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The Last Alchemist: Count Cagliostro, Master of Magic in the Age of Reason

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The new biography of Count Cagliostro, The Last Alchemist, is a fascinating read, the biographical equivalent of a beach book, as it were. Its author, Iain McCalman has done a commendable job of detailing all the important events in the life of this interesting product of this time. The age of enlightenment produced a bursting forth of superstitions and charlatans and the Count Cagliostro will always stand as the supreme example, achieving an immortality that would have thrilled him. His story nicely touches the lives of many other important figures of his time, such as Catherine the Great, Casanova, and many figures of pre-Revolutionary France through his invovlement in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace. The story is told well and swiftly and makes for a great read. It could have been a little longer, though, with added context, such as more information on the political situation in Russia and France or further details on Freemasonry or Rosicrucianism for example, to help the reader understand more fully the world the Count was traveling through and, often, manipulating. Still, a very interesting biography.

This book is a delightful insight into one of the most fascinating and influential periods in the history of Western Civilization. This book will be of interest and entertainment to Masons and non-Masons (even anti-Masons) alike.

Professor McCalman is a historian who delights in literary form. In his paper "Cultural History and Cultural Studies: the Linguistic Turn Five Years On" Iain McCalman tells us "Ever since a boy I have always believed intensely in the 'storyness' of life. Our world is suffused with stories. Consciously or not we use them continually to make sense of the mass of incoherent facts and sensations that immerse us."
This shows in his book "The Last Alchemist". Indeed by the fourth page of his introduction he has wasted no time to paint for us with a vivid brush of words:

"The Ballaro market that abuts Cagliostro's birthplace looks, feels, and smells like a casbah. It reminded me of parts of Cairo or even of Zanzibar: frying peanut oil, saffron, cloves, garlic, and rotting garbage. The flagstones are streaked with dust blown from North African deserts or smeared with slops tossed from windows and balconies. You have to step carefully because the tenements cast deep shadows. The paint on most of the buildings is covered in fungal-like stains. Bits of iron hold up the door frame; washing flaps on rigging strung between the houses."

The tone set and our attention grabbed, McCalman does not disappoint and continues to draw us into a very different time when a newborn Age of Reason battled with the institutions that had dominated Humanity since its beginning. A world where a common flimflam man can rise up from the gutter, lie and steal his way to prominence, and before his death help change history itself.

Which brings us to the subject of this book, one Guiseppe Balsamo who in the process of altering the history of Europe also contributed heavily to the burden still carried by the Freemasons of our modern time. That he was able to do so, we learn from McCalman, is due to a youthful mastery of chemistry and religious symbology, an intervening period of roguery and flimflam, and the social contacts earned from a job he talked his way into with the Knights Hospitalier of Saint John. McCalman runs us quickly through this period but with the benefit of his scholarship and passionate writing style we are led to understand this formative period of the man the world would later come to know as Count Cagliostro.

How does all this relate to modern Freemasonry? In a direct sense it does not relate at all - today's Masons will not find much modern Freemasonry as they read McCalman's accounts of how different Masonic lodges in different part of Europe embraced Cagliostro while repeatedly suspending their better judgements. As with all con-men Cagliostro simply plays on their greed, lust, and other flaws. Most Masons of this time were learned and successful men, interested mainly in an education and social activity unburdened by the official and social oppression of states and churches. And of course that time was no different than ours where all organizations have fringe groups. The fringe Masons of that time wanted power, were superstitious, and yearned for spiritual satisfaction through the occult. Few of them consciously considered anything they were doing was wrong or evil; most convinced themselves they were serving God.

As we read between the lines of McCalman's wonderful storytelling we begin to get a feel for what worried the governments and churches of the time. And of course what continues to concern anti-Masons to this day. Freemasonry was in fact widely used to mask the actions of men intent on founding democracies and/or societies free of tyranny in any form. The absolute rulers of that time, from Catherine of Russia to the Louis XVI of France to Pope Pious VI, all employed legions of spies and secret police to suppress that activity. Those few Masons who appealed to the occult were committing double crimes and providing an easy noose to the enforcers. Those Masons who worked more nobly for more honorable reasons succeeded in their founding of the Great Experiment that was America and their contributions were indeed observable in the replacement of Europe's aristacracies with modern democracies - those Masons we do not encounter in Cagliostro's story and indeed it is fair to assume the Count would have done his utmost to stay away from such people.

