The Count's biography

In Impressions of Contemporaries, I gave Voltaire's real name as “Francois M Aroute.” The correct spelling is Arouet, François-Marie Arouet. This was a plain typo that went uncorrected for three years.

In Who was the Count of St. Germain?, I wrote, “To reveal a minor mystery, his given name was Leopold.” This was stated as settled fact. It is not. The claim comes from the Rákóczi theory, that he was a son of the Transylvanian prince Ferenc II Rákóczi, and it is one candidate among several, none of them confirmed by the Count himself. He is reported to have hinted at his real origins to the Markgraf of Ansbach, privately, but nothing survives in his own hand. No one actually knows what name he was born with.

Stanislas de Guaita's dates, given in The many manuscripts, were also wrong. I wrote 1860 to 1898. The correct dates are 1861 to 1897. The wrong figure traces back to Barrès's 1898 memorial volume rather than to Guaita's own record. This one already carries a correction note on the post.

The provenance of MS 209

Three more corrections belong to that same post.

“Frank Hollings, a 20th century London writer and antiquary” is not a person. It is a shop, a bookshop on Great Turnstile opened in 1892 by James Francis Hollings Shepherd, who named it after a family friend. After Shepherd's death it was run by William Edward Redway, whose name is the one that actually appears on the letterhead of the sale slip bound into the Getty MS 209 file. The shop survived the Blitz, moved twice, and was eventually sold to Bertram Rota Ltd in 1969. No person named Frank Hollings ever held this manuscript. Wherever “Hollings” appears in the ownership chain from here on, it refers to the firm, not a man.

The ownership chain itself, Favre, then Guaita, then “a certain Madame Barbe of Paris,” then Hollings, was presented as settled history. It is not. Every link after Guaita rests on a single undated sales slip from that shop, written no earlier than the 1930s. The same paragraph that names Favre and Barbe also invents a story about the Count running a “lodge of occult masonry” with Cagliostro as his pupil, a claim with no basis anywhere else. Since writing this, I have confirmed that a real Favre library sale took place, in Sèvres on 15 and 16 March 1896, and that occult material did pass from Favre's circle into Guaita's library around that time, but as a recorded gift rather than a purchase, and with nothing tying it to this specific book. “Madame Barbe” has no trace anywhere I have been able to find. Favre-owned material reaching Guaita by some route is plausible. The exact chain the slip describes is not proven.

On the Wellcome transcription, I wrote that the translation “was carried out for 'Mr. Potier.'” The document's own header says otherwise: prêté par M. Potier, lent by M. Potier. This makes him the owner who lent his copy to be copied, not the person who commissioned the work.

The cipher key

Ciphers & Keys describes the key's gaps, a symbol never filled in for K, no entry at all for W, corrections from “per” to “nom” and from “etc.” to “et,” and concludes that whoever kept the key “did not understand the words they were translating/deciphering.” That conclusion does not hold up. The gaps look much more like an inherited, general purpose cipher kit than a record of confusion, carrying spare letterforms the Book itself never needed. What the key is missing or doubles up on is still accurately described. What I decided that meant is not.

The same post also treats three cipher keys, the two bound into the manuscripts and the Wellcome key, as roughly equal witnesses “from different sources.” They are not equal in age. The two manuscript keys were made alongside the books themselves. The Wellcome key is a solver's own working reconstruction from around 1920, written on older paper stock but not from the period.

The Latin preface and the spirit count

Latin Preface, John King's post, builds a decoding wheel argument on there being 21 spirits named in the invocation. There are not. Counted directly from the manuscript, the four quarters give 5, 6, 3, and 3 spirits, seventeen in total, not twenty-one. The number 21 only appears once names absent from the manuscript, restored in brackets by the published English translation, are added in. The decoding wheel idea was offered as speculation at the time and remains unsupported. No ring, no index, no moving part of any kind appears anywhere in the figures. But the count behind the argument was simply wrong, regardless of what anyone makes of the wheel itself.

