I have given an almost disproportionate space to the history of Joseph Balsamo, because it is thoroughly representative of the charlatanic side of alchemy, which during two centuries of curiosity and credulity had developed to a deplorable extent. There is no reason to suppose, despite the veil of mystery which surrounded Altotas, that he was an adept in anything but the sophistication of metals, and his skill in alchemical trickery descended to his pupil. That Balsamo 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, &c., may to some extent be accounted for by the insatiable curiosity and diligence which he made use of to procure knowledge of the secrets of any families with which he came into communication. Lorenzo 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 he had been assisted by the marvels of magical art.
His powers, whatever they were, were imparted to some at least of his Masonic initiates, as may be seen in a genuine letter addressed to him from Lyons, and which describes in enthusiastic language the consecration in that town of the Egyptian lodge called Wisdom Triumphant. This letter fell into the hands of the Inquisition. It relates that at the moment when the assembly had entreated of the Eternal some explicit sign of his approval of their temple and their offerings, “and whilst our master was in mid air,” the first philosopher of the New Testament appeared uninvoked, blessed them after prostration before the cloud, by means of which they had obtained the apparition, and was carried upwards upon it, the splendour being so great that the young pupil or dove was unable to sustain it.
The same letter affirms that the two great prophets and the legislator of Israel had given them palpable signs of their goodwill and of their obedience to the commands of the august founder, the sieur Cagliostro. A similar communication testifies that the great Copt, though absent, had appeared in their lodge between Enoch and Elias.[AP]
CONCLUSION.
It has now been made plain beyond all reasonable doubt by the certain and abundant evidence of the lives and labours of the alchemists, that they were in search of a physical process for the transmutation of the so-called baser metals into silver and gold. The methods and processes by which they endeavoured to attain this désir désiré, and the secrets which they are supposed to have discovered, are embodied in allegorical writings, and their curious symbolism in the hands of ingenious interpreters is capable of several explanations, but the facts in their arduous and generally chequered careers are not allegorical, and are not capable of any mystical interpretations; consequently, the attempt to enthrone them upon the loftiest pinnacles of achievement in the psychic world, however attractive and dazzling to a romantic imagination, and however spiritually suggestive, must be regretfully abandoned. Their less splendid but substantial and permanent reputation is based on their physical discoveries and on their persistent enunciation of a theory of Universal Development, which true and far-sighted adepts well perceived, had an equal application to the triune man as to those metals which in their conception had also a triune nature.
As stated in the Introduction to this work, I have little personal doubt, after a careful and unbiassed appreciation of all the evidence, that the Magnum Opus has been performed, at least occasionally, in the past, and that, therefore, the alchemists, while laying the foundations of modern chemistry, had already transcended its highest results in the metallic kingdom. Now, the Hermetic doctrine of correspondences which is, at any rate, entitled to the sincere respect of all esoteric thinkers, will teach us that the fact of their success in the physical subject is analogically a substantial guarantee of the successful issue of parallel methods when applied in the psychic world with the subject man. But the revelations of mesmerism, and the phenomena called spiritualism, have discovered thaumaturgic possibilities for humanity, which in a wholly independent manner contribute to the verification of the alchemical hypothesis of development in its extension to the plane of intelligence. These possibilities I believe to be realizable exclusively along the lines indicated in Hermetic parables. I am not prepared to explain how the alchemical theory of Universal Development came to be evolved in the scientific and psychological twilight of the middle ages, but the fact remains. Nor am I prepared to explain how and why the method of a discredited science which is not commonly supposed to have attained its end, should not only be consistent within its own sphere, but should have a vast field of application without it; yet, again, the fact remains. I have brought a wide acquaintance with the history of modern supernaturalism to bear on the serious study of alchemy, and have found the old theories illustrated by the novel facts, while novel facts coincided with old theories. As all this has occurred, in the words of the alchemists, “by a natural process, devoid of haste or violence,” I may trust that it is no illusory discovery, and that its future enunciation may give a new impulse to the study of the Hermetic writings among the occultists of England and America.
FOOTNOTES:
[AJ] In the Memoir written by Joseph Balsamo during his imprisonment in the Bastille, he surrounds his origin and infancy with romantic and glamorous mystery. “I am ignorant,” he asserts, “not only of my birthplace, but even of the parents who bore me. All my researches on these points have afforded me nothing but vague and uncertain, though, in truth, exalted, notions. My earliest infancy was passed in the town of Medina, in Arabia, where I was brought up under the name of Acharat—a name which I afterwards used during my Asiatic and African travels—and was lodged in the palace of the muphti. I distinctly recollect having four persons continually about me—a tutor, between fifty-five and sixty years of age, named Altotas, and three slaves, one of whom was white, while the others were black. My tutor invariably told me that I had been left an orphan at the age of three months, and that my parents were noble, and Christians as well, but he preserved the most absolute silence as to their name and as to the place where I was born, though certain chance words led me to suspect that I first saw the light at Malta. Altotas took pleasure in cultivating my natural taste for the sciences; he himself was proficient in all, from the most profound even to the most trivial. It was in botany and physics that I made most progress. Like my instructor I wore the dress of a Mussulman, and outwardly we professed the Mohammedan law. The principles of the true religion were, however, engraven in our hearts. I was frequently visited by the muphti, who treated me with much kindness and had great respect for my instructor, through whom I became early proficient in most oriental languages.”
[AK] “Life of the Count Cagliostro, compiled from the original Proceedings published at Rome by order of the Apostolic Chamber. With an engraved Portrait.” London, 1791.
[AL] L’Histoire du Merveilleux dans les Temps Modernes, tom. iv.