Through all these interwoven stories Iain McCalman does a masterful job gleaning from the newspaper articles, the legal papers, even the diaries and journals of the players of the time to engage us, to show us how otherwise rational men and women were easy fodder for Guiseppe Balsamo and other rogues like him. MaCalman's narration of the Affair of the Necklace, the final straw that brought on the French Revolution, reads like a fine mystery and so is particularly gripping and educational. The professor's declared fascination with Balsamo/Cagliostro is genuine and its influence on his writing clearly obvious. The Antiquarian Mason highly recommends this book to Masons and non-Masons alike.

According to Spence's Encyclopaedia of the Occult, Count Cagliostro is "one of the greatest occult figures of all time."(312) In modern culture his name is synonymous with the word `magic', an honour he shares with the infamous Svengali. But who is this legendary figure that captured the attention of queens, popes, poets, mystics and men of science? The mystic and poet, William Blake, painted and wrote about the man; Catharine the Great was motivated to banish him from her realm; Mozart included him in his operatic masterpiece, The Magic Flute; Goethe despised him though claimed Cagliostro as inspiration for his epic poem, Faust. He was famous throughout Europe as a great healer - and testaments to this fact ran into the thousands. At the same time, however, he was known as one of the greatest con men that ever traversed the continent in the eighteenth century. Iain McCalman's new book about this famous though mysterious figure of the Enlightenment, gives us an entertaining and unbiased account of the man in the context of seven `ordeals' during his life.

Giuseppe Balsamo (Cagliostro) was born in Palermo, and quickly learned the ways of the street, travelling later to the exotic lands of Cairo and Alexandria, soaking in their culture, to then become a kind of servant, or donat, with the Knights Hospitallers of Saint John. It is here he was made a member of the order, allegedly learning the many secrets of the ancients. Originally he learned the basics of apothecary in his native land, but furthered his education in the grand alchemical laboratories of the order. Cagliostro was a Freemason, but more particularly a leading proponent of the Egyptian Rite of Freemasonry. As an initiated member of the powerful order of the Knights of Malta, this was his passport into the many powerful realms of Europe.

This short sketch of the man does not take a concrete position as to whether Cagliostro was a scoundrel or a saint, a black or white magician, a man of God or of the devil. McCalman gives us the story as a true journalist might when all the facts are not at their disposal. The text presents the subject in a manner that leaves it to the reader to decide on the true character of the man. To be sure, Cagliostro was the essence of contradiction - healing hundreds of people one day and scheming the next. This, of course, is what makes him fascinating. However, men of genius usually are enigmas, and as historical figures, it is the purpose of historians to discover the facts. And in a lot of cases, finding the true story is close to the impossible.

McCalman has done a fine job of presenting us with a known difficult subject, rife with myth, half-truths and innuendo, in such an entertaining, clear and instructive manner. Good reading.

The author of this book, Iain McCalman, previously known for the writing or editing of scholarly works, has done a fine job here of turning out an interesting and entertaining piece of popular history. This is the kind of history book I really enjoy- it tells about the life of a colorful and fascinating person who was previously unknown to me. Count Alessandro di Cagliostro (who wasn't a count- the title and name were pure invention) was born with the more prosaic name of Giuseppe Balsamo, in the rough-and-tumble world of mid-18th century Sicily. He grew up amongst cutthroats and con artists and by the time he was barely out of his teens he was himself an accomplished swindler. What makes him interesting is how he "evolved," the company he kept, and how, like a human inkblot, he was perceived differently by those he came in contact with. Cagliostro developed into a topflight alchemist- which in his case meant a combination of apothecary, magician and conman. He became a Freemason, which gave him entry into high places in various countries- but which also caused him to be distrusted and spied upon by those who looked upon Freemasons as secretive, subversive, freethinking and a bit too egalitarian for the standards of the time. Hence, Cagliostro was not on "The A-List" of such heavyweights as the Bourbons, Catherine The Great, and the Catholic Church. Like many swindlers throughout history, Cagliostro eventually came to at least half-believe in his own hokum, and in addition to thinking that he had great spiritual gifts, he also set himself up as a great healer. He set up various clinics throughout Europe where he "treated" (with pills, potions, and the laying on of hands) the poor- at no charge to his patients. Disturbingly, at least for the medical profession of the day, he had a surprising amount of success. For a sidekick, Cagliostro had his beautiful and invaluable wife Seraphina. (There is a copy of an engraving of the young Seraphina reproduced in the book. No doubt about it- she was a dish.) She travelled the European circuit with Cagliostro, charming and seducing the wealthy and powerful patrons that helped her and her husband climb the ladder of success: add pimp to "The Count's" list of accomplishments. The author has a fine time incorporating historical slapstick into the book- we learn of Casanova's jealousy of Cagliostro; we also get some juicy tidbits concerning Catherine The Great's amorous adventures- it seems that when her personally handpicked guardsmen lovers weren't meeting her rather demanding standards, Catherine would send them to the royal physician for a "tune-up" (involving aphrodisiacs as a dietary supplement). The author states that, historically, Cagliostro has been seen in black-and-white terms: either as a holy healer or as swindler extraordinaire. His own view is that Giuseppe Balsamo was a complex mixture of both. Part of the fun of this charming book is coming to your own conclusion about this human puzzle from the streets of Palermo.

