Mysterium Coniunctionis: 10 Secret Adepts
“It is the unvarying rule of secret societies that the real authors never show themselves.” So reported 19th-20th-century British historian Nesta Helen Webster, who researched “subversive movements” for over two decades.
Esoteric and occult organizations can be curious and obscure enough on their own. But, when they seem to crystallize – and gain momentum – seemingly out of nowhere, or when they turn out to be world-historic in their impact, mysteries ramify.
In this video, I will sketch profiles of ten (10) people who are, for all intents and purposes, ciphers. Yet, their influence – meditated through heirs that are much better known – is nearly incalculable.
Caveats and Disclaimers
There are serious doubts about the lives – and even the existence – of some (or perhaps most) of the individuals here profiled. The video is intended for educational or entertainment purposes, only, and should not be understood as the final word on any of the events or people it discusses. The aim is to provide viewers with informational background and research leads for their own investigations.
Additionally, given the arcane nature of the topic, trying to find a credible way to rank our entrants proved difficult. Therefore, with only one major exception (to be identified in good time), the list has been arranged in more or less chronological order. But, without further ado…
The Top Ten
1. The Man Behind Gnosticism: Dositheos
Gnosticism has been a major current in the Western occult tradition.[1]
We introduced the constellation of ideas, and tried to distinguish it from other terms with which it is >often confused,[2] in our video “10 Arcane Words.”
>For a crash course – or a refresher – see, also, “Gnosticism Explained in 5 Minutes.”
Those with more interest, and a little more time, may be interested to note that we also explored the erotic fixations of so-called “Spermo-Gnostics” in “Top 10 ‘Sex-Magic’ Cults.”
Because these other materials provide an adequate foundation for the relevant concepts, I won’t spend much energy reinventing the wheel, here. Suffice it to say that Gnosticism was a religious worldview – flourishing around the second century A.D. – that focused on spiritual advancement through the acquisition of hidden knowledge. It combined Christian, Jewish, and pagan elements.[3]
Here’s the relevant bit. The reputed founder of Gnosticism was the Biblical figure Simon Magus. (He’s
also called “Simon, the Sorcerer,” since magos is a Greco-Roman word for “magician.”[4])
Simon appears in the New Testament Book of the Acts of the Apostles, where it says (chapter 8, verse 13) that he became a believer in Jesus Christ. Simon observed the apostles Peter and John effecting the reception of the Holy Spirit. Verse 18 explains that Simon “offered them money” for knowledge of the power they possessed.
This episode that was the seminal instance of Simony, which today is defined by Catholic sources as the sin of buying or selling church favors.
In the Bible, Peter immediately rebukes and dismisses Simon.[5] Thus, our “prototype …heretic and black magician”[6] began traveling with a Phoenician prostitute, gathering his own disciples who were impressed with his occult prowess.
But, would you believe that the story doesn’t actually stop there? – even if it’s telling often does.
For, at some point, the enigmatic Simon Magus was reputed to have been taught by an even more secretive adept named Dositheos.[7]
Although Dositheos was reputed to have been a Samaritan,[8] some legends speak of an Egyptian sojourn, where he – and his disciple, Simon – allegedly acquired fantastic abilities such “as invisibility, levitation, and shape-shifting into …animal” form.[9]
At least some of our modern knowledge about the obscure Dositheos – who was acquainted with John the Baptist and may have had connexions to Essenism – comes by way of discoveries made in caves at Qumran, an archaeological site in the Palestinian Occupied Territory known as the “West Bank.”[10]
The Wikipedia article on Dositheos[11] quotes from the book The Dead Sea Scrolls and Primitive Christianity by the Jesuit Modernist theologian – and later Catholic Cardinal – Jean Daniélou.[12] As a crypto-political aside, Daniélou was discovered dead in 1974, under suspicious circumstances, in the house of a known prostitute.
But speaking of Dositheos and Simon Magus, the duo’s impact was remarkable. Not only did Simonian >Gnosticism persist for centuries, but later writers such as 19th-century French occultist Jules Doinel, 19th-20th-century British Theosophist G. R. S. Mead, and even the “Great Beast” himself, British magician Aleister Crowley, would resurrect it for their own esoteric purposes.
We got into greater detail on Crowley in “Top 10 Occultists of All Time,” “10 ‘Sex-Magic’ Cults,” and “10 Occultists Who Were Accused Spies.”
2. The Man Behind Neoplatonism: Ammonius Saccas
Another hugely influential belief system with an ancient pedigree is Neoplatonism.
We introduced this in “10 Arcane Words.”
Most simply characterized as an expanded and mystified variety of the famous Greek philosopher Plato’s Theory of Forms, Neoplatonism – as a contributor to the “core” of Western esotericism – has few rivals. One thinks only, for instance, of Hermeticism or Pythagoreanism, …
…the latter being our focus in the video “Pythagoras.”
Generally speaking, Neoplatonism presents a picture of a world in which true reality is hidden behind (or above) the mundane realm of appearances. In this way, the worldview underwrites practical magic. For consider that, on Neoplatonic assumptions – several of which are echoed in Eastern thought – “…every event in the visible world is the effect of an ‘image,’ that is, of an idea in the unseen world. …[E]verything that happens on earth is only a reproduction, as it were, of an event in a world beyond our sense perception… [S]ages …have access to these ideas …and are …able to intervene decisively in events in the world.”[13]
I intend to expound on the history and philosophy of Neoplatonism in a future video. But, for now, I’ll just say that there are four names usually listed as being among “the most visible [ancient] Neoplatonists in later esoteric literature.”[14]
In reverse chronological order, these are the 5th-century expositor Proclus, the 3rd-4th-century magician Iamblichus, the 3rd-4th-century codifier Porphyry, and the man usually regarded as the wellspring for the whole enterprise, the innovative, 3rd-century theorist Plotinus.
However… Plotinus’s speculations didn’t arise in a vacuum. It turns out that he received instruction from a shadowy autodidact by the name of Ammonius Saccas.[15]
Vanishingly little is known about his personal views. Yet, he is routinely cited for the profound impact he is alleged to have exerted upon Plotinus and, by extension, on the establishment of Neoplatonism.
Ammonius was later claimed as a fellow traveler by adherents of both Christianity and paganism. This presents a puzzle and leads some scholars to suppose that there may have been two thinkers with the same name who were contemporaries.
Of Ammonius’s origins, no one can say for sure. He taught Plotinus in the important city of Alexandria, Egypt which was then under the control of the Roman Empire.
The city had a large Greek population, suggesting that Ammonius Saccas was ethnically Greek.
But, some analysts have observed that his given name, “Ammonius,” contains a Latinized reference to the Egyptian deity, Amun – the primordial god of air. This raises the possibility that he may have been a Copt. (Similar questions surround Plotinus’s background.)
Stranger still, a few have proposed that Ammonius Saccas may actually have been of Indian extraction.
If true, this would help to explain two curious pieces of data. Firstly, Ammonius Saccas had an affinity for Indian thought that he apparently transmitted to his pupil. According to the biographer and systematizer, Porphyry, Plotinus’s decade-long training by Ammonius Saccas primed him “to make acquaintance with the Persian philosophical discipline and that prevailing among the Indians.”[16]
Secondly, tenets of Neoplatonism are redolent of Vedanta, the dominant stream of philosophical Hinduism which was derived from a collection of sacred texts called the Upanishads.
