THE PARANORMAL AND SUPERNATURAL

CROP CIRCLES: Signs & Shapes
By MELANIE D. HAYES

The mention of crop circles sends the average person’s mind to the movie “Signs,” where Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix played brothers trying to unravel the meaning behind the mysterious designs left in their cornfield. What the brothers discovered was created by aliens — green menacing beings that had to be fought to prevent a successful invasion. But to those researching and studying real crop circles the phenomenon is more than the temporary excitement caused by a Hollywood hit. Members of the International Crop Circle Researcher’s Association (ICCRA) gave a presentation on crop circles at Camp Chesterfield on Saturday to help educate people on the puzzling happenings. “A crop circle is an area of flattened crop, usually flattened and swirled in a geometric pattern, usually circular,” said Roger Sugden, a member of the ICCRA and Fort Wayne resident. “They can range from 6 feet across to 200 to 300 feet for a single circle. A pictogram (complex design with several shapes) could be a quarter of a mile long.” There have been more than 500 crop circles reported in 49 U.S. states — all except Rhode Island, Jeff Wilson, the director of the ICCRA, told about a dozen people. Crop circles have also been reported in almost every country in the world, added Sugden. The earliest location report in the United States was in Iowa in 1880. In the years up to 2004, Iowa and Ohio have had the most reports — 34 each. Down the line, California has had 23 reports, New York 21, and Missouri 20, according to a graph in a power point presentation. Indiana and Wisconsin tie at sixth place with 19 crop circle reports each, Wilson said. The first crop circle found in Indiana was in Middlebury, in Elkhart County, on June 6, 1966, where a 5.5-foot by 4-foot oval was found in a grass field. On May 31, 1989, a single 20-foot by 18-foot circle was found in tall grass in the Anderson and Middletown area. Crop circles appear in all crops, but 31 percent of the time they show up in wheat, 20 percent in grass and 10 percent in corn.“Many people are familiar from watching TV and going to the movies with pictogram circles,” Wilson said. “But you can get everything, from an intricate geometric pattern ... to a randomly downed, which looks like wind damage but with the same biological anomalies (as circles).” Ninety-five percent of crop circles in the Midwest appear near power lines, Wilson pointed out. In 85 percent of those cases, the closest power line has a transformer box. Ninety-five percent of crop circles also appear near water, whether a creek, pond, drainage ditch or underground aquifer, and on a downslope or bottom of a hill. Sixty-five percent have been located very close to Native American mounds and archaeological sites, but researchers suspect there may be more such sites that are unknown since many have been destroyed. So far this year, 21 crop circles have been found in the U.S. Two of them were identified as hoaxes, nine were randomly downed, 10 were circle and pictogram designs and one seemed to be a circle created on ice in Noble County, Ind.

“We don’t really have a hypothesis on (crop circles) yet

“We don’t really have a hypothesis on (crop circles) yet,” Sugden said. “No one in the world knows what causes them. There are various theories but we really don’t have a definitive hypotheses. We just keep gathering information.” The first crop circle Wilson and Sugden visited was on July 4, 1996, in Paulding, Ohio, where they first met. The design was a single circle that the sheriff’s department had surrounded with yellow police tape to keep pristine and untouched for researchers to conduct their work better, Wilson said. Nevertheless, word got out and the circle received 15,000 visitors in the first week. “As we were walking to the center we picked up more radioactivity,” Wilson said. “It wasn’t dangerous, just what you get when you are lying all day in the sun, but it was more than outside of the circle.” Some people were telling the media it was a hoax. But, Wilson pointed out, man-made designs don’t have increased radioactivity. The radioactivity is often two, three or four times higher than outside the circle, but researchers don’t have an explanation for that yet, Sugden said. To try and understand the origin and common traits of the crop circles, researchers take photos, both ground and aerial, measure sites, take magnetic and electric field surveys, take soil and plant samples, and make note of physical and biological effects. They sometimes perform the L-NEAT test, which stands for Levengood (named after the man who came up with it) Node Elongation Test. The test examines the nodes on wheat stems to see if they are stretched and elongated, Sugden said. If the results are positive it means it is more likely to be genuine and not made by people since hoaxers can’t physically change nodes like that. “It’s easy to identify a man-made circle,” Wilson said. “We can make a declaration in 10 minutes. “In the last few years one-fifth have had the test performed and most are authentic,” Wilson said. “(Of those) one in five are man-made. That number varies in other countries.” Sugden said there are 50 eyewitnesses in the world, and all say the crop circles go down in 15 seconds or less. At the time of the crop circle formation, some people have reported strange sounds, smells and lights. The only eyewitness account in the United States took place in Wisconsin in July 2003 where three circles appeared in a wheat field. “A guy got up when he heard a storm coming through and went to his workshop to get coffee around 7:40 a.m.,” Wilson said. “He could see the field from there and saw a middle circle go down, then one to the left and one to the right. It all happened in 12 seconds.” The Wisconsin man is the only witness this group of researchers has spoken to. “He was looking and saw holes opening up in the fields,” Sugden said. “He didn’t see anything else associated with it. “There is not one definitive answer that causes them,” he continued. “Is weather involved? Yeah. But are there other things involved? Probably. We’re not going to come across one answer to answer the whole thing. It’s one of the great mysteries here.” According to a power point presentation by the ICCRA following the history of crop circle research, theories have varied over the centuries, including hollow thunderbolts, fungus, heavy rainfall, cyclonic winds, electric forces and even dancing witches and elves.

