Homage to Cagliostro

Alessandro di Cagliostro, self-styled Count (and other things), f/k/a Giuseppe Balsamo, 18th century Freemason (of sorts), alchemist, magician, adventurer, con-man, forger, imposter and adventurer. spent his life defrauding the great and not-so-great of the Age of Enlightenment with remarkable success.  In a way he makes a mockery of that time, supposedly one featuring the triumph of reason over superstition.  As far as demonstrating its lack of reason, he's far better at it than the many Romantics of the 19th century and the postmoderns of the 20th, and their successors of the 21st, who try to deny that Age's achievements.  They decried the limits and misapplication of reason; he made great gaping fools of the those who thought themselves reasonable.

He's generally depicted as above, either staring up at the heavens to his right or our left, like Mithras slaying the bull, or to his left our right.  There are many such drawings, paintings and busts of the Count.  Not a bad, or at least not a small, legacy for a relatively poor Sicilian who made good, or bad.  He purported to see a great deal up there, but also everywhere else; spirits, ghosts, treasures revealed to him through his own efforts or through those of his guides, generally angels or fellow mages, though deceased.  Many believed he did, and it seems he managed to live quite well for the most part together with his wife and partner in crime, Serafina, who it seems was quite as adept as he was in making fools of the rich and noble, though perhaps in different ways.  And so, despite being imprisoned now and then, most famously in the Bastille under suspicion of being involved in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, he made his mark on history.

He died in 1795, while imprisoned.  It seems to me he would have managed to show up as a subsidiary player in the French Revolution had he been free, enchanting Robespierre with his discussions with the Supreme Being.

It's interesting how much those he fooled so completely wanted so much to believe that he had occult powers and that there was a vast world of spirits and djinns, angelic and demonic, infesting our lives in the here and now and the afterlife.  And what a success he was in leading them on all sorts of wild goose chases.  Money, jewels, riches of all sorts were his, willingly donate, as it were, by his admirers.  He earned the respect and jealousy even of Casanova, no mean scoundrel himself, who knew him fairly well.  Aleister Crowley thought he was a reincarnation of the Count, and his misdeeds enthrall us even now.  

His great enemy was the Church, of course.  The Inquisition and the Jesuits pursued him and all Freemasons at that time, some even posing to be mystics and magicians themselves in order to learn what was needed to denounce him and others of his ilk.  Casanova himself was a kind of double agent for the Venetian Inquisition after he had fallen on hard times.

Is it possible we owe the agents of the Inquisition thanks for pursuing such con artists, preying on the foolish and hopeful, longing for meaning and gnosis--hidden knowledge known only to initiates?  Or were they merely hoping to do away with a rival encroaching on their territory?

We can't really claim to be more knowing and sophisticated than those he befuddled centuries ago, though.  Crowley managed much the same in bedazzling the gullible in the early 20th century, along with Madame Blavatsky and others.  The Rosicrucians and Freemasons who delved into alchemy, magic and Egyptian and Hermetic lore in Cagliostro's time are with us still, though perhaps not quite as preposterous in this as they once were.

Perhaps now we're merely more inclined to fall for other scams, those more secular and political, but still practiced by enchanters though of another kind.  Which kind of scam will prove more catastrophic for us and the world?

The Curious Conflict of the Church and Masonry

 We're told the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church has now reaffirmed that the Church forbids its members from joining the Freemasons, and that for them to become Masons is a "grave sin."  This has been the Church's position regarding Freemasonry for centuries, since Freemasonry was founded in the 18th century.  The reaffirmation was approved by the Pontifex Maximus himself.  Interestingly, this continued condemnation of Freemasonry was issued contemporaneously with a determination by the Dicastery that transgender people may be baptized, may be godparents and may serve as witnesses at a wedding.  Better transgender than Mason, it seems.

Why does the Church persist in forbidding joining the Masons, while seemingly becoming more inclusive of those once thought sinful or unnatural?

The Church's prohibition of membership in the Masons is interesting in several respects.  Because both institutions prominently feature men (for the most part) dressed up in silly costumes, uttering pretentious phrases and performing peculiar rituals, one would think that they would have much in common.  It appears that this was the opinion of Joseph Keppler, who drew the cartoon gracing the top of this post for Puck magazine in 1884.  The cartoon is called "Two of the Same Kind" and features absurdly dressed Catholic clergy, one of whom seems to be a bishop or perhaps a pope, in battle with absurdly dressed Freemasons.

Perhaps their similarity is the basis for the conflict.  They're rivals, in a sense.  We humans have a taste for gaudy, garish costumes and impressive ritual, particularly in matters of religion.  The Church's condemnation of Masonry appears founded on the belief that Masonry is a religion.  There's some basis for this belief, according to the sometimes invaluable Internet.  I know very little about the Freemasons, but it seems that they extol a supreme being they call the "Divine Architect" (they're supposed to be the successors of medieval masons, after all), and see themselves as servants of that being in the pursuit of a divine plan of sorts, or at least are pleased to say they are in their rituals.  One of the reason past popes have condemned it is that they've considered it to espouse a religion of "naturalism" as opposed, it seems to "supernaturalism."  That would be a point in its favor to some.

They have a fairly complicated system of initiation into several levels of Masonry, regarding which they're sworn to secrecy.  This is similar to the practice of the ancient mystery cults, from which some say they're also derived or intend to mimic.  

What distinguishes Freemasonry from modern religions, particularly those of the Abrahamic tradition, is the fact that it welcomes members of any other religion into its fold.  This may make it particularly dangerous from the perspective of the Church.  At least according to Freemasonry, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims and others are free to become Masons.  There's no need for an initiate to disavow the religion in which they were born or have practiced in order to be a Mason.  Thus the need for the Church to affirmatively forbid Catholics from joining the Masons.

The Church may also see danger in the fact that membership in the Freemasons is said to be beneficial to its members in various secular ways.  It may satisfy the religious yearnings of those who are deists and others, but by all accounts does satisfy the ambition of those hoping to make their way in business or become wealthy.  Masons are said to take care of each other, to grant each other favor or favors in life.  A religion which isn't at all unworldly, then.  Masons may have a reward in heaven because of their beliefs, but in the meantime will be rewarded in this life by other Masons. 

It's not all that surprising, then, that the Church persists in condemning such an attractive religion.