter who gave him his symbolical name. But that which is known with
still more certainty is the extreme esteem in which he was held by some
of the most scientific and honoured men of his day. 

In France we find Cagliostro--having before served as a confidential
friend and assistant chemist in the laboratory of Pinto, the Grand
Master of the Knights of Malta--becoming the friend and protégé of the
Prince Cardinal de Rohan. A high born Sicilian Prince honoured him with
his support and friendship, as did many other noblemen. "Is it possible,
then," pertinently asks Mackenzie, "that a man of such engaging manners
could have been the lying impostor his enemies endeavoured to prove
him?"

The chief cause of his life-troubles was his marriage with Lorenza
Feliciani, a tool of the Jesuits; and two minor causes his extreme good
nature, and the blind confidence he placed in his friends--some of whom
became traitors and his bitterest enemies. Neither of the crimes of
which he is unjustly accused could lead to the destruction of his honour
and posthumous reputation; but all was due to his weakness for an
unworthy woman, and the possession of certain secrets of nature, which
he would not divulge to the Church. 

Being a native of Sicily, Cagliostro was naturally born in a family of
Roman Catholics, no matter what their name, and was brought up by monks
of the "Good Brotherhood of Castiglione," as his biographers tell us;
thus, for the sake of dear life he had to outwardly profess belief in
and respect for a Church, whose traditional policy has ever been, "he
who is not with us is against us," and forthwith to crush the enemy in
the bud. And yet, just for this, is Cagliostro even to-day accused of
having served the Jesuits as their spy; and this by Masons who ought to
be the last to bring such a charge against a learned Brother who was
persecuted by the Vatican even more as a Mason than as an Occultist. Had
it been so, would these same Jesuits even to this day vilify his name? 

Had he served them, would he not have proved himself useful to their
ends, as a man of such undeniable intellectual gifts could not have
blundered or disregarded the orders of those whom he served. But instead
of this, what do we see? Cagliostro charged with being the most cunning
and successful impostor and charlatan of his age; accused of belonging
to the Jesuit Chapter of Clermont in France; of appearing (as a proof of
his affiliation to the Jesuits) in clerical dress at Rome. Yet, this
"cunning impostor" is tried and condemned--by the exertions of those
same Jesuits--to an ignominious death, which was changed only
subsequently to life-long imprisonment, owing to a mysterious
interference or influence brought to bear on the Pope!

Would it not be more charitable and consistent with truth to say that it
was his connection with Eastern Occult Science, his knowledge of many
secrets--deadly to the Church of Rome--that brought upon Cagliostro
first the persecution of the Jesuits, and finally the rigour of the
Church? 

It was his own honesty, which' blinded him to the defects of those whom
he cared for, and led him to trust two such rascals as the Marquis
Agliato and Ottavio Nicastro, that is at the bottom of all the
accusations of fraud and imposture now lavished upon him. And it is the
sins of these two worthies--subsequently executed for gigantic swindles
and murder--which are now made to fall on Cagliostro. 

Nevertheless it is known that he and his wife (in 1770) were both left
destitute by the flight of Agliato with all their funds, so that they
had to beg their way through Piedmont and Geneva. Kenneth Mackenzie has
well proven that Cagliostro had never mixed himself up with political
intrigue--the very soul of the activities of the Jesuits. "He was most
certainly unknown in that capacity to those who have jealously guarded
the preparatory archives of the Revolution, and his appearance as an
advocate of revolutionary principles has no basis in fact." 

He was simply an Occultist and a Mason, and as such he was allowed to
suffer at the hands of those who, adding insult to injury, first tried
to kill him by life-long imprisonment and then spread the rumour that he
had been their ignoble agent. This cunning device was in its infernal
craft well worthy of its primal originators.

There are many landmarks in Cagliostro's biographies to show that he
taught the Eastern doctrine of the "principles" in man, of "God"
dwelling in man--as a potentiality in actu (the "Higher Self")--and in
every living thing and even atom--as a potentiality in posse, and that
he served the Masters of a Fraternity he would not name because on
account of his pledge he could not. 

