Borri, Josephe-François

An Encyclopaedia of Occultism (1920)

An alchemistical imposter of the seventeenth century, born at Milan, in 1627. In youth his conduct was so wayward that at last he was compelled to seek refuge in a church in dread of the vengeance of those whom he had wronged. However, he speedily cloaked his delinquencies under the cloak of imposture and hypocrisy, and he pretended that God had chosen him to reform mankind and to re-establish His reign below. He also claimed to be the champion of the Papal power against all heretics and Protestants, and wore a wondrous sword which he alleged Saint Michael had presented him with. He said that he had beheld in heaven a luminous palm-branch which was reserved for him. He held that the Virgin was divine in nature, that she had conceived through inspiration, and that she was equal to her Son, with Boxhorn, Mark Querius : A celebrated Dutch critic, born Whom she was present in the Eucharist, that the Holy Spirit was incarnate in her, that the second and third Persons of the Trinity were inferior to the Father. According to some writers Borri proclaimed himself as the Holy Spirit incarnate. He was arrested after the death of Innocent X by order of the Inquisition, and on 3rd of January, 1661, condemned to be burnt as a heretic. But he succeeded in escaping to Germany where he received much money from the Queen Christina to whom he claimed that he could manufacture the Philosophers' Stone. He afterwards fled to Copenhagen, whence he wished to sail to Turkey. But he was tracked to a small village hard by and arrested along with a conspirator. He was sent back to Rome , where he died in prison, August 10th, 1695. He is the author of a work entitled, The Key of the Cabinet of the Chevalier Borri (Geneva, 1681) which is chiefly concerned with elementary spirits , and it is this work which the Abbé de Villars has given in an abridged form as the Comte de Gabalis (q.v.).