Like Le Comte de Saint Germain and Michel Nostradamus, there have been some truly mysterious figures who stalked Europe in the past.

Nostradamus came on the scene in the early 16th century, and many still believe that he could foretell the future. Certainly Europe's leaders, including royalty, listened to him closely.

Saint Germain, who first came on stage a couple of hundred years later, it is often rumored lived more than one lifetime, and even claimed to have known Jesus of Nazareth. And there have been others down through the ages.

One of the most notorious, though less well known than Nostradamus and St. Germain perhaps, was born in Palermo, Sicily, in 1743. He was Giuseppe Balsamo, but is better remembered as Count Alessandro de Cagliostro, and sometimes as Colonel Joseph Pellegrini--another alias. He traveled throughout Europe, Russia and Northern Africa mostly with his young and beautiful wife, Seraphina, whose feminine favors opened many doors for the pair. Apparently, although he is proclaimed to have "loved" her, he considered her his property, and took full advantage of her "assets". and jealousy was not a hindrance.

The pair traveled in rags, as pilgrims, and in lacquered carriages as royalty. Cagliostro (the name taken from a relative) was revered as a near saint, who succored the poorest of the poor with his healing arts, and as a mountebank and chalatan, who bilked the wealthy with his schemes.

This account of his life is not a true biography, but rather an account of only seven of his adventures, which Iain McCalman, the author, has researched and with which he entertains us.

Count Cagliostro made many powerful enemies, as well as admirers, including Goethe, who was inspired by him to write Faust, and who detested him; Mozart who was inspired by him to write The Magic Flute, Marie Antoinette, from whom he attempted to steal a valuable necklace, and which affair got him thrown into the Bastille by Louis XIV; and Catherine the Great had him booted out of Russia as a political subversive when he tried to convert her to Freemasonry. But, perhaps his greatest undoing was the hostile impression he made on Casanova, who turned him in to the Inquisition for being a practitioner of magic (inspired by jealousy, no doubt) and Pope Pius VI had him imprisoned for heresy, where he spent the last five years of his life, dying at the age of fifty-two.

He was a champion of Egyptian Freemasonry, had ties with the Illuminati, was an alchemist, magician, healer, and of course, a confidence man.

An intriguing story. I recommend it to you.

Joseph (Joe) Pierre

author of The Road to Damascus: Our Journey Through Eternity
and other books

Wow. I wasn't sure I'd really get into this book when I first started it, but I was hooked almost immediately. What an incredible and complex individual!

The Last Alchemist: Count Cagliostro, Master of Magic in the Age of Reason by Iain McCalman is a remarkable biography of what amounted to a world class con-artist. What makes him such an enigmatic individual is the fact that he was not simply a sociopath, but exhibited a compassion for the poor that endeared him to many. From the point of view of history, as I've often said before, one often learns more from fringe figures and marginal places about periods in history than one does from those on center stage. The story of Count Cagliostro confirms once again that belief.

Although the author, and in fact many of the Count's contemporaries, credit him with "causing" the French Revolution and other disastrous events, I would say that he was more a symptom of the times than the cause of their events. This is in fact the stance of at least one of the author's sources as well.

