So Supernatural - MYSTICAL: The Comte de Saint Germain

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

In the 18th century, an alchemist and philosopher became something of an international celebrity, rubbing elbows with royalty, predicting violent revolutions, and allegedly unlocking the secret to eternal life. Who really was Count St. Germain?  

Now, this has probably happened to most of us at some point. You're out at a party and your friend introduces you to someone you just have to meet. But while you're shaking their hand, you swear you've met them somewhere before. Well, back in 1760, that exact thing happened to an elderly countess named Madame von Gergy. She's at court in Versailles, and when she meets a man named Comte de Sejermet, she thinks she's seen a ghost. 50 years ago, she knew someone that looked exactly like this guy, and he also had the same name. But there's no way this is the same person. He's way too young. He looks like he was only in his 40s.

But the man insists they have met before. And he is the same Comte. To prove it, he can even recall what they discussed when they last met, way back in 1710. 50 years had passed, and yet Saint-Germain hadn't aged a day. This is Supernatural. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. This week, I'm talking about the Comte de Saint-Germain, an alchemist, prophet, and international man of mystery. For over a century, he popped up all over Europe,

cozying up to royals and predicting violent revolutions. And supposedly, he also wrote a manuscript that offers the secret to eternal life. I have all that and more coming up. Stay with us. There's not a lot of verifiable information out there about Saint-Germain. He was born in the late 1600s, I think, and he died in 1784, supposedly. He used the title Comte, which is French for count. Only no one knew what he was supposed to be the count of. And it doesn't seem like he's actually a French descent. People thought he was Portuguese or Spanish or maybe some sort of stateless wanderer. And if the name Saint-Germain sounds familiar,

it might be because in a previous episode, I discussed another possible backstory, that he was actually the medieval alchemist Nicholas Flamel. Basically, the guy was a big fat question mark. But from the moment he appeared, he had Europe's aristocracy in a complete uproar. The first written record of the count appears in 1745. On December 9th of that year, a British earl named Horace Walpole writes a letter that says, Yes, the letter's short and pretty vague, but around this time, tons of other letters and accounts start talking about this guy. He's said to be around 45 years old. He's fit with dark hair, tan skin, and bright eyes, so he sounds pretty handsome. But the most striking thing about him is his jewels.

Reportedly, the Count digs gemstones. He's got them everywhere, on each finger, inlaid in his shoes, sewn into his clothing even. And the Count acts as flashy as he dresses. He speaks 11 different languages, including French, Latin, Sanskrit, and Chinese. He is a great violinist and composes a number of pieces that end up in the British Museum. He paints beautiful portraits. Some say the gemstones he paints on his canvases shine as brightly as real diamonds. But despite how worldly the Count is, he happens to be a really picky eater. He'll only eat specially prepared, bland foods, and he refuses to eat in front of others. He's always drinking this weird potion instead.

But even if he won't have a meal, he's a great conversationalist at dinner parties. And his favorite thing to talk about is how he personally knows a bunch of long-dead historical figures. For example, in 1748, the Count shows up in Paris. His, let's say, eccentric personality gets the attention of King Louis XV, and he becomes a regular at the royal court. At first, the royals are wary of this guy. Like, he looks like he's in his 40s, but he talks as if he's much older. For example, he tells stories about the previous King Louis XIV as if he knew him personally, which feels weird because Louis XIV died in 1715, 33 years before. And maybe he really did

know the old king? He would have been pretty young, but technically it's possible. But what's truly impossible is the friendship the Count claims he had with a different monarch, King Francis I. He died in 1547, 200 years earlier. So maybe this guy is just a liar, right? But the thing is, the Count perfectly conjures up Francis' personality, his idiosyncrasies, even his voice as if he really did know him personally. Like everything he says matches the stories passed down about the king.

