As a matter of fact, the mumbo-jumbo of the Egyptian Rite was no more grotesque than the Swedenborgian, Rosicrucian, or any other of the numerous rites that were grafted onto Freemasonry in the eighteenth century. If the Baron von Gleichen, whose integrity was as irreproachable as his experience was wide, is to be credited, “Cagliostro’s Egyptian Masonry was worth the lot of them, for he tried to render it, not only more wonderful, but more honourable than any other Masonic order in Europe.”

Considered as the key to Cagliostro’s character, Egyptian Masonry so far fits the lock, so to speak. To turn the key, it is necessary to explain the means he employed to realize the sublime ideal he expressed so ridiculously.

It is characteristic of the tyranny of ideals to demand their realization of the enthusiast, if need be at the cost of life, honour, or happiness. All reformers magnetic enough to attract any notice have been obliged to face this lion-like temptation at some time in their careers. The perfervid ones almost always yield to it, and may count themselves lucky if the sacrifice of their happiness is all that is asked of them. The nature of the surrender is governed entirely by circumstances. Cagliostro paid for his attempt to regenerate mankind with his honour. It was an excessive price, and—considering the result obtained—useless.

As he did not hesitate to recruit his followers by imposture when without it he would have failed to attract them, many writers—and they are the most hostile—have denied that he ever had a lofty ideal at all. To them Egyptian Masonry is merely a device of Cagliostro to obtain money. Such an opinion, however, is as untenable as it is intentionally unjust.

There is not a single authenticated instance in which he derived personal profit by imposture.

Had he succeeded, like Swedenborg—who had a precisely similar ideal, and also had recourse to imposture when it suited his purpose—his reputation, like the Swede’s, would have survived the calumny that assailed it.[14] For though Cagliostro debased his ideal to realize it, his impostures did not make him an impostor, any more than Mirabeau can be said to have been bought by the bribes he accepted from the Court.

His impostures consisted (1) in exhibiting his occult powers—which in the beginning he had not developed—on occasions and under conditions he knew to be opposed to their operation, whereby to obtain results he was obliged to forge them, and (2) in attributing to a supernatural cause all the wonders he performed as well as the “mysteries” of the Egyptian Rite, in which mesmerism, magnetism and ordinary conjuring tricks were undoubtedly employed.

As the establishment of Egyptian Masonry was the object he had in view, he no doubt believed with his century that the end justifies the means. But to those who shape their conduct according to this passionate maxim it becomes a two-edged sword that seldom fails to wound him who handles it. The end that is justified by the means becomes of necessity of secondary importance, and eventually, perhaps, of no importance at all. This was the case with Cagliostro’s ideal. In rendering it subservient to the magic which it was originally part of its object to suppress, the latter gained and kept the upper hand. The means by which his ideal was to be realized became thus, as justifying means are capable of becoming, ignoble; and by robbing their end of its sublimity made that end appear equally questionable. That Cagliostro perceived the danger of this, and struggled hard to avert it, is abundantly proved by his conduct on numerous occasions.

At the start, indeed, imposture was the very last thing he contemplated. His strong objection to predicting winning numbers in lotteries was the cause of all his trouble in London. From the Hague to Mittau—wherever a glimpse of him is to be had—there is a reference to the “eloquence with which he denounced the magic and satanism to which the German lodges were addicted.” It was not till he arrived in Courland that his repugnance for the supercheries of supernaturalism succumbed to the stronger forces of vanity and ambition.

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