A core notion of this viewpoint is often (albeit opaquely) articulated as the slogan “Atman is Brahman.” This is to say that all individual souls (Atman) – yours, mine, and everyone else’s – are identical with the ultimate principle of reality (designated Brahman).
There is a striking similarity between this doctrine and the crucial Neoplatonic notion that all reality is an “emanation” of, and seeks to “return to” unity with, the One. Stay tuned for further explorations of these abstractions.
According to academic Arthur Versluis, the traditions of Indian religion and Neoplatonism coalesced in the 19th-century American Transcendentalist movement – famously associated with American writers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. It’s interesting to entertain the possibility that this represented a reunion of divergent strands that previously emerged from the same basic source.
3. The Man Behind Renaissance Magic: Johannes Trithemius
One of the most epochal textbooks on magic theory ever published was the three-volume De Occulta Philosophia, by the 15th-16th-century German Kabbalist and Neoplatonist Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa.
We showcased Agrippa twice already. First, he appeared in our video “Top 10 Occultists of All Time,”
…and then again in “10 Occultists Who Were Accused Spies.”
Agrippa was born and received his early education in the German city of Cologne.
This is significant because Cologne had been a stronghold of Medieval Scholasticism, a composite philosophical-theological system expounding Christianity using the logical apparatus of Aristotle.
Within that context, debates still broke out. At Cologne, the majority of the faculty followed the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas, known as “Thomism.” But a minority of school men opted instead for “Albertism,” a competing system drawn from Aquinas’s most distinguished teacher, Albert the Great (also known by the Latinized version of his name, Albertus Magnus).[17]
Although Albertism is little-mentioned today, it was (for a time) preserved in Cologne – where Albert had spent time lecturing – by a coterie of scholars devoted to his outlook. A key point, here, is that Albert was regarded as having been sympathetic to both alchemy and astrology.
We touched upon the former in “Top 10 Gold-Making Alchemists.”[18]
As for the latter, in his Speculum Astronomiæ (“The Mirror of Astronomy”), published circa 1260, Albertus Magnus had argued that astrological investigations were compatible with Christianity. Much later, Agrippa read this work and cited it as instrumental on his thinking.
In the 14th century, Albertism was combined with Neoplatonism by the largely unknown Dominican Berthold of Moosburg (ca. 1300-1361). Thus, Agrippa would have been trained in what is now referred to as the “Cologne Tradition of Neoplatonism.”
Simultaneously, Agrippa mastered – and would also lecture on – humanist-Catholic thinker Johann Reuchlin’s seminal Kabbalistic treatise, De Verbo Mirifico, printed in 1494.[19] Incidentally, that title roughly translates to “About the Miraculous Word” and is a sustained explication of the alleged magical power of the name “Jesus.”[20]
Reuchlin had been introduced to Jewish mysticism by the found of so-called “Christian Cabala,” the Italian Renaissance innovator, Pico della Mirandola, whom we will discuss further in a bit.[21]
It is difficult to overstate Agrippa’s significance. Occult Philosophy was, in effect, the first attempt at a comprehensive encyclopedia of esotericism and magic.[22] His thesis? “…[T]hat the hermetic texts …and the Kabbalistic writings… were the gateway to true wisdom” and would restore the control of nature to humanity, who had lost it due to the sin of Adam.[23]
Early 20th-century English historian Frances Yates relates the opinions of two specialists who believed that Agrippa “and his associates formed some kind of secret society…”.[24] Incredibly, “[s]ome historians of the origins of Protestantism in Geneva have regarded Agrippa and his circle … ‘as the seed-bed of the reformed faith’.” Of course, “Reformed Christianity” is merely another name for Calvinism, or the branch of Protestantism owing to 16th-century French theologian John Calvin.
Not only was Agrippa at ground zero for what developed into Calvinism, but he was also operating in humanist circles in England.[25] This would have placed him in the orbit of the unfortunately named “Oxford Reformers”:[26] provocative New-Testament translator Desiderius Erasmus, English statesman and Catholic martyr Sir Thomas More, and – particularly – Renaissance standard bearer, John Colet.
And once again, behind Agrippa – the figure who was apparently so pivotal for preparing the ground for momentous religious changes on the continent and the British Isles[27] – we find a more obscure intriguer lurking in the shadows.
For, before writing his magnum opus, “[i]n 1509-10, Agrippa was in Germany, visiting the learned [Benedictine] abbot [Johannes] Trithemius,” to whom De Occulta Philosophia would be dedicated.[28]
4. The Man Behind Trithemius: Pelagius of Majorca
19th-century French occultist Éliphas Lévi, on whom see “Top 10 Occultists of All Time,” …
…praised Trithemius as having been the most accomplished magician of his era.
Besides Agrippa, Trithemius had at least one other illustrious student. The revolutionary alchemist and medical reformer Paracelsus (born Theophrastus von Hohenheim) – regarded as the Martin “Luther of the Physicians” – “…identified… the famous Cabalist Johannes Trithemius… [as] among his tutors.”[29]
Additionally, Dr. John Dee, Queen Elizabeth I’s astrologer royal, whom we also ranked one of the occult practitioners with the most enduring legacies.
Dee’s extensive library, one of the world’s largest of his time, contained several of Trithemius’s books on its shelves. This included Trithemius’s the Steganographia (written ca. 1500),[30] which “contained many numerological and astrological calculations connected with angels as well as instructions on how to summon them, to gain knowledge, and how to send messages over long distances by means of angelic agency.”[31]
Because of these alleged angelological dealings, Trithemius garnered a reputation as “a demonic magician,”[32] necromancer, and “sorcerer.”[33]
Like the mysterious abbot himself, Dee developed a reputation as a sorcerer.
We touched on these cipher texts in “10 Occultists Who Were Accused Spies.”
and De Septem Secundeis (1508), a treatise on astrology and Kabbalistic magic;
And, as we noted in “10 Occultists Who Were Accused Spies,” Dee may have exploited Trithemian ciphers to send coded messages for the English crown.
Along with his students, Agrippa and Paracelsus, Johannes Trithemius would be cited by the previously named Lévi in his influential Histoire de la magie (1860).
Confidence in his monumental importance for later streams of occultism is inversely proportional to relative uncertainty about the details of his early life and intellectual formation. In various biographical “snippets” readily available online, one finds unfailingly repeated a fairy-tale-like anecdote about Trithemius’s unlikely – and inexplicably swift – ascent. A twenty-year-old Trithemius was supposedly returning home from university when he was caught in a snowstorm. The ferocity of the storm was such that he sought refuge in a Benedictine Abbey. The story goes that he decided to stay there, and – within a year – he was made “Abbot,” or head monk.
Trithemius himself claimed that he had been schooled in various esoteric arts by one “Libanius Gallus,” an otherwise unknown adept. But the autobiographical questions ramify when we learn that Libanius Gallus himself was said – again, by the precocious abbot himself – to merely have been an intermediary between Trithemius and an even more secretive mage.
Allegedly named “Pelagius of Majorca,” after Mallorca, the Spanish island that is one of the top-ten largest in the Mediterranean Sea.
