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+Project Gutenberg's Devil-Worship in France, by Arthur Edward Waite
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Devil-Worship in France
+       or The Question of Lucifer
+
+Author: Arthur Edward Waite
+
+Release Date: April 30, 2007 [EBook #21258]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEVIL-WORSHIP IN FRANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Tamise Totterdell, Brian
+Janes and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+DEVIL-WORSHIP IN FRANCE
+
+
+
+
+    _Demy 8vo, about 450 pages, cloth_
+
+    THE DOCTRINE AND RITUAL OF
+    TRANSCENDENT MAGIC
+
+    BY
+
+    ELIPHAS LEVI
+
+    A COMPLETE TRANSLATION OF "DOGME ET RITUEL DE LA HAUTE
+    MAGIE"
+
+    BY
+
+    ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE
+
+    _With all the original engravings and a portrait of the Author._
+
+    GEORGE REDWAY
+    9 HART STREET, BLOOMSBURY
+    LONDON
+
+
+
+
+DEVIL-WORSHIP IN FRANCE
+
+OR
+
+THE QUESTION OF LUCIFER
+
+_A RECORD OF THINGS SEEN AND HEARD IN THE
+SECRET SOCIETIES ACCORDING TO THE
+EVIDENCE OF INITIATES_
+
+BY
+
+ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE
+
+"The first in this plot was Lucifer."--THOMAS VAUGHAN
+
+LONDON
+GEORGE REDWAY
+1896
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The term Modern Satanism is not intended to signify the development of
+some new aspect of old doctrine concerning demonology, or some new
+argument for the personification of the evil principle in universal
+nature. It is intended to signify the alleged revival, or, at least, the
+reappearance to some extent in public, of a _cultus diabolicus_, or
+formal religion of the devil, the existence of which, in the middle
+ages, is registered by the known facts of the Black Sabbath, a
+department, however, of historical research, to which full justice yet
+remains to be done. By the hypothesis, such a religion may assume one of
+two forms; it may be a worship of the evil principle as such, namely, a
+conscious attempt on the part of human minds to identify themselves with
+that principle, or it may be the worship of a power which is regarded as
+evil by other religions, from which view the worshippers in question
+dissent. The necessity for this distinction I shall make apparent in the
+first chapter of this book. A religion of the darkness, subsisting under
+each of these distinctive forms, is said to be in practice at the
+present moment, and to be characterised, as it was in the past, by the
+strong evidence of miracles,--in other words, by transcendental
+phenomena of a very extraordinary kind, connecting in a direct manner
+with what is generically termed Black Magic. Now, Black Magic in the
+past may have been imposture reinforced by delusion, and to state that
+it is recurring at the present day does not commit anyone to an opinion
+upon its veridical origin. To say, also, that the existence of modern
+diabolism has passed from the region of rumour into that of exhaustive
+and detailed statement, is to record a matter of fact, and I must add
+that the evidence in hand, whatever its ultimate value, can be regarded
+lightly by those only who are unacquainted with its extent and
+character. This evidence is, broadly, of three kinds:--(a) The testimony
+of independent men of letters, who would seem to have come in contact
+therewith; (b) the testimony volunteered by former initiates of such
+secret associations as are dedicated to a _cultus diabolicus_; (c) the
+testimony of certain writers, claiming special sources of information,
+and defending some affected interests of the Roman Catholic Church.
+
+My purpose in this book is to distinguish, so far as may be possible,
+what is true from what is false in the evidence, and I have undertaken
+the task, firstly, because modern mystics are accused, _en masse_, of
+being concerned in this cultus; secondly, because the existence of
+modern Satanism has given opportunity to a conspiracy of falsehood which
+is wide in its ramifications, and serious on account of its source;
+thirdly, because the question itself has awakened considerable interest
+both within and without transcendental circles, and it is desirable to
+replace hazy and exaggerated notions by a clear and formal statement.
+
+I have connected the new diabolism with France in my title, because the
+evidence in each of its kinds has been filed by French writers, and we
+have no other source of information. So far as that evidence is sound,
+we have to thank France for producing it; but, on the other hand, should
+it prove that a whole city of invention has been constructed, "with all
+its spires and gateways," upon a meagre basis of fact, it is just that
+French imagination should have full credit for the decorative art which
+has adorned this Question of Lucifer.
+
+The plan of my work had been sketched, and a number of chapters written,
+when I found myself to some extent preceded by a writer well known to
+occultists under the pseudonym of Papus, who has quite recently
+published a small brochure, entitled _Le Diable et L'Occultisme_, which
+is a brief defence of transcendentalists against the accusations in
+connection with Satanism. I gladly yield to M. Papus the priority in
+time, which was possible to a well-informed gentleman, at the centre of
+the conspiracy. His little work, however, does not claim to be either a
+review or a criticism, and does not therefore, in any sense, cover the
+ground which I have travelled. It is an exposition and exoneration of
+his own school of mystic thought, which is that of the Martinists, and I
+have mentioned it in this connection in its proper place.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                 PAGE
+
+PREFACE                                             v
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+SATANISM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY                  1
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE MASK OF MASONRY                                22
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE FIRST WITNESSES OF LUCIFER                     42
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+EX ORE LEONIS                                      53
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF M. RICOUX                         74
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ART SACERDOTAL                                     82
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE DEVIL AND THE DOCTOR                           97
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+DEALINGS WITH DIANA                               162
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+HOW LUCIFER IS UNMASKED                           182
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE VENDETTA OF SIGNOR MARGIOTTA                  201
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+FEMALE FREEMASONRY                                225
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE PASSING OF DOCTOR BATAILLE                    233
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+DIANA UNVEILED                                    255
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE RADIX OF MODERN DIABOLISM                     290
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CONCLUSION                                        299
+
+
+
+
+DEVIL-WORSHIP IN FRANCE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+SATANISM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
+
+
+If a short time ago that ultimate and universal source of reference, the
+person of average intelligence, had been asked concerning Modern
+Diabolism, or the Question of Lucifer,--What it is? Who are its
+disciples? Where is it practised? And why?--he would have replied,
+possibly with some asperity:--"The question of Lucifer! There is no
+question of Lucifer. Modern Diabolism! There is no modern Diabolism."
+And all the advanced people and all the strong minds would have extolled
+the average intelligence, whereupon the matter would have been closed
+hermetically, without disquieting and unwelcome investigations like the
+present.
+
+The Great Teacher of Christianity beheld Lucifer fall from heaven like
+lightning, and, in a different sense, the modern world has witnessed a
+similar spectacle. Assuredly the demon of Milton has been cast down from
+the sky of theology, and, except in a few centres of extreme doctrinal
+concentration, there is no place found for him. The apostles of material
+philosophy have in a manner searched the universe, and have
+produced--well, the material philosophy, and therein is no question of
+Lucifer. At the opposite pole of thought there is, let us say, the
+spiritualist, in possession of many instruments superior, at least by
+the hypothesis, to the search-lights of science, through which he
+receives the messages of the spheres and establishes a partial
+acquaintance with an order which is not of this world; but in that order
+also there appears to be no question of Lucifer, though vexed questions
+there are without number concerning "unprogressed spirits," to say
+nothing of the elementary. Between these poles there is the flux and
+reflux of multitudinous opinions; but, except at the centres mentioned,
+there is still no question of Lucifer; it has been shelved or dropped.
+
+The revival of mystical philosophy, and, moreover, of transcendental
+experiment, which is prosecuted in secret to a far greater extent than
+the public can possibly be aware, has, however, set many old oracles
+chattering, and they are more voluble at the present moment than the
+great Dodonian grove. As might be expected, they whisper occasionally of
+deeds done in the darkness which look weird when exposed to the day. The
+terms Satanism, Luciferianism, Diabolism, and their equivalents, have
+been buzzed frequently, though with some indistinctness, of late, and in
+accents that indicate the existence of a living terror--people do not
+quite know of what kind--rather than an exploded superstition. To be
+plain, the Question of Lucifer has reappeared, and in a manner which
+must be eminently disconcerting to the average intelligence and the
+advanced and strong in mind. It has reappeared not as a speculative
+inquiry into the possibility of a personal embodiment of evil operating
+mysteriously, but after a wholly spiritual manner, for the propagation
+of the second death; we are asked to acknowledge that there is a visible
+and tangible manifestation of the descending hierarchy taking place at
+the close of a century which has denied that there is any prince of
+darkness.
+
+Now there are some subjects which impress one at first sight as
+unserious, but we come to regard them differently when we find that they
+are being taken seriously. We have been accustomed, with some show of
+reason, to connect the idea of devil-worship with barbarous rites
+obtaining among savage nations, to regard it, in fact, as a suitable
+complement of the fetish. It seems hypothetically quite impossible that
+there can be any person, much less any society or class of persons, who,
+at this day, and in London, Paris, or New York, adore the evil
+principle. Hence, to say that there is Black Magic actively in function
+at the present moment; that there is a living cultus of Lucifer; that
+Black Masses are celebrated, and involve revolting profanations of the
+Catholic Eucharist; that the devil appears personally; that he possesses
+his church, his ritual, his sacraments; that men, women, and children
+dedicate themselves to his service, or are so devoted by their sponsors;
+that there are people, assumed to be sane, who would die in the peace of
+Lucifer; that there are those also who regard his region of eternal
+fire--a variety unknown to the late Mr Charles Marvin--as the true abode
+of beatitude--to say all this will not enhance the credibility or
+establish the intelligence of the speaker.
+
+But this improbable development of Satanism is just what is being
+earnestly asserted, and the affirmations made are being taken in some
+quarters _au grand sérieux_. They are not a growth of to-day or
+precisely of yesterday; they have been more or less heard for some
+years, but their prominence at the moment is due to increasing
+insistence, pretension to scrupulous exactitude, abundant detail, and
+demonstrative evidence. Reports, furthermore, have quite recently come
+to hand from two exceedingly circumstantial and exhaustive witnesses,
+and these have created distinctly a fresh departure. Books have
+multiplied, periodicals have been founded, the Church is taking action,
+even a legal process has been instituted. The centre of this literature
+is at Paris, but the report of it has crossed the Channel, and has
+passed into the English press. As it is affirmed, therefore, that a
+cultus of Lucifer exists, and that the men and women who are engaged in
+it are neither ignorant nor especially mad, nor yet belonging to the
+lowest strata of society, it is worth while to investigate the matter,
+and some profit is possible, whatever the issue.
+
+If the devil be actually among us, then for the sake of much which has
+seemed crass in orthodox religion, thus completely exonerated; for the
+sake of the fantastic in fiction and the lurid in legend, thus
+unexpectedly actualised; and, further, as it may be, for the sake of our
+own souls, we shall do well to know of it. If Abaddon, Apollyon, and the
+Lord of Flies are to be understood literally; above all, if they are
+liable to confront us _in propria persona_ between Free Mason's Hall and
+Duke Street, or between Duke Street and Avenue Road, then the sooner we
+can arrange our reconciliation with the one Church which has
+consistently and invariably taught the one full-grown, virile doctrine
+of devils, and has the _bonâ-fide_ recipes for knowing, avoiding, and at
+need of exorcising them, why the better will it be, more especially if
+we have had previously any leanings towards the conception of an
+universal order not pivoting on perdition.
+
+If, on the other hand, what is said be of the category of Ananias, as
+distinguished from what alchemists call the Code of Truth, it will be
+well also to know that some portions of the old orthodoxies still wait
+for their deliverance from the bonds of scepticism, that the actual is
+to be discriminated from the fantastic by the old test, namely, its
+comparative stupidity, and that we may still create our universe about
+any pivot that may please us.
+
+I am writing ostensibly for transcendentalists, of whom I am one; it is
+as a student of transcendentalism that I have been led to examine this
+modern mystery, equipped as it is with such portentous phenomena.
+Diabolism is, of course, a transcendental question, and black magic is
+connected with white by the same antinomy that connects light and
+darkness. Moreover, we mystics are all to some extent accused by the
+accusations which are preferred in the matter of modern diabolism, and
+this is another reason for investigating and making known the result. At
+the same time, the general question has many aspects of interest for
+that large class which would demur to be termed transcendental, but
+confesses to being curious.
+
+The earliest rumour which I have been able to recall in England
+concerning existing occult practices to which a questionable purpose
+might be attributed, appeared in a well-known psychological journal some
+few years since, and was derived from a continental source, being an
+account of a certain society then existing in Paris, which was devoted
+to magical practices and in possession of a secret ritual for the
+evocation of planetary angels; it was an association of well-placed
+persons, denying any connection with spiritualism, and pretending to an
+acquaintance with more effectual thaumaturgic processes than those
+which obtain at séances. The account passed unchallenged, for in the
+absence of more explicit information, it seemed scarcely worth while to
+draw attention to the true character of the claim. The secret ritual in
+question could not have been unknown to specialists in magical
+literature, and was certainly to myself among these; as a fact, it was
+one of those numerous clavicles of the goëtic art which used to
+circulate surreptitiously in manuscript some two centuries ago. There is
+no doubt that the planetary spirits with which the document was
+concerned were devils in the intention of its author, and must have been
+evoked as such, supposing that the process was practised. The French
+association was not therefore in possession of a secret source of
+knowledge, but as impositions of this kind are to be _à priori_ expected
+in such cases by transcendentalists of any experience, I for one
+refrained from entering any protest at the time.
