Cagliostro, the Adoption Rite

& the Masonic Certificate of

Agnes Elisabeth von Medem
(1718-1784)
Robert Collis

I n 1833, Thomas Carlyle ruminated that ‘a nimbus of Renown and pre-

ternatural Astonishment envelopes Cagliostro’.1 Little has changed in the ensuing
179 years in regard to the notoriety of Count Alessandro di Cagliostro (Giuseppe Bal-
samo [1743-1795]). Thus, whilst colourful accounts of the Sicilian adventurer, alchemist,
healer and Freemason continue to fascinate the reading public, no new documentary
evidence has emerged over the past century and more to shine any kind of light on the
dark clouds of the Cagliostro legend.2

1
Thomas Carlyle, ‘Count Cagliostro: In Two Flights’, Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country, vol. 8 (1833),
144.
2
Recent studies on Cagliostro include Iain McCalman, The Last Alchemist: Count Cagliostro, Master of Magic in
the Age of Reason (London: Harper Collins, 2003); Philippa Faulks and Robert L. D. Cooper, The Masonic Magi-
cian: The Life and Death of Count Cagliostro and His Egyptian Rite (London: Watkins Publishing, 2008).

Volume 125, 2012 1

 Robert Collis

When faced with a paucity of primary material, the emergence of a previously

neglected piece of evidence can be of invaluable help to a historian, in terms of casting
a shard of revelatory light into the ‘nimbus of Renown’ related to notorious historical
personages. Such is the case with Cagliostro, with regard to the recent discovery in the
archives of the Russian State Military Archives (RGVA) of an Adoption Rite Masonic
certificate, dating from May 1779 and relating to his residence in the Baltic duchy of
Courland. The certificate provides a rare example of a document signed by the infamous
adventurer as Grand Master of the lodge (see Fig. 1 below).3

Fig. 1 Signature of Cagliostro as it appears on the Masonic certificate of Agnes Elisabeth von Medem.

The certificate records the initiation of the Baltic noblewoman Agnes Elisabeth von
Medem (neé Brücken), the third wife of the Freemason Count Johann Friedrich von
Medem (1722-1785), into the degree of Mistress of Ecossais Masonry.4 The significance

3
Russian State Military Archives (RGVA), Moscow, 1412k, Opis 1, 5299. The Soviet-era notes on the docu-
ment record that the certificate’s provenance was the headquarters of the Engbund research lodge in Hamburg.
The certificate provides a very rare example of Cagliostro’s signature, replete with a ‘Z’ mark and the number
1255, which is thrice underlined. In her memoir of Cagliostro’s visit to Mitau, Elisa von der Recke reproduces a
letter that contains the ‘Z’ mark, the number 1255 and the underlinings and a speculative interpretation of their
significance. In his early twentieth-century study of Cagliostro, Marc Haven also discusses Cagliostro’s signature
and provides two archival examples. See Elisa von der Recke, Nachricht von des berühmten Cagliostro Aufenhalt in
Mitau, im Jahre 1779, und von dessen dortigen magischen Operationen (Berlin and Stettin: Friedrich Nicolai, 1787),
148; Marc Haven, Le maître inconnu Cagliostro: Étude Historique et Critique sur la Haute Magie (Paris: Dorbon-
Ainé, 1912), 287–289.
4
For more on Johann Friedrich von Medem and his family, see Ernst Heinrich Kneschke, Neues allgemeines
Deutsches Adels-Lexikon im Vereine mit mehreren Historikern, vol. 6 (Leipzig: Friedrich Voigt’s Buchhandlung,

2 Ars Quatuor Coronatorum

 Cagliostro, the Adoption Rite and Agnes Elisabeth von Medem

of this document is considerable, as it ranks as the earliest direct proof of Cagliostro’s

activities during his restless peripatetic life. The certificate also provides an invaluable
source for re-examining Cagliostro’s links to European Freemasonry. Of particular
importance in this regard is the fact that the certificate provides the first evidence relat-
ing to Cagliostro’s embrace of Adoption Freemasonry, which included women, at a time
when this mixed-gender rite was burgeoning among the aristocracy in many European
countries.

Fig. 2 Masonic certificate awarded to Agnes Elisabeth von Medem on May 27, 1779.

The study of Adoption Rite Freemasonry—and its place within the wider parameters of
eighteenth-century aristocratic associational culture—is currently enjoying something
of a long-overdue boom.5 Consequently, in drawing on recent research, this article will

1865), 201-204.
5
See, for example, Janet Burke and Margaret C. Jacob, ‘French Freemasonry, Women and Feminist Schol-
arship’, The Journal of Modern History, vol. 68, No. 3 (1996), 513–549; Gisèle Hivert-Messeca and Yves Hivert-
Messeca, Comment la franc-maçonnerie vint aux femmes: deux siècles de franc-maçonnerie d’adoption, feminine
et mixte en France, 1740-1940 (Paris: Dervy, 1997); Olivia Harman, ‘“L’Azille enchanté, ou La reunion des deux
sexes”: Réflexions sur le rite d’adoption dans la franc-maçonnerie de l’ancien régime’, Renaissance tradition-
nelle Nos. 127–128 (2001), 250-260; James Smith Allen, ‘Sisters of Another Sort: Freemason Women in Mod-
ern France, 1725-1940’, The Journal of Modern History 75:4 (Dec. 2003), 783–835; Alexandra Heide and Jan A.
M. Snoek (eds.), Women’s Agency and Rituals in Mixed and Female Masonic Orders (Leiden: Brill, 2008); Cécile
Revauger and Jacques Charles Lemaire (eds.). Les femmes et la franc-maçonnerie, des Lumières à nos jours, I. XVIIIe
et XIXe siècles (Brussels: La Pensee et les Hommes, 2011); Jan A. M. Snoek, Initiating Women in Freemasonry: The

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 Robert Collis

highlight how the Masonic certificate in the archives of the RGVA reveals Cagliostro as
having initially embraced key elements of Old Testament symbolism commonly associ-
ated with the Adoption Rite at the time.6 Prior to this, a brief study of Agnes Elisabeth
von Medem – to whom the certificate was awarded – will be undertaken. First, however,
will follow an analysis of the evidence in the certificate linking Cagliostro’s adoption
lodge to the Strict Observance Rite.

Cagliostro, Strict Observance Freemasonry and the Adoption Rite

in Mitau
In his description of Loges d’Adoption, the nineteenth-century Masonic historian Albert
Mackey remarked: ‘this appellation is derived from the fact that every Female or Adop-
tive Lodge is obliged, by the regulations of the association, to be, as it were, adopted by,
and thus placed under the guardianship of, some regular Lodge of Freemasons’.7 More-
over, members of the male lodge that had sanctioned the Adoption Rite lodge could
participate in the latter, thereby in effect making it a mixed sphere of association, rather
than – as Mackey suggests – a female-only space.8
The opening lines of the transcript of the adoption rite certificate from the RGVA
archives in Moscow reveal that Cagliostro’s new lodge in Mitau ( Jelgava) conformed to
this adoptive practice.9 We learn, for example, that Freemasons of La Loge Trois Epées
Couronnés (The Lodge of Three Crowned Swords) had collaborated with Cagliostro
in founding La Loge des Trois Coeurs Couronnés (The Lodge of the Three Crowned
Hearts).10 Thus, whilst Cagliostro had been installed as the Grand Master of the lodge,
the certificate indicates that two other prominent Masons of The Lodge of the Three
Crowned Swords – Otto Hermann von Howen (1740-1806) and Johann Gotthard

Adoption Rite (Leiden: Brill, 2012).

