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The Count of Saint Germain And The Secret of Immortality |
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Diego Antolini |
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The
Count of Saint Germain was a controversial figure of the 18th-Century
Europe, where intrigues and court’s secrets intertwined with the
bold actions of individuals: it was the time of wizards, lights and
alchemists.
Saint Germain's life has been the subject of
numerous articles and at least one book which, since his death
(1784), have not shed full light upon the real figure of this
peculiar character. Marked as a charlatan by many, considered
immortal by others, his deeds crossed the 1700 of Bach and Mozart
like a Bohemian
rhapsody.
The first of many mysteries related to Saint
Germain concerns his birth. Many scholars believe that he descends
from Francis II, king of the Principality of Transylvania that, at
the time, had made an alliance with the House of Hesse (Francis II
had in fact married with the 16-year-old Charlotte Amalie of
Hessen-Reinfels on September 25, 1694 at the Cathedral of Cologne,
Germany.)
The relationship between Francis I and Charlotte
Amalie resulted in two recognized children; however, at the time of
the publication of Francis II’s will (1737) a third unnamed child
is mentioned as one of the beneficiaries. It was Leopold-George, the
eldest of his sons and therefore a direct heir to the throne of
Transylvania. Leopold-George could have been born in 1691 or 1696,
and it was never possible to determine whether he was the son of
Charlotte of Hesse or of the former wife of Francis II.
Leopold-George was "killed" to save him from a conspiracy
aimed at destroying the Transylvania dynasty and ending the
independence of that territory.
So
it is believed that Leopold-George was none other than the Count of
Saint Germain himself, who (re-)appeared before the European society
around 1743 as a man on his forties.
Nearly nothing is known of
his life before that year, although a dossier on the Count had been
previously compiled by order of Napoleon III. Unfortunately the
dossier burned down in a fire that destroyed the building in which it
was kept. The surviving information indicate that Saint Germain was
trained to become one of the most daring, active and colorful secret
political agents of the 18-Century brotherhood.
Prince
Karl Von Hesse wrote that Saint Germain was raised by the last of the
mighty Medici family in Florence, Italy. Indeed the Medici’s
obsessive interest for mystery or mysteriosophical philosophies was
well known and, under their care, Saint Germain had allegedly studied
at the University of Siena, Italy.
At the time of Saint
Germain’s entry into society, the Jacobite cause was rather
pressing and, in the next two years (1745,) the invasion of Scotland
would ensue. During these two years Saint Germain resided in London.
It seems that he was a talented musician and many of his compositions
were performed at the Little Haymarket Theatre.
The
British authorities, however, didn’t believe that Saint Germain was
in London to pursue a music career, and in December 1745, as the Jacobite pressed forward, he was arrested on suspicion of being a
Jacobite agent. He was released only when the alleged letters of
Charles Edward, leader of the Stuart invasion, were not found on him.
Once free, Saint Germain left England and spent one year hosted by
Prince Ferdinand Von Lobkowitz, prime minister of the Austrian
Emperor. During this period the Count was introduced to the Marshal
de Belle-Isle, the French war minister who, in turn, opened the doors
of France to him.
Over the next three years nothing is
known of Saint Germain’s deeds. He reappeared again in 1749 as a
guest of King Louis XV of France, likely working as his political
agent.
During the repression of the Brotherhood that occurred
throughout France following the edict of the king and the bull of
Pope Clement, Saint Germain, a high-degree Freemason, was at the
French court. This seemingly enigmatic paradox can be explained only
with the ignorance of the king about the Count’s real involvement
inside the Brotherhood, but also by assuming that Saint Germain
possessed essential intelligence about the French support to the
Jacobite.
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After another “dark period” in the life of
Saint Germain, we seeh him again in 1755 en route to India alongside
the English commander Robert Clive who was going to fight the French
army.
According to some biographers, Saint Germain was an agent
in incognito for the French court, for on his return to France in
1758 he was awarded with quarters in the royal palace of Chambord. He
was also granted a laboratory with all the necessary equipment to
perform chemical and alchemical experiments. Of his alleged knowledge
of the secrets of Alchemy was a matter of gossip in every corner of
the French court. Saint Germain claimed to possess the Elixir of
Immortality, that is, a formula that made a man physically immortal.
There were others, especially among the Rosicrucians,
that were claiming the same thing in that same period.
In 1760
Saint Germain left France and moved to l’Hague, The Netherlands.
This occurred at the height of the Seven Years War, and Holland had
declared itself neutral in the conflict.
Officially
the Count said that he was in l’Hague to negotiate peace between
England and France, but the dignitaries of either country had not
received any letter from their respective governments and, therefore,
the Duke of Choiseul, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, ordered
the arrest of Saint Germain. He managed to escape from The
Netherlands and took refuge in London with the help of the Count of
Bentinck.
Only in 1770 Saint Germain managed to return to
France. Prince de Galitzin, a Russian dignitary in England, wrote
later that the mission of Saint Germain in Holland was of financial
nature, and it was top secret: to exploit the union between Princess
Caroline an Prince of Nassau-Dillenburg to establish a “fund” in
favor of France through Dutch bankers, as confirmed by the French
Ambassador D’Affrey. This mission he was unable to accomplish due
to his sudden escape.