Nowadays, researchers know how the hoaxes are made by people, but as far as the real ones, there are several other theories which have not been proven yet. “For the real ones it can be everything to anything,” Sugden said. “One is some form of intelligence trying to communicate somehow with geometric shapes. It could be weather patterns. The earth itself, nature is capable of a lot of things. “UFOs, some form of intelligence — there’s just not enough evidence for that,” he continued. “There is a connection because UFOs have been seen in the area (near circles), but as far as making them, we don’t have any evidence of that.” Audience members, many who are students at Camp Chesterfield’s Spiritualist Academy, were there to learn about the meaning of the mystery. “I truly believe it’s nature’s workings,” said Cindy L. Spencer of Summitville. “Nature means all — we are nature, trees are nature, everything nature. I truly believe it’s a wonderful thing that nature has its own workings. “Science still has not proved how crop circles have formed,” she said. “It has to be a working of the almighty.” Research will continue to be conducted to decipher the designs. “My favorite quote is ‘crop circles are mysteries but they are a mystery you can walk right into,’” Sugden said. “There is physical evidence there, not just an anecdotal story.”

ASTRONOMER GERALD S. HAWKINS ON THE CROP CIRCLES

Several years ago, astronomer Gerald S. Hawkins, former Chairman of the astronomy department at Boston University, noticed that some of the most visually striking of the crop-circle patterns embodied geometric theorems that express specific numerical relationships among the areas of various circles, triangles, and other shapes making up the patterns (Science News: 2/1/92, p. 76). In one case, for example, an equilateral triangle fitted snugly between an outer and an inner circle. It turns out that the area of the outer circle is precisely four times that of the inner circle. Three other patterns also displayed exact numerical relationships, all of them involving a diatonic ratio, the simple whole-number ratios that determine a scale of musical notes. "These designs demonstrate the remarkable mathematical ability of their creators," Hawkins comments. Hawkins found that he could use the principles of Euclidean geometry to prove four theorems derived from the relationships among the areas depicted in crop circles. He also discovered a fifth, more general theorem, from which he could derive the other four (see diagram, left). "This theorem involves concentric circles which touch the sides of a triangle, and as the [triangle] changes shape, it generates the special crop-circle geometries," he says. Hawkins' fifth crop-circle theorem involves a triangle and various concentric circles touching the triangle's sides and corners. Different triangles give different sets of circles. An equilateral triangle produces one of the observed crop-circle patterns; three isoceles triangles generate the other crop-circle geometries. What is most surprising is that all geometries give diatonic (musical) ratios. Never before have geometric theorems been linked with music. Curiously, Hawkins could find no reference to such a theorem in the works of Euclid or in any other book that he consulted. When he challenged readers of Science News and The Mathematics Teacher to come up with his unpublished theorem, given only the four variations, no one reported success. In July 1995, however, "the crop-circle makers . . . showed knowledge of this fifth theorem," Hawkins reports. Among the dozens of circles surreptitiously laid down in the wheat fields of England, one pattern fit Hawkins' theorem based on the stringent definitions, on the rules established by the circles over the period 1980 to the present. The Circlemakers responsible for this old-fashioned type of mathematical ingenuity remain at large and unknown. Their handiwork flaunts a facility with Euclidean geometry and signals an astonishing ability to bend living plants without cracking stalks, and to trace out complex, precise patterns, most under cover of darkness, with a few notable exceptions during daytime.

NOTE: The circlemakers' fifth theorem has been published in the Mathematics Teacher, the magazine of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Get it through your local library.

O is the center of circles 1,2,3, and the center of equilateral triangle ADE. ABC is also equilateral with height AD. The moon has center D, radius AD. But OB is also a height of triangle ABC, therefore circle 3 with radius OB is the same size as the moon. Circle 2 is tangent to the moon on OD produced, and circle 1 is the exterior circle of the hexagon tangent to circle 2. This construction fits the crop formation to within the limits of measurement, and we can find the areas of the circles exactly. They give diatonic ratios. From 1 to 2 we get a ratio of 4/3, and from 1 to 3 we get closely a ratio of 10/3. This geometry is repeated three times by rotating 60º and 120º.

The terminator or shadow-line of the moon is an arc of radius CB centered on C. Point B is exactly at the middle of the terminator, and exactly where circle 3 intersects the terminator. The circle of the disc of the moon also passes through E, that is why it touches circle 2 on OD produced. This makes the tip of the moon in the crop formation curve-in slightly from the outer circle. Is this all an artistic accident, or is it clever design? Are we supposed to discover where the triangles are, and the exact sizes of the three circles, 1,2, and 3? Is it confirmation of our work that when we get the answer the circles give diatonic ratios? The six outer loops are embellishments giving a hint of the hexagon. The formation gives the rotational geometry, accurate to a few inches on the ground. The music notes are F and A in the second octave.

Does this represent the sun and planets? The orbits are exact circles with slighly different centers and diameters of 0.5, 0.7, 1.4, and 2.6. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and the Asteroids have actual values of 0.4, 0.7, 1.5, and 2.8 --a pretty good fit. If so the nearest date indicated is 11 July 1971. One of the next dates is 30 August 2033, years away because we have to match the motion of three planets, Mercury, Venus, and Mars. By computer graphic measurement the Asteroid circle and the edge-circle beyond Mars give a diatonic ratio of 9/4, note D in the second octave. In astronomy, angles are measured counterclockwise from the over-size Sun at the center. The closest approach of Mercury to the Sun (perihelion) is at 75 degrees, and the angles for Mercury, Venus, and Mars are 189 degrees, 76 degrees and 303 degrees. The Asteroid belt is symbolic and does not give the position of any Asteroid in its orbit.