+
+Much about the same period it became evident that a marked change had
+passed over certain aspects of thought in "the most enlightened city of
+the world," and that among the _jeunesse dorée_, in particular, there
+was a strong revulsion against paramount material philosophy; an epoch
+of transcendental and mystic feeling was, in fact, beginning. Old
+associations, having transcendental objects, were in course of revival,
+or were coming into renewed prominence. Martinists, Gnostics,
+Kabbalists, and a score of orders or fraternities of which we vaguely
+hear about the period of the French Revolution, began to manifest great
+activity; periodicals of a mystical tendency--not spiritualistic, not
+neo-theosophical, but Hermetic, Kabbalistic, and theurgic--were
+established, and met with success; books which had grievously weighted
+the shelves of their publishers for something like a quarter of a
+century were suddenly in demand, and students of distinction on this
+side of the channel were attracted towards the new centre. The interest
+was intelligible to professed mystics; the doctrine of transcendentalism
+has never had but one adversary, which is the density of the
+intellectual subject, and wherever the subject clarifies, there is
+idealism in philosophy and mysticism in religion. Moreover, on the part
+of mystics, especially here in England, the way of that revival had been
+prepared carefully, and there could be no astonishment that it came, and
+none, too, that it was accompanied, as it is accompanied almost
+invariably, by much that does not belong to it in the way of
+transcendental phenomena. When, therefore, the rumours of Black Magic,
+diabolism, and the abuse of occult forces began to circulate, there was
+little difficulty in attributing some foundation to the report.
+
+A distinguished man of letters, M. Huysman, who has passed out of
+Zolaism in the direction of transcendental religion, is, in a certain
+sense, the discoverer of modern Satanism. Under the thinnest disguise of
+fiction, he gives in his romance of _La Bas_, an incredible and
+untranslatable picture of sorcery, sacrilege, black magic, and nameless
+abominations, secretly practised in Paris. Possessing a brilliant
+reputation, commanding a wide audience, and with a psychological
+interest attaching to his own personality, which more than literary
+excellence infuses a contagious element into private views and
+impressions, he has given currency to the Question of Lucifer, has
+promoted it from obscurity into prominence, and has made it the vogue of
+the moment. It is true that, by his vocation of novelist, he is
+suspected of inventing his facts, and Dr "Papus," president of the
+influential Martinist group in French occultism, states quite plainly
+that the doors of the mystic fraternities have been closed in his face,
+so that he can know nothing, and his opinions are consequently
+indifferent. I have weighed these points carefully, but unless the
+mystic fraternities are connected with diabolism, which Papus would most
+rightly deny, the exclusion does not remove the opportunity of
+first-hand knowledge concerning the practice of Satanism, and,
+"brilliant imagination" apart, M. Huysman has proved quite recently that
+he is in mortal earnest by his preface to a historical treatise on
+"Satanism and Magic," the work of a literary disciple, Jules Bois. In a
+criticism, which for general soberness and lucidity does not leave much
+to be desired, he there affirms that a number of persons, not specially
+distinguished from the rest of the world by the mark of the beast in
+their foreheads, are "devoted in secret to the operations of Black
+Magic, communicate or seek to communicate with Spirits of Darkness, for
+the attainment of ambition, the accomplishment of revenge, the
+satisfaction of their passions, or some other form of ill-doing." He
+affirms also that there are facts which cannot be concealed and from
+which only one deduction can be made, namely, that the existence of
+Satanism is undeniable.
+
+To understand the first of these facts I must explain that the attempt
+to form a partnership with the lost angels of orthodox theology, which
+attempt constitutes Black Magic, has, in Europe at least, been
+invariably connected with sacrilege. By the hypothesis of demonology,
+Satan is the enemy of Christ, and to please Satan the sorcerer must
+outrage Christ, especially in his sacraments. The facts are as
+follow:--(a) continuous, systematic, and wholesale robberies of
+consecrated hosts from Catholic Churches, and this not as a consequence
+of importing the vessels of the sanctuary, which are often of trifling
+value and often left behind. The intention of the robbery is therefore
+to possess the hosts, and their future profanation is the only possible
+object. Now, before it can be worth while to profane the Eucharist, one
+must believe in the Real Presence, and this is acknowledged by only two
+classes, the many who love Christ and some few who hate Him. But He is
+not profaned, at least not intentionally, by His lovers; hence the
+sacrilege is committed by His enemies in chief, namely, practisers of
+Black Magic. It is difficult, I think, to escape from that position; and
+I should add that sacramental outrages of this astonishing kind, however
+deeply they may be deplored by the Church, are concealed rather than
+paraded, and as it is difficult to get at the facts, it may be inferred
+that they are not exaggerated, at least by the Church; (b) The
+occasional perpetration of certain outrageous crimes, including murder
+and other abominations, in which an element of Black Magic has been
+elicited by legal tribunals. But these are too isolated in place and
+too infrequent in time to be evidence for Satanic associations or
+indications of a prevalent practice. They may therefore be released from
+the custody of the present inquiry to come up for judgment when called
+on; (c) The existence of a society of Palladists, or professors of
+certain doctrines termed Palladism, as demonstrated, _inter alia_, by
+the publication of a periodical review in its interests.
+
+M. Huysman's facts, therefore, resolve into acts of sacrilege,
+indicating associations existing for the purpose of sacrilege, which
+purpose must, however, be regarded as a means and not an end, and the
+end in question is to enter into communication with devils.
+Independently of M. Huysman, I believe there is no doubt about the
+sacrilege. It is a matter of notoriety that in 1894 two ciboria,
+containing one hundred consecrated hosts, were carried off by an old
+woman from the cathedral of Notre Dame under circumstances which
+indicate that the vessels were not the objects of the larceny. Similar
+depredations are said to have increased in an extraordinary manner
+during recent years, and have occurred in all parts of France. No less
+than thirteen churches belonging to the one diocese of Orleans were
+despoiled in the space of twelve months, and in the diocese of Lyons the
+archbishop recommended his clergy to transform the tabernacles into
+strong boxes. The departments of Aude, Isère, Tarn, Gard, Nièvre,
+Loiret, Yonne, Haute-Garonne, Somme, Le Nord, and the Dauphiny have been
+in turn the scene of outrage. Nor are the abominations in question
+confined to France: Rome, Liguria, Salerno have also suffered, while so
+far off as the Island of Mauritius a peculiarly revolting instance
+occurred in 1895.
+
+I am not able to say that the personal researches of the French novelist
+have proceeded beyond the statistics of sacrilege, which, however, he
+has collected carefully, and these in themselves constitute a strong
+presumption. M. Huysman is exhaustive in fiction and reticent in
+essay-writing, yet he gives us to understand explicitly that the
+infamous Canon Docre of _La Bas_ is actually living in Belgium, that he
+is the leader of a "demoniac clan," and, like the Count de St Germain,
+is in frequent terror of the possibilities of the life to come. An
+interviewer has represented M. Huysman as stating that his information
+was derived from a person who was himself a Satanist, but the
+revelations disturbed the sect, and the communication ceased, though the
+author had originally been welcomed "as one of their own." But it is
+clear to my own mind that for his descriptions of the orgies which take
+place at the assemblies of modern black magicians, M. Huysman is mainly
+indebted to documents which have been placed in his hands by existing
+disciples of the illuminé Eugene Vintras, and the "Dr Johannes" of _La
+Bas_. Vintras was the founder of a singular thaumaturgic sect,
+incorporating the aspirations of the Saviours of Louis XVII.; he
+obtained some notoriety about the year 1860, and an account of his
+claims and miracles will be found in Éliphas Lévi's _Histoire de la
+Magie_, in the same writer's _Clef des Grands Mystères_, and in Jules
+Bois' _Petites Religions de Paris_. He left a number of manuscripts
+behind him, recounting his life-long combats with the priests of black
+magic--a series of fervid narratives which savour strongly of
+hallucination, but highly picturesque, and in some quarters accepted
+quite seriously.
+
+In like manner, concerning the existence of Satanic associations, and
+especially the Palladium, M. Huysman admittedly derives his knowledge
+from published sources. We may take it, therefore, that he speaks from
+an accidental and extrinsic acquaintance, and he is therefore
+insufficient in himself to create a question of Satanism; he indicates
+rather than establishes that there is a question, and to learn its scope
+and nature we must have recourse to the witnesses who claim to have seen
+for themselves. These are of two kinds, namely, the spy and the
+seceder--the witness who claims to have investigated the subject at
+first hand with a view to its exposure, and those who have come forward
+to say that they once were worshippers of Lucifer, worshippers of Satan,
+operators of Black Magic, or were at least connected with associations
+which exist for these purposes, who have now, however, suspended
+communication, and are stating what they know. In the first class we
+find only Doctor Bataille; in the second, Diana Vaughan, Jean Kostka,
+Domenico Margiotta, and Leo Taxil.
+
+Finally, we have, as stated in the preface, some testimony from writers
+representing the interests of the Latin Church, in a special manner, and
+speaking with the authority of that Church. The most important of these
+is the late Archbishop Meurin. At the same time, M. Huysman apart--who
+occupies much the same quasi-religious position as that which attached a
+fleeting interest to the personality of Mr W. H. Mallock--all writers
+and all witnesses are, or assume to be, at the present time, convinced
+and zealous Roman Catholics.
+
+I have already stated that the purpose of Black Magic is simply and
+obviously to communicate with devils, and if we interrogate our sources
+of knowledge as to the object of such communication, it must be admitted
+that the response is vague. Perhaps the object will best be defined as
+the reinforcement of human ability by diabolical power and intelligence
+for the operation of evil along the lines of individual desire and
+ambition. For the fulfilment of what is good man aspires towards God,
+and to fulfil evil he attempts to conspire with Satan.
+
+It must, however, be observed that modern devil-worship, as exposed by
+its French experts, has two aspects, corresponding to the distinction
+already laid down in my preface. There is (a) devil-worship pure and
+simple, being an attempt to communicate with evil spirits, admitting
+that they are evil; (b) the cultus of Lucifer, star of the morning, as
+distinguished from Satan, on the hypothesis that he is a good spirit. It
+will be seen very readily that the essence of diabolism is wanting in
+the second division, namely, the Satanic intention, so that it belongs
+really to another category, though the classification may be accepted
+for the moment to prevent dispute at the beginning of a somewhat complex
+inquiry. The first division is, in any case, Satanism proper, and its
+adepts are termed Satanists; those of the second division are, on the
+other hand, Luciferians, Palladists, &c. The two orders are further
+distinguished as unorganised and as organised diabolism. The cultus of
+Satan is supposed to be mainly practised by isolated persons or small
+and obscure groups; that of Lucifer is centralised in at least one great
+and widespread institution--in other words, the first is rare and
+sporadic, the second a prevalent practice. We accordingly hear little of
+the one, while the testimonies which have been collected are concerned
+exclusively with the other. It is possible, in fact, to dismiss Satanism
+of the primary division in a few words, because materials are wanting
+for its history. It is founded on orthodox Christianity; it acknowledges
+that the devil is a lost angel, but it affirms that the God of the
+Christians has deceived His believers, has betrayed the cause of
+humanity, has exacted the suppression of the nature with which He
+Himself has endowed it; they have therefore abandoned a cruel and
+tyrannical Master, and have gone over in despair to His enemy.
+
+Satanism of the second division, its principles and its origin, will be
+described in the second chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE MASK OF MASONRY
+
+
+The identification of the cultus of Lucifer with devil-worship pure and
+simple is not, as we have seen, at first sight an entirely just
+proceeding, but at the same time it is inevitable. As already observed,
+the source of all our knowledge concerning Modern Diabolism exists
+within the pale of the Catholic Church; the entire literature is written
+from the standpoint of that church, and has been created solely in its
+interests. Some of that literature has been put forth with the special
+marks of high ecclesiastical approbation, and to some this guarantee is
+wanting, but the same spirit informs the whole. To insist on this point
+is important for many reasons which will become apparent at the close of
+our enquiry, and for one which concerns us now. It is impossible for
+the Catholic Church to do otherwise than brand the cultus of Lucifer as
+identical with that of Satan, because, according to her unswerving
+instruction, the name Lucifer is an equivalent of Satan, and, moreover,
+the Luciferian cultus is so admittedly anti-Christian that no form of
+Christianity could do otherwise than regard it as a worship of darkness
+and evil. While, therefore, the adoration of a good principle under this
+discredited name may in one of its aspects be merely an error of
+judgment, and not the worship of a devil, apart from other facts which
+destroy this consideration, we must all agree that from the standpoint
+of Christian and Latin orthodoxy the Luciferian is a diabolist, though
+not in the sense of the Satanist.
+
+The doctrine of Lucifer has been tersely described by Huysman as a kind
+of reversed Christianity--a Catholicism _à rebours_. It is, in fact, the
+revival of an old heresy founded on what we have most of us been
+accustomed to regard as a philosophical blunder; in a word, it is a
+Manichæan system having a special anti-Christian application, for while
+affirming the existence of two equal first principles, Adonaï and
+Lucifer, it regards the latter as the god of light and goodness, while
+the Christian Adonaï is the prince of darkness and the veritable Satan.