His letter to the new mystical but rather motley Brotherhood the (Lodge
of) Philalethes, is a proof in point. The Philalethes, as all Masons
know, was a rite founded in Paris in 1773 in the Loge des Amis Réunis,
based on the principles of Martinism,1 and whose members made a special
study of the Occult Sciences. The Mother Lodge was a philosophical and
theosophical Lodge, and therefore Cagliostro was right in desiring to
purify its progeny, the Lodge of Philalethes. This is what the Royal
Masonic Cyclopædia says on the subject:

On the 15 February 1785 the Lodge of Philalethes in solemn Section, with
Lavalette de Langes. royal treasurer; Tassin, the banker; and Tassin, an
officer in the royal service; opened a Fraternal Convention, at Paris .
. . Princes (Russian, Austrian, and others). fathers of the Church,
councillors, knights, financiers, barristers, barons, Theosophists,
canons. colonels, professors of Magic, engineers, literary men, doctors,
merchants, postmasters, dukes, ambassadors, surgeons, teachers of
languages, receivers-general. and notably two London names--Boosie, a
merchant, and Brooks of London--compose this Convention. to whom may be
added M. le Count de Cagliostro, and Mesmer "the inventor" as Thory
describes him (Acta Latomorum, vol. ii. p. 95), "of the doctrine of
magnetism!" Surely such an able set of men to set the world to rights,
as France never saw before or since!

The grievance of the Lodge was that Cagliostro, who had first promised
to take charge of it, withdrew his offers, as the "Convention would not
adopt the Constitutions of the Egyptian Rite, nor would the Philalethes
consent to have its archives consigned to the flames, which were his
conditions sine qua non. It is strange that his answer to that Lodge
should be regarded by Brother R. H. Mackenzie and other Masons as
emanating "from a Jesuit source." 

The very style is Oriental, and no European Mason--least of all a
Jesuit--would write in such a manner. This is how the answer runs:

. . . The unknown grand Master of true Masonry has cast his eyes upon
the Philaletheans. . . . Touched by the sincere avowal of their desires,
he deigns to extend his hand over them, and consents to give a ray of
light into the darkness of their temple. It is the wish of the Unknown
Great Master, to prove to them the existence of one God--the basis of
their faith; the original dignity of man; his powers and destiny. . . .
It is by deeds and facts, by the testimony of the senses, that they will
know GOD, MAN and the intermediary spiritual beings (principles)
existing between them; of which true Masonry gives the symbols and
indicates the real road. Let then, the Philalethes embrace the doctrines
of this real Masonry, submit to the rules of its supreme chief, and
adopt its constitutions. But above all let the Sanctuary be purified,
let the Philalethes know that light can only descend into the Temple of
Faith (based on knowledge), not into that of Scepticism. Let them devote
to the flames that vain accumulation of their archives; for it is only
on the ruins of the Tower of Confusion that the Temple of Truth can be
erected.

In the Occult phraseology of certain Occultists "Father, Son and Angels"
stood for the compound symbol of physical, and astro-Spiritual MAN. 2
John G. Gichtel (end of XVIIth cent.), the ardent lover of Boehme, the
Seer of whom St. Martin relates that he was married "to the heavenly
Sophia," the Divine Wisdom--made use of this term. Therefore, it is easy
to see what Cagliostro meant by proving to the Philalethes on the
testimony of their "senses," "God, man and the intermediary Spiritual
beings," that exist between God (Atma), and Man (the Ego). Nor is it
more difficult to understand his true meaning when he reproaches the
Brethren in his parting letter which says: "We have offered you the
truth; you have disdained it. We have offered it for the sake of itself,
and you have refused it in consequence of a love forms. . . Can you
elevate yourselves to (your) God and the knowledge of yourselves by the
assistance of a Secretary and a Convocation?" etc. 3

Many are the absurd and entirely contradictory statements about Joseph
Balsamo, Count de Cagliostro, so-called, several of which were
incorporated by Alexander Dumas in his Mémoires d'un Medicin, with those
prolific variations of truth and fact which so characterize Dumas pére's
romances. But though the world is in possession of a most miscellaneous
and varied mass of information concerning that remarkable and
unfortunate man during most of his life, yet of the last ten years and
of his death, nothing certain is known, save only the legend that he
died in the prison of the Inquisition. 