6
For primary documentation on Cagliostro’s Egyptian Rite, see Acta Latomorum ou Chronologie de L’Histoire
de la Franche-Maçonnerie Fraçaise et Étrangère, vol. 2 (Paris: Dechevaux-Dumesnil, 1815), 93, 107, 113–115, 117, 120,
123, 126; Rituel de la maçonnerie égyptienne (Geneva: Arbre d’Or, 2004). For a commentary on the Egyptian Rite,
see Dudley Wright, Women and Freemasonry (London: W. Rider & Son, 1922), 29–37.
7
Albert G. Mackey, Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, vol. 1 (Chicago: The Masonic History Company, 1873), 27.
8
As Jan Snoek clarifies, whilst only women could be initiated into adoption lodges in the eighteenth century,
men performed specific rituals within the ceremonial drama of this rite. See, Jan A. M. Snoek, ‘Introduction’, in
Jan A. M. Snoek and Alexandra Heidle (eds.), Women’s Agency and Rituals in Mixed and Female Masonic Orders
(Leiden: Brill, 2008), 4. For a discussion of the etymology of the term ‘Adoption’ and the mixed-gender basis of
eighteenth-century adoption lodges, see Jan A. M. Snoek, Initiating Women into Freemasonry: The Adoption Rite
(Leiden: Brill, 2012), 79–86. In June 1774, the Grand Orient de France conferred legitimacy on this mixed-gender
rite and set out to regulate adoption lodges accordingly. For more on the Grand Orient de France’s official recog-
nition of adoption rite Freemasonry, see Snoek, Initiating Women, 323–9.
9
See Appendix A below for all citations and references to the certificate. All citations from the certificate are
from, RGVA, 1412k, Opis 1, 5299.
10
In German the lodges were named Loge den Drei Gekrönten Schwerten and Loge Zu den Drei Gekrönten
Herzen

4 Ars Quatuor Coronatorum

 Cagliostro, the Adoption Rite and Agnes Elisabeth von Medem

Korff (c. 1741-1784) – served as the Grand Inspector and Secretary respectively.11
Evidence that the Masons of The Three Crowned Swords in Mitau sanctioned the
foundation of an affiliated mixed-sex lodge is highly significant. First, The Lodge of the
Three Crowned Hearts ranks as the first known adoption lodge in Courland (and the
surrounding Baltic area). However, arguably of more importance is the fact that the
certificate provides a documented example of the establishment of an adoption lodge
directly affiliated to a St. John’s lodge (St. Johannislogen) of the Rite of Strict Observ-
ance.12 Hitherto, no such concrete evidence has linked Strict Observance Freemasonry
with a working adoption lodge.
The Rite of Strict Observance was a high-grade form of Templar Freemasonry that
flourished in German-speaking areas, in particular, between the 1750s and 1782, when
the Order was disbanded at a special Convent held in Wilhelmsbad. The driving force
behind the development and growth in popularity of the Strict Observance Rite was
Baron Karl Gotthelf von Hund (1722-1776). By the time of his death, von Hund had
succeeded in creating a form of high-grade Freemasonry that strongly appealed to con-
servative noblemen in German-speaking areas of Europe and beyond. This appeal was
based on a seductive mix of chivalric Templar mythology, and the tantalizing prospect
of advancing towards theosophical and alchemical knowledge. Furthermore, the mys-
tique of the Strict Observance was heightened by the promotion of an elusive ruling
elite – the so-called Unknown Superiors (Superiores Incogniti) – whose binding decrees
were conveyed by von Hund.13

11
Otto von Howen was one of the most prominent officials in Courland in the second half of the eighteenth
century. For a short biography of von Howen, who is referred to as one of the most remarkable men in Courland’s
history, see Johann Friedrich von Medem and Karl Eduard Napiersky, Allgemeines Schriftsteller- und Gelehrten-
Lexikon der Provinzen Livland, Esthland und Kurland, vol. 2 (Mitau: Johann Friedrich Steffenhagen und Sohn,
1829), 351–3. In 1776, Korff is listed as being a deputy of the dioceses (kirchspiele) of Mitau (Jelgava), Grendzhof
(Mezamuiza) and Sessau (Sesava) in the Courland Assembly (landtag). See, Cruse, Karl Wilhelm, Curland unter
den Herzögen, vol. 2 (Mitau: Verlag von G. A Reyher, 1837), 254.
12
The Lodge of the Three Crowned Swords is included in a list of Strict Observance lodges (under its German
name). See Johann Christian Gädicke, Freimaurer Lexicon: Nach vieljährigen erfahrungen und den besten hülf-
smitteln ausgearbeitet (Berlin: Buchhändlern Gebrüder Gädicke, 1818), 480. Also see Verzeichnis sämmtlicher
innern Ordensbrüder der Strikten Observanz (Oldenburg: Br. Berndt, 1846), 97.
13
On the Rite of Strict Observance, see Acta Latomorum vol. 2, 127–39; Verzeichnis sämmtlicher innern Ordens-
brüder der Strikten Observanz (Oldenburg: Br. Berndt, 1846); Robert Freke Gould, The History of Freemasonry. Its
Antiquities, Symbols, Constitutions, Customs, Etc., vol. 5 (New York: Beacham, 1886), 99–114; René Le Forestier,
La Franc-Maçonnerie Templière et Occultiste aux XVIIIe et XIXe Siècles (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1970); Klaus C.
Feddersen, Rituale des hohen Ordens vom heiligen Tempel zu Jerusalem, auch Strikte Observanz gennant, weltlicher
Zweig nebst Ordensregeln un vielen Abbildungen aus dem Jahre 1764 (Flensburg : Flensburg Avis AG, 1999) ; René
Le Forestier ; Les Illuminés de Bavière et La Franc-Maçonnerie Allemande (Milan: Arché, 2001); 156–92; Alain
Bernheim and Arturo de Hoyos, ‘Introduction to the Rituals of the Rite of Strict Observance’, Heredom, vol. 14
(2006), 47–104.

