In the Pronaos of the Temple of Wisdom

physical form was born in Italy and received the name Giuseppe Balsamo. The latter was incarcerated in the castle San Angelo at Rome, and is believed to have died in one of its dungeons. The problem of Cagliostro will not be solved by our historians until they study the true nature of man in its normal and abnormal aspects, when they may, perhaps, discover the fact that two personalities may inhabit one physical organism, and that a man may, perhaps, be a Cagliostro at one time and a Balsamo at another. *

I have carefully read the proceedings of the trial of the renowned Count Cagliostro before the tribunal of the inquisition in Rome, and I have found no proof whatever of his having been an impostor. To everyone acquainted with even the elementary teachings of occultism, the phenomena which occurred in his presence do not appear at all unexplainable, or as having been the products of imposture; but what appears wonderful is the illogical consequence and ignorance of the witnesses for the prosecution, who admit the occurrence of phenomena in his presence, which could not have been produced by his tricks, while in the same breath they denounce him to be an impostor.

To arts of this kind belongs that of making pure gold or silver artificially, of transforming base metals into nobler ones; of preparing a Universal Panacea out of the principle of Life; of curing all diseases; of preparing a lamp which, by the manner in which it burns, indicates the state of health of an absent friend, with whom it is sympathetically connected; of producing a similar sympathetic or magnetic connection between a person and a jewel, a tree, or a mirror; of producing a living miniature image of the world in a closed glass globe; of causing the forms of vegetables or animals to reappear out of their ashes after they have been burnt; of producing artificially man (Homunculi) without the assistance of a female organism; of preparing a fluid, which rises and falls within the bottle where it is contained, according to the increasing or decreasing moon; of preparing a glass wherein it will thunder, and lightning will appear, whenever the same takes place in the air; of producing an inextinguishable

p. 42