Goethe and the Big Con

ter Horst, Eleanor E.; ter Horst, Eleanor E.

It might be said that Goethe spent a large portion of his life exposing the “big con,” the exploitation of gullible believers by cult leaders and secret societies. Having been raised in a Pietistic household; having had an undiagnosable illness treated by alternative medical cures; and having achieved the level of Master Freemason before formally renouncing his membership; Goethe was a believer who personally experienced “the con,” and therefore sought to publicize the danger it posed. Biographically, for example, he researched the background of the fraudster, the self-ennobled Count Alessandro di Cagliostro (born Giuseppe Balsamo, 1743-1795). Literarily, he explored the temptations confronted by believers, as with Faust and Mephistopheles; the control exerted by secret societies, as with Wilhelm Meister and the Tower Society; the difficulty of discerning whether or not someone is a conman, as with Jarno; and the malleability of uninformed people, as in Der Groß Cophta. Scientifically, he sought to develop a methodology by which one might verify the truth, as in the essay “The Experiment as Mediator Between Object and Subject” (April 28, 1792). The purpose of this panel is to explore various manifestations of Goethe’s multifaceted relationship with and attitude towards the “big con.”

Sheila A. Spector will open the panel with an account of “Goethe’s Response to Cagliostro’s Big Con.” Although an advocate of alternative modes of thought, Goethe was rational enough to become disillusioned with secret societies and cult leaders. He was particularly concerned about the potential danger posed by “Count” Alessandro Cagliostro (born Giuseppe Balsamo), early on warning about the man whom Thomas Carlyle would label “the Quack of Quacks.” Assuming the stance of an active investigator, in 1787, during his Italian journey, Goethe took a detour to Palermo in order to verify what was known of Cagliostro’s origins. Upon his return to Germany, he presented a formal report to the Weimar “Friday Club,” and subsequently composed and produced Der Groß Cophta, a satiric warning about the danger posed by con artists like Cagliostro, as well as the gullibility of contemporary audiences. Cagliostro himself was eventually arrested by the Inquisition and sentenced to life imprisonment. Though a negative example, the experience with Cagliostro contributed to the development of Goethe’s epistemological methodology for verifying the truth.

Although Der Groß Cophta proved a disappointment, Reineke Fuchs was far more successful. In “’Was helfen Klagen und Worte!’ Lying and getting away with it in Goethe's Reineke Fuchs,” Allan Madin focuses on the methodology of the con artist, as seen in Goethe’s adaptation of a medieval beast-epic as a con man triumphant. Reineke the fox, an avaricious baron, lies, flatters and intimidates his way out of responsibility for his crimes; he outmaneuvers his enemies and swindles the king and the courts by “flooding the zone” with misdirection and invention. In his presentation, Madin considers how Reineke Fuchs reflects on the breakdown of judgment that enables the big con and how it presents formal discernment as an antidote.

Complementing Madin’s analysis of the con man’s methodology, Anna C. Spafford shifts the perspective to responses of the potential mark. In “Social Isolation, Control, Manipulation and Individuality in Goethe’s Elective Affinities,” Spafford explores Ottilie’s journey in Der Wahlverwandtschaften and outlines how this young woman’s experiences parallel those of a member of a destructive cult: complete dependence and social isolation; refusal or inability to disparage those responsible for her trapped state and the psychological results thereof. The goal is to better understand the relationships between isolation and individuality, strength of character and self-destruction, ending with the question that might be asked of all cult members: To what extent is Ottilie an exposed, vulnerable victim and to what extent is she the immutable “Beautiful Soul” (schöne Seele)?

221 Goethe and the Big Con: Calls for Papers