Stay tuned for more on these sorts of crypto-politically magnetic areas.
Some historians, such as Paola Zambelli, have concluded that “both Pelagius and Libanius were fictions invented by our abbot.”[34]
Another possibility is that they are veiled acknowledgements of real people. One thinks, for instance, of the 13th-century “proto-Cabalist” Ramon Llull who happened to be from Mallorca.
Still, as Michael Hoffman remarks, due to Trithemius’s preposterous account of his own rise and influence, we must assume that the abbot was assisted by a person (or persons) unknown.[35]
Along a similar line, writer Rosemary Guiley states that, early in his own intellectual formation, Trithemius went to Heidelberg – a center of alchemy and occultism – where he became the student of an unknown teacher.”[36]
5. The Man Behind ‘Christian Cabala’: Flavius Mithridates
Speaking of Kabbalists, the short-lived Renaissance syncretist, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, exercised an outsized influence on subsequent esotericism – especially in its Neoplatonic incarnations.
His main contributions were twofold. Firstly, particularly via his captivating Oration on the Dignity of Man,[37] Pico gave expression to his “…magical view of man as master of the created world.”[38]
Later interpreters understood Pico to have been asserting “…that man is set apart from the rest of creation, and is completely free to form his own nature.”[39]
This arguably becomes a major component of later philosophies – such as those of Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche – which place an emphasis upon will.
But, it also forms the part of the foundation for various occult currents, such as those involving figures like Éliphas Lévi – according to whom the Pentagram symbolized “[t]he sovereignty of the will…”[40] – and Aleister Crowley, both of whom we surveyed in “Top 10 Occultists.”
Secondly, Pico is credited with introducing the Jewish mystical Kabbalah into Western occultism. This would have a monumental impact. In the first place, it created – right away – the curious amalgam known as “Christian Cabala.”
Of course, predictably, it seems that Pico wasn’t acting on his own hook. Standing behind him were several figures about whom little else is known – beyond their tutelage of the young Italian.
One of them was the noteworthy Jewish Averroist, Elijah Delmedigo. Among other effects, Delmedigo seems to have primed Pico for his interest in an Aristotelianism that was separate from the usual Catholic framework set in place by the great Dominican theologian St. Thomas Aquinas.
Another was Rabbi Yohanan Alemanno, from whom Pico learned the rudiments of Hebrew. Alemanno was also known for his view “…that natural magic was inferior to the Kabbalah, which provides the keys to a ‘divine’ magic.”[41]
But, it was from one Samuel ben Nassim Bulfarag, alias Guglielmo Raimondo de Moncada, alias Flavius Mithridates, Pico’s tutor in Aramaic, that Pico would learn the most about Kabbalistic secrets.
British Renaissance historian Frances Yates reports that, “[c]hief among …[the Spanish Jews who instructed Pico] was the mysterious character known as Flavius Mithridates who provided Pico with Cabalist manuscripts.”[42]
In the words of University of California, Los Angeles Professor Brian Copenhaver, “Flavius Mithridates …[was] his [Pico’s] most prolific Jewish informant, [who] translated (and mistranslated) thousands of pages of Kabbalah into Latin for him.”[43]
Copenhaver’s aside raises questions about Flavius’s honesty. A commentator (of unknown reliability) introduces a record of one of Flavius’s speeches, delivered on Good Friday in front of the pope no less, by saying that – although he “dazzled the clerics” with his linguistic abilities – he fabricated evidence in the manner of “[a] clever charlatan.”[44]
As an added layer of intrigue, the Encyclopædia Judaica observes that, in Rome, Flavius had once been “…under the patronage of Giovanni Battista Cibo, bishop of Molfetta, [who] later [became] Pope Innocent VIII.”[45]
Yates draws attention to the high strangeness of the relationship between Pico and Flavius,[46] stating that the latter “…encouraged Pico in the Christian interpretation of Cabala, even to the point of inserting into the texts interpolations of his own pointing in a Christian direction.”[47]
Yates candidly confesses her own astonishment, asking: “What can have been Flavius’s motive in thus encouraging and directing Pico towards his momentous adoption of Cabala into Christianity…[?]”[48]
6. The Man Behind Renaissance Neoplatonism: Elissæus
Similar weirdness also surrounds the earlier, 14th-15th-c. Constantinopolitan scholar Gemistos Pletho (circa 1355-1452). He was a well-connected, Byzantine Greek who rejected Eastern Orthodoxy and advocated a return to paganism – ostensibly combined with a Neoplatonic form of Christianity.
Pletho – sometimes alternatively called Plethon – was a major catalyst for Italian Renaissance interest in Plato.[49] First of all, he was a celebrated participant in the Council of Ferrara-Florence – held over almost a twenty-year period from 1431 to 1449. The council was called to try to undo the Great Schism of 1054. Also called the “East-West Schism,” you’ll recall that this separated Christianity into Eastern Orthodoxy, on the one hand, and Roman Catholicism, on the other.
Secondly, Pletho gave numerous, well-attended lectures “On the Difference Between Aristotle and Plato,” some of which were apparently heard by Florentine banker Cosimo de’Medici.
De’Medici proceeded to establish a Platonic Academy in Florence. Subsequently, he funded the research-and-translation projects of Italian priest-scholar Marsilio Ficino. Ficino, along with the previously mentioned Pico della Mirandola, would basically open wide the doors for mysticism, magic, and revived Neoplatonism in the Catholic Church.
In fact, Pletho arguably paved the way for Pico.
And, wouldn’t you know it? According to Pletho’s dogged ideological adversary, Georgios Scholarios (ca. 1400-1473), a man who would later become Patriarch of Constantinople under the name Gennadios II, some of Pletho’s ideas had been suggested to him by a Kabbalist named Elissæus.[50]
Of course, the allegations, while provocative, are far from historically certain. Nevertheless, if true, they would mean that two major esoterically oriented streams – Kabbalism and Neoplatonism – were introduced into Western Christianity partially under Rabbinic superintendence.
7. The Men Behind Cagliostro (I): Altotas
Fast-forwarding to the Enlightenment, Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, allegedly born with the more modest name Giuseppe Balsamo was an 18th-century Sicilian-Jewish adventurer and Hermeticist.
We covered Cagliostro, who was recently incorporated into the Dr. Strange story line in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in our video titled “Top 10 Occultists of All Time,” where we noted his institution of a so-called “Egyptian” variety of Freemasonry with Kabbalistic-sorcerous overtones.
“Some accounts suggest that Cagliostro” – who was allegedly trained in sex magic by an adept whose identity will be disclosed in a few minutes – “forced his wife to sell sexual favors in order to augment his income.”[51]
According to his critics, he was a swindler who gallivanted about Europe engaging in confidence scams and evading his creditors. That is… until he ran afoul of the Roman Inquisition – allegedly trying to found a lodge of the “Brotherhood” right in the Vatican’s backyard – and, for his efforts, was imprisoned in the Castel Sant’Angelo.
Viewers of Ron Howard’s 2006 film, Angels and Demons – Dan Brown’s sequel to the wildly successful The Da Vinci Code – will recognize the imposing, cylindrical mausoleum from an exciting scene as the movie builds toward its climax.
In any case, some say that Cagliostro was eventually moved to the Fortress of San Leo, where he died.
