Theos-Talk Archives (April 2005 Message tt00136)

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I know that HPB as well as AAB have written about Cagliostro. Did 
she think he was a fraud or one of her past lives?

This is rare to see a biography of someone like Cagliostro taken 
seriously enough for it to be updated in a new bio.

Netemara


-- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "netemara888" <netemara888@y...> 
wrote:
> 
> --- In theosophy_talks_truth@yahoogroups.com, "netemara888" 
> <netemara888@y...> wrote:
> 
>  
> 
> The Crook
> with a Great Soul 
> John Rickard 
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
--
> -----------
> 
> 
> Iain McCalman 
> THE SEVEN ORDEALS OF COUNT CAGLIOSTRO:
> THE GREATEST ENCHANTER OF
> THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
> Flamingo, $29.95pb, 384pp, 0 7322 7397 8 
> 
> 
> YOU HAVEN'T HEARD of Count Cagliostro? Well, chances are, if 
> HarperCollins has anything to do with it, you will. Iain 
McCalman's 
> book comes with enthusiastic endorsements from Simon Winchester, 
> Peter Conrad and Peter Gay. And it must be said that there is a 
> sense in which the Count — 'the greatest enchanter of the 
eighteenth 
> century', as McCalman salutes him — is alive and well: a Google 
> search on the Internet brings up more than 4000 results. Indeed, 
the 
> starting point for McCalman's skilfully entertaining account of 
> Cagliostro's career as magician, alchemist, healer and Freemason 
is 
> the puzzle of this after- life, or what he calls 
> Cagliostro's 'ascension into culture'. The irony is that this book 
> is likely to ensure that the enchanter casts his spell on a new 
> audience. For it is an extraordinary tale. 
> 
> Born Guiseppe Balsamo in Palermo in 1743, and educated in a 
Catholic 
> seminary for orphaned children, he briefly became a novice in a 
> monastery before taking to the streets, and then the world. Having 
> acquired some convenient skills in chemistry and drawing, and, 
> courtesy of the monastery, a knowledge of ancient Egyptian and 
Greek 
> magical theory, Balsamo developed a career that took him the 
length 
> and breadth of Europe. Reinventing himself as Count Cagliostro, he 
> became a controversial celebrity. The drama of his life has a cast 
> of eighteenth-century stars: Casanova, Catherine the Great and 
Marie-
> Antoinette all have roles. The part that Cagliostro played in 
> the 'diamond necklace affair', which presaged the collapse of the 
> ancien régime, allowed him to insinuate himself into the mythology 
> of the French Revolution. William Blake saw him, McCalman tells 
us, 
> as 'a figure of countercultural resistance', while for Thomas 
> Carlyle his success was a symptom of Europe's social decadence 
that 
> belied any claims for the late eighteenth century being an age of 
> reason. 
> 
> What did Cagliostro have going for him? Carlyle, perhaps drawing 
on 
> Houdon's bust of the Count, sees only the corrupt façade of an 
> impostor: 
> 
> 
> A fat, snub, abominable face; dew-lapped, flat-nosed, greasy, full 
> of greediness, sensuality, oxlike obstinacy: a forehead impudent, 
> refusing to be ashamed; and then two eyes turned up seraphically 
> languishing, as in divine contemplation and adoration … 
> 
> This was 'perhaps the most perfect quack-face produced by the 
> eighteenth century'. Compare this with the description offered by 
> Baroness Henriette-Louise d'Oberkirch, 'a fine-boned Protestant 
> aristocrat', McCalman assures us, who only just managed to avoid 
> falling under Cagliostro's spell. His eyes 'were indescribable, 
with 
> supernatural depths — all fire and yet all ice'. His voice 
> caressed 'like a trumpet veiled in crêpe', while his haughty 
> manner 'at once attracted and repulsed you, he frightened you and 
at 
> the same time inspired you with an insatiable curiosity'. Many 
> others attested to the power of his presence, the effect being 
> heightened by an often-dramatic unpredictability of behaviour. 
> 
> Cagliostro acquired a very handy partner in Seraphina, 'a 
ravishing 
> fourteen-year-old' when he married her in Rome. The Count was 
> totally besotted with his young wife, but this did not prevent him 
> from encouraging her to use her gift of beauty to advance their 
> joint interests. Seraphina became an essential part of the 
> Cagliostro project: she would also, in the end, be the agent of 
its 
> demise. 
> 
> Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Cagliostro's career is his 
> involvement with Freemasonry. McCalman depicts Cagliostro as 
> initially joining a lodge in London as 'a needed diversion', but 
he 
> soon began to appreciate how he could use Freemasonry for his own 
> purposes. His lodge adhered to the Rules of the Strict Observance 
> Rite, which, although originating as a Scottish breakaway group 
with 
> Stuart sympathies, had found fertile ground in parts of Europe, 
> developing, along the way, a penchant for Rosicrucian occultism. 
And 
> there was the added attraction that the lodge he encountered 