After the short stay in London the
Count of Saint Germain secretly returns to Paris (1760) where,
hosted by the Anhalt-Zerbst family, first witnesses the marriage
between Princess Catherine II and Prince Peter III of Russia and
then, when the latter ascends to the throne, goes to St. Petersburg
where he helps Catherine II to dethrone Peter III and take control of
the Russian Empire (with the support of the Orloff family.) As a
reward for his services, Saint Germain was appointed general of the
Russian army and Catherine II, of German origins, who later became
“Catherine The Great” was to reign over Russia for twenty-nine
years.
Between 1763 and 1769 the veil of mystery descends
again over Saint Germain’s activities. He left Russia for Berlin,
and then he traveled to other European locations.
With the death
of King Louis XV ended also the French court’s support to Saint
Germain. The new king, Louis XVI, called Choiseul to power and
opposed the Count openly until he was forced to leave France forever.
Saint Germain went to Germany under the protection of William IX of
Hesse, the prince who will inherit the immense fortune of the
Hesse-Kassels
The
date of the alleged death of the Count of Saint Germain is 1784, at
lease according to the records of the Eckenforde’s Church which
note: “Died on February 27, buried on March 2, 1784”.)
Only
after his death his true involvement with the Brotherhood was fully
exposed. Saint Germain was not only one of its members of the highest
degree, but he was described as being physically immortal, for he
couldn’t age nor die. A large number of contemporaries claimed to
have seen Saint Germain in impossible periods. One of them was the
Baron E.H.Gleichen that, in its memoirs published in 1868
wrote:
“I’ve heard Rameau and a relative of the French
ambassador in Venice testify of having met Saint Germain in 1710 as a
man in his fifties.”
If the Count was 50 in 1710 he
would have been 124 years old at the time of his death. There are
some, however, that are not convinced he actually died in 1784.
A
German magazine of mysticism, the Magazine der Beweisfuhrer fur
Verurtheilung des Freimaurer-Ordens claimed in 1857 that Saint
Germain was one of the French representatives at the Masonic
Convention in Paris in 1785, that is, one year after his official
death. Writer Cantu Cesare, in his work The Heretics of Italy,
described the presence of Saint Germain at the famous Masonic
conference of Wulhelmsbad in that same year, 1785.
Such reports
support those who believe that Saint Germain had forged his death-
for a second time
in order to escape from the dangers and scandals he was continuously
exposed to.
Countess
D’Adhemar, a member of the French court, swore to have seen Saint
Germain several times after 1784 and always in conjunction with
situations of serious political crisis. For example, she said that
Saint Germain had sent warnings to the king and queen of France
(Louis
XVI
and Marie Antoinette) shortly before the outbreak of the French
Revolution in 1789. She also said to have seen him in 1793, 1804,
1813 and 1820.
Madame Helena Blavatsky, co-founder of the
Theosophical Society, declared that Saint Germain was one of the
Hidden Masters of Tibet who controlled the fate of the world in
secret.
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In
1919 a man who claimed to be Saint Germain appeared in Hungary just
when the red cloak of Communismo had begun to spread over the nation.
Finally, in 1930, a man named Guy Ballard said that he met Saint
Germain on Mount Shasta in California (a mountain well known by
researchers of exobiology and esotericism as being one of the
entrances to underground realms inhabited by non-terrestrial beings,)
and helped him to establish a new lodge called “I AM.”
We
can notices similarities in the life and mystery of Saint Germain and
Cagliostro (See the first article of the Hermetic Triad): of both
little is known about the origins; both were labeled as charlatans
once they revealed their magical or mystical knowledge about Alchemy.
Saint Germain, beside being a proven skilled political spy, had
claimed, within close circles of friends and adepts, to have lived
many centuries and known both King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
However,
to limit Saint Germain’s profile only to his deeds in political
intrigues and dismissing his esoteric claims as forged lies would be
a big mistake. In chemistry, that he had certainly studied with
masters from the several courts in which was hosted (most likely,
Germany) he possessed a vast knowledge, perhaps exaggerated by his
colorful stories such as the removal of defects from diamonds, the
transmutation of metals in gold, and the Elixir of Immortality.
Other
alchemical secrets he may have learned during his travels in Mexico
and the Near East (Constantinople), and later used them in executing
the victorious plan which brought Catherine II to the throne of
Russia. Success made possible thanks to “something”, an object
perhaps, that was allegedly capable to increase the traditional
energies of the Rurik Crystals.
The memoirs of Cagliostro
confirm that the Count founded the Freemasonry in Germany, as well as
having initiated Cagliostro himself to the Masonic rite of
Memphis-Misraim during their famous encounter in London. It seems
that Saint Germain had a magnificient collection of precious stones
which some believed to be artificial, while others swore upon their
authenticity.
The most persistent rumors about Saint Germain
concerned his presumed discovery of the secret of immortality, and
how he had only shared this secret with only a selected few.
What
is certain is that the Europe at the time of the Enlightenment had
developed over a layer of mysticism and strong interest for the
occult which never faded away. On the contrary, with the founding of
the Theosophical Society and the rising of Nazism, such obsessive
interest was pushed to its extremes.
From this perspective both
the Count of Saint Germain and Cagliostro had managed to “ride the
wave” on these subjects, using them to manipulate people, events,
and the fate of nations. |
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08/07/2020 09:23:40 |
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