True, some fragments published recently by the Italian savant, Giovanni
Sforza, from the private correspondence of Lorenzo Prospero Bottini, the
Roman ambassador of the Republic of Lucca at the end of the last
century, have somewhat filled this wide gap. This correspondence with
Pietro Calandrini, the Great Chancellor of the said Republic, begins
from 1784, but the really interesting information commences only in
1789, in a letter dated June 6, of that year, and even then we do not
learn much.

It speaks of the "celebrated Count di Cagliostro, who has recently
arrived with his wife from Trent viâ Turin to Rome. People say he is a
native of Sicily and extremely wealthy, but no one knows whence that
wealth. He has a letter of introduction from the Bishop of Trent to
Albani. . . . So far his daily walk in life as well as his private and
public status are above reproach. Many are those seeking an interview
with him, to hear from his own lips the corroboration of what is being
said of him." 

>From another letter we learn that Rome had proven an ungrateful soil for
Cagliostro. He had the intention of settling at Naples, but the plan
could not be realised. 

The Vatican authorities who had hitherto left the Count undisturbed,
suddenly laid their heavy hand upon him. In a letter dated 2 January,
1790, just a year after Cagliostro's arrival, it is stated that: "last
Sunday secret and extraordinary debates in council took place at the
Vatican." It (the council) consisted of the State Secretary and
Antonelli, Pillotta and Campanelli, Monsignor Figgerenti performing the
duty of Secretary. The object of that Secret Council remains unknown,
but public rumour asserts that it was called forth owing to the sudden
arrest on the night between Saturday and Sunday, of the Count di
Cagliostro, his wife, and a Capuchin, Fra Giuseppe Maurijio. 

The Count is incarcerated in Fort St. Angelo, the Countess in the
Convent of St. Apollonia, and the monk in the prison of Araceli. That
monk, who calls himself "Father Swizzero," is regarded as a confederate
of the famous magician. In the number of the crimes he is accused of is
included that of the circulation of a book by an unknown author,
condemned to public burning and entitled, "The Three Sisters." The
object of this work is "to pulverize certain three high-born
individuals."

The real meaning of this most extraordinary misinterpretation is easy to
guess. It was a work on Alchemy; the "three sisters" standing
symbolically for the three "Principles" in their duplex symbolism. On
the plane of occult chemistry they "pulverize" the triple ingredient
used in the process of the transmutation d metals; on the plane- of
Spirituality they reduce to a state of pulverization the three "lower"
personal "principles" in man, an explanation that every Theosophist is
bound to understand.

The trial of Cagliostro lasted for a long time. In a letter of March the
17th, Bottini writes to his Lucca correspondent that the famous "wizard"
has finally appeared before the Holy Inquisition. The real cause of the
slowness of the proceedings was that the Inquisition, with all its
dexterity at fabricating proofs could find no weighty evidence to prove
the guilt of Cagliostro.  

Nevertheless, on April the 7th, 1791, he was condemned to death He was
accused of various and many crimes, the chiefest of which were his being
a Mason and an "Illuminate," an "Enchanter' occupied with unlawful
studies; he was also accused of deriding the holy Faith, of doing harm
to society, of possessing himself by means unknown of large sums of
money, and of inciting others, sex, age and social standing
notwithstanding, to do the same. In short, we find the unfortunate
Occultist condemned to an ignominious death for deeds committed, the
like of which are daily and publicly committed now-a-days, by more than
one Grand Master of the Masons, as also by hundreds of thousands of
Kabbalists and Masons, mystically inclined. 

After this verdict the "arch heretic's" documents, diplomas from foreign
Courts and Societies, Masonic regalias and family relics were solemnly
burned by the public hangmen in the Piazza della Minerva, before
enormous crowds of people. First his books and instruments were
consumed. Among these was the MS. on the Maçonnerie Egyptienne which
thus can no longer serve as a witness in favour of the reviled man. And
now the condemned Occultist had to be passed over to the hands of the
civil Tribunal, when a mysterious event happened.