The world of the 18th Century was one of transition (although one could plausibly argue that this is true of every age!). The highly centralized, aristocratic and tyrannical political systems of the time were gradually being confronted with issues and intellectual concepts with which they were unprepared to deal. The Catholic church, the other major political player, had been playing a losing game with science, intellectualism, and protestantism for well over two centuries, and had retreated to the old stand by of incarcerating its enemies when they presented the opportunity. The arbitrary abuse of individual rights, the desperate poverty of the bulk of the European population, the marginal existence that was reality for even the middle class in times of economic down turn, made it obvious that changes were well overdue. This was the age of the philosophers of the American and French revolutions, of Paine, Voltaire, Hume, Rousseau and others whose literary support of human rights and of elected self government created a foment of intellectual unrest that ultimately produced much of what we consider to be the "modern" way of life.

The selfish, greedy and often foolish individuals in positions of power and privilege made ready targets for someone of the Count's talent and predilections. It is no accident that this was also the period of Casanova and Jeane de Mott, and other major imposters. Concerned only with personal vanity, accumulation of wealth and power, in short with the status quo at all levels, the wealthy of Europe were easy prey for someone with promises of physical youth and increased sexual prowess, with unlimited wealth and personal power, and with immortality. If it had not been so tragic in other ways, the tales of some of these people and their encounters with the Count would have made wonderful comedy. It is no wonder that the Count and his exploits provided creative people with plots for opera and story-both Mozart's Die Zauberflote (the Magic Flute) and Goethe's Fauste were based on the Count's exploits.

Born Giuseppe Balsamo in Palermo, Sicily the self-styled Count Alessandro de Cagliostro, aka Colonel Joseph Pellegrini, was no stranger to the abject poverty of some of the poorer people he helped treat as a healer. He grew tough and morally elastic surviving a childhood in the competitive environment of Italy. His fortune was made when his mother's family attempted to educate him and prepare him for a life dedicated to the church. Obviously bright, a quick learner, artistically gifted, and probably the possessor of a photographic memory, Giuseppe turned his hand to preying on the wealthy by appealing to their greed since it provided him with a lifestyle as affluent as that of his "clients."

What I found most interesting was the man's ability to land on his feet with almost every set back. The story of his legal fight with Jeane De Mott over the Diamond Necklace affair was amazing. I also found the rapidity with which his reputation as a mountbank caught up with him surprising. One would have thought that in an age innocent of telegraphy, the telephone, radio, television, airplanes, computers and the like, that such an individual could disappear by simply changing his name or even by simply moving. It seemed that this was not the case, and even at this time, those who wanted to know more about the man could "dig up the dirt" with a little guesswork and research! Part of this was no doubt the fact that the man traveled in a rarified society, that of the very wealthy and influential. This class of people was very small and often known to one another, even occasionally related to one another, which made knowledge of the man's previous activities easier to transmit from one venue to another.

An amazing book.

For THOSE WRITING PAPERS: in history, sociology, psychology, anthropology, speech/communications, philosophy, political science, church history. Did this man play a pivotal part in the revolutions that swept through Europe during the latter part of his life? When he predicted the fall of the French throne, do you think he was politically astute, psychic, just vindictive? How did this man reflect his society? What social situations lead to the formation of many such individuals of this type? What personal characteristics did the man have that made him more successful than many others? What social situations during the period produced personalities of this type? Would the Count have been just as sociopathic even had the social environment been different? Why did so many people, like Seraphina, ultimately go along with his plans? What changes if any did the treatment of the Count during the last months of his life bring about in the Catholic church? What types of persuasion techniques did the Count use to influence his targets? Are some of these same techniques used successfully today on us? Who uses them? Why do we still fall for them?

If this book were a historical novel--say by someone like Gary Jennings--you'd say the author had gone so far overboard in piling up incidents that he strained credulity. That makes it all the more remarkable that Mr. McCalman's is a work of non-fiction. Giuseppe Balsamo, Count Cagliostro (1743-95) led a life filled with love affairs, cons, duels, frauds, pimping, scandals, encounters with the famous and infamous, and shrouded it all in so much mystery--especially Masonic mythology--that it has invited artists from Mozart to Dumas to Goethe to William Blake to Umberto Eco draw upon it for their works. But as this fascinating narrative biography amply demonstrates the topic is nowhere near exhausted.