was 'a 
> lodge of adoption', which included women in a parallel 
organisation, 
> so that Seraphina could be co-opted to the cause. If you have ever 
> wondered how women managed to infiltrate Sarastro's lodge in The 
> Magic Flute, considering it, as I did, a case of operatic licence, 
> stand corrected: Mozart was inspired by Cagliostro when he created 
> the High Priest. 
> 
> Not only did this brand of Freemasonry suit Cagliostro right down 
to 
> the ground, it also provided him with a network of contacts that 
he 
> could exploit in his European travels. In St Petersburg, however, 
he 
> seriously miscalculated in his attempt to win the favour of 
> Catherine the Great, not appreciating that she, like the Church of 
> Rome, was opposed to Freemasonry, seeing it as potentially 
> subversive of social and political order. He and Seraphina were 
> forced to move on, as they often were when their luck ran out, but 
> there always seemed to be fresh fields to conquer. 
> 
> While Cagliostro was pursuing his Masonic odyssey — along the way 
> effortlessly assuming the identity of the 'Great Copt', a 
legendary 
> high priest of ancient Egyptian Free- masonry — he was also 
> practising his considerable skills as a healer. Often, when he 
> descended on a city, he would cause a stir by opening a healing 
> clinic for the poor where he freely dispensed his remedies. His 
> apparent success would then attract the attention of the afflicted 
> rich who, when cured, would become useful patrons. McCalman 
> acknowledges Cagliostro's achievement in healing, pointing out 
that, 
> by the standards of the day, his 'medical knowledge seemed as 
> much "scientific" as magical'. He was also adept at picking up on 
> new fads, such as Mesmer's use of magnetic forces, which fitted 
> nicely with his own conduct of spiritualist séances. 
> 
> His spectacular career came to an end in Rome. Seraphina, tired of 
> their peripatetic existence, and having also returned to the 
Church, 
> dobbed him in to the Inquisition, which tried him for heresy. 
> Cagliostro was dispatched to spend the rest of his days in a 
remote 
> prison fortress, the authorities increasingly concerned that 
French 
> revolutionaries might seek to engineer his escape. In this Gothic 
> hell-hole, he seemed to descend into madness, while retaining an 
> extraordinary capacity to unnerve and alarm his gaolers. He died 
in 
> 1795; two years later, the revolutionary armies took the fortress. 
> Legend has it that the officers of the Polish legion ordered his 
> remains dug up: 'picking up his whitened skull, they filled it 
with 
> wine and toasted his memory.' It was an appropriately Gothic 
> gesture, but it could also be taken to symbolise the resurrection 
of 
> the enchanter. 
> 
> There is a sense in which Cagliostro defies biography. His life 
was 
> a performance and perhaps only with Seraphina (who, incidentally, 
> was an embarrassment to Rome and was banished to a convent) did he 
> allow the mask to drop. Yet McCalman is able to present the 
> performance with a masterful deployment of the available sources. 
> Little attempt is made to explain Cagliostro in psychological 
terms. 
> Rather, the story of his life is told in a way that the Count 
> himself might well have approved, cunningly organised in a 
symmetry 
> of 'seven ordeals', the number itself having an appropriate 
magical 
> and mystical resonance. At one level, it takes on the character of 
> a 'ripping yarn', or perhaps an eighteenth-century road movie, but 
> we are always conscious of the tastes and susceptibilities of an 
> increasingly troubled society, which made his career possible. And 
> here, of course, McCalman's earlier work on the radical underworld 
> of this era serves him well. 
> 
> The Seven Ordeals of Count Cagliostro is written with earthy 
> economy: there is a certain cool swagger to the narrative. One 
> character is described as seeing Cagliostro and his crew as 'these 
> scumbags', while one of the Count's colleagues is 'a theosophical 
> groupie'. Seraphina is even pilloried by her critics for 
trying 'to 
> vamp every man she met'. 
> 
> McCalman confesses that he feels 'a strange affinity' with 
> Cagliostro, and wonders whether this might be because, having 
spent 
> his first eighteen years in Africa, he shares with the Count 'a 
> bogus African identity'. This strikes me as fanciful, but there 
can 
> be no doubt that Cagliostro has found in McCalman a worthy 
> interpreter and advocate. At the end, however, he seems almost 
> reluctant to pronounce judgment, as if the performance itself 
should 
> be sufficient, and, returning to the birthplace of Giuseppe 
Balsamo 
> in Palermo, takes brief refuge in the popular image there of the 
> enchanter as 'a flawed local hero'. One of his Sicilian friends 
puts 
> it this way: 'Cagliostro may have been a crook, but he had a great 
> soul.' 
> 
>   
>  
>  
> AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW JUNE/JULY 2003
> --- End forwarded message ---