This shows the equal-ring branch of theorem five. Eight equally-spaced rings are needed before you get to a non-equilateral diatonic triangle. It fits with the vertices on ring 8, and sides touching rings 7 and 2. It's an 8-7-2 triangle, diatonic ratio 16, note C in the fifth octave. Measurements in the field by Dowell and Vigay are in agreement with this photogrammetry.

Is this confirmed by the outer loop of circles? Perhaps so, because tangents to ring 7 exactly intersect at the ring of the outer loop, and the circles on this ring have diameters of 7 units.

Theorem I is the first crop theorem found, June 8, 1988. By rule 2, the DIATONIC RATIO of the areas of the outer and inner concentric circles is 16/3, note F in the 3rd octave. By rule 1, the ratio of satellite diameter to center circle diameter is 1:1, note C. Since there are 3 tangents the geometry is repeated by rotation 3 times. Field measurements by Andrews and Delgado agree with this photogrammetry.

Crop theorem II and then two applications of theorem III make the area of the outer circle 16 times bigger than the area of the inner disc. 4 X 2 X 2 = 16, which is note C in the 5th octave. Are the circle makers confirming these theorems with the embellishment of the 16 small satellites?

This pattern contains crop theorems, but it is embellished with 3 paws, 3 legs and 6 spokes. Because of the fitted square, the ring gives a ratio of 2 by theorem III. The equilateral triangle and central circle is theorem II.

Because the inner circle is inside a pentacle, which is also inside a pentacle, the outer circle and inner circle give a DIATONIC RATIO within less than 1% for note D in the 7th octave. The exact ratio by Euclid is 4 times the golden mean raised to the 6th power, a value of 71.8. The loops in the Web Pattern are equally spaced concentric circles, starting with #4 and ending with #8. These give a DIATONIC RATIO of 4, note C in the 3rd octave.

This combines the side of a hexagon, OB, with the side of a pentagon, AB, to get the radius of circle 1, OA. From Ptolemy's theorem of chords, with G equal to the golden mean and OF=1, we can prove that: 20A= G+AB (square root 3), or OA= 1,82709. Therefore by Rule 2, circles 1 and 3 give a ratio of 3.338, note A in the second octave. By crop circle theorem 4 the hexagon circles 1 and 2 give a diatonic ratio of 4/3, note F. Is the raised circle a clue? D is the center of the arc of the crescent E. Angle CFD is 72 degrees, so CD is also the side of the pentagon. This example of mathematical art gives the same diatonics as T448, notes F and A2, but the design is better. The diatonic circles now go through the tips of the moon, not the center, and the accuracy is 0.1%, not the previous 0.5%. Artistic as it is, the pattern contains math, and no previous artist has used mathematics as a theme. Ptolemy's theorem of 150 AD is a prehistoric landmark, because it is the foundation of trigonometry

By rule 2, the area of the outer circle is four times the area of the inner circle, giving a diatonic ratio of 8/1, note C''', and letter C by the crop circle code. It is a double application of crop theorem 2, one equilateral triangle drawn inside another.

THE SKEPTIC POINT OF VIEW

A crop "circle" is a geometric pattern, often very intricate and complex, appearing in fields, usually wheat fields and usually in England. Most, if not all, crop circles are probably due to pranksters. For example, Doug Bower and David Chorley admit to hoaxing approximately 250 circles over many years. Some believe that the crop designs are messages from alien spacecraft. Some maintain that the aliens are trying to communicate with us using ancient Sumerian symbols or symbolic representations of alien DNA. Those who engage in such serious study and theorizing about crop circles are known as cerealogists (after Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture and fertility) or croppies. Even scientifically minded people have been brought into this fray. They have wisely avoided the thesis that aliens have been carving out messages in crop fields. But they have stretched their imaginations to come up with theories of vortexes, ball lightning, plasma and other less occult explanations involving natural forces such as wind, heat, or animals. However, when looking for a naturalistic explanation of weird things we should never omit from our checklist the possibility that the phenomenon we are studying is a hoax. Had crop circles existed in the thirteenth century, they would have been attributed to Satan, who was said to have been responsible for many weird happenings as well as for many unweird things, such as the construction of Stonehenge and Hadrian's wall between England and Scotland. It was believed by many that the ancients could not possibly have accomplished such feats on their own. Today, Satan's power as an explanation for weird or wondrous things has been usurped by aliens.

Continues on the next column

___________________________________________________________________________

The Book Of Life
Akashik Records

Technology has made it possible to gather and store vast amounts of information on almost everyone living in modern society. The records of our birth and death, financial and marital status is all filed away somewhere. Yet, way back before even the concept of computers existed there were the Akashik Records. Also referred to as the Book of Life, the Akashik Records is a universal storehouse containing the history of humankind, as well as all manner of spiritual information. Thus, every deed, feeling, and intent that has ever occurred at any time is recorded. The records are interactive and have influence on our everyday lives, relationships, and belief systems.
The Akashik Records have been referred to in many ways, cosmic or collective consciousness, the universal mind, collective unconscious or collective subconscious. Folklore, myths, and spiritual texts make reference to these records. They are the inspiration of dreams and inventions, molding and shaping levels of human consciousness and connecting us to one another. Unbiased judge and jury, the records attempt to guide, educate, and transform every individual to become the best that they can be. It is believed that the Akashik Records may be ascertained in certain states of consciousness such as meditation, going into trance, the use of drugs, even stages of sleep. Certain people, such as shamans, mystics, and psychics may be more attuned to reading these records, but everyone has the ability to tap into their subconscious and gather information that is beneficial to themselves and/or others. Such insights can be helpful in releasing blockages, overcoming addictions, or negative behavior patterns. The Akashik Records can give us insights into the nature of ourselves and our relationship to the universe. The Akashic Records or "The Book of Life" can be equated to the universe's super computer system.

