No occult figure is more puzzling than the Count Saint Germain. Always dressed in black, but decorated by diamond jewellery, Saint Germain first appears in Vienna about 1740 when he moves in high circles after curing a French Marshal of illness.
Where the Count came from, no one knows – there are many versions of his birth from being the son of a Hungarian prince, to the son of a Portuguese Jew, to the bastard child of a Bohemian nobleman.
AN INCREDIBLE LIFE
In a full life he was known as a great musician, healer, spy, statesman, linguist, soldier and alchemist, having adventures which took him from Vienna to Paris, Holland, London, Belgium, Russia, Nuremberg and eventually to the Himalayas in 1822 for a life of meditation – provided, of course, you don’t accept one of several accounts of his supposed death.
Generally thought of as a charlatan today, he spent most of his life creating laboratories, where he was said to have achieved the Great Work of the alchemist – to produce the Philosopher’s Stone which turned base metals into gold, and the Elixir of Life, which gave him immortality.
As proof of the latter, he claimed to have been a high priest of a cosmic race 50,000 years ago before intervening in history as the prophet Samuel. He is said to have also claimed to be:
Joseph, husband of Mary
St Alban, the first English Christian martyr
Proclus, head of Plato’s academy
Merlin
Roger Bacon
Christopher Columbus
Francis Bacon
Activities within his contemporary life could be equally fascinating. Arrested as a Jacobite spy in England, he also tried to warn Louis XVI of his impending death, and was instrumental in placing Catherine the Great on the Russian throne.
THE GREAT CELEBRITY
What is of most interest when dealing with Saint Germain were his supposed claims to have lived for so long that he ‘became’ so many important people from history. How could he have done this – provided, of course, he wasn’t simply making them all up?
That he was of a mystical nature, there can be no doubt. Similarly, he was a very talented person who captivated elite audiences throughout Europe. In effect, he was a story in himself, who, if he lived today, would be feted as a great celebrity.
Today, gossip columns would tell every tale of his life. And as he claimed to be an alchemist, the stereotype almost demanded that success would mean he was immortal. Hence, it would be inevitable that he would think deeply about whether he really was, and who he could possibly have been.
SO MANY LIVES HE LIVED
With such a psychology, can we place known ‘paranormal’ mechanisms of today on the mysterious Count? Perhaps we can. Indeed, modern paranormal literature is full of just such a ‘psychic’ ability that could explain him.
In cases of reincarnation through past life regression, many subjects go on to recount, in great detail, previous lives they had lived. Often, when they are taken back to the source of the ‘life’ it comes from a novel or film which they had forgotten.
This ability to recall obscure facts is known as cryptomnesia, and seems to be sparked by the subject’s desire to live out their innermost fantasies of who they see themselves as being.
Cryptomnesia and past life regression were unknown in the days of Count Saint Germain. But could he have been a classic example of the phenomenon before his time?
It is unlikely that the Count really was immortal. It is possible that he was merely a fantasist and a con man. But maybe the idea that he was neither can be advanced by the simple fact that an explanation is available, and is used often, today, to explain past lives.
AFTER DEATH?
But this is only part of the mystery that is Saint Germain. Even after his supposed death, he seems to have remained active. Channellers claim to still meet him as a spiritual being equal to Jesus Himself. However, Saint Germain maybe isn’t as mysterious as he seems.
With such a reputation as he created in life, it is obvious that many channellers would create him – he became a popular appearance to Theosophists, and in 1930 the spiritualist Guy Ballard created the I Am Activity following his appearance to him.
We can see Saint Germain achieving the status of a religious icon – in effect, myths during and following his life made him a form of Jungian ‘archetype’, to be identified as a specifically occult ‘Christ’ figure.
And from here, all we need to explain his continuance is our ability to create mind models of our innermost desires – a thing that is done in the paranormal almost every day by someone, somewhere.
IN CONCLUSION
The existence of a real Count Saint Germain is, perhaps, not the issue of importance. Indeed, whether he was a real mystic or a con man is similarly of little value to what he became.
Saint Germain became, in effect, a cultural continuance upon death. Built up by mythologies and remembered snippets of his life, he achieved the most influential and fundamental existence possible.
He became a mythological being who reflected back his mythology into the mind of the mystic. His perceived hopes and desires became as one with the journeying mind as it attempts to puncture that which is hidden.
Saint Germain was maybe NOT immortal in life. But in his death, he became so.
© Anthony North, August 2007
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