But legends suggest that Cagliostro possessed coveted secrets for the attainment of limitless wealth and miraculously long life – if not immortality.
For more information on these fabled goals of alchemy, see “Top 10 GOLD-MAKING Alchemists.”
No prison could hold a man so supernaturally empowered as Cagliostro. Or… so some say. Therefore, rumors of his magical escape and subsequent reappearances gained currency in esoteric circles.
From where – or who – had he acquired his arcane knowledge?
According to one persistent account, young Guiseppe Balsamo had served as famulus to a mysterious Greek adept named Altotas.[52]
Versions of the story differ slightly. Either the future Count Cagliostro had apprenticed with Altotas on the Island of Malta, or, to advance their learning, the two had journeyed to Malta together.
Malta, of course, was the headquarters for one of the Catholic Church’s oldest military-religious orders. Originally founded as the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, otherwise known as the Hospitallers, a string of defeats prompted their periodic relocation. First they ended up on the island of Cyprus, then Rhodes, and – finally – Malta.
Supposedly, Altotas was so connected that he was able to effect Cagliostro’s introduction to the Grand Master of that august organization, into which our mysterious count claimed to have been initiated.
What happened to Altotas after this, no one seems to have discovered. He simply receded into the background while his pupil proceeded to revolutionize the ritualism of Masonry. Unless, well… hold that thought.
8. The Men Behind Cagliostro (II): Comte de Saint-Germain
Cagliostro is perhaps the best-known of a number of 18th-century adventurers who were able – at least for a short time – to capitalize on the venality of European nobles.
Among this group, also, were the prodigious “lover” Giacomo Casanova, and the curious Comte de Saint-Germain.
In fact, Saint-Germain is often said to have initiated Cagliostro into some form of Illuminism. “Illuminism” is a somewhat opaque synonym for Enlightenment. During the heyday of the intellectual movement by that name, which occurred roughly in late-17th and 18th centuries, there was an exaltation of the powers of the human mind. This illumination could take the form of a Gnostic-like “awakening” precipitated by contact with some tantalizing bits of “hidden knowledge” – …
…as we have covered in out several videos on Gnosticism.
Or, Illuminism could depend, instead, on an exaggerated confidence in human brain power and ingenuity. This “rationalism” in a broad sense was typical of philosophers of the period, regardless of whether they favored a priori argumentation, as was pioneered by René Descartes and carried on by such thinkers as Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz,
…or whether they leaned more heavily on a posteriori, empirical methodology, as did John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume.[53]
The difficulty with a figure like the Comte is situating him along this continuum. In the words of Antoine Faivre, men like Saint-Germain were “expert in exploiting the taste for the marvelous…” that prevailed in their age.[54] The consensus Ivory-Tower view seems to be something like this: Saint-Germain used early developments in science, to dazzle the mob and pretend spiritual Enlightenment.[55]
Were we previously to have catalogued the top eleven occultists, instead of ten, he would have contended for extra spot.
And, given rumors that he was an agent in the service of Prussian ruler Frederick the Great, we could have featured him in “10 Occultists who Were Accused Spies.”
Saint-Germain’s pedigree is as debated as other aspects of his life. At various times, and by diverse observers, he has been labeled a Hungarian prince or the fabled “Wandering Jew” – and quite a few things in between.
A preposterous array of “past lives” have been assigned to Saint-Germain – whether by popular acclaim or by retelling of his own autobiographical declarations. These include: Joseph, the human father or (depending on the source) step-father of Jesus Christ; the 13th-century proto-scientist Roger Bacon; and the 16th-17th-century English essayist and statesman, Sir Francis Bacon…
…who we have mentioned before.
Saint-Germain was a reputed Rosicrucian and, like Cagliostro, maintained numerous connexions to Freemasonry.
Perhaps more than his contemporaries, Saint-Germain seemed to become larger than life in the years following his alleged death around 1784 or 1785. I say “alleged death” since stories of “sightings” of the miracle-worker pile up in a manner similar to those about Elvis Presley.
A year after his reported demise, Saint-Germain was supposedly elected by Masons – including the groundbreaking hypnotist, Franz Anton Mesmer – to represent their order at an upcoming convention.
Subsequently, he was also supposedly seen retiring to Tibet, which seems to have given rise to – or at least encouraged – the belief that Saint-Germain had joined the ranks of an exalted class of mystics variously designated “Ascended Masters” or Mahatmas.
Indeed, Helena P. Blavatsky, whom we covered in “Top 10 Occultists,” …
…principal founder (in 1875) of the Theosophical Society, which we discussed in “10 Arcane Words,” …
…references Saint-Germain along with other supposed Masters – Morya and Koothoomi – as collectively directing earth’s affairs behind the scenes as the “Great White Brotherhood.”
Madame Blavatsky’s intellectual and spiritual heirs, including Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater, claimed to have had dealings with the Count.
Saint-Germain’s influence extends even further. Several key “New Agers” professed the Comte’s involvement in their enterprises. For instance, Guy and Edna Ballard established the I AM Movement under the auspices of the Saint Germain Foundation.
Elizabeth Clare Prophet, matron of the Church Universal and Triumphant, articulated a complicated lore surrounding “Saint Germaine,” including the belief that he somehow “inspired” the Constitution of the United States. Throughout her tenure as “Guru Ma,” Prophet claimed continual – or periodic – contact with various Ascended Masters, especially Saint-Germain.
These tales have cemented Saint-Germain’s legacy as one of the most powerful and proficient adepts of all time.
Runner Up: The Man Behind Éliphas Lévi
Let me momentarily interrupt the Cagliostro saga, with all the various behind-the-scenes operators. For there is one aspect of it that is probably best introduced by way of example.
For the illustration, we’ll turn to the man who, for all intents and purposes, kickstarted the so-called “Occult Revival” in the 19th-century – which we highlighted in the video “10 Arcane Words.”
Born Alphonse Louis Constant, he is far better known under his assumed (and “Hebræcized”[56]) name, Éliphas Lévi.
Of course, Lévi was a major name in “Top 10 Occultists of All Time.”
His chief contribution to occultism was his suggestion that there were “…esoteric correspondences between the twenty-two paths on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and the twenty-two major trumps in the Tarot pack of cards.”[57]
>Lévi’s synthesized a “transcendental” magic out of material gleaned from a wide variety of sources. These included: idiosyncratic 16th-17th-century German mystic Jakob Böhme, 17th-18th-century Swedish theosopher[58] Emanuel Swedenborg, 18th-century Freemason and Tarot enthusiast Antoine Court de Gébelin, 18th-19th-century German “animal-magnetism” theorist and hypnotist, Franz Anton Mesmer; 18th-19th-century French poet Antoine Fabre d’Olivet; and 18th-19th-century French esoteric Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin, founder of Martinism.
These were centered around the Jewish-mystical Kabbalah, which we have repeatedly encountered. What was additionally unique about Lévi, however, was that he seems to have fused two Kabbalistic streams together.
On the one hand, Lévi was acquainted with “Christian Cabala,” as it had originated with Pico and filtered down to the 17th-century German Hebraist Christian Knorr von Rosenroth. In 1684, Rosenroth had published the influential compendium Kabbala Denudata, or “Kabbalah Uncovered.”[59]
On the other hand, there were several separate strands of Kabbalah originating in Poland. One of these owed to Jacob Frank, a follower of the curious, 17th-century Messianic pretender, Sabbatai Zevi.[60]
We touched on both Zevi and Frank in “10 ‘Sex-Magic’ Cults.”