The magic circle

Two corrections apply across three posts about the ritual circle: The Circle, The Circle, part two, and The Circle, part three.

I described the east and west devices on the circle as “symbols of hearts with flames.” Under magnification, they are not. Each is a stem with a pair of small leaves, the same leafy flourish used elsewhere in the text as a line filler, arranged so that the outline reads as a heart. They are ornamental flourishes with a heart shaped terminal leaf, not a devotional or flaming heart. Part two and part three both already carry a note on the corner letter question below. This one had gone unmarked until now.

The corner letters themselves were also wrong. I originally read the triangle's three corners as V, P, and T, and in part two noted that P, T, and V are the 16th, 20th, and 22nd letters of the French alphabet, offered as a possible key to their meaning. Neither reading holds up. Re-examined at full resolution, both manuscripts write the third corner as an s, not a t, in the same double loop form the key uses for s elsewhere. The corners read P, V, S, and read that way they spell out, apex first, “Prolonger (ma) Vie Saine,” the Book's own stated goal, in its own words, rather than an alchemical formula. The alphabet position numbering does not fit either reading and should be dropped.

One more correction, also from part two. I quoted the circle's promise that it “will also give you the full understanding of that which is written in my revelation,” and read this as the author claiming direct authorship rather than compilation. That reading leans on a looser translation than the French supports. The line reads l'intelligence du caractère dont est écrit ma révélation, understanding of the character, or script, in which the revelation is written, not understanding of its content. It is a promise about being able to read the cipher, not a claim about who wrote the words.

The Winged Dragon

The Emblem of a Winged Dragon, also John King's, builds an argument from the ink colors of the ASIA acrostic (Alpha-Omega, Sabaoth, Izra, Akorab). The names are described as “all in black ink,” with AGLA also black, and the post suggests that reading AGLA as a stand in for the letter U might indicate the five vowels. The colors are wrong. AGLA is written in red, not black, and the “all black” impression came from faded pigment in one of the two manuscripts rather than a real pattern shared by both. The vowel argument depends on this and does not survive it. The acrostic itself, that the four names' initials spell ASIA, is unaffected and still stands. It is the color argument built on top of it that does not.

The Tea of Immortality

The Tea of Immortality presents the herbal recipe as something the Count himself “recommended to all those who sought this precious gift of long life.” This states the attribution more plainly than the evidence allows. The recipe's proportions are essentially correct: they match, part for part, a real 19th century pharmacy formula sold under the name Species Laxantes St. Germain. What is not established is the direction of the naming. No contemporary witness records a formula from the Count himself, only that he purged himself with self prepared senna, and that the resulting powder tasted of aniseed. Pharmacy formularies of the period are full of preparations named for saints and places that had nothing to do with them, and Saint-Germain is both a common Paris place name and a saint's name. Either the recipe preserves the Count's own formula, or a pre-existing senna laxative already carrying the name was attached to him later. At the moment, there is no way to tell which.

That is the list. Corrections from here will be pinned to the post they belong to, as before. This one exists to catch what the notes had missed. If you have been reading since 2023, this is what has changed since that time from research and contemplation.

These three letters represent the key words of an alchemical concept: Vita Prima Tria, the Three Vital Principles, introduced Paracelsus in the 16th century.

In essence, Vita Prima Tria suggests that all matter consists of three fundamental components or substances: Sulphur 🜍, Mercury ☿, and Salt 🜔. The simplest explanation of these concepts is as follows: if you take any living thing (such as a plant leaf) and subject it to fire, what burns is sulfur, what evaporates is mercury, and what remains behind is salt. In practical terms, you might think of sulfur as essential oil, mercury as alcohol, and salt as ash. On a more spiritual level, sulfur represents the soul, mercury the spirit, and salt the body.