And the count has equally perfect recall about ancient historical events. Like we're talking the birth of Christ kind of ancient. He brings up people like Cleopatra and the biblical queen of Sheba like they're old friends. So how is this possible? Easy. The count claims that he's an alchemist who discovered the secret to eternal life. Remember, this is the 1700s, the age of enlightenment. For practically the first time ever, scientists are moving away from superstitions and basing their beliefs on reason and evidence. And alchemy fits right into this transition period. It's a combination of science and magic. The whole point is to change one element into another, most famously turning cheaper metals

into gold. But allegedly, alchemy can also affect the human body. With the right materials, you can make an elixir of immortality. And beyond the immortality thing, the Count is definitely a master of alchemy. Mainly, he King Louis XV brings the Count an old, imperfect diamond. When he returns the diamond, it's absolutely flawless, increasing its value by more than half. So understandably, the King loves this guy. He keeps the Count around for 12 years. But I have to imagine if you're immortal, you get bored. Doing magic tricks and hanging out with kings gets old. Which may be why by 1760, the count takes on a new hobby. He becomes a secret agent. You see, there's a battle going on between Austria

and Prussia. And countries are choosing sides. France and Austria are already allies, but supposedly King Louis asked the Count to step in and broker a peace treaty with Prussia instead, without consulting the French foreign minister. So the Count organizes some secret meetings and backroom deals with Prussia. And when the foreign minister eventually hears about it, he is not happy. Since this mission was so top secret, nobody in the French government knew about it. So they come to what seems like an obvious conclusion. The Count must be a spy working for the enemy, England.

Pretty soon, there's a bounty on the Count's head. The foreign minister says he wants him bound hand and foot and sent to prison. So the Count flees the country and washes up in England, which only further convinces the French ministers that they were right. Of course, after such a sticky incident, King Louis cuts off all ties with the Count. Once again, he's adrift, wandering from place to place. And it's not long before he finds a new home in a country on the cusp of a bloody revolution. Coming up, the Count becomes a prophet of doom. Now, back to the story. While he's living in Paris in the 1750s, the Count becomes close friends with Johanna, a princess who rules over a small region in Germany.

So when the Count goes on the run a few years later, he allegedly goes to stay with Princess Johanna's daughter, Empress Catherine of Russia. At the time, Russia is not exactly the stablest of countries. The new emperor, Peter III, is a lousy ruler. He's a drunk who plays cruel practical jokes and is pretty universally disliked. But no one hates him more than his wife, Empress Catherine. Now, most of this information is coming from 300-year-old personal letters, so it's hard to tell fact from fiction.

But right around the time the Count appears in Russia, all these weird things start happening. Supposedly, Catherine makes the Count a general in the army. And the next thing you know, the military is helping Catherine overthrow her husband. She becomes known as Catherine the Great and ushers in a new golden age of Russia. I can't say for sure whether the Count had anything to do with the coup, but I do know that the Count is really close with Catherine the Great, and the timing is pretty suspicious. Either way, by 1774, once Catherine's got the empire secured, the Count is back in Paris.

It's only been 14 years since he left, but a lot's changed. King Louis XV is dead. His grandson, Louis XVI, has taken throne. But the Count still has plenty of enemies in the French royal court, so going back is pretty dangerous. It's a chance he's willing to take, though, because somehow he knows

that something even more dangerous is on the horizon. It's 8 o'clock on a Sunday morning, and an aristocrat named Gabrielle Dadamar gets a knock on her door. Gabrielle is shocked to find that it's her old friend, the Count. He looks pretty haggard and gives her a dire warning. A conspiracy is forming against the throne. Soon, someone will try to overthrow the monarchy. Gabrielle is lady in waiting to the new queen, Marie Antoinette, and she's so scared by the Count's warning, she immediately runs to the queen to tell her. Marie Antoinette just sits silently for a second, and then she whispers something like,

this is exactly what the letter said. The queen explains that she'd been receiving mysterious anonymous notes. Now, she's never met the count, but after hearing all this, she's pretty sure he's the one who's been writing them. So she begs Gabrielle to bring the Count to her. Unfortunately, when he comes, he isn't bearing good news. The Count says that soon a darkness will fall across France. First, the clergy will be destroyed, then the noble classes, then lawmakers. Even the monarchy itself will fall. But not before a vicious civil war erupts in the streets.