Another Polish current came from Hasidism. Fittingly for the present topic, its history is complex and obscure. But it seems to have been introduced into Poland from Prague, during its so-called “Golden Age” in the 17th century. At that time, the community presumably was in custody of the teachings of the 16th-century Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, known as the Maharal of Prague. He is still remembered for his supposed magical creation of a Frankenstein-like monster called a “Golem.”
Again, for more, see “10 ‘Sex-Magic’ Cults.”
From the Bohemian capital of Prague, Kabbalistic teachings passed to a line of practitioners known as “Baal Shem.” Literally signifying “Lord of the Name,” the specific reference is to the Tetragrammaton, or the four letters making up the name Yahweh – which is regarded as the ultimate magical formula.
Various Baal Shem are reputed to be adept at such things as manufacturing magical amulets and talismans, casting – and averting – the “evil eye,” summoning and controlling demons, and so on.
In any case, the Hasidic movement was founded in the 18th century Poland by one Israel ben Eliezer, better known as the Baal Shem Tov. In the words of the late historian James Webb, the Baal Shem Tov fashioned “…Hassidism [sic] …[into] a mass movement” by “placing …emphasis on an interpretation of the popular elements in the Cabala…”.[61]
As a consequence, “…the often abstruse doctrines of the Jewish mystical philosophers …[were] rendered …more intelligible to …Gentile[s]. Judæo-Christian sects sprang up throughout Poland and Russia, with rituals based on [these] esoteric doctrines…”.[62]
Our magus – Éliphas Lévi – was initiated into this form of Kabbalism by the 18th-19th-century Polish-born French émigré Józef Maria Hoëne-Wroński.
Among other things, Wroński was a mathematician. He therefore brought a dose of Neo-Pythagoreanism into his metaphysician speculations, which he also communicated to Lévi.
Similarly to his star pupil (Lévi), Wroński himself “was well versed in Kabbalah, Boehme, and Gnosticism.”[63]
No word on what would have become of Alphonse Louis Constant without his fateful encounter with his obscure Polish master. But it may well be that just as it was Lévi’s “work [which] formed ‘the narrow channel through which the whole Western tradition of magic flowed to the modern era’,”[64] it was Wroński’s work through which important aspects of that tradition were communicated to Lévi.
9. The Men Behind Cagliostro (III): Baal Shem of London
With those, later historical developments in place, let’s return to Cagliostro. You see, among the mysterious count’s teachers was yet another rabbinical “Shem Tov.”
In this case, we’re referring to Rabbi Ḥayyim Samuel Jacob Falk,[65] otherwise called the “Baal Shem of London.”
Apparently, Londoners referred to him as “Doctor Falken”[66] – which creates a curious “synch” with the reclusive computer genius by the same name from the 1983 movie War Games.
He “claimed descent from King David.”[67]
Rabbi Falk emerged out of “Shabbateanism,”[68] that is, a modified, messianic form of Judaism.
Shabbateanism sought to preserve the legacy of Sabbatai Zevi, whom we mentioned in passing moments ago, and whom we sketched in “Top 10 ‘Sex-Magic’ Cults.”
Like several entrants on this list, Falk “became known early as a magician…”.[69] And like Cagliostro and Saint-Germain, specifically, Falk had numerous run-ins with civil authorities. Apparently, he was almost executed in Germany for practicing sorcery and witchcraft.
In one dark episode, for example, Falk supposedly “sacrifice[d]… [a] black calf” in the presence of several noblemen,[70] one of whom saw his valet suffer a fatal injury to his spine.[71] According to the report, the unnamed “young man” had his neck so “twisted” that, “had he lived after the accident that [in fact] took his life, could have only seen backward.”[72]
Falk decamped for England where, initially, he was on the “outs” with the Jewish community in London,[73] perhaps because he was laboring under suspicion of “fraud” and heresy – accusations that had been thrown at him by influential German Talmudist Jacob Emden, who had ties to the city.[74]
However, again as with Cagliostro and Saint-Germain – as well as with numerous other occultists, such as Jacob Frank – Falk managed to secure financial assistance from a wealthy family.[75] When he died, Falk was “in relatively affluent circumstances…”.[76]
Falk’s relationship with the broader community improved when he reportedly “saved the Great Synagogue from destruction by fire by means of a magical inscription” – presumably, representation of the Tetragrammaton – “which he [applied] to the doorposts.”[77]
Doctor Falken supposedly had an unnatural-seeming silver candelabrum that illuminated his study without visible use of conventional oil or wax. And – like Saint-Germain – it was said of him that he could subsist for long periods of time without eating or drinking.[78]
By feats such as these, “…he achieved notoriety in both Jewish and non-Jewish circles for his Kabbalistic practices based on the used of the mysterious Name of God, hence becoming known as a Ba’al Shem (‘Master of the [Divine] Name’).”[79]
Among other things, Falk was believed to be able to effect cures by manufacturing and using “Kabbalistic talismans”.[80] By wielding a magic wand constructed from a “rolled-up scroll,”[81] the Baal Shem of London seemed to exert “control over angelic spirits”.[82]
According to the esteemed British Jewish historian Cecil Roth, Falk maintained some sort of “kabbalistic laboratory on” the symbolically charged London Bridge.[83]
It may have been Saint-Germain who “personally initiated” Cagliostro “into the Lodge of Illuminists at his castle in Holstein,”[84] but it was “[t]he Rabbi Jacob Falk [who] taught [him] sex magic…”.[85]
10. The Man Behind the ‘Illuminati’: Kolmer
Perhaps no word provokes as many strong reactions – whether out of curiosity, derision, or enthusiasm – as “Illuminati” (and its cognates).
The term has so many colloquial and technical variations that it would be best if I saved its exploration for a dedicated study. Still, I can’t help but to introduce it, here, on account of its relevance for this particular investigation.
Often imagined representing the upper echelon of an all-encompassing, global, economic-and sociopolitical control apparatus, it was established in Bavaria, in what is now Germany – as a bona fide, quasi-Masonic organization.
It was founded in 1776, no less (which, you’ll probably agree, was a pretty important year as far as world-historic events go).
The key player was a twenty-something year old law professor named Adam Weishaupt.
The story of the Illuminati is extraordinarily tangled and it is frequently difficult to separate fact from fiction. The “official record” – if there is such a thing – associates the group with some minor characters such as the German writer Adolph Knigge.
Its goals were said to be furtherance of the sort of anti-clerical and anti-monarchical program that one would expect from an Enlightenment-era movement.
And, according to the surface-level narrative, the Bavarian Order of the Illuminati was outlawed – along with other secret societies – and disbanded sometime between 1784 and 1787.
There is, however, no shortage of dissenting opinions on these – and other – pertinent matters. But, more interesting for us, at present, is the observation that the Order of the Illuminati was linked with more prominent individuals: for example, the 18th-19th-century German “animal-magnetism” theorist, Franz Anton Mesmer, and the previously named Count Cagliostro. That, and (of course) the further fact of the claimed influence of yet another “mystery man.”
