[UA] Occult Personages (was: Outdated Archetypes)

[Royal Minister of Stuff]

--- WingedCoyote at aol.com wrote:
> 
> I've been hearing a lot of Cagliostro references,
> but never knew who he was. 
> Can anybody help me out here? For that matter, I'd
> also like to know a little 
> bit more about the historical Comte, and/or any
> other somewhat relevant 
> "occult" historical figures you happen to know
> about.
> 
HaHa! A glorious excuse to post!

As a matter of fact, I'm a big fan of Cagliostro (his
real name was probably Giusseppe Balsamo, although the
Theosophical dictionary disagrees at:
www.theosociety.org/pasadena/etgloss/ca-ce.htm

He also shows up as a master magician with freemasonic
overtones at:

www.freemasonwatch.freepress-freespeech.com/frenchrevolution.html



Regardless, the fat bastard's one of my favorite
historical rogues. 

He's kind of a cut-rate St. Germaine (and may even
have pretended to such an office once or twice.)  

You can find lots and lots of information on him
scattered around the web, but some odd places he pops
up are as the heroic knight version of Todd
McFarlane's Spawn (played by Nicol "Seven Percent
Solution" Williamson in the excreble) and as a Dr.
Strange villain.

Here's a quick and dirty bio which I like:

www.sigma.net/ozbot/marvelhandbook/abcd/cagliostro.htm

(I'm just kidding. It's really the Marvel superheroes
write up for Cagliostro as Dr. Strange's enemy.)

Seriously, here's a bust of him:
www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/gg56/gg56-41445.0.html

He was probably a charlatan and he definitely had a
lovely wife and he was most certainly put to death.

The most shocking view of Cagliostro I've come across
is in the on-line Catholic encyclopedia:

www.newadvent.org/cathen/07698b.htm

which says some things Freemasons hope are true and
the more lunatic fringe demands are true.

Anyway, Cagliostro is one of the big names of what UA
refers to as old style occultism.  I'd figure most
people in the Occult Underground to have at least
heard of Cagliostro (along with Dr. John Dee, maybe
"Earless Ed" Kelly, Eliphas "inconstant" Levi, Albert
"Hey! Hey! Hey!" Magnus, The Mighty Agrippa -God of
the Aqueduct- and the quite possibly imaginary
Abra-Melin.)

Oh, here, just look at this Very Serious list:

http://www.themystica.com/mystica/pages/people.htm

=====
-- Rp Bowman, Royal Minister of Stuff
The Electronic Nation of Yokeltania:
http://www.geocities.com/yokeltania/

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Movies - coverage of the 74th Academy Awards®
http://movies.yahoo.com/

_______________________________________________
UA mailing list
UA at lists.uchicago.edu
http://lists.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/ua