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'The Life and Death of Count Cagliostro and His Egyptian Rite' is the sub-title of this first English translation of the Egyptian Rite ever published. It tells the extraordinary story of a cult figure of European society in the tumultuous years leading up to the French Revolution. An alchemist, healer and Freemason, Count Alessandro Cagliostro inspired devotion and ridicule as well as novels by Alexander Dumas, a drama by Goethe, and Mozart's opera 'The Magic Flute'. Cagliostro's sincere belief in magical powers including immortality, conferred by his Egyptian Rite of Freemasonry, won him fame but made him dangerous enemies too. His celebrated travels through the Middle East and the capitals of Europe ended abruptly in Rome in 1789 where he was arrested by Inquisition and condemned to death for heresy. The authors examine the case made against him, that he was an impostor as well as a heretic, and find that the Roman Church and history itself have done Cagliostro a terrible injustice. They draw on new documentary evidence to prove him a genuine visionary and a true champion of Freemasonry, and his teachings have much to reveal to us today not just of the secrets of Freemasonry, but of the mysterious hostility the movement continues to attract. Cagliostro is remembered for his alchemical operations and there is an account of how on the 7th June 1780 he transmuted base metal into silver during a visit to a Masonic Lodge in Warsaw - see page 46. With 16 pages of photos, many in colour, there are 36 plates in total plus 11 illustrations including the magical consecration of a sword from the Key of Solomon, Vitruvian Man by da Vinci, the Alphabet of the Magi, and Cagliostro's Magical Seals. 317pp in large softback by the famous occult publisher Watkins.