It is this system that acts as the central storehouse of all information for every individual who has ever lived upon the earth. More than just a reservoir of events, the Akashic Records contain every deed, word, feeling, thought, and intent that has ever occurred at any time in the history of the world. Much more than simply a memory storehouse, however, these Akashic Records are interactive in that they have a tremendous influence upon our everyday lives, our relationships, our feelings and belief systems, and the potential realities we draw toward us. It is no exaggeration to state that the computer has transformed (and is still in the process of transforming) the entire planet. Whether it's technology, transportation, communication, education, or entertainment, the computer age has revolutionized the globe and the ways in which we understand and interact with one another. No segment of modern society has gone unaffected. The amount of information now stored in computer memory and crossing the Internet highway daily is literally unfathomable. And yet, this vast complex of computer systems and collective databases cannot begin to come close to the power, the memory, or the omniscient recording capacity of the Akashic Records. Source: DailyOm.

Comte de Saint Germain

Comte de Saint Germain was an 18th-century adventurer known as 'Der Wundermann' - 'The Wonderman'. He was a man whose origin was unknown and who disappeared without leaving a trace. His presumed date of birth was 1690. He supposed died in 1784, but many people in Europe saw him after that date. A few believe that he still lives on. I am one of those people. The commonest hypothesis about his birth is that Saint-Germain was the natural son of the widow of Charles II of Spain and a certain Comte (Count) Adanero, whom she knew at Bayonne. This Spanish queen was Marie de Neubourg, whom Victor Hugo took as the heroine of his Ruy Blas. Those who disliked Saint-Germain said that he was the son of a Portuguese Jew named Aymar, while those who hated him said, in the effort to add to his discredit, that he was the son of an Alsatian Jew named Wolff. Fairly recently a new genealogy of Saint-Germain has been put forward which seems the most probable of all. It is the work of the theosophists and Annie Besant, who has frequently made the statement that the Comte de Saint-Germain was one of the sons of Francis Racoczi II, Prince of Transylvania. The children of Francis Racoczi were brought up by the Emperor of Austria, but one of them was withdrawn from his guardianship.

Saint Germain never seemed to age. For an entire century he maintined the physical appearance of a man between forty and fifty years old. He could do just about anything. He was almost too good to be true. He was a magician, a musician, artistry as a violinist, talent as a painter, skill in alchemy and chemistry, a seer who read for and socialized with the rich and famous, had great wealth, and was one of the most mysterious men on the Europe continent. He knew nearly all the European languages. His knowledge of history was comprehensive, and his accomplishments as a chemist, on which he based his reputation, were in many ways considerable. By far the greatest obvious talents of the Comte de Saint-Germain were connected with his knowledge of alchemy. Yet if Saint-Germain he knew how to make gold, he was wise enough to say nothing about it. Nothing but the possession of this secret could perhaps account for the enormous wealth at his command, though he was not known to have money on deposit at any banks. He was one of the of the most celebrated mystics and adventurers of modern times. He was a confidant of two kings of France, a dazzlingly rich and gifted social figure, the subject of a thousand rumors. He enjoyed and sought the company of the pretty women of his day. It appears from the memoirs of Baron von Gleichen that when Saint-Germain was in Paris he became the lover of Mademoiselle Lambert, daughter of the Chevalier Lambert, who lived in the house in which he lodged. And it appears from Grosley's memoirs that in Holland he became the lover of a woman as rich and mysterious as himself. Though he never ate any food in public, he liked dining out because of the people he met and the conversations he heard. They say he lived on oatmeal. He had an immense stock of amusing stories with which he regaled society. He was an aristocrat who lived with princes and even with kings almost on a footing of an equal. He gave recipes for removing wrinkles and dyeing hair. His activity and the diversity of his occupations were very great. He was interested in the preparation of dyes and even started a factory in Germany for the manufacture of felt hats. One of his principal roles was that of a secret agent in international politics in the service of France. He became Louis XV's confidential and intimate counselor and was entrusted by him with various secret missions. He had a love of jewels in an extreme form, and he ostentatiously showed off those he possessed. He kept a great quantity of them in a casket, which he carried about everywhere with him. The importance he attached to jewels was so great that in the pictures painted by him, which were in themselves remarkable, the figures were covered with jewels; and his colors were so vivid and strange that faces looked pale and insignificant by contrast. Jewels cast their reflection on him and threw a distorting light on the whole of his life. He was also known to carry jewels sewn into his clothing . He was said to have presented a cross ornamented with gems to a woman he scarcely knew, because she had idly admired it. The count claimed that he had learned how to turn several small diamonds into one large one and to make pearls grow to spectacular size. He said he could remove flaws from diamonds. He could make a big diamond out of several small stones. The diamonds that he wore in his shoes and garters were believed to be worth more than 200,000 francs. It was widely suspected that he also knew the secret for making gold out of base metal.