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 Robert Collis

Yet, until recently no historians had seriously connected the Strict Observance Rite
with the spectacular growth of the Adoption Rite in the 1760s and 1770s. However, in
2008 Andreas Önnerfors published an article that asks ‘was there a female branch of the
Strict Observance’?14 In reply, Önnerfors draws on a previously unknown manuscript,
dating from September 1773, which outlines a project submitted to Baron von Hund by
Christian E. F. von Vitzthum und Eckstädt, a Silesian member of the Strict Observance,
regarding the foundation of a ‘Maçonnerie des Dames’.15 Whilst there is no evidence
that von Vitzthum und Eckstädt’s project ever came to fruition, it does reveal a climate
in which members of the Strict Observance were countenancing the acceptance of a
mixed-sex rite.
Indeed, if one is to believe the thinly veiled accusations of the anonymously writ-
ten The Life of Joseph Balsamo, published by the Apostolic Chamber in Rome in 1791,
Cagliostro himself successfully (and lavishly) promoted his own brand of Egyptian
Rite adoption Freemasonry at a host of Strict Observance lodges across Continental
Europe.16 In this work, it is stated that a certain George Cofton first conveyed the Egyp-
tian system of Freemasonry to Cagliostro in London.17 Thenceforth, in 1777 Caglios-
tro ‘repaired to the Hague’, where he was invited ‘to assist at one of the Dutch lodges;
the members of which were exceedingly strict in the observance of their ceremonial’.18
In this lodge, Cagliostro allegedly presided over meetings as Grand Master and ‘pro-
nounced an eulogium on Egyptian masonry’, after which ‘he was requested to found a

14
Andreas Önnerfors, ‘Maçonnerie des Dames: The Plans of the Strict Observance to Establish a Female
Branch’, in Women’s Agency and Rituals in Mixed and Female Masonic Orders, edited by Alexandra Heidle and Jan
A. M. Snoek (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 92.
15
Önnerfors, ‘Maçonnerie des Dames’, 92–106.
16
The Life of Joseph Balsamo, commonly called Count Cagliostro (London: C. and G. Kearsley, 1791), 107–75.
17
The Life of Joseph Balsamo, 108. Many accounts of Cagliostro’s Masonic career have also claimed that he
joined a Strict Observance lodge in London April 1777. Cagliostro did admit to joining the Loge d’Espérance in
London in 1777, in his Letter to the English People, which was written in 1786. However, neither he nor Charles
Théveneau de Morande (1741–1805) – the French editor of the London based journal Courier de l’Europe who ini-
tially published lurid accusations about Cagliostro’s initiation into the Loge d’Espérance – made any reference to
the lodge adhering to the Strict Observance Rite. Morande’s damning indictment that the lodge was frequented
by ‘valets, wigmakers, artisans and servants’, seems far removed from the predominantly aristocratic and privi-
leged milieu of the Strict Observance. For Morande’s accusations against Cagliostro in regard to Freemasonry,
see Courier de l’Europe, 5 September, 24 October and 7 November 1786. For Cagliostro’s response to Morande
regarding membership of the Loge d’Espérance, see Cagliostro, Lettre du Comte de Cagliostro au Peuple Angalis
(London: s.n., 1787), 69–71. For recent accounts claiming that the Loge d’Espérance belonged to the Strict Observ-
ance Rite, see, for example, Iain McCalman, The Last Alchemist: Count Cagliostro, Master of Magic in the Age of
Reason (London: Harper Collins, 2003) 36–42; Philippa Faulks and Robert L. D. Cooper, The Masonic Magician:
The Life and Death of Count Cagliostro and His Egyptian Rite (London: Watkins Publishing, 2008), 8–11.
18
The Life of Joseph Balsamo, 108.

6 Ars Quatuor Coronatorum

 Cagliostro, the Adoption Rite and Agnes Elisabeth von Medem

lodge for women’.19 Consequently, he ‘received into it many ladies of rank and fortune
as members: his wife filled the office of Grand Mistress’.20
It is written that Cagliostro then visited Venice, Nuremburg, Berlin, Leipzig, Danzig
and Königsberg, before arriving in the Courland capital.21 In Leipzig, in particular, the
author describes how Cagliostro ‘acquired a high celebrity and renown [among Freema-
sons] on account of his pretended discoveries in the hermetic art.22 The veracity of this
work, however, is dubious at best, as the account is drawn from information gleaned
whilst Cagliostro was being interrogated by the Inquisition. Moreover, the Catholic
Church was intent on sullying the reputation of the adventurer as a heretical necro-
mancer and Freemason. In short, The Life of Joseph Balsamo provides a highly unreliable
source on which to judge Cagliostro’s Masonic activity.
Hence, the Adoption Rite certificate in the RGVA archives throws invaluable light
on the nature of Cagliostro’s early Masonic activities; especially given the utter dearth
of evidence regarding his connection to Strict Observance Freemasonry and the Order’s
dalliance with the adoption rite prior to his arrival in Courland. Crucially, the detailed
memoirs of Elisa von der Recke (1754-1833) – a founding member of Cagliostro’s adop-
tion lodge and the daughter of Johann Friedrich von Medem – allow the historian to
contextualize the certificate within the close-nit aristocratic milieu in Mitau.23
Thus, from von der Recke’s memoirs we know that The Lodge of the Three Crowned
Hearts was founded on March 29, 1779 – only around a month after Cagliostro’s arrival
in Mitau. Founding members included a host of eminent Courland dignitaries who
were members of the Lodge of Three Crowned Swords. Indeed, many of the initial male
members of the adoption lodge were Knights Templar, that is, they had reached the
sixth (and highest) degree of the Rite of Strict Observance.24 On reaching this lofty sta-
tus within the Strict Observance each Mason was granted a knightly name (along with
a coat of arms and motto).
Thus, Elisa’s uncle Christoph Dietrich Georg von Medem (1721-1782), who was
Grand Master of the St. John’s lodge, as well being the Marshall of the Nobility (Land-
marschall) in Courland and a Supreme Councillor (Oberrat), was known as Eques a

19
The Life of Joseph Balsamo, 109. According to a Masonic certificate preserved in The Prince Frederik Masonic
Cultural Centre in The Hague, dated March 29, 1778, this lodge was named L’Indissolube. See MS 10, Adoptie Loge.
Thanks to Jan Snoek for drawing my attention to this document.
20
The Life of Joseph Balsamo, 109.
21
Ibid., 109–11.
22
Ibid., 110–11.
23
Von der Recke, Nachricht.
24
I here draw on the membership lists of Knights Templar, which were compiled between 1771 and 1777 by
Carl Heinrich Ludwig Jacobi. For information on the dating of the membership lists, see Verzeichnis sämmtlicher
v–vi. For an explanation of the six degrees of the high-grade Strict Observance Rite, see Robert Macoy, General
History, Cyclopedia and Dictionary of Freemasonry (New York: Masonic Publishing Company, 1870), 359.

