Antonio Regazzoni

Antonio Regazzoni of Bergamo (? - 1870) was an Italian mesmerist able to perform some phenomena. Due to the 1848 revolutions in the Italian states he had to leave his country and traveled through Europe making demonstrations of his memsmeric abilities in several countries. He caused great excitement in France and England, and even called the attention of philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The latter states in his book On the Will in Nature, chapter on "Animal Magnetism and Magic:

I had the good fortune in the year 1854 myself to witness some extraordinary feats of this kind, performed here [in Frankfurt] by Signor Regazzoni from Bergamo, in which the immediate, i.e. magical, power of his will over other persons was unmistakable. . . . Regazzoni was able at will to throw the somnambulist who was under his influence into a state of complete catalepsy, nay, he could make her fall down backwards, when he stood behind her and she was walking before him, by his mere will, without any gestures. He could paralyze her, give her tetanus [stiff muscles or cataleptic trance], with dilated pupils, complete insensibility, and in short, all the unmistakeable symptoms of complete catalepsy. He made one of the lady spectators first play the piano; then standing fifteen paces behind her, he so completely paralyzed her by his will and gestures, that she was unable to continue playing. He next placed her against a column and charmed her to the spot, so that she was unable to move in spite of the strongest efforts.

In the first volume of Isis Unveiled, Mme. Blavatsky repeatedly mentions Regazzoni and his phenomena. She also wrote:

A powerful mesmerizer, profoundly learned in his science, such as Baron Du Potet, Regazzoni, Pietro d’Amicis of Bologna, are magicians, for they have become the adepts, the initiated ones, into the great mystery of our Mother Nature. Such men as the above-mentioned—and such were Mesmer and Cagliostro—control the spirits instead of allowing their subjects or themselves to be controlled by them [and in the case of Spiritualism].

In conversation about phenomena with R. G. des Mousseaux, Regazzoni admitted that in all difficult operations he would not rely on his will-power alone but also invoke "benign spirits".

In one of his letters, Master K.H. states that Regazzoni was involved in the formation of a secret club in London for the practical teaching of magic, which ultimately failed:

The last attempt in this direction, failed most signally some 20 years ago in London. It was the secret school for the practical teaching of magick, founded under the name of a club, by a dozen of enthusiasts under the leadership of Lord Lytton's father. He had collected together for the purpose, the most ardent and enterprising as well as some of the most advanced scholars in mesmerism and "ceremonial magick," such as Eliphas Levi, Regazzoni, and the Kopt Zergvan-Bey. And yet in the pestilent London atmosphere the "Club" came to an untimely end.