Blood will flow in the gutters and the aristocrats will face the guillotine. Now, Marie Antoinette is probably horrified. She has to see the truth in what he's saying. There's a huge divide between the rich and the poor and the peasants are getting angry. So she promises to bring this news to the king. And poor, and the peasants are getting angry. So she promises to bring this news to the king. And that's where the problems start. Like I said, the count still has his enemies, and they don't want him cozying up to another king. In fact, the moment the count and Gabrielle are shown out of the palace, he tells her that as soon as the king finds out about his visit,

there'll be a warrant out for his arrest. Lo and behold, he's right. Just a few hours later, one of the king's advisors knocks on Gabrielle's door looking for the count. Gabrielle swears she doesn't know where he is, but before the words are out of her mouth, the count barges through the door. He screams at the advisor that he's preventing him from saving the monarchy. If the count can't speak to the king, this advisor will go down in history as the man who ruined an empire. And with that dramatic exit, the count flees France. A few years later, his prediction comes true. In 1789, the French Revolution begins. Peasants take to the streets, calling for the death of the aristocracy. Throughout the first year of the revolution, Marie Antoinette continues to receive letters from the Count, warning her of what else is to come. At some point that year,

the Count even comes back to France in person. He visits Gabrielle and tells her that his prediction has become inevitable. The monarchy will fall and the king and queen will die. And surprise, surprise, he's absolutely right. Four years later, the reign of terror washes across France and both King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette lose their heads. Between the spying, the alchemy, and the French Revolution, the Count is getting quite a reputation. Even the French philosopher Voltaire describes him as, quote, a man who never dies and who knows everything. But even though he's becoming an international celebrity, the Count is still incredibly private. Like nobody knows who his family is or where he comes from.

Nobody even knows his real name. Apparently, the Count is just one of many pseudonyms. On his travels through Europe and Asia, he goes by at least eight other aliases. According to historical records, there actually is a count that controls a French area called Saint-Germain. But this man, named Claude-Louis de Saint-Germain, is not our guy. While our count is studying alchemy across Europe, Claude-Louis is off fighting for various armies and eventually becomes the French minister of war. So as you can imagine, rumors swirl about the Count's true identity. Some think he's the illegitimate son of the Queen of Spain. Others say he's a taxman from Italy

who's putting on airs. Another popular theory is that he's the heir to the Portuguese throne. But there's only one person who knows the truth. Around 1779, the Count is in Germany staying with Prince Karl, who controls a region called Hesse. Karl's super interested in alchemy and they spend several years working on experiments together. The Count grows so close to Karl that he finally comes clean about his origins. He tells the Prince that he's not from France or Spain or Portugal. He's from Transylvania. And no, this is not about to turn into a vampire story. When the count is born sometime at the end of the 17th century, his dame is Prince Rakotsi.

His family historically ruled Transylvania, but just before his birth, Austria seized control of the region. When the Count's still a child, his father leads an uprising against Austria and loses. Austria takes the Count's mother and two siblings prisoner. But for reasons I can't explain, the Count is placed into the care of the Italian Duke of Tuscany. The Duke educates him and raises him as a nobleman. When the Count grows older, he learns that his siblings have been stripped of their original names and rechristened as Saint Carl and Saint Elizabeth. And so apparently he changes his name to feel connected to them. So finally, we've got this guy pinned down. Maybe. Keep in mind, this all comes from the Count himself, who does have a penchant for lying. Prince Roccozzi really existed, but there's not much information about

his kids or what happened to them after the failed uprising. And there are some accounts that just don't line up with the supposed birth year. Like that Countess, Madame Vangergie, who remembered meeting the count in 1710. If this timeline is true, he would have been still a kid at the time. So when was he lying? When he told Prince Karl that he was born around 1700? Or when he told Madame Vangergie that they'd crossed paths in 1710? Or maybe both? That's the problem with so much of this mystery. It all relies on the

word of one guy who can't keep his own story straight. Even the one official document we have, his death record, doesn't line up. But there's another mystery about the count that's yet to be solved. And that's the question of his immortality. Supposedly, on February 27th, 1784, the Count dies in Germany. It's not clear what the cause is, but church records show he's buried a few days later on March 2nd. But in 1785, a year after his supposed death, the Count attends a convention in Paris, very much alive. In 1788, now four years deceased, he shows up again in Venice. And remember how he met with Gabriel during the French Revolution in 1789?