+It is inferred from the condition of the world at the present time that
+the mastery of the moment resides with the evil principle, and that the
+beneficent Deity is at a disadvantage. Adonaï reigns surely, as the
+Christian believes, but he is the author of human misery, and Jesus is
+the Christ of Adonaï, but he is the messenger of misfortune, suffering,
+and false renunciation, leading ultimately to destruction when the _Deus
+maledictus_ shall cease to triumph. The worshippers of Lucifer have
+taken sides in the cause of humanity, and in their own cause, with the
+baffled principle of goodness; they co-operate with him in order to
+insure his triumph, and he communicates with them to encourage and
+strengthen them; they work to prepare his kingdom, and he promises to
+raise up a Saviour among them, who is Antichrist, their leader and king
+to come.
+
+Such is the doctrine of Lucifer according to the testimony of witnesses
+who have come out from his cultus; it is not an instruction which _à
+priori_ would seem likely to commend itself to a numerically powerful
+following, but the society which is concerned with its propagation is
+affirmed to have spread over the whole world, and to be represented in
+all its chief cities. It is that which we have already found mentioned
+by M. Huysman as possessing a demonstrated existence and being a proof
+positive of modern Satanism, namely, the Palladian Order. Having broadly
+ascertained its principles, our next course is to discover its alleged
+history, and here it is necessary to admit that it is a matter of some
+difficulty to place the position in such an aspect that it will be a
+tolerable subject for inquiry among readers in England. The mystery of
+modern Diabolism and the Cultus of Lucifer is a part of the mystery of
+Masonry as interpreted by an Anti-Masonic movement now at work in
+France. The black magic, of which we hear so much, involves a new aspect
+of the old Catholic Crusade against the Fraternity of the Square and
+Compass, and by the question of Lucifer is signified an alleged
+discovery that Masons diabolise.
+
+Now, we are all well acquainted with the historical fact that the Latin
+Church has long been hostile to Masonry, that popes have condemned the
+order, and have excommunicated its initiates. Having regard to the
+position of the brotherhood here in England, most of us have been
+content to infer in this respect that the ripe old age of the Church is
+passing into a second childhood; some, however, have concluded that
+there may be more in Continental Freemasonry than meets the English eye,
+and here the Church herself comes forward to assure them that the
+fraternity abroad is a hotbed of political propaganda, and is
+responsible for the most disastrous revolutions which have perplexed the
+modern world; that it is actually, as the exploded Robison described it,
+a conspiracy against crowned heads; and that it is at the present time
+the most potent, most secret enemy which checkmates and hinders herself.
+
+It is now further affirmed that behind the Masonry of to-day--here in
+England posing as a benefit society, and political or not upon the
+Continent, but everywhere disclaiming any connection with a religious
+propaganda--there is affirmed to be another Masonry, of which the
+ordinary Mason knows nothing, secretly directing the order, and devoted
+to the cultus of Lucifer. This organisation, which has sprung up within
+recent years, is largely, though not exclusively, recruited from
+Masonry; it works through the powerful Masonic apparatus, and, according
+to the evidence which has been put in, it has obtained a substantial and
+masterful control over the entire Fraternity. It has focussed the raw
+material of Masonic hostility towards the Catholic Church; as it is
+anti-Christian in religion, so is it revolutionary in politics; and once
+more, it is called the Palladian Order.
+
+This exceedingly grave and important accusation, together with its side
+issues, has perhaps all the more claim on our consideration because,
+apart from actual diabolism, which is in itself so paralysing as almost
+to arrest discussion, it conflicts with all that we know or believe
+concerning the Masonic constitution. Let me briefly collect the points.
+(a) Masonry possesses a secret directing centre--which has been
+strenuously denied by the Fraternity. (b) It has a religious mission and
+a doctrinal propaganda--which has also been invariably denied. (c) It is
+concerned with political objects--which, for the most part, is denied.
+(d) It has a transcendental teaching--which is generally denied, and (e)
+is concerned largely with transcendental practices and phenomena--which
+would be denied absolutely, had the question been seriously raised till
+this day. (f) It initiates women--which, except in a very secondary,
+occasional, and insignificant manner, is _in toto_ and at all times
+denied. The last point is brought within the scope of our inquiry
+because the Palladium is an androgyne order.
+
+Now, it will be fairly well known to many who are not within the ranks
+of the fraternity that the Grand Lodges of every country are supposed to
+be autonomous, and that there has been no previous impeachment of this
+fact; that, ostensibly at least, there is no central institution to
+which they are answerable in Masonry. Individual lodges derive from a
+single Grand Lodge and are responsible thereto, but Grand Lodges
+themselves are supreme and irresponsible. It will be known also that the
+Masonic system in England differs from that of France, that the French
+rite has always occupied a somewhat heterodox position, and that since
+the Grand Orient expunged the Grand Architect of the Universe, so to
+speak, from its symbolism, official communication has been suspended by
+the Grand Lodge of England. It will be known further that outside
+recognised Masonic systems many rites have arisen which are only Masonic
+to the extent that their point of departure is from the Master-grade. As
+a special instance may be cited the Supreme Oriental Rite of Memphis and
+Misraïm. In England the Lodge meetings of these rites are never suffered
+to take place in the great central institution of Freemasons Hall; in
+France, the Grand Orient has consistently forbidden its members to
+participate in the Memphis system. To hold Masonry responsible for
+irregularities or abuses which from time to time may obtain in these
+fantastic developments from the parent institution, would be about as
+just and reasonable as to impeach the Latin Church on the score of
+corruptions now existing in the heresies which have separated from her.
+
+Having established these points in view of the result of our inquiry,
+let us now trace the manner in which a supreme authority, frequently
+termed by the accusers Universal Masonry, is alleged to have grown up.
+Upon this subject not only the most complete information but the only
+formal narratives are provided by the later witnesses, so that the
+following account, while in no sense translation, is based exclusively
+upon the works of Domenico Margiotta and Dr Bataille.
+
+On the 20th of May, 1737, there was constituted in France the Order of
+the Palladium, or Sovereign Council of Wisdom, which, after the manner
+of the androgyne lodges then springing into existence, initiated women
+under the title of Companions of Penelope. The ritual of this order was
+published by the Masonic archæologist Ragon, so that there can be no
+doubt of its existence. At the same time, so far as I am aware, there
+are few materials forthcoming for its history. In some way which
+remains wholly untraceable this order is inferred to have been connected
+by more than its name with the legendary Palladium of the Knights
+Templars, well known under the title of Baphomet. In any case it failed
+to spread, and it is uncertain whether the New and Reformed Palladium,
+also an androgyne order, with which we shall presently be concerned, is
+a metamorphosis or reconstruction of the original institution, but a
+connection of some kind is affirmed. For a period exceeding sixty years
+we hear little of the legendary Palladium; but in 1801 the Israelite
+Isaac Long is said to have carried the original Baphomet and the skull
+of the Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay from Paris to Charleston in
+the United States, and was afterwards concerned in the reconstruction of
+the Scotch Rite of Perfection and of Herodom under the name of the
+Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, which subsequently became widely
+diffused, and it is stated that the lodge of the thirty-third degree of
+the Supreme Council of Charleston has been the parent of all others, and
+is therefore, in this rite, the first supreme council of the entire
+globe.
+
+Eight years later, on the 29th of December 1809, a man of great
+importance to the history of Freemasonry was born in the city of Boston.
+Albert Pike came of parents in a humble position, who, however,
+struggled with their difficulties and sent him to Harvard College, where
+he duly graduated, taking his degree as M.A. in the year 1829. He began
+his career as a schoolmaster, but subsequently led a romantic and
+wandering life, his love of untrodden ground leading him to explore the
+Rocky Mountains, then very imperfectly known. In 1833 he settled in
+Arkansas, and, drifting into journalism, founded the _Arkansas
+Advocate_, wherein his contributions, both prose and verse, but the
+latter especially, obtained him a reputation in literature. The
+admission of Arkansas into the confederation of the United States was in
+part his work, and from this period he began to figure in politics,
+becoming also the recorder of the Supreme Court in that state. One year
+after the civil war, in which he took active part, Pike removed to
+Memphis in Tennessee, where he again followed law and literature,
+establishing the _Memphis Appeal_, which he sold in 1868, and migrated
+to Washington. His subsequent history is exclusively concerned with
+unwearying Masonic labours.
+
+Now, it was at Little Rock in Arkansas that Albert Pike was first
+initiated, and ten years later, that is, in 1859, he was elected
+Sovereign Commander Grand Master of the Supreme Council of Charleston.
+Having extraordinary powers of organisation, he became a person of wide
+influence in the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, and a high authority
+also on the ritual, antiquities, history, and literature of Masonry.
+Under his guidance, the Scotch Rite extended and became dominant. Hence,
+when the Italian patriot Mazzini is said to have projected the
+centralization of high grade Masonry, he could find no person in the
+whole fraternity more suited by his position and influence to
+collaborate with him. Out of this secret partnership there was begotten
+on September 20, 1870--that is to say, on the very day when the Italian
+troops entered the Eternal City--a Supreme Rite and Central Organisation
+of Universal High Grade Masonry, the act of creation being signed by the
+American Grand Master and the Italian liberator, the two founders also
+sharing the power between them. A Supreme Dogmatic Directory was created
+at Charleston, with Pike at its head, under the title of Sovereign
+Pontiff of Universal Freemasonry. Mazzini took over the Supreme
+Executive, having Rome as its centre, under the title of Sovereign Chief
+of Political Action.
+
+If we now recur to the statements that the genuine Templar Baphomet and
+the skull of Jacques de Molay had been deposited at Charleston for the
+space of seventy years, and that Albert Pike was Grand Master of the
+Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite in that city, we
+shall understand why it was that the new institution was termed the New
+Reformed Palladian Rite, or the Reformed Palladium. Subsequently, five
+Central Grand Directories were established--at Washington for North
+America, Monte Video for South America, Naples for Europe, Calcutta for
+the Eastern World, and Port Louis in Mauritius for Africa. A Sovereign
+Universal Administrative Directory was fixed at Berlin subsequently to
+the death of Mazzini. As a result of this astute organisation, Albert
+Pike is said to have held all Masonry in the hollow of his hand, by
+means of a twofold apparatus--the Palladium and the Scotch Rite. During
+all his remaining days, and he lived to a great age, he laboured
+indefatigably in both causes, and the world at the present moment is
+filled with the organisation that he administered.
+
+Four persons are cited as having been coadjutors in his own country--his
+old friend Gallatin Mackey, in honourable memory among Masons; a
+Scotchman named Longfellow, whom some French writers have ludicrously
+confused with the poet; one Holbrook, about whom there are few
+particulars; and, finally, Phileas Walder, a native of Switzerland,
+originally a Lutheran Minister, afterwards said to have been a Mormon,
+but, in any case, at the period in question, a well-known spiritualist,
+an earnest student of occultism, as were also Holbrook and Longfellow,
+and, what is more to the purpose, a personal friend and disciple of the
+great French magus Éliphas Lévi. Albert Pike was himself an occultist,
+whether upon his independent initiative, or through the influence of
+these friends I am unable to say. Miss Diana Vaughan, who is one of the
+seceding witnesses, affirms that it was an early and absorbing passion.
+However this may be, the New Reformed Palladium was kept most rigidly
+separate from all other Masonry, the Scotch Rite included; that is to
+say, no initiate of even the highest grade had, as such, the right or
+opportunity of entrance into the occult order, which, at the same time,
+was chiefly recruited, as already stated, from the higher ordinary
+grades, but the recipients of the new light became silent from the
+moment that it was imparted. Now, it was exclusively in the Palladian
+order that Albert Pike and his confidants propagated transcendental
+religion, as it is said to have been understood by them. In other words,
+while the Scotch Rite continued to speculate, the Palladium betook
+itself to magic and succeeded so well that there was a perpetuity of
+communication between Charleston and the unseen world. It does not
+appear from the evidence either when or why Albert Pike and his
+collaborators transferred their allegiance from the God of the sages to
+Lucifer. The Catholic Church regards all magic as diabolism, and makes
+or tolerates no mystic distinction between the black and white
+departments of transcendental practice, but the specific character of
+the Palladian cultus is so clearly defined in the depositions that it
+cannot pass as a presentation of magical doctrine distorted by
+prejudice. It is almost stripped of correspondence with any existing
+school of occult teaching, and it is either the true statement of a
+system founded by Pike, or the deliberate invention of malice. The
+thaumaturgic phenomena tabulated in connection therewith are of an
+extremely advanced kind, including the real and bodily presence of
+Lucifer at frequent and regular intervals.