Nesta Webster wrote of him: “Kolmer remains the most mysterious of all the mystery men of his day…”.[86]
That such a man may have been behind Weishaupt is extraordinary. For consider that Weishaupt has been linked both to the Jesuits[87] and to the Rothschild banking powerhouse.[88]
We intend to probe these topics more fully in upcoming videos. For example, stay tuned for “10 Precursors to the Bavarian Illuminati.”
Copyright 2023, TheSynchroMystic. All rights reserved.
[1] The term “Gnosticism” was said to have been coined by Cambridge Neoplatonist Henry More. See Michael Williams, “Gnosticism,” Encyclopedia Britannica, <https://www.britannica.com/topic/gnosticism>.
[2] Such as “Esotericism,” “Hermeticism,” “Mysticism,” and “Neoplatonism.”
[3] It fed into various streams of philosophy as well and, along with other currents (such as Aristotelianism, Cynicism, and Stoicism), resulted in so-called “Middle Platonism.” Middle Platonism, in turn, combined with Neo-Pythagoreanism and issued in Neoplatonism which, confusingly enough, “back fed” into Gnosticism.
[4] It derives from even older forms, such as those of Media and Persia. It shows up in references such as to the “Magi” who paid tribute to the Christ child in the New Testament.
[5] Acts 8:20; New International Version.
[6] Rosemary Ellen Guiley, The Encyclopedia of Magic and Alchemy, New York: Infobase; Checkmark Books, 2006, p. 294.
[7] Alternately spelled “Dositheus.” His Wiki article (“Dositheos (Samaritan),” Jun. 25, 2022, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dositheos_(Samaritan)>) gives “Nathanael” as an alias, justifying the variant by remarking that both names mean “gift of god.”
[8] Samaritans have an interesting history. You’ll recall that King David had ruled over a united kingdom (ca. 11th – 10th centuries, B.C.) – as did David’s son, Solomon (10th c. B.C.). But when Solomon died (a typical date given is 930 B.C.), the kingdom split into Northern and Southern halves, both of which were eventually conquered. The Southern Kingdom, called Judah, is usually said to have survived until around 587 or 586 B.C., when it was taken over by Neo-Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar II. But the Northern Kingdom of Israel didn’t last as long. It fell to Neo-Assyria; the Northern Kingdom’s capital, Samaria, was overrun circa 722 / 721 B.C. So, the story goes that the “Samaritans” were (and, I suppose, still are) a remnant that claims descent from the original inhabitants of the Northern Kingdom who managed to remain in Samaria after the arrival of the Assyrian invaders. The history is complicated by the “return” of exiled Jews from Babylon after the Neo-Babylonian Empire was displaced by the Persian. A number of factions arose within the religion of Judaism, with the Pharisees and Sadducees being prominent representatives. Main differences lie in the facts that the former maintained bases of operation in small assembly houses (called “synagogues”) and insisted on adherence to a so-called “Oral Law” in addition to the written books of (what we would commonly know as) the Old Testament; Pharisaic Judaism morphed into Rabbinic Judaism. The latter Sadducees – as high priests – were headquartered in the Temple. Both the Sadducees and the Samaritans rejected the “Oral Torah,” but had other differences (including ethnic / racial). These were exacerbated by military conflicts (especially the campaign of John Hyrcanus, circa 128 B.C.). By the time of Jesus of Nazareth, the Samaritans held to their pre-rabbinical form of Judaism and were considered “outsiders” from the viewpoint of mainline Judaism.
[9] Guiley, loc. cit.
[10] “Dositheos…,” op. cit.
[11] Loc. cit.
[12] New York: Mentor Omega Books, 1962. Cf. <https://books.google.com/books?id=d6C5DgAAQBAJ>.
[13] Richard Wilhelm, “Introduction,” The I Ching, or Book of Changes,” [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1967, n.p.,] qtd. by Mitch Horowitz, Occult America, New York: Bantam, 2010, p. 8. Wilhelm is writing on the views of Confucius and Lao-tse, but could just as easily be discoursing on Platonism.
[14] Antoine Faivre, Western Esotericism: A Concise History, Christine Rhone, transl., Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 2010, p. 26.
[15] He may also have once been a student of the Alexandrian Christian theologian, Origen.
[16] Elizabeth DePalma Digeser, A Threat to Public Piety: Christians, Platonists, and the Great Persecution, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 2012, <https://books.google.com/books?id=K_2tDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA74>; citing Porphyry, Plotinus, 3.16.
[17] See Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction, New York & Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2008, p. 55.
[18] Some alchemical – or, at least, pro-chemical – opinions presented in Albert’s De mineralibus (ca. 1248-1262). However, more overtly alchemical-magical texts – preëminently, the grimoire known variously as the Grand Albert or the Secreta Alberti – are now believed to have been falsely attributed to Albertus Magnus (and, thus, belong to what is called the pseudo-Albertine literature).
[19] Reuchlin’s mature thought, including Neo-Pythagorean elements, is on full display in De Arte Cabalistica (“On the Art of the Cabala”), published in 1516.
[20] “Jesus” is rendered as an expansion of the holy Tetragrammaton, or the “Four Letters” – YHWH or JHVH – which signify Yahweh or Jehovah. In the Christian-Cabalist analysis, the name of Jesus (IESU) is Kabbalistically equivalent to (or may be rendered as) the Pentagrammaton: “Five Letters,” given as YHSWH or IESVE, and yielding (something like) “Yeshua,” which is a Hebrew name translating to “Joshua” …or Jesus.
[21] Though, Agrippa also knew the brothers Agostino and Paolo Ricci, the latter responsible for translating (1515) a major Kabbalistic work titled (in Latin) Portæ Lucis, and (in Hebrew) Sha’arei Ora, both meaning “Gates of Light,” written by the 13th-century Rabbi Joseph Gikatilla. Giktilla had studied under Abraham Abulafia.
[22] Book 1 dealt with “natural magic,” such as the use of herbs and stones, as pertained to the terrestrial elements. Book 2 concerned itself with “mathematical magic,” including “magic squares” and numerology, imported from Neo-Pythagoreanism (via Reuchlin), and linked with the “celestial” spheres. Finally, Book 3 focused on “angel magic” – invocations, summonings, and the like – associated with what Agrippa termed the “super-celestial” realm. This book, in particular, earned him a reputation as a black magician who made pacts with demons. A “Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy” – pertaining to ceremonial magic and geomancy – was published several decades after Agrippa’s death. However, Agrippa’s student Johann Weyer maintained that it was falsely attributed to his former master.
[23] Goodrick-Clarke, op. cit., p. 59.
[24] Or, even, that Agrippa “…may have been the centre of [several] secret societies,” all according to Frances Amelia Yates, The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age, London and New York: Routledge, 1999, p. 44.
[25] Additionally, of course, Agrippa influenced later occultists such as Éliphas Lévi, Francis Barrett, and the members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, among others.
[26] “It is usual to speak of Colet, Erasmus and More as the ‘Oxford Reformers,’ but the title is misleading. If they advocated reforms, they did not undertake any. Although they had all three been in Oxford, London was the real centre of their influence.” H. Maynard Smith, “The Catholic Reformers,” chapt. 11, Pre-Reformation England, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1963, <https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-00406-5_12>; <https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-00406-5_12>.