Tradition has related that he said he had known Jesus and been present at the Council of Nicea. But he did not go so far as this in his contempt for the men with whom he associated and in his derision of their credulity. He seems to have become a celebrity in the 1750's as a friend of Louis XV and his mistress Madame de Pompadour, who together spent evenings with him simply for the pleasure of his conversation. Louis XV must have known who he was, for he extended to him a friendship that aroused the jealousy of his court. He allotted him rooms in the Chateau of Chambord. He shut himself up with Saint-Germain and Madam de Pompadour for whole evenings; and the pleasure he derived from his conversation and the admiration he no doubt felt for the range of his knowledge cannot explain the consideration, almost the deference, he had for him. Madam du Housset says in her memoirs that the king spoke of Saint-Germain as a personage of illustrious birth. Count Charles of Hesse Cassel, with whom he lived during the last years in which history is able to follow his career, must also have possessed the secret of his birth. They worked with alchemy together. Saint-Germain treated him as an equal. It was to him that Saint-Germain entrusted his paper just before his supposed death in 1784. However, neither Louis XV nor the Count of Hesse Cassel ever revealed anything about the birth of Saint-Germain. The count even went so far as invariably to withhold the smallest detail bearing on the life of his mysterious friend. This is a very remarkable fact, since Saint-Germain was an extremely well known figure. Whether he was a genius or a charlatan, Saint-Germain had the talent to make himself noticed and the subject of gossip. But in Versailles and Paris he was embraced as the confidential adviser of Louis XV. The position earned him the envy and enmity of the king's ministers, who denounced him as an adventurer with a smooth line of talk. Matters came to a head in 1760, when the count at the behest of the king involved himself in foreign affairs, going behind the back of ministry. Threatened with arrest, he was obliged to flee to England, where he stayed for a while; possibly for a period of two years. From England Count Saint-Germain apparently went to Russia, where it is claimed he took part in a conspiracy that put Catherine the Great upon the throne in 1762. After that nothing much is known of the count until 1774, when Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette came to the throne. Saint-Germain then returned to France. It is said that he warned the royal couple of the revolution 15 years in the future, saying, "There will be a blood-thirsty republic, whose scepter will be the executioner's knife."

Secret Societies

Secret societies were the fashion in pre-revolutionary France, and some of them recognized Saint-Germain as an 'adept' one who knew the ancient wisdoms hinted at in the rites of the Freemasons, Rosicrucians and Knights Templars. He influenced Freemasonry and the secret societies, though many modern masons have denied this and have even omitted to mention him as a great source of inspiration. In Vienna he took part in the foundation of the Society of Asiatic Brothers and of the Knights of Light, who studied alchemy; and it was he who gave Mesmer his fundamental ideas on personal magnetism and hypnotism. It is said that he initiated Cagliostro, who visited him on several occasions in Holstein to receive directions from him, though there is no direct evidence for this. The two men were to be far separated from one another by opposite currents and a different fate. All over the country secret societies sprang up. The new spirit manifested itself in the form of associations. Neither the nobility nor the clergy escaped what had become a fashion. There were lodges for women, and the Princesse de Lamballe became grand mistress of one of them. In Germany there were the Illuminati and the Knights of Strict Observance, and Frederick II, when he came to the throne, founded the sect of the Architects of Africa. In France, the Order of the Templars was reconstituted, and Freemasonry, whose grand master was the Duke de Chartres, increased the number of its lodges in every town. Martinez de Pasqually taught his philosophy at Marseilles, Bordeaux and Toulouse; and Savalette de Lange, with mystics such as Court de Gebelin and Saint-Martin, founded the lodge of the Friends Assembled. The initiates of these sects understood that they were the depositories of a heritage that they did not know, but whose boundless value they guessed; it was to be found somewhere, perhaps in traditions, perhaps in a book written by a master, perhaps in themselves. They spoke of this revealing word, this hidden treasure it was said to be in the hands of "unknown superiors of these sects, who would one day disclose the wealth which gives freedom and immortality." It was this immortality of the spirit that Saint-Germain tried to bring to a small group of chosen initiates. He believed that this minority, once it was developed itself, would, in its turn, help to develop another small number, and that a vast spiritual radiation would gradually descend, in beneficent waves, towards the more ignorant masses. It was a sage's dream, which was never to be realized. With the co-operation of Savalette de Lange, who was the nominal head, he founded the group of Philalethes, or truth-lovers, which was recruited from the cream of the Friends Assembled. The Prince of Hesse, Condorcet, and Cagliostro were all members of this group. Saint-Germain expounded his philosophy at Ermenonville and in Paris, in the rue Platriere. It was a Platonic Christianity, which combined Swedenborg's visions with Martinez de Pasqually's theory of reintegration. There were to be found in it Plotinus' emanations and the hierarchy of successive planes described by Hermeticists and modem theosophists. He taught that man has in him infinite possibilities and that, from the practical point of view, he must strive unceasingly to free himself of matter in order to enter into communication with the world of higher intelligences. He was understood by some. In two great successive assemblies, at which every Masonic lodge in France was represented, the Philalethes attempted the reform of Freemasonry. If they had attained their aim, if they had succeeded in directing the great force of Freemasonry by the prestige of their philosophy, which was sublime and disinterested, it may be that the course of events would have been altered, that the old dream of a world guided by philosopher-initiates would have been realized. But matters were to turn out differently. Old causes, created by accumulated injustices had paved the way for terrible effects. These effects were in their turn to create the causes of future evil. The chain of evil, linked firmly together by men's egoism and hatred, was not to be broken. The light kindled by a few wise visionaries, a few faithful watchers over the well being of their brothers, was extinguished almost as soon as it was kindled.

Saint Germain's Death

Photo: Madame Blavatsky with Kuthumi, El Myora, and Saint Germain. Image supposedly taken in the late 1800's.

