“People of all religions are admitted into the society of Egyptian Masonry--the Jew, the Calvinist, the Lutheran, are to be received into it as well as the Catholic--provided they believe in the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, and have been previously allowed to participate in the mysteries of the common masonry. When men are admitted, they receive a pair of garters from the Grand Copt, as is usual in all lodges, for their mistresses; and when women are received into the society, they are presented by the Grand Mistress with a cockade, which they are desired to give to that man to whom they are most attached. “We shall here recount the ceremonies made use of on admitting a female. “The candidate having presented herself, the Grand Mistress (Madame Cagliostro generally presided in that capacity) breathes upon her face from the forehead to the chin, and then says, ‘I breathe upon you on purpose to inspire you with the virtues which we possess, so that they may take root and flourish in your heart, I thus fortify your soul, I thus confirm you in the faith of your brethren and sisters, according to the engagements which you have contracted with them. We now admit you as a daughter of the Egyptian lodge. We order that you be acknowledged in that capacity by all the brethren and sisters of the Egyptian lodges, and that you enjoy with them the same prerogatives as with ourselves.’ “The Grand Master thus addresses the male candidate: ‘In virtue of the power which I have received from the Grand Copt, the founder of our order, and by the particular grace of God, I hereby confer upon you the honour of being admitted into our lodge in the name of Helios, Mene, Tetragrammaton.’ “In a book, said to be printed at Paris in 1789, it is asserted that the last words were suggested to Cagliostro, as sacred and cabalistical expressions by a pretended conjuror, who said that he was assisted by a spirit, and that this spirit was no other than the soul of a cabalistical Jew, who by means of the magical art had murdered his own father before the incarnation of Jesus Christ. “Common masons have been accustomed to regard St John as their patron, and to celebrate the festival of that saint. Cagliostro also adopted him as his protector, and it is not a little remarkable that he was imprisoned at Rome on the very festival of his patron. The reason for his veneration of this great prophet was, if we are to believe himself, the great similarity between the Apocalypse and the rites of his institution.