[27] Agrippa was convinced that Roman Catholicism has lost the true faith – as, he believed, was evidenced in the inability of Churchmen to perform miracles. See Goodrick-Clarke, op. cit., p. 59.
[28] Yates, op. cit., p. 45.
[29] Goodrick-Clarke, op. cit., p. 74.
[30] But only officially published in 1606.
[31] Goodrick-Clarke, op. cit., pp. 51-52.
[32] Goodrick-Clarke, op. cit., p. 52.
[33] Guiley, op. cit., p. 321.
[34] See P. Zambelli, “Chapter Three. Magic, Pseudepigraphy, Prophecies and Forgeries in Trithemius’ Manuscripts. From Cusanus to Bovelles?” in the volume White Magic, Black Magic in the European Renaissance, Leiden: Brill, 2007, pp. 73-100, <https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004160989.i-282.11> and <https://brill.com/display/book/9789047421382/Bej.9789004160989.i-282_008.xml>. Trithemius refers to a mysterious, “now lost” text, “attributed to Pelagius of Majorca,” for whom our “only witness is Trithemius”, ibid. Cf. Michael >Hoffman, The Occult Renaissance Church of Rome, Coeur d’Alene, Id.: Independent History and Researc, 2017, p. 243, who calls both Labanius and Pelagius “imaginary sages,” as well as “Frater Acher,” who refers to Pelagius as an “invented persona” in “Paracelsus & Trithemius – Musings on a Bewitched Relationship,” Theo Magica [weblog], Feb. 1, 2022, <https://theomagica.com/blog/paracelsus-and-trithemius>.
[35] See Hoffman, op. cit., pp. 238ff, where he repeatedly refers to Trithemius’s unnamed “handlers.”
[36] Guiley, op. cit., p. 321.
[37] The title was affixed posthumously.
[38] Goodrick-Clarke, op. cit., p. 59.
[39] E. J. Ashworth, “Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni,” p. 619. Significantly, Ashworth demurs on almost all the standard summaries of Pico. Pico “…hoped to write a Concord of Plato and Aristotle”; so, he shouldn’t be considered a “Neoplatonist” in an unqualified sense. Pico “is often described as a syncretist” – as I have done – “but in fact he made it clear that the truth of Christianity has priority over the prisca theologia or ancient wisdom found in the hermetic corpus and the cabala.” Finally, Ashworth thinks that the interpretation of Pico as announcing an almost unrestricted capacity for individual liberty has to be checked by the facts that: firstly, in his Heptaplus (1489), Pico downplays human freedom. Secondly, Ashworth insists that Pico’s anthropology interprets mankind “as a microcosm” of the universe and “thus firmly within the hierarchy of nature…”. (All quotations, ibid.) It seems to me, however, that the stated aim of reconciling Aristotle and Plato belies Ashworth’s rejection of Pico’s syncretism. Furthermore, that Pico gave “Christianity …priority” over Hermeticism must be assessed in light of the Pico’s overall Neoplatonizing tendencies and his “Christian Cabalism.” In other words, it would be a colossal mistake to read Pico’s supposed ranking of “Christianity” over Hermeticism as a preservation of Medieval Scholasticism or Thomism. The caveats about Pico’s endorsement of the notion of alchemical correspondence between humans (as microcosm) and the universe (as macrocosm) are well taken. But, maybe the point is that, divested of his Hermeticism (as occurred during the Enlightenment), Pico’s praise of human freedom takes on larger proportions.
[40] Goodrick-Clarke, op. cit., p. 193. In Lévi’s conception, “…the primary function of magic was to enable the magician to focus and direct his will.” Ibid.
[41] Colette Sirat, A History of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages, reprint ed., New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, p. 410, <https://books.google.com/books?id=XKkSDZNVXX4C&pg=pa410>. Alemanno was also regarded as a Neoplatonist.
[42] Frances Amelia Yates, The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age, London and New York: Routledge, 1999, p. 22.
[43] Brian Copenhaver, “Giovanni Pico della Mirandola,” Edward N. Zalta, ed., Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2020 ed., <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/pico-della-mirandola/>. Copenhaver elsewhere remarked: “Kabbalah, which Pico saw as the holier Hebrew analog of the gentile ‘ancient theology’ revealed by Marsilio Ficino, is provocatively on display in the 900 Conclusions: 119 of them, including the final and culminating 72, are Kabbalist theses—outlandishly Kabbalist from a Christian point of view. …Because of its Mosaic origin, Kabbalah was holier to Pico than the pagan wisdom that Ficino had traced to Zoroaster and Hermes Trismegistus, in ancient Chaldaea and Egypt, where Ficino found the beginnings of Platonic philosophy.” Ibid. At the same time, Pico wrote subtly. Again, Copenhaver: “Large portions of the Oration, drawing on these texts, are also informed by Kabbalah in ways that no contemporary Christian could have detected—least of all a Christian who lacked the clues provided by the Conclusions.” Ibid.
[44] “A Wider World, I,” <http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/vatican.exhibit/exhibit/h-orient_to_rome/Orient_to_rome.html>.
[45] Menachem E. Arton, updated by Nadia Zeldes, “Mithridates, Flavius,” Fred Skolnik and Michael Berenbaum, eds., Encyclopedia Judaica, 2nd ed., vol. 14, Detroit: Thomson Gale; Jerusalem: Keter Publ. House, 2007, p. 370.
[46] Arton and Zeldes (ibid.) state that “…in his writings, Mithridates in very explicit about his homosexuality…”. This is suggestive, since Pico is also alleged to have had male lovers. “Quattrocento humanists, based largely in Florence and including such notable figures as Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, vigorously explored a Neo-Platonism with …inherent homosexual overtones. … See Leonard Barkin’s Transuming Passion: Ganymede and the Erotics of Humanism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991) and James Saslow’s Ganymede in the Renaissance: Homosexuality in Art and Society (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986). Marsilio Ficino (1443-99), whose influential commentary on Plato’s Symposium, 1469, questioned (in the form of a dialogue) the inclusion of “desire” in [“?]friendship.” Pico della Mirandola (1463-94) and the poet Girolamo Benivieni “wrote passionate sonnets to each other and were buried in the same tomb in San Marco, like husband and wife,” although the poet died 40 years after Pico. Saslow admits that there is “little concrete evidence to suggest that Ficino’s deep love for Giovanni Cavalcanti—whom he enthroned as the hero of his annual symposium commemorating the death of Plato on November 7—was anything other than chaste.” Likewise, there are no explicit accounts of sexual activity between the Pico and Benivieni. (Saslow, Ganymede, 29).” From Robert Diamond, A Gay Neoclassical Movement, thesis, master of arts, Stony Brook, N.Y.: Stony Brook Univ., May 2012, p. 6, footnote 14, <https://ir.stonybrook.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11401/76793/Diamond_grad.sunysb_0771M_10949.pdf>.
[47] Yates, op. cit., p. 22.
[48] Ibid.
[49] “Through Pletho,” also, “ancient doctrines of the Chaldeans and Pythagoreans were transmitted to the West.” According to Deno J. Geanakopols, “Pletho, Giorgius Gemistus (1355-1452),” 1967; updated by Katerina Ierodiakonou, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2005; archived at Encyclopedia.com, <https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/pletho-giorgius-gemistus-c-1355-1452>.
