for the philosopher's stone, but was denied admittance." Nevertheless Hayyum Azulai mentions (Ma'gal Tob, p. 13b):
That when in Paris in 1778 he was told by the Marchesa de Crona that the Ba'al Shem of London had taught her the Cabala. Falk seems also to have been on intimate terms with that strange adventurer Baron Theodor de Neuhoff.... Falk's principal friends were the London bankers Aaron Goldsmid and his son.<sup></sup> Pawnbroking and successful speculation enabled him to acquire a considerable fortune. He left large sums of money to charity, and the overseers of the United Synagogue in London still distribute annually certain payments left by him for the poor.
Nothing of all this would lead one to suppose that Falk could be regarded in the light of a black magician; it is therefore surprising to find Dr. Adler observing that a horrible account of a Jewish Cabalist in The Gentleman's Magazine for September 1762 "obviously refers to Dr. Falk, though his name is not mentioned." This man is described as "a christened Jew and the biggest rogue and villain in all the world," who "had been imprisoned everywhere and banished out of all countries in Germany, and also sometimes publicly whipped, so that his back lost all the old skin, and became new again, and yet left never off