While this idea was first developed by Paracelsus around 1530 in the context of spagyric (herbal) alchemy, it was continued by several other alchemists. His disciple, van Helmont, proposed a primary division of ice, water, vapor, and gas—different states of water composed of atoms, which were themselves made up of the three principles mentioned above.

Robert Boyle, a key 17th-century figure in the development of modern chemistry, was critical of Vita Prima Tria. His own experiments showed that decomposing substances with fire did not always produce three neat categories, nor were these substances consistently the same. Furthermore, he was frustrated by the vagueness in alchemical literature regarding these three terms. However, his experiments were based on alchemical teachings, and he is considered both the first modern chemist and the last alchemist.

In the context of the Triangular Book, we are left to wonder why its author decided to incorporate this philosophical and chemical element into what otherwise appears to be a magical ceremony. It could be that the triangle, as a symbol representing the foundation of physical existence, still adequately and succinctly embodies these principles. Imagine the complexity of the polygon you would need to symbolically represent a modern periodic table!

From a grimoire and ceremonial magic perspective, it's worth noting that a magician typically stands within a circle for protection and calls upon spirits to manifest themselves in a triangle outside that circle—serving as an enforced and somewhat unwelcome temporary dwelling place for such beings. In the Triangular Book, however, the circle and triangle overlay each other, suggesting an invocation or calling of forces directly into the operator.

As mentioned earlier, we have an arrangement for a figure meant to be drawn on the ground during the ritual. But is there more to it?

The shape is that of the Philosophers’ Stone itself, a triangle within concentric circles. The top of the triangle is clipped, resembling The Great Pyramid, and the station of the operator is in the place of the King’s Chamber, entered through the North, just as in the actual pyramid.

The seals at the cardinal points hint at the seven classical planets and metals: the Sun and Mars at the top in red, the Moon on the left in green, Venus and Mercury in yellow at the bottom, and Saturn in black to the right. Letters resembling the mythical AZOTH peek around the perimeter.

Base points of the triangle contain cipher letters corresponding to V (left) and T (right), while P appears at the top. P is 16th, T is 20th, and V is 22nd letter of the French alphabet. Depending on order and starting point we get a combination PTV, PVT, TVP, TPV, VPT, VTP.

The following page of the manuscript states:

The circle that you see on the previous page will serve as a model to create others, which you will make nine cubits wide.

The cubit as a standard unit of measure may mean a number of different measurements, depending on how one defines a cubit. The term appears in the Bible as a unit of measure that could in some theoretical way relate the proportions of the human body to those of the celestial tabernacle and the temple of Solomon. The Biblical cubit is a standard of measurement which is precise, universal, and divine, but especially tailored to the height and reach of humans. The exact size of a cubit is unknown, but the consensus of speculations estimates it at roughly that of the human elbow to fingertip. A more common measurement for the diameter of magic circles is nine feet across, and the use of the term cubit here is to indicate the number nine as 3x3 or three squared, so that the symbol of the Stone of the Wise has its central square, without a specific demand for an established size. Like other aspects of the ritual, the ratio is more important than the absolute.

Of this circle, the author states:

You will use it to perform wonders, obtain favor that was not granted to your predecessors Berossus and Sanchuniathon.

To perform wonders is to use this work in some way that will have an impact, immediate or eventual, through which something wonderful is made to occur. It is not a work of faith, not a prayer or supplication, but one in which there is an expectation of genuine effect, something at which one might marvel but not ignore or disbelieve. It is intended to accomplish something real, and wonderful, not something purely imaginary or spiritual in character. Those who claim otherwise, citing nonsense such as “internal alchemy” or “psychological change,” err and deviate from the intended purpose.

Berossus and Sanchuniathon are both ancient writers who spoke of the history of their respective empires. They had privileged access to the important ideas and events in their world and wrote of the ways in which society had come together. Berossus wrote on people and places known to him, as a contemporary witness well educated in the ways of his people. Sanchuniathon knew the teachings and craft of the priests and the mysteries of their temples. Western culture rose from these ideas and customs many thousands of years ago.

