From the Land of the Nile

While modern freemasonry began in 18th century Europe, Freemasonry undoubtedly contains the remnants of bygone eras and forgotten cultures. The Roman mysteries of Mithras, the cult of Dionysus and the ancient art of Alchemy are all referenced and represented by the cryptic narrative passed down by Masonic Ritual. Some of these traditions insist that the collection of rites and rituals now known to the world as Freemasonry have their source in the mystery traditions of ancient Egypt.

The connection between the mysteries of this long vanished society and the relatively modern practice of Freemasonry, was however, established by Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, a contentious figure among Masonic researchers, who has been regarded as a charlatan, a wonder worker, and a devout mystic and profoundly spiritual man. 

 

Born the 2nd of June 1743, Cagliostro grew up in Albergheria, the Jewish Quarter of Sicily. He was educated by his grandfather and uncles, and briefly by the Catholic Order of St. John of God, where he learned chemistry and Catholic ritual. In 1765 Cagliostro arrived on the island of Malta and became an auxiliary of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. The island of Malta had served for centuries as a staging point for military expeditions to and from the Middle East and had served as a waystation for the Knights Templar and similar Orders. Thus, the halls and libraries of the Knights of Malta had long been rumored to be repositories of Alchemical, Kabbalistic and Magical works, works which Cagliostro certainly had access to during his tenure on the island when he became a close associate of the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, Manuel Pinto de Fonseca.

Initiated into Freemasonry in 1777, Cagliostro had previously received the Arcana Arcanorum - a series of Hermetic degrees – from Sir Luigi d’Aquino at some point between 1765 and 1775. During his travels across Europe Cagliostro was rumored to have carried with him a copy of The Most Holy Trinosophia, an esoteric and exceedingly rare book of Hermetic philosophy that some believe he was the author of. Hermetic philosophy was scarcely known to anyone in Europe and it is likely that Cagliostro inherited the knowledge either from some family tradition or from his Brother Knights on the island of Malta. Wherever he gained this knowledge, it would serve as the foundation for the Rite of high Egyptian Masonry that he would establish in 1784 and which would later become known as the Rite of Misraim - “Misraim” being the Hebrew and Arabic word for Egypt and another indication as to the source of Cagliostro’s immense arcane knowledge.

The Rite of Misraim was an openly magical rite, a variation of Freemasonry that incorporated alchemical legend and Egyptian theology with Hermetic principles at its base. While some see it as an attempt to obfuscate the true origins and purpose of Freemasonry others believe that Cagliostro was in possession of true secrets, hidden knowledge that had been lost to the ages by the shifting sands of time. It was unique for its time in that it admitted women on equal footing with men and upon the completion of its initiation ceremony the female initiates were told that from then on they had the “pleasure of being henceforth, and forever, a Freemason”. The Rite of Memphis, the other overtly Egyptian interpretation of Freemasonry, was constituted 50 years later in 1838 by Jacques Etienne Marconis de Nègre as a variant of the Rite of Misraim that incorporated the traditional exhortations of chivalric practices and the legend of the Knights Templar. Ruled over by a Grand Hierophant, its name was a reference to the ancient Egyptian capital city that served as a mystical center of the Mediterranean world and the home of the grand Temple of Ptah – patron god and protector of craftsmen.