Secluded at Eckenforn in the count's castle, Saint-Germain announced that he was tired of fife. He seemed careworn and melancholy. He said he felt feeble, but he refused to see a doctor and was tended only by women. No details exist of his death, or rather of his supposed death. No tombstone at Eckenforn bore his name. It was known that he had left all his papers and certain documents relating to Freemasonry to the Count of Hesse Cassel. The count for his part asserted that he had lost a very dear friend. But his attitude was highly equivocal. He refused to give any information about his friend or his last moments, and turned the conversation if anyone spoke of him. His whole behavior gives color to the supposition that he was the accomplice of a pretended death. Although, on the evidence of reliable witnesses, he must have been at least a hundred years old in 1784, his death in that year cannot have been genuine. The official documents of Freemasonry say that in 1785 the French masons chose him as their representative at the great convention that took place in that year, with Mesmer, Saint-Martin, and Cagliostro present. In the following year Saint-Germain was received by the Empress of Russia. Finally, the Comtesse d'Adhemar reports at great length a conversation she had with him in 1789 in the Church of the Recollets, after the taking of the Bastille. His face looked no older than it had looked thirty years earlier. He said he had come from China and Japan. "There is nothing so strange out there," he said, "as that which is happening here. But I can do nothing. My hands are tied by someone who is stronger than I. There are times when it is possible to draw back; others at which the decree must be carried out as soon as he has pronounced it." And he told her in broad outlines all the events, not excepting the death of the queen, that were to take place in the years that followed. "The French will play with titles and honors and ribbons like children. They will regard everything as a plaything, even the equipment of the Garde Nationale. There is today a deficit of some forty millions, which is the nominal cause of the Revolution. Well, under the dictatorship of philanthropists and orators the national debt will reach thousands of millions." "I have seen Saint-Germain again," wrote Comtesse d'Adhemar in 1821, "each time to my amazement. I saw him when the queen was murdered, on the 18th of Brumaire, on the day following the death of the Duke d'Enghien, in January, 1815, and on the eve of the murder of the Duke de Berry." Mademoiselle de Genlis asserts that she met the Comte de Saint-Germain in 1821 during the negotiations for the Treaty of Vienna; and the Comte de Chalons, who was ambassador in Venice, said he spoke to him there soon afterwards in the Piazza di San Marco. There is other evidence, though less conclusive, of his survival. The Englishman Grosley said he saw him in 1798 in a revolutionary prison; and someone else wrote that he was one of the crowd surrounding the tribunal at which the Princess de Lamballe appeared before her execution. It seems quite certain that the Comte de Saint-Germain did not die at the place and on the date that history has fixed. He continued an unknown career, of whose end we are ignorant and whose duration seems so long that one's imagination hesitates to admit it. What happened to the Comte de Saint-Germain after 1821, in which year there is evidence that he was still alive? An Englishman, Albert Vandam, in his memoirs, which he calls An Englishman in Paris, speaks of a certain person whom he knew towards the end of Louis Philippe's reign and whose way of life bore a curious resemblance to that of the Comte de Saint-Germain. "He called himself Major Fraser, wrote Vandam, "lived alone and never alluded to his family. Moreover he was lavish with money, though the source of his fortune remained a mystery to everyone. He possessed a marvelous knowledge of all the countries in Europe at all periods. His memory was absolutely incredible and, curiously enough, he often gave his hearers to understand that he had acquired his learning elsewhere than from books. Many is the time he has told me, with a strange smile, that he was certain he had known Nero, had spoken with Dante, and so on." Like Saint-Germain, Major Fraser had the appearance of a man of between forty and fifty, of middle height and strongly built. The rumor was current that he was the illegitimate son of a Spanish prince. After having been, also like Saint-Germain, a cause of astonishment to Parisian society for a considerable time, he disappeared without leaving a trace. Was it the same Major Fraser who, in 1820, published an account of his journey in the Himalayas, in which he said he had reached Gangotri, the source of the most sacred branch of the Ganges River, and bathed in the source of the Jumna River? It was at the end of the nineteenth century that the legend of Saint-Germain grew so inordinately. By reason of his knowledge, of the integrity of his life, of his wealth and of the mystery that surrounded him, he might reasonably have been taken for an heir of the first Rosicrucians, for a possessor of the Philosopher's Stone. But the theosophists and a great many occultists regarded him as a master of the great White Lodge of the Himalayas. The legend of these masters is well known. According to it there live in inaccessible lamaseries in Tibet certain wise men who possess the ancient secrets of the lost civilization of Atlantis. Sometimes they send to their imperfect brothers, who are blinded by passions and ignorance, sublime messengers to teach and guide them. Krishna, the Buddha, and Jesus were the greatest of these. But there were many other more obscure messengers, of whom Saint-Germain has been considered to be one. "This pupil of Hindu and Egyptian hierophants, this holder of the secret knowledge of the East," theosophist Madam Blavatsky says of him, "was not appreciated for who he was. The stupid world has always treated in this way men who, like Saint-Germain, have returned to it after long years of seclusion devoted to study with their hands full of the treasure of esoteric wisdom and with the hope of making the world better, wiser and happier." Between 1880 and 1900 it was admitted among all theosophists, who at that time had become very numerous, particularly in England and America, that the Comte de Saint-Germain was still alive, that he was still engaged in the spiritual development of the West, and that those who sincerely took part in this development had the possibility of meeting him. The brotherhood of Khe-lan was famous throughout Tibet, and one of their most famous brothers was an Englishman who had arrived one day during the early part of the twentieth century from the West. He spoke every language, including the Tibetan, and knew every art and science, says the tradition. His sanctity and the phenomena produced by him caused him to be proclaimed a Shaberon Master after a residence of but a few years. His memory lives to the present day among the Tibetans, but his real name is a secret with the Shaberons alone. Might not this mysterious traveler be the Comte de Saint-Germain? But even if he has never come back, even if he is no longer alive and we must relegate to legend the idea that the great Hermetic nobleman is still wandering about the world with his sparkling jewels, his senna tea, and his taste for princesses and queens even so it can be said that he has gained the immortality he sought. For a great number of imaginative and sincere men the Comte de Saint-Germain is more alive than he has ever been. There are men who, when they hear a step on the staircase, think it may perhaps be he, coming to give them advice, to bring them some unexpected philosophical idea. They do not jump up to open the door to their guest, for material barriers do not exist for him. There are men who, when they go to sleep, are pervaded by genuine happiness because they are certain that their spirit, when freed from the body, will be able to hold converse with the master in the luminous haze of the astral world. The Comte de Saint-Germain is always present with us. There will always be, as there were in the eighteenth century, mysterious doctors, enigmatic travelers, bringers of occult secrets, to perpetuate him. Saint Sermain was as real or as illusionary as any of us only he knew how to control the illusion and play the game at a higher level than most of us do. He played the roles of Hermes [the Trickster] - who was Thoth the scribe [who write the program which is our reality - Merlin the Magician - Shakespeare among other famous roles.