+
+When Mazzini died he indicated to Albert Pike a possible successor in
+Adriano Lemmi, who became in due course the chief of the Executive
+Department, and when in the fulness of years the pontiff of Luciferian
+Freemasonry himself passed on to the higher life of fire, which is the
+Palladian notion of beatitude, and in the peace and joy of Lucifer, the
+sovereign pontificate itself, after resting for a short period upon
+incompetent shoulders in the person of Albert George Mackey, was
+transferred to the Italian; the seat of the Dogmatic Directory was
+removed to Rome; a split in the camp ensued, inspired by a lady
+initiate, since famous under the name of Diana Vaughan, and to this we
+owe most of the revelations. Furthermore, with the death of Albert Pike
+the cultus of Lucifer is said to have undergone a significant
+transfiguration. For him the conception of Satan was a blasphemous
+fiction, devised by Adonaïte priestcraft to obscure the veridic lustre
+which inheres in the angel of the morning-star; but this view
+represented, as it is said, rather the private opinion of the Masonic
+pontiff, impressed by his strong personality on the lodges he
+controlled, and propagated by the instruction of his rituals. The more
+discerning among his disciples regarded it as the besetting weakness of
+their grand old man, and surreptitiously during his life-time the cultus
+of Satan pure and simple, that is, of devil-worship, the adoration of
+the evil principle as evil, was practised at numerous Palladian centres.
+After his death, it is said to have unmasked altogether, and Adriano
+Lemmi himself is depicted as an avowed Satanist.
+
+Now, I believe it will fairly interpret the feeling of all readers to
+admit that when the authority of a great church has been brought into
+operation to crush a great institution by charges which most seriously
+discredit it--which represent it as diametrically and in all respects
+opposite in its internal nature to its ostensible appearance--we must by
+no means make light of the impeachment; we must remember the high
+position and the many opportunities of knowledge which are possessed by
+such an accuser; we must extend to that accuser at least the common
+justice of an impartial and full hearing; _à priori_ considerations of
+probability and inferences from our previous knowledge, much less from
+opinions obtained at second-hand, must not be permitted to prejudge a
+case of so great importance; we must be prepared, if necessary, to admit
+that we have been egregiously deceived; and if the existence of
+Palladian Masonry can be proved an undoubted fact, we must assuredly do
+full honour to the demonstration, and must acknowledge with gratitude
+that the Church has performed a service to humanity by unveiling the
+true character of an institution which is imposing on a vast number of
+well-intentioned persons within its own ranks, who are admittedly
+unaware of the evil to which they are lending countenance and support.
+On the other hand, the same spirit of liberality and justice will
+require that the demonstration in question shall be complete; in support
+of such terrible accusations, only the first quality of evidence can
+obviously be admitted.
+
+In the chapters which follow immediately, I shall produce in succession
+the evidence of every witness who has anything to tell us about
+Palladism, including those whose experience is of a personal kind and
+those whose knowledge is derived. Where possible, the testimony of each
+witness will be weighed as we proceed; what is unconvincing or
+irrelevant will be dismissed, while that which is important will be
+carried over to the final summary. In two cases only will it be found
+necessary to reserve examination for special and separate treatment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE FIRST WITNESSES OF LUCIFER
+
+
+That the witnesses of Lucifer are in all cases attached to the Latin
+Church, whether as priests or laymen, is no matter for astonishment when
+it is once realised that outside this Church there is no hostility to
+Masonry. For example, Robison's "Proofs of a Conspiracy" is almost the
+only work possessing, deservedly or not, any aspect of importance, which
+has ever been penned by a Protestant or independent writer in direct
+hostility to the Fraternity. Moreover, Catholic hostility varies in a
+vanishing direction with distance from the ecclesiastical centre. Thus,
+in England, it exists chiefly in a latent condition, finding little or
+no expression unless pressure is exercised from the centre, while in
+America the enforced promulgation of the _Humanum Genus_ encyclical has
+been one of the serious blunders of the present pontificate as regards
+that country. The bibliography of Catholic Anti-Masonic literature is
+now, however, very large, nor is it confined to one land, or to a
+special epoch; it has an antiquity of nearly 150 years, and represents
+most of the European continent. That of France, which is nearest to our
+own doors, is naturally most familiar to us; it is also one of the most
+productive, and may be assumed to represent the whole. We are concerned
+with it in this place only during the period which is subsequent to the
+alleged foundation of the New and Reformed Palladium. During this period
+it falls obviously into two groups, that which preceded any knowledge of
+the institution in question and that which is posterior to the first
+promulgation of such knowledge. In the first we find mainly the old
+accusations which have long ceased to exert any conspicuous influence,
+namely, Atheism, Materialism, and revolutionary plotting. Without
+disappearing entirely, these have been largely replaced in the second
+group by charges of magic and diabolism, concerning which the
+denunciations have been loud and fierce. One supplementary impeachment
+may be said in a certain sense to connect both, because it is common to
+both; it is that of unbridled licence fostered by the asserted existence
+of adoptive lodges. We shall find during the first period that Masonry
+was freely described as a diabolical and Satanic institution, and it is
+necessary to insist on this point because it is liable to confuse the
+issues. Before the year 1891 the diabolism identified with Masonry was
+almost exclusively intellectual. That is to say, its alleged atheism,
+from the standpoint of the Catholic Church, was a diabolical opinion in
+matters of religion; its alleged materialism was a diabolical philosophy
+in matters of science; its alleged revolutionary plottings, being
+especially directed against the Catholic Church, constituted diabolical
+politics. Such descriptions will seem arbitrary enough to most persons
+who do not look forth upon the world from the windows of the Vatican,
+but they are undeniably consistent at Rome.
+
+Of actual diabolism prior to the date I have named, there is, I believe,
+only the solitary accusation made by Mgr. de Ségur, and having
+reference to a long anterior period. He states that in the year 1848
+there was a Masonic lodge at Rome, where the mass of the devil was
+celebrated in the presence of men and women. A ciborium was placed on an
+altar between six black candles; each person, after spitting and
+trampling on a crucifix, deposited in this ciborium a consecrated host
+which had been purchased or received in church. The sacred elements were
+stabbed by the whole assembly, the candles were extinguished at the
+termination of the mass, and an orgie followed, similar, says Mgr. de
+Ségur, to those of "Pagan mysteries and Manichæan re-unions." Such
+abominations were, however, admittedly rare, and the story just recited
+rests on nothing that can be called evidence.
+
+During the years intervening between 1870 and 1891 we may search the
+literature of French Anti-Masonry in vain for any hint of the Palladium.
+In 1884 the collaboration of Louis D'Estampes and Claudio Jannet
+produced a work entitled "Freemasonry and the Revolution," which
+affirms that the immense majority of Masons, including those who have
+received the highest grades, do not enjoy the confidence of the true
+secrets, but the establishment of atheism in religion and socialism in
+politics as designs of the Fraternity are the only secrets intended.
+
+The New and Reformed Palladium connects with the Order of the Temple by
+its supposed possession of the original Baphomet idol, but in 1882 this
+was entirely unknown to Mgr. Fava, who denies all the reputed connection
+between Templars and Masons, and traces the latter to Faustus Socinus as
+founder, following Abbé Lefranc in his "Veil raised for the Curious." A
+mystic and diabolic aspect of the Fraternity is so remote from his mind
+that in his "Secret of Freemasonry" the Bishop of Grenoble affirms that
+its sole project is to replace Christianity by rationalism.
+
+The third and concluding volume of Père Deschamps' great compilation on
+"Society and the Secret Societies," supports, on the contrary, the
+hypothesis rejected by Fava. It recites much old knowledge concerning
+adoptive lodges, the Illuminés, the Orders of Philalethes, of Martinez
+Pasquales, and of Saint-Martin, on which subjects few writers indeed can
+say anything that is new; but while specially devoted to the political
+activity of the Fraternity all over Europe, Deschamps tells us nothing
+of the conspiracy which produced the New Palladium, though the alleged
+collaboration of Mazzini gave it a strong political complexion; of Pike
+nothing; of Diabolism still nothing. I may add that his work claims to
+be verified at all points.
+
+In the year 1886 another ecclesiastic, Dom. Benoit, published two
+formidable volumes on "Freemasonry and the Secret Societies," forming
+part of a vaster work, entitled "The City of anti-Christ in the
+Nineteenth Century." Like D'Estampes and Jannet, he distinguishes
+between a small number of initiates and a vast crowd of dupes who swell
+the ranks of the Fraternity. "Many Masons ascend the ladder of the
+grades without receiving the revelation of the mysteries." The highest
+functions of most lodges are said to be given to the dupes, while the
+ruling chiefs are concealed behind humble titles. It is further
+represented that in certain countries there are secret rites above the
+ordinary rites, and these are imparted only to the true initiates, which
+sounds like a vague and formless hint concerning a directing centre; but
+so far from supposing that such an institution may exist in Masonry, the
+author affirms that unity is impossible therein:--"Image of hell and
+hell anticipated, Masonry is the realm of hatred, and consequently of
+division. The leaders mutually despise and detest one another, and
+universally endeavour to deceive and supplant each other. A common
+hatred of the Church and her regular institutions alone unites them, and
+scarcely have they scored a victory than they fall out and destroy each
+other." The first seeds of the Manichæan accusation are found in the
+second volume, but the term is not used in the sense of Albert Pike's
+Luciferian transcendentalism, but merely as an equivalent of
+Protestantism coloured by the idea of its connection with the Socinian
+heresy. In conformity with this view, Dom Benoit attaches himself to
+the Templar hypothesis, saying that the Albigenses and the Knights of
+the Temple are the immediate ancestors of Masonry. But the point which
+is of most interest in connection with our inquiry is where Dom Benoit
+asserts that Satan is the god of Freemasonry, citing an obscure grade in
+which the ritual is connected with serpent-worship, and another in which
+the recipient is adjured "in the sacred name of Lucifer," to "uproot
+obscurantism." It is, however, only a loose and general accusation, for
+he says also that the Masonic deity is "the creature," that is,
+humanity, the mind of man, human reason; it is also "the infamous
+Venus," or the flesh; finally, "all divinities of Rome, Greece, Persia,
+India, and every pagan people, are the gods of Masonry." This is merely
+indiscriminate defamation which is without force or application, and the
+writer evidently knows nothing of a defined cultus of Lucifer existing
+in the Lodges of the Fraternity. So also when he elsewhere states that
+sexual excesses are sometimes accompanied in Masonry by Eucharistic
+profanations, he has only Mgr. de Ségur's out-of-date narrative to
+support him, and when he hints at magical practices, it is only in a
+general way, and apparently referring to acts of individual Masons. In
+one more significant passage he records, as a matter of report, that
+apparitions of the demon have occurred "recently" in Masonic assemblies,
+"where he is said even to have presided under a human form." While there
+is no mention of Palladism and none of Pike in his treatise, we may
+regard Dom Benoit as a herald of the coming accusation, speaking vaguely
+of things half heard.
+
+Some time previous to 1888, Paul Rosen, a Sovereign Grand
+Inspector-General of the 33rd and last degree of the French rite, had
+come to the conclusion that the mysteries of Freemasonry are abominable,
+and in that year he published a work, entitled "Satan and Co.,"
+suggesting that in this case a witness to the desired point had at last
+come forward, and, as a matter of fact, the writer does take us a few
+paces beyond the point reached by Benoit. So far as I am aware, he is
+the first French anti-Mason who mentions Albert Pike, with one
+exception, to be considered separately in the next chapter. He describes
+him as the Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Mother Council of
+every Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, and he
+tells the story of the foundation of that Rite, but he knows nothing of
+Isaac Long, the Palladium, or the skull. He cites also certain works
+which Pike wrote for the exclusive use of initiates, apparently of the
+higher grades of these rites, namely, "The Sephar H'Debarim," "Ethics
+and Dogmas of Freemasonry," and "Legenda Magistralia." But so far from
+accrediting the order with a supernatural aspect, he affirms that its
+war-cry is annihilation and anathema thereto. The end of Freemasonry is,
+in fact, social anarchy, the overthrowal of monarchical government, and
+the destruction of the Catholic religion. The Satanism imputed to
+Freemasonry by Paul Rosen is therefore of an arbitrary and fantastic
+order, having no real connection with this inquiry. Two years later the
+same author published a smaller volume, "The Social Enemy," which
+contains no material of importance to our purpose, but is preceded by a
+Pontifical Brief, conveying the benediction of Leo XIII. to the writer
+of "Satan and Co."
+
+We pass now to the year of revelation 1891.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+EX ORE LEONIS
+
+
+For over ten years past Leo Taxil, that is to say, M. Gabriel
+Jogand-Pages, has been the great accuser of Masonry, and he possesses an
+indistinct reputation in England as a man whose hostility is formidable,
+having strong points in his brief. During the entire period of his
+impeachment, which is represented by many volumes, he has uniformly
+sought to identify the Fraternity with the general purposes of Lucifer,
+but until the year 1891, it was merely along the broad and general lines
+mentioned in the last chapter. Now, in presence of such attributions as,
+for example, the Satanic character of tolerance in matters of religion,
+I, for one, would unconditionally lay down my pen, as there is no common
+ground upon which a discussion could take place.