Volume 125, 2012 7

 Robert Collis

Tetraone majori.25 Her father, Reichsgraf Johann Friedrich von Medem went by the name
of Eques a Cochlea,26 whilst Otto von Howen’s Strict Observance moniker was Eques
a Candelabro majori.27 Von der Recke also reveals that other male members included
Sigismund Georg von Schwander (1727-1784), who was a Councillor (Hofrath) of the
Duchy of Courland, and was known in the Strict Observance as Eques a Prospicientia,
as well as the notable physician Dr. Johann Wilhelm Friedrich Lieb, (1730-1807), who
went by the name of Armiger ab Hygea.28 A certain notary named Herr Hinz is also
cited by von der Recke, who was in all likelihood the publisher Jacob Friedrich Hinz
(1743-1787).29 He too was a Knight Templar, who had been awarded the name of Eques
a Satore.30 In fact, of the male founding members of the adoption lodge, only Major J.
G Korff and Cagliostro himself are not listed in Carl Jacobi’s membership roster. How-
ever, this does not mean that they had not attained the status of Knight Templar, since
the record was drawn up two to three years prior to the opening of the adoption lodge.31
Von der Recke notes that ‘our Lodge was founded by Cagliostro with the support of
these brothers’. Moreover, she crucially adds that ‘my aunt [Anna von Medem (neé von
Keyserling)], my cousin [Louise von Medem] and I were elected sisters’.32
Von der Recke’s memoirs regarding Cagliostro’s residence in Courland were first
published in 1787. They appeared in print in the wake of the notorious Diamond Neck-
lace Affair that did so much to blacken Cagliostro’s name in European aristocratic cir-
cles.33 Thus, the sense of disillusionment with Cagliostro, aired by von der Recke in her
memoirs, was far from unique at the time. Yet, irrespective of hindsight clouding von
der Recke’s estimation of Cagliostro, her memoirs are still a valuable source in helping
25
Verzeichnis sämmtlicher, 43. Also see, Heinz Ischreyt, ‘Streiflichter über die Freimaurerei in Kurland’, in
Beförderer der Aufklärung in Mittel-und Osteuropa: Freimaurer, Gesellschaften, Clubs, edited by Heinz Ischreyt
(Berlin: Verlag Ulrich Camen, 1979), 246. On Christoph von Medem, see Immanuel Kant, Kant’s Briefwechsel.
Band IV, Anmerkungen und Register (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1922), 111.
26
Verzeichnis sämmtlicher, 43. Also see Ischreyt, ‘Freimaurerei in Kurland’, 246.
27
Verzeichnis sämmtlicher, 35. Also see Ischreyt, ‘Freimaurerei in Kurland’, 246.
28
Von der Recke, Nachricht, 9. For information on Schwander’s title in the Strict Observance, see Verzeich-
nis sämmtlicher, 58. For Lieb’s title, see Verzeichnis sämmtlicher, 41. The rank of Amiger conveyed that Lieb was
a Knight Templar, but was not of noble birth or rank. See Macoy, General History, 359. For a biography of Lieb,
see Johann Friedrich von Recke and Karl Eduard Napiersky, Allgemeines Schriftsteller- und Gelehrten- Lexikon der
Provinzen Livland, Esthland und Kurland, vol. 3 (Mitau: Johann Friedrich Steffenhagen und Sohn, 1831), 60–2.
29
On Hinz, see H. J. Ischreyt ‘Jacob Friedrich Hinz: Ein vergessenes Buchhändler und Verleger in Mitau’, Nor-
dost-Archiv 5 (1972), 3–14.
30
Verzeichnis sämmtlicher, 33.
31
Von der Recke, Nachricht, 7.
32
Ibid., 34–6. In March 1781, Von der Recke wrote to Johann Caspar Lavater, the famed Swiss physiognomist,
and informed her correspondent that Cagliostro’s adoption lodge had included twenty individuals. See Ischreyt,
‘Freimaurerei in Kurland’, 246. For the original letter sent by von der Recke to Lavater in March 1781, see Lavater
Fond, MS. 524.25, Zentralbibliothek, Zurich.
33
On the Diamond Necklace Affair of 1785–6, see Sarah Maza, Private Lives and Public Affairs: The Causes
Célèbres of Prerevolutionary France (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), 167–211.

8 Ars Quatuor Coronatorum

 Cagliostro, the Adoption Rite and Agnes Elisabeth von Medem

to explain his success in establishing a Strict Observance adoption lodge in Courland.

First, von der Recke reveals that Cagliostro was able to sway the opinion of his Masonic
brethren in Mitau by relying upon the authority of “unknown Superiors”. As von der
Recke states: ‘Cagliostro announced himself to my uncle as a Freemason, sent by his
Superiors to the North on important business’.34 The phraseology used here by von der
Recke strongly suggests that Cagliostro was able to establish an adoption lodge in Mitau
because the grandees of the Strict Observance lodge in the city bowed to what they per-
ceived to be the will of their Masonic masters.
Von der Recke’s notes on a lecture delivered by Cagliostro to the adoption lodge pro-
vide further compelling evidence of the extent to which he drew on the Strict Observ-
ance culture of restrictive hierarchy and a secret leadership:

Freemasonry is the school in which those are educated who are destined for sacred
mysticism, but the lower orders of Freemasons have no concern of these matters, and
their attention is diverted into various channels in order that their unknown supe-
riors (geheimen Obern) can watch them better … A stricter selection of these mem-
bers is made by the three presiding beings of our globe. These subordinates of Moses,
Elijah and Christ are the unknown Superiors of the Freemasons.35

Here we do not find testimony of Cagliostro asserting the authority of his Egyptian
Rite; rather, he fuses the Strict Observance advocacy of the power of Unknown Supe-
riors with an elitist vision of educated (aristocratic) Freemasons being able to penetrate
esoteric and divine truths.
Indeed, the charismatic and exotic figure of Cagliostro would have embodied an
enticing mix of qualities for the Strict Observance Masons of Mitau. As mentioned,
the Order was imbued with an aristocratic hue and, what is more, many initiates were
enthusiastic students of the arcane sciences. In the introduction to her memoirs, von
der Recke describes how her aristocratic father and uncle were obsessed with the study
of magic and alchemy during their early adult years, which were spent at universities in
Jena and Halle.36 Von der Recke’s notes on Cagliostro’s lodge lectures also reveal how
he tantalized initiates with the promise that a select few would be acquainted with ‘the
secret of the red powder, or […] the means of bringing all metals to the maturity of
gold’.37

34
Von der Recke, Nachricht, 6.
35
Von der Recke, Nachricht, 118.
36
Von der Recke, Nachricht, 3-4.
37
Von der Recke, Nachricht, 120; B. Ivanoff, ‘Cagliostro in Eastern Europe (Courland, Russia & Poland)’, AQC
40 (1928), 71.

