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While historical records prove that the man known as the Count de Saint-Germain actually existed, his life seems to defy common sense and appears almost magical. Was he a genius or charlatan?

The Timeless Mystery of the Count de Saint-Germain By W.A. Harbinson From New Dawn Special Issue Vol 11 No 3 (June 2017) While historical records prove that the man known as the Count de Saint-Germain actually existed, his life seems to defy common sense and appears almost magical. Was he a genius or charlatan? While the exact date of Saint-Germain’s birth remains unknown, he himself stated (and the known facts support his contention) that he was the son of Franz-Leopold, Prince Ragoczy of Transylvania, and Princess Charlotte Amalia of Hesse-Wahnfried, who were married in 1694. After his brothers had been taken prisoner by the Austrians and his parents had died, he was brought up by the executors of his father’s will – the Duc de Bourbon, the Duc de Maine, and the Count of Charlerie and Toulouse – and through them was introduced to the courts of Europe as someone of princely blood and almost royal descent. According to the historical work Illustri Italiani by Caesare Cantu, librarian of the great library in Milan, when this particular embodiment of Saint-Germain came of age, he was educated at the university of Sienna, travelled a lot in Italy and Spain, was greatly protected by the last Grand Duke of Tuscany, and eventually inherited his father’s considerable legacy, which may be why he never seemed to need money. Little else was known about him until 1740, when he began turning up in various historical records as a man who appeared to be in his early thirties, moved in fashionable Viennese circles, and was renowned for his unusually sombre clothing, paradoxical fondness for spectacular diamonds, and penchant for telling extraordinary tales about his past life, including his claim that he had known the Holy Family (Jesus, Mary & Joseph) intimately; been present at the marriage feast at Cana; been a good friend of Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary; personally proposed her canonisation at the Council of Nicaea in CE 325; and prophesied that Christ would come to a bad end. The Saint-Germain of those days was widely spoken of as an enigmatic and remarkable figure who practised alchemy, was an expert jeweller, had travelled widely in Europe, Africa, India, China and Persia, was known to speak many languages fluently, including Chinese, Hindu and Persian, composed music and played the violin. (Pieces of music, dated 1745 and 1760, supposedly composed by, and certainly signed by, Saint-Germain, are to be found in the British Museum in London.) He also had a reputation as a ‘magical’ healer, was reported to be deeply involved in numerous esoteric orders, including the Rosicrucians and Templars, and was rumoured to be able to turn base metal into gold. He frequently described machines that bore remarkable similarities to locomotives and steamships (which had not been invented at the time) and there were suggestions he possessed the Alchemist’s Stone, had drunk from the Fountain of Eternal Youth, and was approximately 4,000 years old. With regard to Saint-Germain’s frequent talk of futuristic machines, the library in Troyes, France, is in possession of a document signed by him, in which he describes an experience that seems remarkably similar to modern space travel: We moved through space at a speed that can be compared with nothing but itself… Within a fraction of a second the plains below us were out of sight, and the earth had become a faint nebula. I was carried up, and I travelled through the empyrean for an incalculable time at an immeasurable height. Heavenly bodies revolved, and worlds vanished beneath me… (La Très Sainte Trinosophie) There were many who believed Saint-Germain was a confidence trickster, but just as many who took him seriously – not least the governments of the major European countries, since the Count, apart from being talked about as a remarkable man, also had the reputation as someone involved, rather shadily, in politics. On the one hand accused by the French police of being a Prussian spy, he was, on the other, suspected by the Prussians of being a Russian agent. To complicate matters further, in November 1745, in a London obsessed with Jacobite plotters and their French sympathisers, he was arrested by the English authorities, accused of having pro-Stuart letters in his possession. He claimed indignantly that the letters had been planted on him, and was eventually released. Commenting on the case in a letter to Sir Horace Mann, dated 9 December 1745, Horace Walpole, the famous British art historian and esteemed man of letters, wrote the following odd description: “He [Saint-Germain] has been here these two years, and will not tell who he is or whence, but professes that he does not go by his right name.” He also wrote that Saint-Germain “sings and plays the violin wonderfully” but added that he was “mad and not very sensible.” A Surprisingly Youthful Saint-Germain The even more bewildering and legendary aspects of the original Saint-Germain began shortly after the Count had, according to...