+
+From the vague imputation Leo Taxil passed, however, to an exceedingly
+definite charge--and it is beyond all dispute that by his work entitled
+"Are there Women in Freemasonry?"--he has created the Question of
+Lucifer in its connection with the Palladian Order. He is the original
+source of information as to the existence of that association; no one
+had heard of it previously, and it is therefore of the first importance
+that we should know something of the discoverer himself, and everything
+as to the particulars of his discovery, including the date thereof.
+
+Previously to the year 1891 Leo Taxil knew nothing of the Reformed
+Palladium. He is the one Anti-Masonic writer named in the last chapter
+as preceding Paul Rosen with information about Albert Pike. This was in
+the year 1885, and in a work entitled, "The Brethren of the Three
+Points," which began the "complete revelations concerning Freemasonry"
+undertaken by this witness. Like Paul Rosen, he represents Pike merely
+as a high dignitary of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, but he does
+so under the incorrect title of Sovereign Commander Grand Master of the
+Supreme Council of the United States. He states further that the Grand
+Orient of France, as also the Supreme Council of the Scotch Rite of
+France, "send their correspondence" to the Grand Master of Washington. I
+conceive that no importance, as indeed no definite meaning, can be
+attached to this statement beyond the general and not very significant
+fact that there was some kind of communication between the three
+centres. In the year 1888 Pike was so little in harmonious relation with
+the French Grand Orient that by the depositions of later witnesses he
+placed it under the ban of his formal excommunication in virtue of his
+sovereign pontificate. For the rest, the "Brethren of the Three Points"
+contains no information concerning the New and Reformed Palladium, and
+this is proof positive that it was unknown at the time to the writer,
+for it would have been valuable in view of his purpose. The same
+observation applies to a second work published shortly after, "The
+Cultus of the Grand Architect." Had Leo Taxil been acquainted with a
+worship of Lucifer subsisting in Palladian Masonry he could not have
+failed to make use of it in a volume so entitled. The work in question
+is concerned, however, with the solemnities which obtain in Masonic
+temples, with the names and addresses of all French lodges, so that it
+is a directory as much as a revelation, with the political organisation
+of the Carbonari, with the Judge-Philosophers, and with certain official
+documents of Masonry.
+
+But it may occur to those of my readers who are acquainted at first hand
+with the revelations of Leo Taxil that his knowledge was held over in
+view of his plan of publication, and that the Palladium would be
+disclosed in due course when he came to treat of androgyne or adoptive
+Masonry. Let us pass, therefore, to his next work, entitled, "Sister
+Masons, or Ladies' Freemasonry," which appeared in 1888, and in which we
+certainly meet with diabolism and also with Palladism, but not in
+connection with Albert Pike or the Charleston Central Directory. The
+reference in the first case is to practices which are alleged to obtain
+in the Egyptian Rite of Adoption, called the Rite of Cagliostro, and in
+the second to the Order of the Palladium as it was originally instituted
+in the year 1730. At the same time the information given is of serious
+importance, because it enables us to gauge the writer's method and
+credibility in the one case, and his knowledge at the period in the
+other. Once more, in the year 1886, Leo Taxil did not know of the
+Palladium as a reformed or revived institution; had he known he could
+not have failed to tell us.
+
+I have not been able to trace all the sources of his information
+concerning the older Palladian Rite, but it comes chiefly from Ragon; he
+divides it into two systems:--(a) The Order of the Seven Sages, which
+was for men only, and appears as a banal invention with a ritual mainly
+derived from the "Travels of Anacharsis"; (b) The Order of the
+Palladium, composed of two masculine grades and one feminine grade,
+respectively, Adelphos and Companion of Ulysses for men, and Companion
+of Penelope for women. It pretends to have been founded by Fenelon, but
+at the same time claims an antiquity previous to the birth of the great
+Archbishop of Cambrai. Leo Taxil accuses it of gallantry, but the
+flirtations described in the ritual impress an impartial reader as a
+species of childish theatricals, a criticism practically exhausting the
+entire motive of the order, which, as I have already stated, lapsed into
+obscurity, and, so far as can be traced, into desuetude, though our
+witness uniformly refers to it in the present tense, and as if it were
+in active operation. However this may be, the description and summary of
+the ritual given by Leo Taxil place it outside the possibility of a
+connection with Templar Masonry, and also with the Baphomet Palladium in
+spite of what is alleged to the contrary. Accepting the worst
+construction which is placed on its intention, it could have offered no
+point of contact with the alleged project of Albert Pike. So far,
+therefore, the information contained in _Les Soeurs Maçonnes_ conflicts
+with the history of the New and Reformed Palladium as given in my second
+chapter.
+
+It has been said, however, that Leo Taxil charges another Masonic order
+of the androgyne type with satanic practices. He divides the Egyptian
+Rite of Adoption into three grades; in that of apprentice, the discourse
+represents Adonaï as the Genius of Pride, and the serpent-tempter of
+Genesis as the eternal principle of goodness; in that of Companion, the
+symbolism of the ritual enforces the necessity of rehabilitating the
+character of the mystic serpent; in that of Egyptian Mistress, there is
+a pretended evocation of planetary spirits by means of a clairvoyante,
+and Leo Taxil affirms on his own authority that the Supreme Being
+referred to in the discourse at initiation is Satan. "According to the
+doctrine of the sect, the divinity is formed of two opposite principles,
+the genius of Being, who is Lucifer, and the genius of Destruction, who
+is Adonaï." This is so obviously the doctrine of the Luciferian
+Palladians that it is difficult to understand why the institution of
+Charleston is not connected, as to purpose, if not as to origin, with
+the Egyptian Adoptive Rite of Misraïmite Masonry.
+
+At this point, however, it becomes my duty to state that there are some
+very curious facts in connection with the "Catechism of the Officiating
+Mistress," which is the source of information for the alleged Manichæan
+character of the third degree. The more considerable and essential
+portion of that document, so far from being referable to the supposed
+founder of the Rite, namely, Count Cagliostro, is a series of mutilated
+passages taken from Éliphas Lévi's _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie_,
+and pieced clumsily together. That is to say, Leo Taxil, while claiming
+to make public for the first time an instruction forming an essential
+part of a rite belonging to the last century, presents to us in that
+instruction the original philosophical reflections of a writer in the
+year 1856, and, moreover, he distorts palpably the fundamental principle
+of that writer, who, so far from establishing dualism and antagonism in
+God, exhibits most clearly the essential oneness in connection with a
+threefold manifestation of the divine principle. I conceive that there
+is only one construction to be placed upon this fact, and although it is
+severe upon the documents it cannot be said that it is unjust. When,
+therefore, Leo Taxil terminates his study of the Egyptian Rite by
+"divulging some essentially diabolical practices of the Misraïm Lodges,"
+namely, evocations of the elementary spirits, we shall not be surprised
+to find that the ritual of the proceedings is taken bodily from the same
+author who has been previously taxed for contributions. The reader need
+only compare _Les Soeurs Maçonnes_, pp. 323 to 330, with the
+"Conjuration of the Four" in the fourth chapter of the _Rituel de la
+Haute Magie_. It will be objected that this conjuration is derived by
+Lévi himself from a source which he does not name, and as a fact part of
+it is found in the _Comte de Gabalis_. Quite so, but my point is, that
+it has come to the Taxil documents through Éliphas Lévi. The proof is
+that part of the exorcisms are given in Latin and part in French, by the
+author of the _Rituel_, for arbitrary and unassignable reasons, and that
+_Les Soeurs Maçonnes_ reproduces them in the same way. It is evident,
+therefore, that we must receive Leo Taxil's "divulgations" with severe
+caution. I may add that the proceedings of the Holy Inquisition in the
+trial of Count Cagliostro were published at Rome by order of the
+Apostolic Chamber, and they include some particulars concerning the
+Egyptian Rite, of which Cagliostro was the author. These particulars in
+part correspond with the documents of the "Sister-Masons," but offer
+also significant variations even along the lines of correspondence.
+
+Having established, in any case, that Leo Taxil knew nothing of the
+Reformed Palladium in the year 1886, we may pass over his next work,
+which reproduces a considerable though selected proportion of some of
+his previous volumes, because precisely the same observation applies to
+"The Mysteries of Freemasonry," and we may come at once to the year
+1891. Some time subsequently to the third of August, our witness
+published a volume entitled "Are there Women in Freemasonry?" which, so
+far as one can see, bears the marks of hurried production. It is, in
+fact, "The Sister Masons" almost _in extenso_--that work being still in
+circulation--with the addition of important fresh material. The bulk of
+the new matter is concerned with the rituals of the New and Reformed
+Palladium, consisting of five degrees, conformable, as regards the first
+three, with the somewhat banal but innocent grades of the Modern Rite of
+Adoption, and passing, as regards the two final, into pure Luciferian
+doctrine. How did Leo Taxil become possessed of these rituals? He
+informs us quite frankly that by means of arguments _sonnants et
+trébuchants_, that is to say, by a bribe, he persuaded an officer of a
+certain Palladian Grand Council located at Paris to forget his pledges
+for the time required in transcribing them. That was not a very
+creditable proceeding, but in exposing Freemasonry ordinary ethical
+considerations seem to be ruled out of court, and it is idle to examine
+methods when we are in need of documents. By these documents, and by the
+editorial matter which introduces and follows them, Leo Taxil, as
+already observed, created the Question of Lucifer. Premising that a dual
+object governed the institution of androgyne lodges, namely, the
+opportunity for forbidden enjoyments, and the creation of powerful
+unsuspected auxiliaries for political purposes, he states that the
+latter part of this programme was specially surrendered to the old
+Palladian Masonry. Now it is clear that the rituals of the order which
+he published in 1886 bear no such construction as he here, and for the
+first time, imputes; they connect with part one of the programme, and he
+was content at the time with their impeachment on the ground of sexual
+disorder. Why has he changed the impeachment? No assignable reason
+appears from his subsequent remarks, but he goes on to allege that,
+under the auspices of Albert Pike and his group, the original order
+developed the New and Reformed Palladian Rite, in which the political
+purpose was itself subordinated to "Satanism pure and simple."
+Originating in the United States, it has invaded Europe, where it
+propagates with truly unheard of rapidity, so that in Paris alone there
+are three active lodges--that of the Lotus, founded in 1881, and
+situated in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, which has in turn created the
+lodges of St James, 1884, and of St Julian, 1889. The Lotus itself was
+preceded "by the organisation of some Areopagites of the Kadosch Grade
+of the French Rite and of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite," who
+practised theurgy under the direction of Ragon and Éliphas Lévi, both of
+whom are represented as given over, body and soul, to all the practices
+of lawless diabolism, the latter being apparently the leader, after
+whose death the association met only infrequently, until it was revived
+by Phileas Walder, the friend, as we have already seen, of Albert Pike.
+It was he who imported the New and Reformed Palladium from America into
+France, and, assembling the disciples of Lévi, founded the Mother-Lodge
+of the Lotus.
+
+The ritual obtained by Leo Taxil was printed in Latin and English, with
+an interleaved French version in manuscript. As presented by its
+discoverer, there is no doubt that it is an execrable production,
+involving the practice in open lodge of obscenity, diabolism, and
+sacrilege. Passing over the first three grades, and beginning "at the
+point of bifurcation," we find it stated in the ritual of the fourth
+degree of Elect that the New and Reformed Palladium has been instituted
+"to impart a new force to the traditions of high-grade Masonry," that
+the Palladium which gives its name to the order was presented to the
+fathers of the order by Eblis himself, that it is now at Charleston, and
+that Charleston is the first supreme Council of the globe. Thus it will
+be seen that the Palladian ritual confuses the Palladium Order with the
+Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite. For the rest, the legend of the fourth
+degree is the first part of what is termed a blasphemous life of Jesus,
+representing Baal-Zeboub as his ancestor, Joseph as his father,
+according to physical generation, and Mirzam as his mother, who is
+highly honoured as the parent of many other children. Adonaï is the
+principle of evil, and Eblis, otherwise Lucifer, the good God. But the
+ritual of the fourth grade is innocent in its character when compared
+with the abominations of the fifth degree of Templar-Mistress. The
+central point of the ceremonial is the resurrection of Lazarus, which is
+symbolically accomplished by the postulant suffering what is termed the
+ordeal of the Pastos, that is to say, by means of public fornication.
+The purpose of this ordeal is to show that the sacred act of physical
+generation is the key to the mystery of being. The life of Jesus begun
+in the previous grade is completed in the present, and it will be
+sufficient for my purpose to indicate that it represents the Saviour of
+Christianity, who originally "began well," passing over from the service
+of the good god Lucifer, and making a pact with the evil Adonaï, in sign
+of which he ceased indiscriminate commerce with the women who followed
+him and pledged himself to live in chastity, for which he was abandoned
+by Baal-Zeboub, and is cursed by Palladists. "The duty of a
+Templar-Mistress is to execrate Jesus, anathematise Adonaï, and adore
+Lucifer." The rite concludes by the recipient spitting on a consecrated
+host and the whole assembly piercing it in turn with stilettos.
+
+So far the sole testimony to the actual operation, as indeed to the
+existence, of these infamous ceremonies, is Leo Taxil, and it is once
+more my duty to state that the documents are in no sense above the
+suspicion of having been fraudulently produced by some one. It seems
+scarcely credible, but the instruction of the Elect Grade incorporates
+Masonic references _literatim_ from the scandalous memoirs of Cassanova.