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 Robert Collis

The reminiscences of von der Recke – who arguably possessed the foremost intellect
of any Baltic noblewomen in the eighteenth-century – also reveal that Cagliostro’s call
to found an adoption lodge in Mitau struck a chord with the aristocratic (and educated)
female relatives of the city’s Masonic elite.38 As von der Recke describes, she and her
aunt and cousin were prepared to submit ‘quietly to all the varied opinions of the pub-
lic’ in the city, because they were absorbed with the loftier ideal of ‘love of the common
good’ and were ‘zealous to extend our knowledge’.39 Thus, despite some disquiet from
sections of Mitau’s aristocratic elite, the three noblewomen first initiated into the adop-
tion lodge felt sufficiently empowered and inspired by Cagliostro (and the wider Euro-
pean vogue for mixed-sex fraternal culture) to ignore the naysayers. As with contem-
porary noblewomen in France (who have been studied in much more depth), a notable
section of the female aristocracy in Mitau came to view the Freemasonry of their male
relatives as a fitting forum for their own pursuit of virtue, the development of the self
and the acquisition of hidden knowledge.40
It is noteworthy that Cagliostro’s arrival in Mitau also came at a time of upheaval
and turmoil within the ranks of the Rite of Strict Observance. What is more, Mitau
had become a centre of Strict Observance activities by the late 1770s and was therefore
at the frontline of the Order’s internal strife. In brief, the death of Baron von Hund in
October 1776 had ushered in a leadership battle. At a Convent held in Wolfenbüttel in
July and August 1778, that is only six months prior to Cagliostro’s arrival in Mitau, it
was decided to formally elect the Swede, Charles, Duke of Sudermania (1748-1818), as
Deputy Grand Master. Yet, this Convent also marked the official withdrawal of Johann
August von Starck’s Clerics from the Rite of Strict Observance.41
At this time Starck was Professor of Philosophy at the Academia Petrina in Mitau.
His retirement from the Strict Observance system occurred after a concerted attack on
his Masonic credentials had been conducted by Ernst Johann von Fircks (b. 1737).42 Von
Fircks was the Grand Master of the Strict Observance Ernst zum Rothen Adler Lodge
in Mitau, an Alt-schottische oberloge reserved for the city’s high-degree Scottish Mas-

38
For a recent work on von der Recke’s place as an intellectual figure in Courland, who was acquainted with
Immanuel Kant and Moses Mendelssohn (among others), see Erich Donnert, Schwärmerei und Aufklärung: Die
kurländische Freifrau Elisa von der Recke (1754-1833) in den Geisteskämpfen ihrer Zeit (Frankfurt am Main: Peter
Lang, 2010).
39
Von der Recke, Nachricht, 36.
40
For an analysis of aristocratic women’s agency and Freemasonry in France between the 1740s and 1789, see
Burke and Jacob, ‘French Freemasonry’; Smith, ‘Sisters of a Sort’.
41
On the history of the Strict Observance in this period, see Le Forestier, Les illuminés, 176–92.
42
C. Lenning, Encyclopädie der Freimaurerei, nebst nachrichten uber die damit in wirklicher oder vorgeblicher
beziehung stehenden geheimen verbindungen, vol. 1. (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1822), 353; Lenning, Encyclopädie
der Freimaurerei vol. 3 (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1828), 394–5; Le Forestier, La Franc-Maçonnerie Templière et
Occultiste, 259–60.

10 Ars Quatuor Coronatorum

 Cagliostro, the Adoption Rite and Agnes Elisabeth von Medem

ter Masons.43 In 1779, this elite lodge included among its members Otto von Howen,
the von Medem brothers and Johann Georg Schwarz (1751-1784).44 Thus, Cagliostro
arrived in Mitau during a period of bitter conflict among the Strict Observance com-
munity in the city and at a time of wider flux within the Order. Into this Masonic mael-
strom, Cagliostro added the innovative concept of a Strict Observance adoption lodge.
The Masonic certificate in the Moscow archives testifies that on May 27, 1779,
Agnes Elisabeth von Medem was initiated into the degree of Scottish Mistress Mason
(Maitresse Ecossoise Maçonne) during a ceremony overseen by Cagliostro. The title sug-
gests a female equivalent to the Strict Observance’s fourth degree of Scottish Master.45
The inclusion of such a higher degree within the Cagliostro-Strict Observance adop-
tion lodge, founded in Mitau in 1779, is significant. As Jan Snoek has recently noted,
higher degrees within adoption freemasonry appeared from the mid-1760s in France.46
However, the inclusion of the name Ecossaise – in reference to Ecossais Masonry47 –
was far less common, with only three known uses in French Adoption Rite manuscripts
prior to 1779.48 Thus, the higher degree Ecossais system used by The Lodge of the Three
Crowned Hearts in Mitau was a rarity at the time in France, let alone in the rest of
Europe.49
43
Verzeichnis sämmtlicher, 96.
44
For more on the influential Masonic role played by Schwarz in Moscow in the early 1780s, see M. N. Longi-
nov, Novikov i Shvarts. Materialy dlia istorii russkoi literatury v kontse XVIII veka (Moscow: Tipografiia V. Got’e,
1858); M. N. Longinov, Novikov i Moskovskie Martinisty (Moscow: Tipografiia Gracheva, 1867), 122–212; In-Ho
Lee Ryu, ‘Moscow Freemasons and the Rosicrucian Order’, in The Eighteenth Century in Russia, edited by J. G.
Garrard (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1973), 198–232; Georg von Rauch, ‘Johann Georg Schwarz und die Frei-
maurer in Moskau’, in Beförderer der Aufklärung in Mittel-und Osteuropa: Freimaurer, Gesellschaften, Clubs, edited
by Heinz Ischreyt (Berlin: Verlag Ulrich Camen, 1979), 212–24; Natalie Bayer, ‘“Spreading the Light”: European
Freemasonry and Russia in the Eighteenth Century’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Rice University, 2007), 209–
15, 267–77.
45
The six degrees of the Rite of Strict Observance were: Apprentice, Fellow Craft, Master, Scottish Master,
Novicate, Knight Templar. See Henrik Bogdan, Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation (Albany: State Uni-
versity of New York Press, 2007), 97.
46
Snoek, Initiating Women, 402.
47
As Henrik Bogdan notes, Ecossais Freemasonry appears to have begun in England, with the first mention
of a “Scots Masters Lodge” dating back to 1733, when a meeting took place at The Devil’s Tavern in London.
This form of Freemasonry soon spread to the Continent, with evidence of an Ecossais lodge in Berlin in 1741 and
in France in 1743. See Bogdan, Western Esotericism, 96. On the origins of the higher Ecossais degrees, see Alain
Bernheim, ‘Did Early “High” or Ecossais Degrees Originate in France?’, Heredom, 5 (1996), 87–113. Also see, Pierre
Mollier, ‘L’Ordre Ecossais a Berlin de 1742 a 1751’, Renaissance Traditionelle, Nos. 131-132 (2002), 217–227.
48
Jan Snoek provides detailed descriptions of these three manuscripts. He dates the first, entitled Maçonnere
d’Adoption. 9e Partie de la Collection Maçonnique, to c.1765. Herein, is contained a sixth ‘Ecossoise’ degree. The
second document, entitled Maçonnerie des Dames [ou] L’azille Enchanté Ou La Réunion des deux Sexes, was writ-
ten in 1774 and again contains a sixth ‘Ecossaise’ degree. Finally, a manuscript entitled Maçonnerie d’adoption
pour les Dames avec 5 dessins en Sépia, emanating from La Candeur Lodge in Strasbourg and composed in 1778,
includes a fourth degree named Logé Ecossaise and a sixth degree named Sublime Ecossaise. See Snoek, Initiating
Women, 135, 402, 408, 410.
49
The blueprint for a Strict Observance adoption lodge produced by Christian Ernst Friedrich von Vitzhumn

