SEERSHIP; Guide to Soul Sight - Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

know no narrow or restricted idea makes any impression upon her.
“She remained in the ghost-room long enough to make her companions very uneasy. All was silent
as possible, and finally she came out very pale, and with tears streaming from her eyes. She
immediately said to her companions, ‘If Cagliostro be a sorcerer, he is a deceiving one: Have faith
in nothing that he shows you.’ She would say no more. Conciolini, however, told me a few days
after, at one of my concerts, of this wonderful entertainment. I promised myself to question
Porporina about it, the first time she sang at Sans Souci. I had much difficulty in making her speak
of it, but thus she told me:
“‘Cagliostro has, beyond a doubt, the strange power of producing spectres so like truth that it is
impossible for the calmest minds to be unmoved by them. His knowledge, however, is incomplete,
and I would not advise you, sire, to make him your Minister of Police, for he would perpetrate
strange mistakes. Thus, when I asked him to show me the absent person I wished to see, I thought
of my music-master, Porpora, who is now at Vienna. Instead of him, I saw in the magic-room a very
dear friend I lost during the current year.’”(31)
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(31) It is a mistaken idea that the seer, however great he may be, is capable of causing certain
persons to appear through the medium of a mirror or even that dictated messages can be given. All
the seer can do is to prepare the mirror and then that which is hidden deep in the heart will be
portrayed. In many instances our deepest feelings may be subconscious, and it is only when we
come in touch with things of a spiritual nature that they betray themselves and - us.
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“Peste!” said D’Argens, “that is more wonderful even than the apparition of a living person.”
“Wait a moment, gentlemen. Cagliostro had no doubt but that what he had shown was the phantom
of a living person, and, when it had disappeared, asked Porporina if what she had seen was
satisfactory. ‘In the first place, monsieur,” said she, ‘I wish to understand it. Will you explain?’ -
“That surpasses my power. Be assured that your friend is well, and usefully employed .” - To this
the signora replied, ‘Alas! sir, you have done me much wrong; you showed me a person of whom I
did not think, and who is, you say, now living. I closed his eyes six months ago.’”...
“All this is very fine,” said La Mettrie; “But does not explain how your majest’s Porporina saw the
dead alive. If she is gifted with as much firmness and reason as your majesty says, the fact goes to
disprove your majesty’s argument. The sorcerer, it is true, was mistaken, in producing a dead
rather than a living man. It, however, makes it the more certain that he controls both life and
death. In that respect, he is greater than your majesty, which, if it does not displease your majesty,
has killed many men, but never resuscitated a single one.”
“Then we are to believe in the devil,” said the king, laughing at the comic glances of La Mettrie at
Quintus Icilius.