A NEW LOOK AT LE COMTE de SAINT GERMAIN (?-1784)

Adventurer, alchemist, and diplomat, whose mysterious origin created a legend around him. Comte de Saint Germain was rumored to have lived 2,000 years. The legend of St Germain, "the man who does not die," was born in the mid-1700s. Since then, endless speculations and sightings of the Count after his death has continued. St Germain was also known by such figures as Casanova, Cagliostro, and Horace Walpole. The Russian writer Aleksandr Pushkin (1799-1837) mentions him in the short story 'The Queen of Spades' (1834):

"You have heard of Count St. Germain, about whom so many marvelous stories are told. You know that he represented himself as the Wandering Jew, as the discoverer of the elixir of life, of the philosopher's stone, and so forth. Some laughed at him as a charlatan; but Casanova, in his memoirs, says that he was a spy. But be that as it may, St. Germain, in spite of the mystery surrounding him, was a very fascinating person, and was much sought after in the best circles of society. Even to this day my grandmother retains an affectionate recollection of him, and becomes quite angry if anyone speaks disrespectfully of him." (trans. by T. Keane)

Little is known of Count Saint-Germain's birth. He was said to be descended from an Alsatian Jew, a Portuguese Jew, a tax-gatherer in Rotondo, or the King of Portugal. Saint-Germain himself did not help to elucidate the enigma of his true identity. It has been also alleged, that he was the son of Prince Franz-Leopold Rakoczy (or Ragoczy) of Transylvania (1676-1735), or Juan Tomás Enríquez de Cabrera and Maria Anna von Neuburg (1667-1740), or Marquis de Rivarolo (1669-1749), or Sultan Mustapha II (1664-1703). Later he determined to take the name of Saint-Germain from the little town of San Germano, or from the holy brother, St. Germanus. Whoever he was, he was well educated, and at least for some decades he seemed relatively wealthy. Saint Germain entered the international scene in a period, which was full of contradictions. The rationalism of the Enlightenment, represented by such writers as Voltaire, Goethe, and Rousseau, was counterbalanced by sentimental and romantic, even reactionary tendencies. Count Alessandro Cagliostro (1743-1795), a celebrated figure in the courts of Europe, was as much charlatan as his detractors alleged. Cagliostoro, whose real name was Guiseppe Balsamo, possibly met St Germain in Sicily. Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) impressed Queen Louisa Ulrica, sister of Frederick the Great, by delivering a private message from her dead brother. François, Duke of Lorraine married Maria Theresa of Austria, and was the first European prince to publicise his Freemasonic affiliations. Also St Germain was associated with Freemasons. In the imperial palace, François had an alchemical laboratory. And as always, the great public was responsive to fantastic stories. In Germany, the figure of the fabulous Baron Muchhausen created a vogue for tall tales. St Germain found his most ardent admirers from the arictocratic circles. The serious-minded middle-class viewed him with some disdain, as the English letter-writer and aesthetician Horace Walpole in 1745: "The other day they seized an odd man who goes by the name of Count St Germain. He 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 sings and plays the violin wondefully, is mad, and not very sensible." At the French court St Germain was seen about 1748. He was was an ordinary looking man of medium height, he had regular features, black hair, and he was apparently a fine conversationalist. "He looks like a Spaniard of high birth," wrote one of his contemporaries. In one painting he has been portrayed wearing a fashionable wig. St German looked in 1743 about forty or forty-five years old, like a man of his age if he was born at the turn of the century. It was said that he spoke German, English, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish very well, and French with a Piedmontese accent. According to some sources, scholars were surprised by his facility in Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Arabic and Chinese. However, there is no information if he spoke Sanskrit with a Piedmontese accent.

