None doubted that he was an initiate of the arcana of nature, as preserved in the temple of Apis at the era when Cambyses belaboured that capricious divinity.
From this moment the initiations into the new masonry were numerous, albeit they were limited to the aristocracy of society.

There are reasons to believe that the grandees who were deemed worthy of admission paid exceedingly extravagantly for the honour." Cagliostro posed as a physician, and claimed the power of curing diseases simply by the laying on of hands.

He went so far as to assert he had restored to life the dead child of a nobleman in Paris; the discovery that the miracle was effected by substituting a living child for the dead one caused him to flee, laden with spoil, to Warsaw, and then to Strassburg.
Cagliostro entered Strassburg in state, amid an admiring crowd, who regarded him as more than human.

Rumour said he had amassed vast riches by the transmutation of base metals into gold.

Some people in the crowd said he was the wandering Jew, others that he had been present at the marriage feast of Cana, some asserted he was born before the deluge, and one supposed he might be the devil.