A stranger, never seen by any one before or after in the Vatican
appeared and demanded a private audience of the Pope, sending him by the
Cardinal Secretary a word instead of a name. He was immediately
received, but only stopped with the Pope for a few minutes. No sooner
was he gone than his Holiness gave orders to commute the death sentence
of the Count to that of imprisonment for life, in the fortress called
the Castle of St. Leo, and that the whole transaction should be
conducted in great secrecy. The monk Swizzero was condemned to ten
years' imprisonment; and the Countess Cagliostro was set at liberty, but
only to be confined on a new charge of heresy in a convent.

But what was the Castle of St. Leo? 

It now stands on the frontiers of Tuscany and was then in the Papal
States, in the Duchy of Urbino. It is built on the top of an enormous
rock, almost perpendicular on all sides; to get into the "Castle" in
those days, one had to enter a kind of open basket which was hoisted up
by ropes and pulleys. As to the criminal, he was placed in a special
box, after which the jailors pulled him up "with the rapidity of the
wind." On April 23rd, 1792, Giuseppe Balsamo--if so we must call
him--ascended heavenward in the criminal's box, incarcerated in that
living tomb for life. Giuseppe Balsamo is mentioned for the last time in
the Bottini correspondence in a letter dated March 10th, 1792. 

The ambassador speaks of a marvel produced by Cagliostro in his prison
during his leisure hours. A long rusty nail taken by the prisoner out of
the floor was transformed by him without the help of any instrument into
a sharp triangular stiletto, as smooth, brilliant and sharp as if it
were made of the finest steel. It was recognized for an old nail only by
its head, left by the prisoner to serve as a handle. The State Secretary
gave orders to have it taken away from Cagliostro, and brought to Rome,
and to double the watch over him.

And now comes the last kick of the jackass at the dying or dead lion.
Luiggi Angiolini, a Tuscan diplomat, writes as follows: 

"At last, that same Cagliostro, who made so many believe that he had
been a contemporary of Julius Cæsar, who reached such fame and so many
friends, died from apoplexy, August 26, 1795. Semironi had him buried in
a wood-barn below, whence peasants used to pilfer constantly the crown
property. The crafty chaplain reckoned very justly that the man who had
inspired the world with such superstitious fear while living, would
inspire people with the same feelings after his death, and thus keep the
thieves at bay . . . . . ."

But yet--a query! Was Cagliostro dead and buried indeed in 1792, at St.
Leo? And if so, why should the custodians at the Castle of St. Angelo,
of Rome show innocent tourists the little square hole in which
Cagliostro is said to have been confined and "died'? Why such
uncertainty or-- imposition, and such disagreement in the legend? 

Then there are Masons who to this day tell strange stories in Italy.
Some say that Cagliostro escaped in an unaccountable way from his aerial
prison, and thus forced his jailors to spread the news of his death and
burial. 

Others maintain that he not only escaped, but, thanks to the Elixir of
Life, still lives on, though over twice three score and ten years old!

"Why," asks Bottini, "if he really possessed the powers claimed, has he
not indeed vanished from his jailors, and thus escaped the degrading
punishment altogether?"

We have heard of another prisoner, greater in every respect than
Cagliostro ever claimed to be. Of that prisoner too, it was said in
mocking tones, "He saved others; himself he cannot save. . . . let him
now come down from the cross, and we will believe. . . ."

How long shall charitable people build the biographies of living and
ruin the reputations of the dead, with such incomparable unconcern, by
means of idle and often entirely false gossip of people, and these
generally the slaves of prejudice!
So long, we are forced to think, as they remain ignorant the Law of
Karma and its iron justice.
       

H. P. B

Lucifer, January, 1890

----------------------------------FOOTNOTES-----------------------------
----------
 
1 The Martinists were Mystics and Theosophists who claimed to have the
secret of communicating with (Elemental and Planetary) Spirits of the
ultramundane Spheres. Some of them were practical Occultists.
 
2 See the Three Principles and the Seven Forms of Nature by Boehme and
fathom their Occult significance, to assure yourself of this. 
 