+That is a fact which sets open a wide door to scepticism. Again, the
+instruction of the fifth degree contains more plagiarisms from Lévi, and
+in a section entitled "Evocations," Leo Taxil again reproduces the
+"Conjuration of the Four" which he has previously fathered on the Rite
+of Memphis and Misraïm, and now states to be in use among Palladists.
+Once more, he prints a long list of the spirits of light which
+Palladians recommend for evocation, and this list is a haphazard
+gleaning among the eighty-four genii of the twelve hours given in Lévi's
+interpretation of the "Nuctemeron according to Apollonius." But these
+latter points are not arguments which necessarily reflect upon Leo
+Taxil, for, seeing that the New and Reformed Palladium was constituted
+in 1870, it is obvious that the author of the rituals may have drawn
+from the French magus, and Leo Taxil does connect the Palladium, as
+others have connected it, with Alphonse Louis Constant, partly through
+Phileas Walder his disciple, and partly by representing Constant as the
+leader of an occult association of Knights Kadosch. But when he
+represents Constant as himself a Mason we have to remember that Éliphas
+Lévi explicitly denied his initiation in his _Histoire de la Magie_.
+
+I should add that Leo Taxil in one of the illustrations represents a
+lodge of the Templar-Mistress Rite, wherein the altar is over-shadowed
+by a Baphomet which is a reduction in facsimile of the frontispiece to
+Lévi's _Rituel_, and all reasonable limits seem to be transgressed when
+he quotes from Albert Pike's "Collection of Secret Instructions," an
+extended passage which swarms with thefts from the same source, everyone
+of which I can identify when required, showing them page by page in the
+originals. Leo Taxil tells us that the "Collection" was communicated to
+him, but by whom he does not say. We are evidently dealing with an
+exceedingly complex question, and many points must be made clear before
+we can definitely accept evidenced which is so mixed and uncertain in
+character.
+
+If we ask the author of these disclosures what opportunities he has had
+to become personally acquainted with Masonry, we shall find that they
+are exceedingly few, for he was expelled from the order after receiving
+only the first degree. I do not say that this expulsion reflects in any
+sense discreditably upon him as a man of honour, but it closed his
+Masonic career almost as soon as it had begun, so that his title to
+speak rests only on his literary researches and other forms of derived
+knowledge, good enough, no doubt, in their way, but not so exhaustive as
+could be wished in view of the position he has assumed. It was shortly
+after this episode that Leo Taxil returned to the Catholic Church and
+attached himself to the interests of the clerical party. Previously to
+this his literary history must be for him a painful memory. He was a
+writer of anti-clerical romances and the editor of an anti-clerical
+newspaper--legitimate occupations in one sense, but in this instance too
+frequently connected with literary methods of a gravely discreditable
+kind. A catalogue of the defunct _Libraire Anti-Cléricale_ is added to
+one of the romances, and advertises, among other productions from the
+same pen, the following contributions made by Leo Taxil to the
+literature of sacrilege and scandal:--1st, a Life of Jesus, being an
+instructive and satirical parody of the Gospels, with 500 comic designs;
+2nd, The Comic Bible (_Bible Amusante_); 3rd, The Debaucheries of a
+Confessor, a romance founded on the affair of the Jesuit Girarde and
+Catherine Cadière; 4th, a Female Pope, being the adventures and crimes
+of Pope Joan, written in collaboration with F. Laffont; 5th, The Pope's
+Mistress, a "grand historical romance," written in collaboration with
+Karl Milo; 6th, Pius the Ninth before history, his life political and
+pontifical, his debaucheries, follies, and crimes, 3 vols.; 7th, The
+Poisoner Leo Thirteenth, an account of thefts and poisoning committed
+with the complicity of the present pontiff; 8th, Contemporary
+Prostitution, a collection of revolting statistics upon, _inter alia_,
+the methods, habits, and physical peculiarities of persons who practice
+pæderasty.
+
+It will be seen that since his conversion our author has changed his
+objects without altering his methods. As in the past he unveiled the
+supposed ill-doings of popes and priests, as he exposed the corrupt
+practices of the Parisian police in the matter of crying social evils,
+so now he divulges the infamies of Masonic gatherings in the present. He
+claimed then to be actuated by a high motive and he claims it now. We
+must not deny the motive, but we certainly abhor the proceeding. In some
+very curious memoirs which have obtained wide circulation Leo Taxil
+acknowledges that he was gravely mistaken then, and he may be mistaken
+now. It must also be respectfully stated in conclusion that few persons
+who have contributed to lubricity in literature have ever failed to
+speak otherwise than from an exalted standpoint. When a short time ago
+M. Huysman went in search of a type to which he could refer Luciferian
+"blasphemies" and outrages, he could find nothing more suitable to his
+purpose than Leo Taxil's "Bouffe Jesus." We do not refuse to accept him
+as a witness against Masonry because of these facts, but we must ask
+him as an honourable gentleman not to insist that we should do so on
+trust, and at the present moment the only opportunities which he has
+given us to check his statements do not wholly encourage us to accept
+them. It will be seen therefore that the knowledge of Palladian Masonry
+was first brought to light under circumstances of a debatable kind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF M. RICOUX
+
+
+By the year 1891 Masonic revelations in Paris had become too numerous
+for one more or less to fix the volatile quality of public interest
+unless a new horror were attached to it. Passwords and signs and
+catechisms, all the purposes and the better half of the
+secrets--everyone outside the Fraternity who concerned themselves with
+Masonry and cared for theoretical initiation knew these, or was
+satisfied by the belief that he did. The literature of Anti-Masonry
+became a drug in the market, failing some novelty in revelation. The
+last work of Leo Taxil was eminently a contribution towards this missing
+quantity. He was already in a certain sense the discoverer of "Female
+Freemasonry," that is to say, he was the only equipped person who
+seriously maintained that the exploded androgyne system was worked in
+modern France, and when he added the development of the Palladium as the
+climax to the mystery of iniquity, it is small wonder that his book
+achieved notoriety to the extent of five thousand copies. He was
+assailed as a venal pamphleteer and his past achievements in literature
+were freely disinterred for his own benefit and for public instruction,
+but he was more than compensated by the approbation of Mgr. Fava, bishop
+of Grenoble, with whose opinions upon Satanism in Masonry we have
+previously made acquaintance. The Church indeed had all round agreed to
+overlook Leo Taxil's early enormities; she forgot that she had attempted
+to prosecute him and to fine him a round sum of 60,000 francs; the
+supreme pontiff forgave him the accusation of poisoning, and transmitted
+his apostolical benediction; he was complimented by the cardinal-vicar
+of Rome; and he is in the proud position of a man who has received
+felicitations and high approval from eighteen ecclesiastical
+dignitaries, whether cardinals, archbishops, or bishops. With his back
+against the _turris fortitudinis_, he faced his accusers stoutly and
+returned them blow for blow. Nor did he lack his lay defenders, one of
+whom, by the mode which he adopted, became himself, somewhat
+unexpectedly, a witness of Lucifer.
+
+To those who disbelieve in the existence of Female Freemasonry, Leo
+Taxil had offered two pieces of wise advice: Go to the Bibliothèque
+Nationale, search the files of the Masonic organ _La Chaine d'Union_,
+and you will find proof positive of your mistake. Next proceed to the
+Maison T----, there is no need to reproduce the address, but it is given
+by Leo Taxil in full, and obtain their current price-list of lodge
+furniture, insignia, and other accessories, and you will find
+particulars of aprons for sisters, diplomas for sisters, garters for
+sisters, jewels for sisters. Except upon the signs of initiation, the
+catalogue is not surrendered, but in view of the literature of
+revelation the signs are no longer secret, &c.
+
+All this is clearly outside the subject of Satanism, but it leads up,
+notwithstanding, to the discovery of M. Ricoux. As to this gentleman
+himself there are no particulars forthcoming; he has promised an account
+of his adventures during four years as an emigrant in Chili; and he has
+promised a patriotic epic in twelve cantos, but so far as my information
+goes they remain in the womb of time. But he has a claim on our
+consideration because it occurred to him that he would put in practice
+the advice of Leo Taxil, which he did accordingly in the autumn of 1891,
+and demonstrated to his own satisfaction that "Are there Women in
+Freemasonry?" is a book of true disclosure, and a question that must be
+answered in the affirmative. He performed thereupon a very creditable
+action; he wrote a pamphlet entitled "The Existence of Lodges for Women:
+Researches on this subject," &c., in which he stated the result of his
+investigation, collected the controversy on the subject which had been
+scattered through the press of the period, and defended Leo Taxil with
+the warmth of an _alter Ego_. But he had not limited his researches to
+the directions indicated in his author. Encouraged by the success which
+had attended his initial efforts, he determined upon an independent
+experiment in bribery, and after the same manner that Leo Taxil procured
+the "Ritual of the New and Reformed Palladium," so he succeeded in
+obtaining the "Collection of Secret Instructions to Supreme Councils,
+Grand Lodges, and Grand Orients," printed at Charleston in the year
+1891. "This collection," he tells us, "is certainly a document of the
+first order; for it emanates from General Albert Pike, that is to say,
+from the 'Pope of the Freemasons.'" On this document he bases the
+following statements:--(a) Universal Freemasonry possesses a Supreme
+Directory as the apex of its international organisation, and it is
+located at Berlin. (b) Four subsidiary Central Directories exist at
+Naples, Calcutta, Washington, and Monte Video. (c) Furthermore, a Chief
+of Political Action resides at Rome, commissioned to watch over the
+Vatican and to precipitate events against the Papacy. (d) A Grand
+Depositary of Sacred Traditions, under the title of Sovereign Pontiff of
+Universal Freemasonry, is located at Charleston, and at the time of the
+discovery was Albert Pike.
+
+Some of these statements, it will be observed, require rectification, in
+the light of fuller disclosures made by Palladian initiates, from whom
+the material of my second chapter has been chiefly derived, but it will
+be seen that it is substantially correct. M. Ricoux further states that
+"Albert Pike reformed the ancient Palladian Rite, and imparted thereto
+the Luciferian character in all its brutality. Palladism, for him, is a
+selection; he surrenders to the ordinary lodges the adepts who confine
+themselves to materialism, or invoke the Grand Architect without daring
+to apply to him his true name, and under the title of Knights Templars
+and Mistress Templars, he groups the fanatics who do not shrink from the
+direct patronage of Lucifer."
+
+The most serious mistake which has been made in the use of the material
+is an unconscious attempt to read into the "encyclicals" of Albert Pike
+a proportion of Leo Taxil's material, for which the long citations given
+by M. Ricoux do not afford a warrant. What he really appears to have
+obtained is the instructions of Pike as Supreme Commander Grand Master
+of the Supreme Council of the Mother-Lodge of the Ancient and Accepted
+Scotch Rite of Charleston to the Twenty-three Supreme Confederated
+Councils of the Globe. And the Scotch Rite is, by the hypothesis, apart
+from the Palladium. In other respects, the information comes to much the
+same thing. The long document which the pamphlet prints _in extenso_
+exhibits Albert Pike preaching Palladism in the full foulness of its
+doctrine and practice--the "resolution of the problem of the flesh" by
+indiscriminate satisfaction of the passions; the multiplication of
+androgyne lodges for this purpose; the dual nature of the Divine
+Principle; and the cultus of Lucifer as the good God. The most curious
+feature of the performance is that here again it is from end to end a
+travesty of Éliphas Lévi, slice after slice from his chief writings,
+combined with interlineal additions, which give them a sense
+diametrically opposed to that of the great magus. Now, it is impossible
+that two persons, working independently for the production of bogus
+documents, should both borrow from the same source; hence Leo Taxil and
+M. Ricoux, if they have been guilty of imposition, must certainly have
+collaborated. It is unreasonable, however, to advance such an accusation
+in the absence of any evidence, and if we accept the contribution of M.
+Ricoux as made in perfect good faith, we must acknowledge that it
+exonerates Leo Taxil from the possible suspicion of himself adapting
+Lévi; and then the existence of a theurgic society, based on Manichæan
+principles, instituted by Albert Pike, and possessing a magical ritual
+taken in part from Lévi, wears a more serious aspect than when it rested
+on the unsupported assurance of one witness. The discovery of M. Ricoux
+is obviously of the first importance, and it is certainly to be
+regretted that he has not substantiated it by depositing the "Collection
+of Instructions" in the National Library, supposing it to be in his
+possession, or by photographing instead of transcribing, supposing he
+was pledged to its return.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ART SACERDOTAL
+
+
+Some few months after the first testimonies to Palladism appeared, under
+the signatures of the witnesses whom we have already examined, a fresh
+contribution was made to the literature of Diabolism in its connection
+with Masonry, by a work entitled "Freemasonry, the Synagogue of Satan."
