Although the stranger said he received no one at his house he allowed Cagliostro to visit him.  After various mysterious doings the two went off to Egypt, and afterwards to Malta, where they performed many wonderful deeds before the Grand Master, who was much impressed.  At Malta Altotas died, or, at anyrate, vanished.  Cagliostro then travelled for some time, and was well received by noblemen, ambassadors, and others in high position.  At Rome he fell in love with a young and beautiful lady, Lorenza Feliciani, and married her.

Cagliostro used his young wife as a decoy to attract rich and foolish men.  He and his wife thrived for a time, and accumulated money and jewels; but a confederate betrayed them, and they fled to Venice, and then wandered for several years in Italy, France, and England.  They seem to have made a living by the sale of lotions for the skin, and by practising skilful deceptions.

About the year 1770 Cagliostro began to pose as an alchemist.  After another period of wandering he paid a second visit to London and founded a secret society, based on (supposed) Egyptian rites, mingled with those of freemasonry.  The suggestion of this society is said to have come from a curious book he picked up on a second-hand stall in London.  The society attracted people by the strangeness of its initiatory rites, and the promises of happiness and wellbeing made by its founder to those who joined it.  Lodges were established in many countries, many disciples were obtained, great riches were amassed, and Cagliostro flourished exceedingly.

In his Histoire du Merveilleux dans les Temps modernes, Figuier, speaking of Cagliostro about this period of his career, says: 

“He proclaimed himself the bearer of the mysteries of Isis and Anubis from the far East....  He obtained numerous and distinguished followers, who on one occasion assembled in great force to hear Joseph Balsamo expound to them the doctrines of Egyptian freemasonry.  At this solemn convention he is said to have spoken with overpowering eloquence;... his audience departed in amazement and completely converted to the regenerated and purified masonry.  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.