You can get some sense of Cagliostro's intriguing multiple personalities just from the chapter titles--Freemason; Necromancer; Shaman; Copt; Prophet; Rejuvenator; Heretic--and the Epilogue, appropriately subtitled: Immortal. As the chapters suggest, to some degree, Cagliostro represents the persistence of the supernatural and mystical at the very center of the Age of Reason. Stripped down to essentials that can't possibly begin to do the story justice: Giuseppe Balsamo was low born in Sicily, but styling himself Count Cagliostro, loaning out his beguiling wife, Seraphina, and claiming magical healing powers and both a legitimate background in Freemasonry and a bogus one in an occult Egyptian-rite Freemasonry was able to gain entree to the best social circles in Europe, though he proceeded to be chased from Russia by Catherine the Great, imprisoned in the Bastille by Louis XVI over the notorious "Affair of the Necklace," and died in the prison he'd been sent to by the Inquisition. If all of that sounds entertaining be assured that Mr. McCalman makes it very much so.

However, in the end there's a dark side to the tale too, for the author convincingly argues that Cagliostro did much to make possible the myriad conspiracy theories that did so much damage to Europe in the ensuing decades and some of which persist to this day. Mr. McCalman notes that, on the one hand, popular writers conflated him into the mythical Wandering Jew and made him "a fashionably moody and anguished rebel, tilting against oppressions of the spirit" while, on the other, his presence lurks behind many of the delusions about Masons and Illuminati secretly controlling the world and says:

"It would be unfair to blame Cagliostro for the actions of mythologizers, but Umberto Eco has shown that the idea of Masonic conspiracy has borne some terrible fruit. During the early twentieth, Jews rather than Masons became the prime target. By the time it reached a bitter young man in Vienna called Adolph Hitler, the idea had taken a new and monstrous shape. Templars, Illuminati, and Egyptian Masons had given way to the Protocols of Zion, the Twelve Tribes of Israel, and the world conspiracy of Judaism. Whatever one may think of Cagliostro, it is devastating to think that he was in some way a conduit of the Holocaust."

Even after we grant that some of that is simply an author stretching his subject a tad thin to make him seem more relevant than he might in reality be, it still tells us something, as does Cagliostro's whole career, about the disturbing credulousness that fits so comfortably with modernity's claim to have escaped the superstitions of religion for the bright new world of Reason. The interplay of this theme with Cagliostro's extraordinary life and Mr. McCalman's accessible story-telling makes for an eminently readable and often thought-provoking book.

This is a well written and fascinating book as others have said. Be aware that the Kindle edition does not include the illustrations. This wouldn't be so bad, but EVERY time (18 by actual count)there is an illustration missing there is a line of bold type which says, "Image unavailable for electronic addition". Perhaps they meant they couldn't add them electronically, but I think they meant to say "electronic EDITION". If you are going to keep reminding us that we're missing something by not having the paper book, at least refrain from irritating us with a stupid word error.

During the latter part of the 18th century, Giuseppe Balsamo, a.k.a Count Cagliostro, toured Europe as a Freemason/magician/alchemist, who transmuted metals, healed the sick, predicted the future and communicated with the dead, among other incredible feats, until he was kicked out of just about every country of consequence and labeled variously as a charlatan, crook, fraud or quack. Over time, Cagliostro's very ideas and persona became synonymous with subversive plots, clandestine movements and heresy. Cagliostro's enemies were legion: Casanova, Marie Antoinette, Catherine the Great and Pope Pius VI, who imprisoned Cagliostro until his death at age 52. Some scholars think Cagliostro fomented the revolt in France, leading to the French Revolution. (If true, perhaps his greatest feat!) Since then, Cagliostro has become an icon for theosophists, occultists, magicians, New Age prophets and . . . fill in the blank. Numerous books and plays have been written about Cagliostro, even movies. Iain McCalman's book deftly describes Cagliostro's life and impact through the ages. It's well-written and intellectually dense. (Keep your dictionary handy!) Since I haven't read any other books about Cagliostro, I can't compare this one to others. Perhaps I should start now . . . .

I really liked this book despite some significant gaps. This is a very dramatically written, very comprehensive life of Guiseppe Balsamo a/k/a Count Calliostro a/k/a Joseph Pellegrini. It's a great account of a VERY significant montebank in the 18th century. But the author is not clear on WHY Balsamo was so influential. McCalman might well have taken a closer look at the point of view of Balsamo's contemporaries. Moreover, some significant mysteries remain unknown--such as, who bankrolled Balsamo and for what purpose? A long but enjoyable read if you're interested in this man or his period.