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 Robert Collis

It is also noteworthy that the Scottish Mistress Mason certificate issued to Agnes
von Medem in 1779 testifies to the extent that Cagliostro modified his vision of adop-
tion freemasonry, when developing his Egyptian Rite in France in the early 1780s. Thus,
after the foundation of the mother lodge of La Sagesse Triomphante (Triumphant Wis-
dom) in Lyon in December 1784, the Egyptian Rite practiced three degrees for women:
Apprentie, Compagnonne and Maîtresse égyptienne.50 Whilst no link to the Ecossais tradi-
tion of Freemasonry remained in the Egyptian Rite, the opening motto of von Medem’s
certificate – Gloire, Sagesse, Union, Bienfaisance, Prosperité (Glory, Wisdom, Union,
Beneficence, Prosperity) – is repeated at the beginning of the statutes of the Lodge of
Triumphant Wisdom.51 Yet, this element of continuity – in the guise of a rather generic
Masonic motto – suggests only the most superficial of resemblances between the two
incarnations of Cagliostro’s adoption rite. A more telling degree of continuity centres
on how symbolism derived from the Book of Genesis evident in the von Medem certifi-
cate, and which was redolent of motifs utilised in contemporary adoption rites, contin-
ued to play a central role in Cagliostro’s Egyptian Rite. This will be examined in more
detail in the final section of this article. However, prior to this, a more in-depth study
of Agnes Elisabeth von Medem will follow, which will emphasise how her involvement
in adoption Freemasonry was founded on a profound intellectual curiosity that was still
far from commonplace for a Baltic German noblewoman.

Agnes Elisabeth von Medem and Adoption Freemasonry

In her autobiographical work Herzens-Geschichten, Elisa von der Recke lavishes praise
on the formative influence of her stepmother, Agnes Elisabeth von Medem, who took
charge of her upbringing and education in her eleventh year. According to von der Recke,
it was at this time that her stepmother was shocked to discover that she could barely
read or write, as a result of living with her grandmother.52 Consequently, Agnes ensured
that Elisa lived with her father and stepmother. Thenceforth, an extremely close bond
developed between Agnes and Elisa, with the latter describing how ‘my stepmother was
the dearest to me on earth’ and how her words ‘were like gospel to me’.53 This intimate

und Ecksädt outlined a 5-degree system that drew on symbolism related to the ancient Greek muses and Greek
and Roman goddesses. Thus, the five degrees were named after Calliope (muse of poetry), Clio (muse of history),
Themis (Greek titaness of divine law), Urania (muse of astronomy) and Vesta (Roman goddess of the home and
family) respectively. See Önnerfors, ‘Maçonnerie des Dames’, 100-106.
50
For a description of these three adoption degrees, see, J.-M. Ragon, Francmaçonnerie: Manuel Complet de la
Maçonnerie D’Adoption, ou Maçonnerie des Dames (Paris: Collignon, Librarie-Éditeur, 1860), 107–14.
51
See, The Life of Joseph Balsamo, commonly called Count Cagliostro (London: C. & G. Kearsley, 1791), 119; Rituel
de la maçonnerie égyptienne (Geneva: Arbre d’Or, 2004), 3.
52
Elisa von der Recke, Herzens-Geschichten: einer baltischen edelfran. Erinnerungen und Briefe von Elisa von der
Recke (Stuttgart: Verlag Robert Lutz, 1921), 75.
53
Von der Recke, Herzens-Geschichten, 82, 86.

12 Ars Quatuor Coronatorum

 Cagliostro, the Adoption Rite and Agnes Elisabeth von Medem

emotional relationship was reinforced by Agnes’s astute tutelage of her stepdaughter. As

Elisa records, her stepmother had a famed talent for composing poetry in Courland, and
was keen to impart her knowledge of literature and plays to her protégé. Indeed, Agnes
asked Elisa to learn verse by heart and the pair would read novels and plays together.54
At the time of her initiation as a Scottish Mistress Mason, in May 1779, Agnes von
Medem was in her early sixties. Once again the writings of Elisa von der Recke furnish us
with valuable information about her stepmother’s involvement in Cagliostro’s adoption
lodge at this time. Thus, we learn from von der Recke that Cagliostro allowed Agnes to
attend his lectures and to participate in magical experiments in the adoption lodge prior
to her initiation into the Order. Indeed, in her memoirs von der Recke writes that she
asked Cagliostro why he had made an exception to the rule in allowing her stepmother
to attend lodge meetings. In reply, Cagliostro is said to have argued that every member
must be treated according to their character.55 In other words, it would seem that Cagl-
iostro recognised the intellectual prowess of Agnes von Medem and wanted to encour-
age her participation.
Consequently, after Agnes had attended numerous lectures and magical experiments
during lodge meetings, von der Recke notes that ‘after three weeks we travelled again to
Alt-Auz [the Medem country estate at Wilzen] because Cagliostro himself, prior to his
journey to St. Petersburg, wanted to initiate my stepmother (now deceased) and other
members who had a capacity for magic into the Lodge of Adoption’.56 His apparent aim
was to ‘gradually initiate them into the sacred mysteries’, which was seemingly not such
a slow process as von der Recke describes how the new members were ‘given the third
degree’ at this meeting.57 The initiation ceremony was then followed by a lecture on the
dangers and beneficial influences of magic and a séance involving Elisa’s nephew in the
guise of a spirit conduit.
Did Agnes Elisabeth von Medem’s intellectual curiosity, combined with her vener-
able age, lead to her being initiated into the higher degree of Scottish Mistress Mason?
54
Von der Recke, Herzens-Geschichten, 75, 82. Interestingly, the names of Agnes and Elisa appear as subscrib-
ers to a 1776 edition of Friedrich Karl Fulda and Johann Georg Meusel’s Sammlung und abstammung germanischer
wurzel=wörter (Halle, 1776). This is significant, as they are the only female subscribers (in a total of over 250)
throughout the German-speaking world, thereby illustrating the rare involvement of aristocratic women in intel-
lectual pursuits. See Friedrich Karl Fulda and Johann Georg Meusel’s Sammlung und abstammung germanischer
wurzel=wörter (Halle: Johann Justinus Gebauers wittwe and Johann Jacob Gebauer, 1776). The names of Agnes
Elisabeth von Medem and Elisa von der Recke appear in the alphabetical ‘Berzeichnis der Subscribenten’, which
features at the beginning of the work (without page numbers).
55
Elisa von der Recke, Nachricht von des berühmten Cagliostro Aufenhalt in Mitau, im Jahre 1779, und von dessen
dortigen magischen Operationen (Berlin and Stettin: Friedrich Nicolai, 1787), 39.
56
Von der Recke, Nachricht, 104. On the other lectures attended by Agnes von Medem, see Von der Recke,
Nachricht, 87-88, 92–3.
57
Von der Recke, Nachricht, 104. For an English translation of this passage, see P. A. Malpas, ‘Cagliostro—A
Messenger Long Misunderstood’, The Theosophical Path (April 1933), 517.