To obtain favor not granted to these two authors, whose work exists only in fragmentary second-hand sources, is to be granted respect and acclaim as a sage and a wizard, a powerful force within the wider culture, earned through wisdom and the performance of wonders.

It will also give you the full understanding of that which is written in my revelation

— says the author. This small note has considerable meaning, suggesting that the Ritual Figure may be part of a system whereby the ciphers and puzzle within the manuscript can be rendered into comprehensible messages. Further, it clearly identifies the author as the origin of these instructions, rather than compiler or interpreter.

I read all of your correspondence with interest, even though I do not have a chance to respond to everyone. I live very far away from people. My access to the internet and other forms of telecommunication requires making a multi day trek on foot and so happens infrequently – sometimes once every few months.

Much more remains to be said on the subjects of longevity, ancient mysteries, and magic. Keep in touch.

The quest for longevity or immortality has been around since at least ancient Mesopotamia, and 21st century is no exception. We understand that “not dying” is insufficient definition. Further, we can add that health-span vs. life-span is a better way of looking at, for no one wishes to exist in a decrepit stage just to count extra days.

I suggest that the Triangular Book presents a further refinement of the idea. Beyond extending one’s life with good health, its other goals point to the sort of life that is worthwhile living. Discovering things lost in the seas can be interpreted in many ways: from literal treasure hunting to lost secrets to encouraging trade and communicate between different people. Likewise with locating precious materials within the earth: there is the physical wealth aspect and there is also the enterprise perspective, requiring coordination and skills of many individuals. Moreover, any of these goals even if attempted if not fully realized, make for a life filled with adventure and meaning.

And therein lies another secret of longevity. Time spent engaged in meaningful labour on grand projects bring colour to existence. If Count of St. Germain simply lived as a hermit in some far off land, who would consider his life desirable even if he were to claim millennia as his span? Instead, we have accounts of trials, successes, and failures. Intrigue, adventure, and mystery. And enough stories to charm the crowns of European elite. That his story lives on to today is a testament of his longevity.

Its tongue has a triangle tip, it has distinct five claws of a Japanese vs. Chinese dragon, and amidst its colored plumage can be seen a remarkably well-painted human eye.

The introduction to the work describes it provenance: “Holy Magic, revealed to Moses, found in an Egyptian monument, & carefully preserved in Asia under the emblem of a winged dragon.”

Somehow, a secret handed to Moses made its way back to Egypt, where it would then be taken to Asia and concealed under the emblem of a winged dragon? This seems a little far-fetched even for magical literature. As with the Latin text, there is probably a hidden meaning.

First, the magic of the book is holy, which is to say that it serves a noble purpose. It is more like a prayer than a diabolic pact. It uses Hebrew names from the books of Moses, cabalistic titles such as would have been found in the Heptameron, from which the names are derived. These things are simple to grasp, but the remainder of the sentence requires imagination to appreciate. The so-called Egyptian monument is not some random hieroglyphic relic, or the hall of initiation beneath the Sphinx. Instead, it needs to be interpreted on a grand scale, as this monument refers to the Great Pyramid, as shall be described later.

That this magic was “carefully preserved in Asia” may refer not only to the continent, but also to yet another cryptographic puzzle in the text. The words of the benediction include Alpha-Omega, Sabaoth, Izra, and Akorab, whose first letters together spell out the word A-S-I-A all in black ink. These are preceded by the names Adonay in yellow ink, Elohim and Agla in black, O Theos in yellow, and Ischyros in black. This highlights the A and the O, or Alpha and Omega. If one takes the composite word AGLA as the letter U, these names might indicate the five vowels. Just before all of these is the name Tetragrammaton in red. Whatever secret cipher key is carefully preserved in the word Asia, it is well kept.