Voltaire's famous statement from 1758 in his ironic letter to Frederick of Prussia, that St Germain is "a man who never dies, and who knows everything," has been often used out of its original context. It is not a declaration of belief in St Germain's immortality. Voltaire says that he has not been told any secrets and refers to St Germain's role in political manouverings - "who will probably have the honour of seeing your Majesty in the course of fifty years." Madame de Pompadour and of Louis XV were amused by St Germain, although he was accused of being an English spy. He told that he had lived thousands of years and had known even Jesus Christ. However, they must have been aware, that the Bible did not prove or disprove his stories. St Germain was a Catholic. If he believed in the transmigration of the soul, it was a Buddhist doctrine, which also the Pythagoreanists shared, but it seems that he only claimed that he was very old. This did not put him in a collision course with the authorities of the church. Cagliostro, sometimes considered St Germain's pupil, was not so lucky - he was caught by the Inquisition in Rome and sentenced to death. He spent four years in a solitary confinement and died in imprisonment in 1795. St Germain claimed to possess the secret of eternal youth, one of the two traditional goals of alchemy. St Germain's accounts of his adventures had also connections to the legend of the Wandering Jew, a well known Christian tale. Its first written version was printed in Bologna in 1223. To Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV, St Germain recounted anecdotes of the court of the Valois as if he had been there an eyewitness. Eventually she become interested in his "elixir of life" and started to use it. St Germain's diplomatic blunders in the peace negotiation between France and England led him into conflict with the powerful Duc de Choiseul. After escaping to England, he lived in the Netherlands, and possibly in Russia, where Catherine the Great had seized the power. Little is known of his life during the following years - perhaps he went to his home. In some point his paths must have crossed with his countryman, Charles d'Eon de Beaumont, a diplomat, writer, spy, and Freemason, but there is no evidence of joint adventures. D'Eon is often called the patron saint of transvestites. St Germain was seen in France again in 1774. When the minister von Wurmb met St Germain in May 1777 in Lepzig, he estimated that the Count was between 60 and 70 years old. His last years St Germain lived under the patronage of Prince Charles of Hesse-Cassel in Schleswig, Germany. At that time, he had spent most of his fortune, sold his precious diamonds, and he suffered from rheumatism. St German died on February 27th, 1784, according to the church register of Eckernförde. He was known under the name of Comte de St Germain and Weldon, sometimes written Welldown, Wethlone, Welldone, or Woeldone. His tombstone in Eckenförde read, "He who called himself the Comte de St Germain and Welldone, of whome there is no other information, has been buried in this church." The original manuscript of St Germain's Trinosophia, a work on cabalistic, hermetic, and alchemical mysteries, is in the Bibliotheque de Troyes. 'Sonnet sur la Création,' a modest poem attributed to St Germain, was published in 1795. In 1836 appeared a book of memoir, Souvenirs sur Marie-Antoinette by Comtesse d'Adhémar, which claimed that St Germain was seen in Venice some years after his death. However, the work was a forgery, written by one Lamothe-Langon, whose specialty was to produce forged memoirs. Baron de Gleichen tells in Souvenirs de Charles Henri, baron de Gleichen (1868), that according to his acquaintances, St Germain had in 1710 the appearance of a man of fifty years old. De Gleichen's information is just hearsay. In Aleksandr Pushkin short story' The Queen of Spades' a young aristocratic woman, Countess Anna Fedorovna, asks St Germain's help - she has lost much money at the card table. St Germain tells her a secret of the cards, which helps her to retrieve her loss completely. She keeps the secret. Decades later a young man becomes obsessed with it, and causes her death. Eventually she returns as a ghost and gets her revenge. The young man loses his reason. Pushkin never met the enigmatic Count, but he knew his legend well and brought another angle to it: St Germain can tell the future. In Rainer Maria Rilke's fictional autobiography, Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Lauridts Brigge (1910), St Germain is called Marquis von Belmare, who believes in the past: "Aber es gab natuerlich genug, die ihm uebelnahmen, dass er an die Vergangenheit nur glaubte, wenn sie in ihm war. Das konnten sie nicht begreifen, dass der Kram nur Sinn hat, wenn man damit geboren wird." In these works St Germain is only a side character. The American writer Chelsea Quinn Yarbro has written a number of novels, where the Count is the protagonist. Saint-Germain's knowledge of diamonds, precious stones, and chemistry impressed his contemporaries; his dyeing skills were widely acknowledged. Graf Karl Cobenzl wrote in a letter in 1763, that he saw how St Germain made some experiments, "of which the most important were the transmutation of iron into a metal as beautiful as gold". Without any doubts, the physical goals of alchemy - the elixir of life and the Philosopher's Stone - fascinated deeply St Germain. The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung has argued that alchemy also corresponds to psychology. "What the alchemists called 'matter' was in reality the unconscious self," Jung claimed. Deliberate mystification can be pure bluff to exploit the credulous or projection of unresolved inner tensions. St Germain was secretive about his past, he had several identities, and in his occult studies, he perhaps indirectly searched the truth of himself.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

By James Dilworth

The man known as the Count of Saint-Germain or le Comte de Saint-Germain as he is more commonly known (also known as "der Wundermann", meaning the wonder man in German) is a figure of mystery whose legend has grown in the last 200 years since his death, or supposed death according to some. There are several conflicting versions of his early life one being, that he was born in 1710 in Portugal, a Sephardic Jew. Another account said his name was Francis Ragoczy and that he was a prince from Transylvania who made a living from the trade of jewels. What is known for certain is that Saint-Germain spoke all European languages fluently, had a complete knowledge of history, was a composer of music and was able to play the violin very well. He was most famous for his amazing skills in medicine and alchemy, especially for transmuting metals into gold and having a secret technique for removing flaws from diamonds. He was also said to be the inventor of Masonry (since he claimed to be thousands of years old) as well as a skilled Cabalist (see Kabbalah), rarely ate in public and always dressed in black and white.The first real evidence for the existence of Saint-Germain comes in a letter from 1743, where the English writer Horace Walpole (the author of The Castle of Otranto, the first gothic novel) mentions his presence in London and in the English court. Saint-Germain was soon expelled having been accused of being a spy for he Stewart pretenders to the English crown. Saint-Germain went to France around 1748, becoming a favorite of Louis XV who employed him as a spy several times and exerted great influence over that monarch. Around 1760 Saint-Germain was forced to leave France and returned to England where he met the Count Cagliostro and taught him the Egyptian Rite of Freemasonry. In 1762 Saint-Germain was found in St. Petersburg, playing a very important part in the conspiracy to make Catherine the Great Queen of Russia. After returning to Paris in 1770, he traveled through Germany, eventually settleling in the state of Schleswig-Holstein. There he studied the "Secret Sciences" with the landgrave Charles of Hesse and was s

Mystical Model

Phasing Model

Real time projection

Virtual reality projection

Remote viewing