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 Robert Collis

Unfortunately, von der Recke’s memoir does not enlighten us on this matter. However,
what is apparent from von der Recke’s autobiography and memoir, regarding her step-
mother, is that Agnes von Medem possessed a dynamic thirst for knowledge, which she
shared with her stepdaughter and that did not go unnoticed by Cagliostro. This intel-
lectual prowess may well account for the honour bestowed upon Agnes Elisabeth by
Cagliostro in initiating her as a Scottish Mistress Mason.
Irrespective of the reasons behind Agnes Elisabeth von Medem’s initiation into this
seemingly higher degree, the Masonic certificate in the RGVA archives throws new light
on her participation in adoption Freemasonry. Moreover, in combination with the lit-
erary works of Elisa von der Recke, one is able to gain fresh insights into the burgeon-
ing of women’s agency among a narrow strata of late eighteenth-century Baltic German
noblewomen.

The Old Testament Imagery of the Adoption Rite Certificate

A conspicuous feature of Agnes von Medem’s Masonic certificate is the Biblical imagery
drawn from Genesis that can be seen below and on each side of the main script. To
the left is depicted a serpent wrapped around the Tree of knowledge of good and evil
in the Garden of Eden, for example, whilst at the bottom of the certificate one can see
Noah’s Ark. Furthermore, to the right one can see an image of Jacob’s Ladder. The inclu-
sion of such depictions from Genesis in the certificate reveals that the Cagliostro-Strict
Observance lodge in Mitau embraced key elements of Old Testament symbolism, which
became cornerstones of the Adoption Rite as it began to flourish in France and else-
where in the 1760s.
The temptation of Eve by the serpent in the Garden of Eden plays a crucial role in
the Adoption Rite, particularly in relation to the second (Companion) degree. In gen-
eral terms, in both male and adoption Freemasonry the lodge symbolically represents
the pristine Garden of Eden, in which initiates strive to retrieve Adam and Eve’s original
virtue in a fallen world. Yet, in contrast to the Judeo-Christian tradition of the irrevo-
cable nature of original sin, the ritual drama of the second degree of the Adoption Rite
offers women the chance of redemption and the opportunity to ‘walk more sure on the
path of virtue’.58 As a French manuscript from the 1770s describes: ‘Take the fruit of
the tree of life. As soon as you will have tasted from it you will have the knowledge of
good and evil’.59 Caution in eating the apple is also stressed, as the female initiate was
exhorted not to eat ‘the pip that represents the germ and the seeds of vice’.60 On the suc-
58
Maçonnerie D’Adoption, 18r. Cited from Snoek, Initiating Women, 51.
59
Maçonnerie des Dames [ou] L’azille Enchanté Ou La Réunion des deux Sexes, Bibliothèque nationale de France
FM4 1323, 40v. Cited from Snoek, Initiating Women, 51.
60
L’Adoption ou la Maçonnerie des Femmes, En trois Grades à La Fidelité (The Hague: P. Gosse & Pinet, 1775),
25.

14 Ars Quatuor Coronatorum

 Cagliostro, the Adoption Rite and Agnes Elisabeth von Medem

cessful initiation of a female candidate, an oration would then ensue, which commonly
stressed the need to vigilantly guard against the vices of curiosity in the worthy pursuit
of Masonic virtue.

Fig. 3. Detail of the serpent wrapped around the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil drawn on Agnes
von Medem’s Masonic certificate.

No documented record of the ritual of the Mitau adoption lodge would appear to be
extant. However, von der Recke’s memoir does provide a valuable insight into how the
symbolism of the temptation of Eve was at the forefront of Cagliostro’s mind when he
sought to warn Elisa against the temptation of straying from the narrow path of magic
that leads to virtue and knowledge:

Look out for yourself, guard against continually asking for the Why of things when
I am not by your side […] Eve, who fell from biting an apple, and caused the whole
human race to fall is only a magical parable, showing that curiosity, vanity and ambi-
tion, bring misfortune to thousands upon thousands of members of the race. The Path

Volume 125, 2012 15

 Robert Collis

of Magic, which you think of treading and to which you are now initiated through
your acceptance as a Sister of the Order, is extremely dangerous.61

According to von der Recke, Cagliostro also delivered a lecture in Mitau in which he
invoked another parable from Genesis in order to warn against ill-principled curiosity:
‘If curiosity is not founded on virtue and a bent towards perfection, it is injurious. Lot’s
wife is proof of this’.62 This too is reminiscent of the rituals associated with French and
Dutch interpretations of the Adoption Rite. In a contemporary manuscript, for exam-
ple, the catechism of the third degree of Mistress includes the following reference to the
Genesis parable: Q. ‘What represents the wife of Lot, changed into a statue of salt’? A.
‘That our curiosity must not seek to penetrate the mysteries that are hidden from us’.63
The depiction of Noah’s Ark at the base of the certificate is also redolent of the
broader use of this Old Testament symbolic motif in contemporary French and Dutch
interpretations of the Adoption Rite. The symbolism of Noah’s Ark was commonly uti-
lised, for example, in Apprentice degree tracing boards. One such description of the
tracing board used during the initiation of Masons into the Apprentice Degree, pub-
lished in The Hague in 1775, notes the following about the symbolism of Noah’s Ark:

Fig. 4. Representation of Noah’s Ark at the base of Agnes von Medem’s Masonic certificate.

Noah’s Ark represents the heart of man, the eternal play of passions, as with the Ark
in the waters of the Deluge; & teaches us that we should so fortify our souls by the
precepts of virtue, amid all this turmoil we are like Noah and his family, sheltered in
the wreck.64

61
Malpas, ‘Cagliostro’, (Oct, 1932), 253; von der Recke, Nachricht, 46-47.
62
Von der Recke, Nachricht, 126. Also see Ivanoff, ‘Cagliostro in Eastern Europe’, 72.
63
L’Adoption ou la Maçonnerie des Femmes, 47.
64
Ibid., 7.

16 Ars Quatuor Coronatorum

 Cagliostro, the Adoption Rite and Agnes Elisabeth von Medem

Hence, the inclusion of Noah’s Ark in Adoption Rite symbolism served a two-fold pur-
pose: to reinforce the sense of the lodge itself as an ark, alongside the need to conquer
harmful individual passions by erecting, in metaphorical terms, a fortified ark to protect
against the deluge of earthly temptations.
Lastly, on the right-hand side of the certificate one can observe an illustration of
Jacob’s Ladder (as described in Chapter 28 of Genesis). As Jan Snoek notes, this Biblical
motif was borrowed from the male Ordre Sublime des Chevaliers Élus, which emerged
in the early 1750s as the first chivalric Masonic Order.65 As with Noah’s Ark, one can
note how an image of Jacob’s Ladder was used on the tracing boards employed during
the reception of initiates into the Apprentice Degree.

Fig. 5. Drawing of Jacob’s Ladder as seen on Agnes von Medem’s Masonic certificate.