-Contributed by John King

Ingredients

• Senna Pods – 3.90 parts
• Elder Flowers – 2.53 parts
• Fennel – 1.27 parts
• Star Anise – 1.23 parts
• Potassium bitartrate (Cream of Tartar) – 1.00 parts

Note: All herbs should be dried and unprocessed (i.e., not previously powdered or altered). Ideally, they should originate from the Mediterranean region.

Process

• Measure the herbs according to the specified proportions. For instance, if using 39 grams of senna pods, combine with 25.3 grams of elder flowers, and so on.
• Dissolve potassium bitartrate in a small amount of warm water to create a paste. Spread the senna pods on a baking sheet and evenly coat them with the paste.
• Place the baking sheet in a warm (not hot) oven, set to the lowest temperature, to dry the paste. Once dry, remove the pods and combine them with the other ingredients.
• Using a mortar and pestle (or a similar tool), crush the ingredients to a uniform consistency. Aim for a texture suitable for herbal tea, which is finer than coarse chunks but does not need to be as fine as powder.
• To prepare the tea, use one teaspoon of the mixture per cup of boiling water. Steep for 3 minutes. This tea, unlike some senna-based products, is suitable for regular use, such as once a week.

We note a few things of interest.

First, the general visual structure is that of two concentric circles and a triangle that reaches out from the center to the outer boundary. This is an unusual formation, as most grimoires prefer to not mix their circles with triangles. Typically, circle is for the human operator and triangle is for the conjured spirit.

Second, we have a specific indication of the directions: North/Nord and South/Sud in stylized letters and East/West in symbols of hearts with flames.

Third, positions for the Operator/Master and Assistant/Levite are provided by circles.

Beyond that, we get into an area of mysteries and interpretation.

When we examine the symbols between the circles that correspond to cardinal directions (N/E/S/W), we find neither letters (ciphered or plaintext) nor recognizable seals. Whereas E and W appear as a stylized combination of letters, the ones at N and S look more akin to an astronomical arrangements (e.g. sunrise and sunset, nodes of the moon). Going from W to E, we can make out something that appears to be letters A-Z-O-T-H.

Further, in the corners of the triangle we see three ciphered letters: P, V, and T.

In the diagram above, we use the cipher key/values provided with Wellcome 4668 as it provides the cleanest glyphs. It is tempting to say that these letters (P, V, and T) represent certain objects or stages of the ritual. However, they are likely a reference to something more fundamental and hint at the author’s perspective on structure of life itself.

.::. Ex Dono Sapientissimi Comitis St. Germain Qui Orbem Terrarum Per Cucurrit

“Presented as a gift by the wisest Count of St. Germain, a man who has traveled the world.”

This is not a simple introductory statement. Within the words, an encrypted message hides, unseen unless one knows where to look. When the characters in each line are counted, including the punctuation marks before 'Ex Dono' and the period in 'St. Germain', the number of letters corresponds to the first of the seven prime numbers. The line 'Qui Orbem Terrarum' contains sixteen letters, which equates to the third power of two repeated twice, suggesting a triangular prime number two. The second and third primes, 3 and 5, are absent here. However, three and five each have their unique significance in this work, as will be demonstrated later. The fourth prime is seven, constituted by 'Ex Dono' and the dot pyramid preceding it, while the fifth prime, eleven, is the number of letters in 'Per Cucurrit'. Thirteen and seventeen correspond to the letter counts of 'Sapientissimi' and 'Comitis St. Germain', representing the sixth and seventh primes respectively.

It's evident that this prime number encoding is a deliberate technique by the author. What remains unclear, though, is the rationale or purpose behind it. One could speculate that it's more than just a show of prime number knowledge. Given that these are the only Latin words in the entire text, they may form part of a larger cipher, the key to which might be hidden within the text itself.

Among the ceremonial elements detailed in the book, there's a series of invocations directed at a group of spirits identified by their names. These spirits mirror those in the 'Heptameron' of Peter D'Abano, with minor variations. Notably, there are 21 spirits named in the invocation, an odd number which is a multiple of three. Interestingly, there are also 21 letters in the Latin alphabet. It's plausible that these names serve as keys to the cipher suggested by the introductory statement.