+The exalted ecclesiastical position of the author, Mgr. Léon Meurin,
+S.J., Archbishop of Port Louis in Mauritius, gave new impetus and an
+aspect of increased importance to accusations preferred at the
+beginning, as we have seen, by comparatively obscure or directly
+suspected writers. The performance, moreover, was apparently so learned,
+in some respects so unlooked for, and withal so methodical, that it
+became subsequently a source of universal reference in anti-Masonic
+literature. To this day M. Huysman remains dazzled, and to those in
+search of reliable information on the subject, he says:--"If you would
+be saved from the excesses of unseated reason, and from narratives of
+Dunciad dulness, try Mgr. Meurin; read the Archbishop on Palladism."
+Within certain limits the advice is well-grounded; the art sacerdotal in
+its application to Anti-Masonry may leave much to be desired, but as a
+specimen of the superior criticism obtaining upon this subject in higher
+circles, it offers a strong contrast to the general tone and touch among
+the rank and file of the accusers. We are, in fact, warranted upon every
+consideration, in expecting a valuable contribution to our knowledge;
+but, I may say at once, that this expectation is unfortunately not
+realised. With a keen philosophical anticipation one turns the pages of
+"Freemasonry, the Synagogue of Satan," admires their beautiful
+typography, lingers with delight over the elaborate appendix of
+allegorical engravings, and experiences a brief sense of intellectual
+inferiority in the presence of such formidable sections, and so
+portentous a table of contents. It should be impossible to speak of the
+Archbishop without a mental genuflexion, but it remains true that our
+expectation is not realised. It will become us, at the same time, to
+speak as tenderly as possible of a pious and learned prelate who has now
+passed where Masons cease from Satanising and the thirty-three degrees
+are at rest. But it must be said plainly that the contents of his very
+large volume offer little to our purpose.
+
+By the nature of his episcopal charge Mgr. Meurin had special facilities
+for ascertaining how men diabolise; the island of Mauritius has enjoyed
+many privileges of Infernus. There we lose sight of the Rosicrucians on
+the road to India; there the Comte de Chazal initiated Dr Bacstrom, and
+all this, of course, is diabolical from the standpoint of Anti-Masonry.
+Moreover, it must not be forgotten that Mgr. Meurin, in a series of
+wonderful conferences, has exhibited the superstitions of Mauritius,
+and, accepting the test of M. Huysman, the existence of Black Magic in
+this French colony is proved to hilt and handle by wholesale
+Eucharistic depredations, the sacrifice of cats at midnight upon the
+altars of rifled churches, and the discovery of the blood of the victims
+in the chalices used for the elements. The Church does not stir in the
+matter; it deplores and prays, which seems, in some respects, an
+ineffectual method of protecting the _latens Deitas_. If the Eucharist
+be liable to profanation, why reserve the Eucharist? Surely the
+negligence which makes such profanations possible is the offer of
+opportunity to Deicide, and great carelessness is cousin to condonation.
+However this may be, Mgr. Meurin seems to have been quite the authority
+to whom one would naturally refer for specific information upon
+devil-worship as it obtains within his own diocese, even if apart from
+Masonry. But he is too erudite to concern himself with individual facts,
+and he so far transcends diocesan limitations as to forget Mauritius
+completely. Another witness, who perhaps never visited Port Louis,
+affirms that the Central Directory of the Palladium for Africa is
+established in that place, but the prelate of Port Louis, from whom the
+information would have been precious, seems acquainted with nothing of
+the kind. The weapon of the mitred warrior is, at the same time, a
+sufficiently portentous thesis, as follows:--that Freemasonry is
+connected with Satanism by the fact that it has the Jews for its true
+authors, and the Jewish Kabbalah for the key of its mysteries; that the
+Kabbalah is magical, idolatrous, and essentially diabolical; that
+Freemasonry, considered as a religion, is therefore a judaized
+devil-worship, and considered as a political institution, it is an
+engine designed for the attainment of universal empire, which has been
+the dream of the Jews for centuries.
+
+My readers will be inclined to consider that such a hypothesis, though
+it may square with the Satanism of Adriano Lemmi, who, as we shall see,
+is accused of circumcision, can hardly be brought into harmony with the
+universal Masonry of Albert Pike, as the latter was neither Jew nor
+Judaiser. But common hatred of the Catholic Church is, in the opinion of
+Mgr. Meurin, a sufficient bond to identify the interests of both
+parties. Let us start, therefore, with the archbishop's own hypothesis,
+which he compresses into a single sentence: "To encircle the brow of the
+Jew with the royal diadem, and to place the kingdom of the world at his
+feet--such is the true end of Freemasonry." And again: "The Jewish
+Kabbalah is the philosophical basis and Key of Freemasonry." Once more:
+"The end of Freemasonry is universal dominion, and Freemasonry is a
+Jewish institution."
+
+Accepting these statements as points that admit of being argued with
+deference to the rules of right reason, let us establish in turn two
+positions which do not admit of being argued because they are evident in
+themselves: (a) Where the significance of symbols is uncertain, it is
+easy to interpret falsely; (b) When a subject is obscure and difficult,
+no person is qualified to speak positively if his knowledge be obtained
+at second-hand. Now, have we good reason to suppose that Mgr. Meurin is
+possessed of first-hand knowledge, and is consequently in a position to
+interpret truly upon the difficult subject he has undertaken, namely,
+the esoteric doctrines of the Kabbalah? If not, we are entitled to
+dismiss him without further examination. As a fact, in this preliminary
+and essential matter the archbishop can stand no test. The antiquity of
+the Kabbalah is necessary to work his hypothesis, and he assumes it as
+if unaware that its antiquity had ever been impugned. There may be much
+to be said upon both sides of this hotly-debated question, but there is
+nothing to be said for a writer who seems ignorant that there is a
+question. And hence my readers will in no way be astonished to learn
+that his information is obtained at second-hand, or that his one
+authority is Franck. This fact is the key to his entire work, and the
+sole credit that is due to him is the skilful appearance of erudition
+which he has given to a shallow performance, and the natural mental
+elegance which has prevented him from being noisy and violent.
+
+Our inquiry into modern devil-worship does not warrant us in discussing
+the position of writers who choose to assume that the Kabbalah,
+Gnosticism, and other systems are _à priori_ diabolical, because
+assumptions of this kind are unreasonable. There are writers at this
+moment in France who argue that the English word God is the equivalent
+of Lucifer, but one does not dispute with these. For the satisfaction of
+my readers, it may, however, be as well to state that the voluminous
+treatise of Mgr. Meurin has come into existence because he has
+discovered, as one might say, accidentally, that the number 33, which is
+that of the degrees in French Freemasonry, is the number of the
+divinities in the Vedas, thus creating a presumption that the mysteries
+of Freemasonry connect with those of antiquity. Of course they connect
+with antiquity, for the simple reason that there is a solidarity between
+all symbolisms, and, moreover, it is perfectly clear that Masonry has
+either inherited from the past by a perpetuated tradition, or has
+borrowed therefrom. Mgr. Meurin had therefore as little reason to be
+astonished at the correctness of his presumption when he came to work it
+out as he had to be delighted with the inference which prevails
+throughout his inquiry, namely, that the mysteries of pagan antiquity
+were delusions of the devil, and that modern mysteries which connect
+with those are also diabolical delusions. Indeed he is so continually
+making discoveries which are fresh to himself, and to no one acquainted
+with the subject, that one would be pleasantly diverted by his
+simplicity if it were not for the bad faith which underlies his
+assumptions. For example, every one who knows anything of Goëtic
+literature is aware that the rituals of black magic incorporate
+heterogeneous elements from Kabbalistic sources, but to Mgr. Meurin this
+fact comes with the force of a surprise.
+
+His Masonic erudition is about as great and as little as his proficiency
+in Kabbalah; he quotes Carlyle as "an authority," applies the term
+orthodox to French Freemasonry exclusively, whereas the developments of
+the Fraternity in France have always had a heterodox complexion, while
+his tripartite classification of the 33 degrees of that rite and of the
+Ancient Accepted Scotch Rite is made in an arbitrary manner to suit a
+preconceived theory, and entirely effaces the importance inherent in
+the first three grades, which are themselves the sum of Masonry.
+Moreover, the classification in question is presented as a most secret
+instruction imparted in some fastness of Masonry outside the 33 degrees,
+but no authority is named.
+
+Such being the qualifications and such the methods of the archbishop, I
+do not propose to accompany him through the long course of his
+interpretations, but will supply instead, for the economy of labour on
+the part of those who may wish to follow in his footsteps, a skeleton
+plan of procedure by which they will be able to prove learnedly anything
+they please in Freemasonry.
+
+It is well known that the Fraternity makes use of mystic numbers and
+other symbols. Take, therefore, any mystic number, or combination of
+numbers, as _e.g._, 3 × 3 = 9. You will probably be unacquainted with
+the meaning which attaches to the figure of the product, but it will
+occur to you that the 9 of spades is regarded as the disappointment in
+cartomancy. Begin, therefore, by confidently expecting something bad.
+Reflect upon the fact that cards have been occasionally denominated the
+Devil's Books. Conclude thence that Freemasonry is the Devil's
+Institution. Do not be misled by the objection that there is no
+traceable connection between cards and Masonry; anticipate an occult
+connection or secret _liaison_. The term last used has probably occurred
+to you by the will of God; do not forget that it describes a
+questionable sexual relationship. Be sure, therefore, that Freemasonry
+is a veil of the worst species of moral licence. You have now reached an
+important stage in the unmasking of Masonry, and you can sum it as
+follows:--Freemasonry is the cultus of the Phallus. If you know anything
+of ecclesiastical Latin, the words _noctium phantasmata_ may perhaps
+occur to you, and the whole field of demonology in connection with the
+Fraternity will open before you. But if you would confine yourself to
+the region of lubricity, recollect that our first parents went naked
+till the serpent tempted them, and then they wore aprons. Hence the
+apron, which is a Masonic emblem, has from time immemorial been the
+covering of shame. Should it occur to you--vide _Genesis_--that God made
+the aprons, dismiss it as a temptation of the devil, who would, if
+possible, prevent you from unveiling him. By this time it will be well
+to recur to the number 9; your chain of reasoning has established that
+it possesses a horrible significance. Now take the number and follow it
+through the history of religions by means of some theological
+ready-reckoner, such as a cheap dictionary by Migne. You will be sure to
+find something to your purpose--_i.e._, something sufficiently bad.
+Place that significance against the use of that number in Masonry.
+Repeat this process, picking up anything serviceable by the way, and
+continue so doing till your volume has attained its required dimensions.
+You will never want for materials, and this is how Masonry is unveiled.
+
+There is no exaggeration in this sketch; Mgr. Meurin is indeed by far
+more fatuous. On the 26th of May 1876 the Supreme Council of Sovereign
+Grand Inspectors General of the 33rd Degree of the Ancient and Accepted
+Scotch Rite are said to have issued a circular, dated from 33 Golden
+Square, London. Will my readers believe their own eyes or my sincerity
+when I say that the most illustrious of the French Anti-Masonic
+interpreters, member of the Society of Jesus, and Archbishop of Port
+Louis, solemnly enjoins us to "remark the No. 33 and the square of gold,
+which signify the supreme place in the world assigned to the liberty of
+gold"? By thus commenting on a significant number attaching to a real
+address, situated, as everyone knows, in the most central district of
+this city, Archbishop Meurin believes that he is not descending from
+pleasant comedy into screaming farce of interpretation, but that he is
+acting seriously and judiciously, has a right to look wise, and to
+believe that he has hit hard!
+
+No person who is acquainted with the Kabbalah, even in its historical
+aspects, much less the ripe scholar, M. A. Franck, from whom the
+materials are derived, will tolerate for a moment the theory that this
+mystical literature of the Jewish nation is capable of a diabolical
+interpretation. In particular it lends itself to the crude Manichæan
+system attributed to Albert Pike about as much and as little as it does
+to atheistic materialism. The reading of Mgr. Meurin may be compared
+with that of Mirandola, who discovered, not dualism, but the Christian
+mystery of the Trinity contained indubitably therein, who regarded it
+with more reason as the bridge by which the Jew might ultimately pass
+over to Christ, who infected a pontiff with his enthusiasm, and it will
+be seen that the Catholic Archbishop looks ridiculous in the lustre of
+his derived erudition. To insist further on this point is, however,
+scarcely to our purpose. The Kabbalah does not possess that integral
+connection with Masonry which is argued by Mgr. Meurin, and if it did,
+does not bear the interpretation which he assigns it, while his
+anti-Semitic thesis is demolished with the other hypothesis. But these
+things are largely outside the question which concerns us most directly.
+Over and above these points, does the witness whom we are examining
+contribute anything to our knowledge on the subject of the New and
+Reformed Palladium, otherwise Universal Masonry? The reply is perfectly
+clear. His one source of knowledge is Adolphe Ricoux; by some oversight
+he has not even the advantage of the rituals published by Leo Taxil. He
+may, therefore, be dismissed out of hand. The Satanism which he exhibits
+in Masonry is an imputed Satanism, and as to any actual Devil-Worship he
+reproduces as true the clever story of _Aut Diabolus aut Nihil_, which
+appeared originally in "Blackwood's Magazine," and has since been
+reprinted by its author, who states, what most people know already, that
+it is entirely fictitious.