In a manuscript dating from 1770, for example, a description of the tracing board states:
‘The Ladder traces the way to felicity by the union of the principal virtues: Love of God

65
Snoek, Initiating Women, 5.

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 Robert Collis

and of one’s neighbours, symbolized by the two uprights of the ladder, of which the sev-
eral rungs represent the other moral virtues which follow from the first two.’66
Thus, in large measure Agnes von Medem’s certificate – alongside von der Recke’s
memoir – illustrates the extent to which the Cagliostro/Strict Observance mixed-sex
lodge in Mitau incorporated Genesis-related themes common to contemporary expres-
sions of the Adoption Rite. Interestingly, Cagliostro’s development of the Egyptian Rite
in France in the mid 1780s continued to draw on the potent symbolism of Eve’s tempta-
tion by the serpent.
According to the description of J.-M. Ragon, the lecture accompanying the Appren-
tice Degree ceremony of the Egyptian Rite included a discourse on how the serpent
twisted around the tree of knowledge denotes pride and the cause of human misery.67
Moreover, the ritual placed an emphasis on the fateful consequences of Eve ‘eating the
fatal seed’ of the forbidden fruit. Yet, this same seed, ‘by the Grace of the Lord’ also con-
tains a kernel of hope, whereby it provides virtuous initiates with a way of repairing the
damage and to reclaim ‘the fruit of glory of the woman and the recovery of the power
granted to man by the supreme being’.68 Consequently, the principal ceremony of the
second Companion Degree involved the initiate cutting off the head of a serpent (we
do not know if this was in a real or metaphorical sense). In the proceeding instruction,
the candidate then had to pronounce: ‘I have recognised the basis of my pride; I have
assassinated the vice and the prima material, which is the proud spirit of the seed that
took away our dominion’.69
The pivotal role accorded to the temptation of Eve and the significance attached to
the apple pips in Cagliostro’s Egyptian Rite is entirely redolent of Adoption Rite tradi-
tions.70 However, it is noticeable that other aspects of symbolism drawn from the Book
of Genesis that are in evidence in the von Medem certificate—namely Noah’s Ark and
Jacob’s Ladder—are conspicuous by their absence in the Egyptian Rite.
By the mid 1780s the Rite of Strict Observance had effectively ceased to exist. Con-
sequently, it is possible that Cagliostro used this as an opportunity to mould his own
form of the Adoption Rite. It may be that having established an adoption lodge in Mitau
within the Strict Observance system in 1779, Cagliostro chose to retain some aspects of

66
Maçonerie des Dames ou Ordre d’Adoption Pour le Frére d’Anieres Lieutenant d’Infanterie au Service de Bruns-
wic (1770), The United Grand Lodge of England, MS YFR.828.MAC, 8. Cited from Snoek, Initiating Women,
440.
67
Ragon, Francmaçonnerie, 111.
68
Ibid.
69
Ibid., 112.
70
On the particular significance of apple pips in the Adoption Rite, see Snoek, Initiating Women, 40-41, 51, 127,
324, 331, 333, 349, 421, 429, 444, 494.

18 Ars Quatuor Coronatorum

 Cagliostro, the Adoption Rite and Agnes Elisabeth von Medem

the more conventional Genesis-based symbolism of this time, whilst also embracing the
chance to realise his own vision of mixed-sex Freemasonry.

Conclusion
The von Medem certificate does not enlighten us regarding all aspects of the workings
of the Lodge of the Three Crowned Hearts, particularly in regard to its rituals and cer-
emonies. However, it does reveal that Cagliostro was far from being a complete mav-
erick at this juncture in his peripatetic life. Whilst he was certainly one of the great-
est traders at ‘the Rag Fair of intellectual roguery’,71 the certificate demonstrates that
in 1779 he worked within both a structural (the Strict Observance) and symbolic (the
Book of Genesis) framework. Yet, the certificate also attests that Cagliostro was held in
sufficient esteem by 1779 to be able to stretch these social and cultural bounds. In this
regard, one must remember that Agnes von Medem’s husband and brother-in-law were
not naïve Masonic novices residing in a provincial backwater. On the contrary, they
were among the most senior members of the Strict Observance in one of its key citadels
of power. However, it took the arrival of the charismatic figure of Count Cagliostro to
inaugurate a seismic shift in their Masonic lives: the active participation of women in
their fraternity. Here, it is important to stress that Cagliostro did not conjure up willing
female initiates ex nihlio. As with all great opportunists, he simply arrived on scene at
a fecund time, when the likes of Agnes von Medem and Elisa von der Recke were crav-
ing to partake in the intellectual and spiritual manna supposedly offered by high-grade
Freemasonry.

APPENDIX:

Transcription of Agnes Elisabeth von Medem’s Masonic Certificate

Gloire Sagesse
Union

Bienfaisance Prosperité

71
Arthur Edward Waite, The Secret Tradition in Freemasonry, vol. 2 (London: Rebman Limited, 1911), 133.

Volume 125, 2012 19

 Robert Collis

Nous Grand Maitre Fondateur de la Loge d’Adoption de Mitau Sous le Nom des Trois
Coeurs Couronnés aidés par quelques freres et Membres de la Loge des Trois Epées
Couronnés tenant ses travaux a Mitau certifions par la presentes que Notre tres chere
soeur Chambellane Agnese Eliesabeth de Medem qui a Signé en marge pendant le Sejour
qu’elle a fait a L’Orient de Mitau á été recue dans Notre Loges d’Adoption jusqu’aux
Grades de Maitresse Ecossoise Maçonne et qu’elle y a remplie avec beaucaup [sic] de
distinction L’honorable Titre d’une Soeur. Ces dont aiant [sic] requis Acte Nous la Lui
avons accordé d’autant plus Volontiers que Nous l’avons trouvée douée de beaucoup de
lumiere et instruite de tous Les Misteres de cet Ordre. C’est pourquoi Nous prions tous
les respte: R: V: V: et dignes Fr \: et Srs \: auxqu’eles Elle pourra se presenter de la
recevoir comme telle et de lui faire un accueuil aussi favorable que Nous memes ferions
a tous F \: et S \: qui munis d’une telle attestation se presenteraient a Notre Loge, les
assurant d’une parfaite reconnoissances. Ainsi fait a L’Orient de Mitau en Courlandes
sous le Sceau ordinaire de Notre Loge de celui de L’Adoption et de Notre Famille. Le 27
May l’an d’adoption Mille Sept Cent et Soixant dix neuf !

Otto Herman de Howen, Grand Inspecteur

Par Ordre du tres Venerable Grand Maitre G. M. F \ Cagliostros

1255

Jean Gotthard Korff, Secretaire

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Allgemeines Handbuch der Freimaurerei, 3 vols. (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1863-1867).
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dom, vol. 5 (1996), 87-113.
Blessig, Johann Lorenz, Leben des Grafen Johann Friedrich von Medem nebst seinem
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20 Ars Quatuor Coronatorum

 Cagliostro, the Adoption Rite and Agnes Elisabeth von Medem

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Haven, Marc. Le maître inconnu Cagliostro: Étude Historique et Critique sur la Haute
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22 Ars Quatuor Coronatorum

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24 Ars Quatuor Coronatorum