3 The statement on the authority of Beswick that Cagliostro was
connected with The Loge des Amis Réunis under the name of Count
Grabionka is not proven. There was a Polish Count of that name at that
time in France, a mystic mentioned Madame de Krüdner's letters which are
with the writer's family, and one who belonged, as Beswick says,
together with Mesmer and Count St. Germain, to the Lodge of the
Philalethes. Where are Lavalette de Langes' Manuscripts and documents by
him after his death to the Philosophic Scottish Rite? Lost? 
 

============================

Masonry knew of Cagliostro


>From A SIGNAL OF DANGER [HPB Articles III 149-50]



"Certain brothers in England whisper to each other that this destruction
was the consequence of a shameful pact entered into by certain Masons
and the Church. An aged "brother," great kabalist, has just died here,
whose grandfather, a celebrated Mason, was the intimate friend of Count
St. Germain, when the latter was sent, it is said, by Louis XV, to
England in 1760, to negotiate peace between the two countries. Count St.
Germain left in the hands of this Mason certain documents concerning the
history of Masonry and containing the keys of more than on
incomprehensible mystery. He did this under the condition that these
documents would become the secret inheritance of all hi descendents who
became Masons. These papers profited two Masons, the father and the son,
the one who just died, and will profit no one else in Europe. Before his
death, the precious documents were entrusted to an Oriental (a Hindu)
whose mission it was to deliver them to a certain person who would come
to fetch them at Amritsar, city of Immortality. It is also secretly said
that the celebrated founder of the Lodge of the Trinosophes, J. M Ragon,
was also initiated into many mysteries in Belgium by an Oriental--and
there are some who assert that he knew in his youth Count St. Germain.
This explains, perhaps, why the author of the "Tuileur General De La
Maçonnerie," or Manual of the Initiate, asserted that Elias Ashmole was
the real founder of modern Masonry. Nobody knew better than Ragon the
extent of the loss of Masonic secrets, as he himself well says: "It is
of the essence and nature of the Mason to search for the light wherever
. he thinks he can find it," announces the circular of the Grand Orient
of France. "In the meanwhile," he adds, "the Mason is given the glorious
title of Child of Light and is left enveloped in obscurity." (Cours
Philosophique, etc., p. 60.)

Thus, if as we think, M. Papus has followed the Masons his definition of
the terms Adept and Initiate, he was wrong, for one does not turn
towards "obscurity" when one is himself in a ray of light. Theosophy has
invented naught, said nothing new, only faithfully repeating the lessons
of the highest antiquity. The terminology, introduced fifteen years ago
in the T.S., is the true one, for in each case its terms are a faithful
translation of their Sanskrit equivalents, almost as old as the last
human race. This terminology could not be modified, at this hour,
without the risk of introducing in Theosophical teachings a chaos as
deplorable as it is dangerous for their clarity.

Let us remind ourselves especially of these words so true of Ragon:

Initiation had India for a cradle. She has preceded the civilization of
Asia and Greece, and in polishing the spirit and the customs of the
peoples, she has served as a base for all the laws, civil, political and
religious.

The word Initiate is the same as dwija, the "twice-born" Brahman. That
is to say that initiation was considered as birth into a new life or as
Apulius says, "it is the 'resurrection into a new life', 'novam vitam
inibat'." 

Aside from this, M. Papus' lecture on the Seal of the Theosophical
Society is admirable, and the erudition that he displays is most
remarkable. The members of our Fraternity owe him sincere thanks for
explanations that are as clear and just as they are interesting.

REVUE THEOSOPHIQUE, April, 1889
 
1 From a Jewish tradition, the stones that served to build the temple of
Solomon (an allegorical symbol taken literally of which an actual
edifice was made) were not cut and polished by hand of man but by a worm
named Samis created by God for this purpose, These stones were
miraculously transported on the spot where the temple was to rise and
cemented henceforth by the angels who raised the Temple of Solomon. The
Masons have introduced the Worm Samis in their legendary history and
call the "insect Shermah." 
 
2 This total is composed of a bisected isosceles triangle--three
lines--the side of the cube being the base: two squares diagonally
bisected having each a perpendicular line toward the center--six lines;
two straight lines at right angles; and a diagonally bisected
square--two lines: total thirteen lines or five surfaces of the cube."

HPB Articles III 149-50
======================================


Best wishes,

Dallas