These names are each inscribed in one of four distinct colors: black, red, green, or yellow. These same colors appear in the Ritual Figure, depicting the makeup of the magic circle, whose four sections are drawn in these colors. A triangle, extending into the region of these colored figures, sits at the center of the circle. Also written in these four colors are twelve spirit names, invoked during the ceremony. As there are 21 spirit names invoked in the quarters, these twelve names are summoned from the center of the circle. And, mirroring the 21 letters of the Latin alphabet, the cipher alphabet has 24 letters, two for each of the twelve names.

When assembled, it is conceivable to envision the formation of a decoding wheel, with twelve segments around the circumference and twenty-one radiating from the center like spokes on a wheel or slices in a pie chart. Just as the Ritual Figure displays a triangle pointed towards one of the four colors, these names may align with a decoding wheel to translate the seemingly Latin message into something more discernible in French. However, the exact method, the governing rule, and most crucially, the reason behind this, remains an enigma – a secret known only to the author.

-Contributed by John King

For example, MS 209 has the following:

NOTOMARGATET – BENIS CET ORBITE BENIS LE

FANODA – BENIS LE

HIOLE – BENLIS LE

And so forth.

MS 210 does not fare much better:

Notamargatet – Benis cet orbite

benis-le Yanoda

benis-le Miole

etc.

Other attempts including Robert Word’s supposed original decoding – or more likely reading from the imperfect gloss of one of the above – contain similar nonsense, such as NOTOMARGATET, ZANODA, MIOLE, and so on.

Now, if you happen to be familiar with Heptameron of Peter de Abano, you may recognize the blessings that precede these spirit lists and it may incline you to seek further similarities. Thus, in Heptameron we find the following call to bless the circle:

O vos omnes, adjuro atque contestor per sedem Adonay, per Hagios, ò Theos, Ischyros, Athanatos, Paracletos, Alpha & Omega, & per hæc tria nomina secreta, Agla, On, Tetragrammaton, quòd hodie debeatis adimplere quod cupio.

Compare it with Triangular Book’s call:

TETRAGRAMMATON, bless this circle, bless it ADONAI, bless it ELOHIM, bless it AGLA, bless it O THEOS, bless it ISCHYROS, bless it ALPHA, bless it OMEGA, bless it SABAOTH, bless it IZRA, bless it BAROKA, bless it You who lives & reigns for centuries of centuries.

Moving on to the names of the spirits, we can examine a section in Heptameron called “The Angels of the fourth heaven, ruling on the Lords day, which ought to be called from the four parts of the world”:

• East: Samael. Baciel. Atel. Gabriel [*Fabriel]. Vionatraba.
• West: Anael. Pabel. Ustael. Burchat. Suceratos. Capabili [*Capabali].
• North: Aiel. Aniel, vel Aquiel. Masgabriel. Sapiel. Matuyel.
• South: Haludiel. Machasiel. Charsiel. Uriel. Naromiel.

In MS 209 and 210 these are rendered as: Leaman, Leciab, Latranavio, Ribral, Telaro etc. Correct decipherment yields a familiar list:

• “…beginning from the side where the sun rises:” SAMAEL, BACIEL, VIONATRABA, GABRIEL, ATEL
• “…on the side where the sun sets:” ANAEL, PABEL, USTAEL, BURCHAT, SUCERATOS, CAPABILI

And similarly to the end. Another point is that while Heptameron apparently drew from Liber Razielis, the names of the spirits of the fourth heaven on Sunday do not correspond to the list above. This suggests that the author of the Triangular MS drew from Heptameron rather than its precursor(s).

At this stage, it may seem as all mysteries have been sufficiently elucidated and the work is laid out for all to see. This is not so. In figures, in minute decorations, in inks and colors lie further enigmas, waiting to be solved.