Yeah, that's five years after his recorded demise. For a dead guy, the Count's got a pretty busy schedule. Now, maybe this is just an error in record keeping, or perhaps to avoid any further scrutiny, the Count faked his own death. Coming up, the Count not only survives, he thrives. Now, back to the story. According to church records, the Count is buried in 1784, But there's a theory that the count wasn't actually in the coffin. Instead, he faked his death as a cover to drop off the face of the earth.

But he didn't do it alone. He had the help of a secret society that most of us know by now, the Freemasons. Congratulations to anyone who had Freemason on their bingo card. Honestly, if you talk about a magical historical figure long enough, Freemasonry is bound to show up. And if you listen to this show regularly, you've definitely heard me talk about the Freemasons before. The Society studies truths about the universe, passed down through allegorical stories. They're super into symbols, code words, all that sneaky stuff. Supposedly, the Count has a huge influence on both classic Freemasonry and its spookier offshoots.

In fact, he's the reason people associate Freemasonry with the occult. When he's globetrotting throughout the 1700s, it's not just for the revolutionary drama. He's also visiting different branches of Freemasons, supposedly teaching them alchemy and other magical wisdom. After that, he travels to India, Turkey, and the Himalayas to learn deeper truths about the universe. And following this path, the Count becomes some kind of enlightened spiritual master.

There's this New Age religious movement called Theosophy, which has a lot of overlap with Freemasonry. And they consider the Count as one of their ascended masters, which is basically a person who reaches enlightenment and transforms into an all-knowing, super powerful deity. If the Theosophists are right, then no wonder the Count never ages or dies. He's basically a god. The concept of Ascended Master was introduced by this guy named Guy Ballard, who claimed to have met the Count himself in 1930. Supposedly, Guy is hiking Mount Shasta in Northern California, and during his

trek, he meets a man in bejeweled robes who has sparkling eyes. He introduces himself as Saint-Germain. Saint-Germain gives Guy a cup of what he calls, quote, electronic essence to drink, which sounds difficult to swallow, but Guy apparently does it. Then the mystic takes him flying through space and time before depositing him back on the mountain with a wealth of secret knowledge. Guy brings this magical wisdom to Los Angeles, where he sets up a church he calls the I Am Movement. Throughout the 1930s, he claims to receive thousands of messages from the Count and other

ascended masters, including Jesus. He promises readers that if they follow him, they'll become enlightened themselves. And more than that, Guy says he can help the faithful become wealthy and he can heal the sick with only his thoughts. All they have to do is give him their money. And if you think that sounds like a scam, you're right. In just a few short years, the I Am movement implodes. Guy Ballard dies in 1939,

and the remaining leaders are indicted on 18 counts of fraud. Altogether, they ripped off gullible followers to the tune of three million dollars, a fortune today, let alone during the Great Depression. So yeah, this citing of the Count is maybe not the most credible. But immortality doesn't necessarily mean living and breathing for hundreds of years. Whether or not the Count is still out there in the flesh, his memory is still very much alive. Even today, he shows up in tons of historical fiction books and TV shows from Outlander to Castlevania. He had numerous biographies written about him, none of which can lock down the facts about who this guy actually was, though.

And if he really did have the secret to eternal life, he left a clue behind. There's this book attributed to the Count that's usually just known as the triangular manuscript because it's shaped like a triangle. It's this alchemical text written in code, and if you decipher it, it supposedly contains a recipe for a magic elixir that extends your life. Apparently, not only did the Count write down the recipe, he offered this potion to a few different aristocrats who wrote about it in their memoirs and letters. Remember Madame von Gierge, who he met in Venice in 1710 and again in 1760? When he was introduced to her the first time, he supposedly gave her an elixir that kept her looking like she was 25 for years. There are versions of this triangular manuscript online if you want to

see for listening. I'll be back next week with another episode. To hear more stories hosted by me, check out Crime Junkie and all AudioChuck originals.