[50] See George Karamanolis, “George Gemistus Plethon,” Henrik Lagerlund, ed., Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy: Philosophy Between 500 and 1500, Dordrecht & New York: Springer, 2011, p. 390, <https://books.google.com/books?id=x5FiMR3kd_8C&pg=PA390>. Alternative spellings are: Elisaeus and Eliseus.
[51] Mysteries of the Unknown: Secrets of the Alchemists, vol. 21, Time-Life, p. 102.
[52] Or Athotas.
[53] We would also want to situate many important French thinkers – e.g., Denis Diderot, Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Voltaire – in the vicinity. And, of course, we would need to deal with Immanuel Kant.
[54] Op. cit., p. 59.
[55] To put it another way, Saint-Germain, and – perhaps – his students (such as Cagliostro), essentially utilized the results of Illuminism in sense number two (rational-empirical investigation and the primitive – by our lights – technology that it produced) to fake possession of Illuminism in sense number one (i.e., “Gnosis”)!
[56] That is, the alleged attempt to transliterate “Alphonse Louis” into Hebrew letters.
[57] Goodrick-Clarke, op. cit., p. 195.
[58] “Theosophy” merely designates the “wisdom of God.” I write “theosopher” in order to distinguish Swedenborg from the disciples (and offshoots) of H. P. Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society (founded 1875), who are generally called theosophists.
[59] Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany.
[60] Or Shabbetai Ẓevi, Shabbeṯāy Ṣeḇī, Shabsai Tzvi, Sabbatai Zvi, etc.
[61] The Occult Underground, La Salle, Ill.: Open Court Publ. Co.l Library Press, 1974, p. 253.
[62] Ibid.
[63] Goodrick-Clarke, op. cit., p. 192.
[64] Goodrick-Clarke, op. cit., p. 195; quoting Ronald Decker, Thierry Depaulis, and Michael Dummett, A Wicked Pack of Cards: The Origins of the Occult Tarot, London: Duckworth, 1996, p. 168.
[65] Alternatively spelled Chaim Schmul Falck.
[66] Or “Doctor Falckon.”
[67] Raphael Patai, The Jewish Alchemists, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1994, p. 456.
[68] Again, alternatively spelled “Sabbatæanism,” “Sabbateanism,” “Sabbatianism,” etc.
[69] Cecil Roth, “Falk, Samuel Jacob Ḥayyim,” Encyclopædia Judaica, vol. 6, Jerusalem: Keter, 1972, p. 1159. Cf. Patai, op. cit., p. 455: “early” in his “career” he was “primarily a magician and conjurer…”.
[70] Patai records the testimony as referring to the “Comte de Westerloh” and the “Duc de Richelieu,” p. 460. The latter appears to have been Louis François Armand de Vignerot du Plessis. I have so far been unable to ascertain the identify of the former personage. “Westerloh” could be Westerloo/Westerlo; if so, Jean Philippe Eugène de Merode might have been a candidate, except he seems to have died too soon. (Patai wrote that Rantzow recorded his impressions between 1736 and 1739; Jean Philippe Eugène de Merode died in 1732. Of course, it is possible that Rantzow’s observations were recorded some years after the events they purport to describe.) Jean Philippe’s son, Philippe-Maximilien, was born in 1729, which suggests that he would have been far too young to have been a perceptive or reliable observer.
[71] Patai, op. cit., p. 460; quoting George Louis Albert de Rantzow.
[72] Patai, op. cit., p. 457; quoting George Louis Albert de Rantzow
[73] Though, Joseph Jacobs and Herman Adler report that Falk was “[r]eceived in London with hospitality” and that “Falk rapidly gained fame as a cabalist and worker of miracles, and many stories of his powers were current.” Joseph Jacobs and Herman Adler, “Falk, Ḥayyim Samuel Jacob (Also Known as De Falk, Dr. Falk, or Falkon),” Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906, <https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5992-falk-hayyim-samuel-jacob>.
[74] For example, Jacob Emden’s son, Israel Emden (known as Meshullam Zalman, or Meshullam Solomon) was Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom from about 1765 to 1780. See “Emden, Jacob,” Wikipedia, Nov. 22, 2022, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Emden>; citing Jacob Emden, Megilat Sefer: The Autobiography of Rabbi Jacob Emden (1697–1776), PublishYourSefer.com, p. 353, <https://books.google.com/books?id=dOfOc56BFdkC&pg=PA353>.
[75] In Falk’s case, the Goldsmids: “Falk’s principal friends were the London bankers Aaron Goldsmid and his son.” Jacobs and Adler, loc. cit.
[76] Roth, op. cit., p. 1160.
[77] Roth, op. cit., p. 1159.
[78] Jacobs and Adler, loc. cit.
[79] Roth, op. cit., p. 1159. Falk seems to have seen himself as a liberator for his coreligionists. See Patai, op. cit., p. 458.
[80] Patai, op. cit., p. 458.
[81] Patai, op. cit., p. 584, end note #3 (for chapt. 36).
[82] Patai, op. cit., p. 459.
[83] At least, according to Roth! (Op. cit., p. 1159; emphasis supplied.) Falk also operated “a private synagogue in his house in Wellclose Square…,” ibid.
[84] Guiley, op. cit., p. 283.
[85] Gary Lachman, “Why Mrs. Blake Cried by Marsha Keith Schuchard: The Lineaments of Gratified Desire,” book review, Independent (U.K.), Mar. 12, 2006, <https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/why-mrs-blake-cried-by-marsha-keith-schuchard-469652.html>; archived at <https://web.archive.org/web/20100426235430/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/why-mrs-blake-cried-by-marsha-keith-schuchard-469652.html>.
[86] Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, London: Boswell, 1924, pp. 131 and 139.
[87] For instance, the Wikipedia article “Adolph Freiherr Knigge,” states that, upon his falling out with Weishaupt: “He [i.e., Knigge] accused Weishaupt of ‘Jesuitism’, and suspected him of being ‘a Jesuit in disguise’.” In fact, this is simply lifted from the entry “Illuminati,” in the Catholic Encyclopedia. See Hermann Gruber, “Illuminati,” Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 7, New York: Robert Appleton Co., 1910, [p. 661b]; online at <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07661b.htm> and <https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tce/i/illuminati.html>. The encyclopedist’s parenthetical citation (in situ), reads: “Nachtr., I, 129.” Presumably, this stands for “nachtrag” and works out either to Adam Weishaupt, Nachtrag von weiteren Originalschriften [“Addendum of Other Original Writings”], München: Zu haben bey J. Lindauer, 1787 (see <https://www.worldcat.org/title/6760782>) or Nachtrag zur Rechtfertigung meiner Absichten (“Addendum Justifying My Intentions”), Frankfurt und Leipzig,: privately printed, 1787 (see <https://www.worldcat.org/title/919702064>). Cf. <http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xWl8a9Jl-1kJ:worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n84193453&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us>.
[88] See the comments from Joseph “Doc” Marquis, in Christian J. Pinto, Eye of the Phoenix, dvd, N.p.: Antiquities Research Films, 2008; <https://www.worldcat.org/title/430836014>.