+
+In parting with the writer of "Freemasonry, the Synagogue of Satan," as
+with a witness whose evidence has broken down, it must be repeated that
+he has, by his exalted position, elegance of method, and show of
+learning, been a chief pillar of the Satanic hypothesis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE DEVIL AND THE DOCTOR
+
+
+§ 1. _Le Diable au XIX^e Siècle_
+
+Although the New and Reformed Palladium is said to have been founded so
+far back as the year 1870, it will be seen that at the close of the year
+1891 very little had become public concerning it. It is difficult to
+conceive that an institution diffused so widely should have remained so
+profound a secret, when the many enemies of the Fraternity, who in their
+way are sleepless, would have seized eagerly upon the slightest hint of
+a directing centre of Masonry. Moreover, an association which initiates
+ladies is perhaps the last which one would expect to be unknown, for
+while the essential matter of a secret is undeniably safe with women, it
+is on condition that they are known to possess it. When the first hint
+was provided in 1891, Leo Taxil certainly lost no time, and Mgr. Meurin
+must have written his large treatise almost at fever speed. On the 20th
+of November in the same year, another witness came forward in the person
+of Dr Bataille, who speedily made it apparent that he was in a position
+to reveal everything about Universal Masonry and diabolism in connection
+therewith, because, unlike those who had preceded him, he possessed
+first-hand knowledge. If he had not himself beheld Lucifer in all his
+lurid glory, he had at least seen his messengers; he was an initiate of
+most secret societies which remotely or approximately are supposed to
+connect with Masonry; he had visited Charleston; he had examined the
+genuine Baphomet and the skull of Jacques de Molay; he was personally
+acquainted with Albert Pike, Phileas Walder, and Gallatin Mackey; he
+was, moreover, an initiate of the Palladium. He was evidently the
+missing witness who could unveil the whole mystery, and it would be
+difficult to escape from his conclusions. Finally, he was not a person
+who had come out of Masonry by a suspicious and sudden conversion;
+believing it to be evil, he had entered it with the intention of
+exposing it, had spent ten years in his researches, and now stepped
+forward with his results. The office of a spy is not usually clean or
+wholesome, but occasionally such services are valuable, and in some
+cases there may be certain ends which justify the use of means which
+would in other cases be questionable, so that until we can prove the
+contrary, it will be reasonable to accept the solemn declaration of this
+witness that he acted with a good intention, and that what he did was in
+the interests of the church and the world.
+
+But, unfortunately, Dr Bataille has seen fit to publish his testimony in
+precisely that form which was most calculated to challenge the motive;
+it is a perfervid narrative issued in penny numbers with absurd
+illustrations of a highly sensational type; in a word, _Le Diable au
+XIX^e Siècle_, which is the title given to his memoirs by the present
+witness, connects in manner and appearance with that class of literature
+which is known as the "penny dreadful." Some years ago the slums of
+London and Paris were inundated with romances published in this fashion
+and continued so long as they maintained a remunerative circulation; in
+many cases, they ended abruptly, in others they extended, like _Le
+Diable au XIX^e Siècle_ to hundreds of issues; they possess special
+characteristics which are known to experts in the by-ways of periodical
+literature, and all these are to be found in the narrative of Dr
+Bataille. No one in England would dream of publishing in this form a
+work which was to be taken seriously, nor am I acquainted with any
+precedent for it abroad. It is therefore a discreditable and unfortunate
+choice, but seeing that a section of the clerical press in France has
+agreed to pass over this point, and to accept Dr Bataille as a credible
+witness, and seeing also that he has been followed by other writers who
+must be taken into account and stand or fall with him, we must not
+regard his method as an excuse for refusing to hear him. Apart from him
+and his adherents there is indeed no first-hand evidence for Palladian
+Masonry. The present chapter will therefore contain a summary of what
+was seen and heard by Dr Bataille in the course of his researches.
+
+
+§ 2. _Why Signor Carbuccia was Damned._
+
+In the year 1880, Dr Hacks, who makes, I believe, no attempt to conceal
+himself under the vesture of Dr Bataille, was a ship's surgeon on board
+the steam-boat _Anadyr_, belonging to the _Compagnie des Messageries
+Maritimes_, and then returning from China with passengers and
+merchandise. On a certain day in the June of the year mentioned, he was
+to the fore at his post of duty--that is to say, he was extended idly
+over the extreme length of a comfortable deck-chair, and the _hotel
+flottant_ was anchored at Point-de-Galle, a port at the southern
+extremity of Ceylon, and one of the reputed regions of the terrestrial
+paradise. While the doctor, like a good Catholic, put a polish on the
+tropical moment by a little gloss of speculation over the mystery of
+Eden, some passengers presently came on board for the homeward voyage,
+and among them was Gaëtano Carbuccia, an Italian, who was originally a
+silk-merchant, but owing to Japanese competition, had been forced to
+change his _métier_, and was now a dealer in curiosities. His numerous
+commercial voyages had made them well acquainted with each other, but on
+the present occasion Carbuccia presented an appearance which alarmed his
+friend; a _gaillard grand et solide_ had been metamorphosed suddenly
+into an emaciated and feeble old man. There was a mystery somewhere, and
+the ship's doctor was destined to diagnose its character. After wearing
+for a certain period the aspect of a man who has something to tell, and
+cannot summons courage to tell it--a position which is common in
+novels--the Italian at length unbosomed himself, beginning dramatically
+enough by a burst of tears, and the terrific information that he was
+damned. But the Carbuccia of old was a riotous, joyful, foul-tongued,
+pleasure-loving atheist, a typical commercial traveller, with a strain
+of Alsatia and the mountain-brigand. How came this red-tied scoffer so
+far on the road of religion as to be damned? Some foolish fancy had made
+the ribald Gaëtano turn a Mason. When one of his boon companions had
+suggested the evil course, he had refused blankly, apparently because he
+was asked, rather than because it was evil; but he had scarcely regained
+his home in Naples than he became irreparably initiated. The ceremony
+was accomplished in a street of that city by a certain Giambattista
+Pessina, who was a Most Illustrious Sovereign Grand Commander, Past
+Grand Master, and Grand Hierophant of the Antique and Oriental Rite of
+Memphis and Misraïm, who, for some reason which escapes analysis,
+recognised Carbuccia as a person who deserved to be acquainted with the
+whole physiology and anatomy of Masonry. It would cost 200 francs to
+enter the 33rd grade of the sublime mystery. Carbuccia closed with this
+offer, and was initiated there and then across the table, becoming a
+Grand Commander of the Temple, and was affiliated, for a further
+subscription of 15 francs annually, to the Areopagite of Naples,
+receiving the passwords regularly.
+
+Impelled by an enthusiasm for which he himself was unable to account, he
+now lent a ready ear to all dispensers of degrees; Memphis initiates of
+Manchester allured him into Kabbalistic rites; he fell among occult
+Masons like the Samaritan among thieves; he became a Sublime Hermetic
+Philosopher; overwhelmed with solicitations, he fraternised with the
+Brethren of the New Reformed Palladium, and optimated with the Society
+of Re-Theurgists, from whom he ultimately received the veritable
+initiation of the Magi. Everywhere lodges opened to him, everywhere
+mysteries unveiled; everywhere in the higher grades he found spiritism,
+magic, evocation; his atheism became impossible, and his conscience
+troubled.
+
+Ultimately his business led him to revisit Calcutta, where his last
+unheard-of experience had overwhelmed his whole being, just eight days
+previously to his encounter with Doctor Bataille. He had found the
+Palladists of that city in a flutter of feverish excitement because they
+had succeeded in obtaining from China the skulls of three martyred
+missionaries. These treasures were indispensable to the successful
+operation of a new magical rite composed by the Supreme Pontiff of
+Universal Freemasonry and Vicegerent of Lucifer, General Albert Pike. A
+séance was about to be held; Brother George Shekleton of immortal
+memory, the hero who had obtained the skulls, was present with those
+trophies; and the petrified quondam atheist took part, not because he
+wished to remain, but because he did not dare to go. The proceedings
+began, the skulls were placed on the tables; Adonaï and his Christ were
+cursed impressively, Lucifer as solemnly blessed and invoked at the
+altar of Baphomet. Nothing could be possibly more successful--result,
+shocks of earthquake, threatened immediate demolishment of the whole
+place, confident expectation of being entombed alive, terrific burst of
+thunder, a brilliant light, an impressive silence of some seconds, and
+then the sudden manifestation of a being in human form seated in the
+chair of the Grand Master. It was an instantaneous apparition of
+absolute bodily substance, which carried its own warrant of complete
+_bona fides_. Everyone fell on their knees; everyone was invited to
+rise; everyone rose accordingly; and Carbuccia found that he had to do
+with a male personage not exceeding eight and thirty years, naked as a
+drawn sword, with a faint flush of Infernus suffusing his skin, a
+species of light inherent which illuminated the darkness of the
+salon--in a word, a beardless Apollo, tall, distinguished, infinitely
+melancholy, and yet with a nervous smile playing at the corners of his
+mouth, the apparition of _Aut Diabolus aut Nihil_ divested of evening
+dress. This Unashamed Nakedness, who was accepted as the manifestation
+of Lucifer, discoursed pleasantly to his children, electing to use
+excellent English, and foretold his ultimate victory over his eternal
+enemy; he assured them of continued protection, alluded in passing to
+the innumerable hosts which surrounded him in his eternal domain, and
+incited his hearers to work without ceasing for the emancipation of
+humanity from superstition.
+
+The discourse ended, he quitted the daïs, approached the Grand Master,
+and eye to eye fixed him in deep silence. After a pause he passed on,
+without committing himself to any definite observation; yet there seems
+to have been a meaning in the ceremony, for he successively repeated it
+in the case of every dignitary congregated at the eastern side, and
+finally of the ordinary members. When it came to the turn of Carbuccia,
+he would have given ten years of his life to have been at the Galleys
+rather than Calcutta, but he contrived to pull through, without,
+however, creating a favourable impression, for _adversarius noster
+diabolus_ passed on with contracted brow, and when the disconcerting
+inquiry was over, returned to the centre of the circle, gave a final
+glance around, approached Shekleton, and civilly requested him to shake
+hands. The importer of missionary skulls complied with a horrible yell;
+there was an electric shock, sudden darkness, and general
+_coup-de-théâtre_. When the torches were rekindled, the apparition had
+vanished, Shekleton was discovered to be dead, and the initiates
+crowding round him, sang: "Glory immortal to Shekleton! He has been
+chosen by our omnipotent God." It was too much for the galliard
+merchant, and he swooned.
+
+Now, this is why Signor Carbuccia concluded that he was damned, which
+appears to have been precipitate. He has contrived, by the good offices
+of his lay confessor, to square matters with the hierarchy of Adonaï,
+who belongs to the Latin persuasion; he has changed his name, adopted a
+third profession, and is so safe in retreat that his friends are as
+unlikely to find him as are the enemies who thirst for his blood.
+
+Doctor Bataille, faithful to his rôle of good Catholic, perceived at
+once that the Merchant's Story of these new Arabian Nights was
+characterised by extreme frankness, was devoid of a sinister motive, and
+was not the narrative of a maniac. A physician, he adds sententiously,
+is not to be deceived. He determined thereupon that he himself would
+descend into the abyss, taking with him a mental reservation in all he
+said and did as a kind of discharge in full. The Church and humanity
+required it. Behold him then presently at Naples, making acquaintance
+with Signor Pessina, and outdoing Carbuccia by expending 500 francs in
+the purchase of the 90th Misraïm grade, thus becoming a Sovereign Grand
+Master for life! "I will be the exploiter and not the accomplice of
+modern Satanism," said the pious Doctor Bataille.
+
+
+§ 3. _A Priestess of Lucifer._
+
+Fortified with the purchase of his Memphis sovereignty, and the
+possession of various signs and passwords communicated by Carbuccia,
+which, by some interposition of Providence, must be assumed to have
+remained unchanged in the intervening period, Dr Bataille entered on his
+adventurous mission, bedewed with many tears, and sanctified by many
+blessings of an old spiritual adviser, who, needless to say, was at
+first hostile to the enterprise, and was afterwards as inevitably
+disarmed by the eloquence and enthusiasm of his disciple. Having regard
+to the fact that Masonry and Diabolism abound everywhere, according to
+the hypothesis, it obviously mattered little at what point he began the
+prosecution of his design; all roads lead to Rome, and the statement is
+equally true of the Rome of Masonry and the Vatican of Lucifer. As a
+fact, he started where Carbuccia may be said to have left off, namely,
+at Point-de-Galle in Southern Ceylon. There he determined to acquaint
+himself with Cingalese Kabbalism, a department of transcendental
+philosophy, about as likely to be met with in that reputed region of the
+Terrestrial Paradise as a cultus from the great south sea in the back
+parts of Notting Hill. Signor Pessina, however, had provided him with
+the address of a society which operated something that the doctor agrees
+to term Kabbalah, after the same manner that he misnames most subjects.
+But he was not destined to Kabbalize.
+
+Repairing to the principal hotel, he there witnessed, through one of
+those fortuitous occurrences which are sometimes the mask of fate, a
+sufficiently indifferent performance by native jugglers, the chief of
+whom was exceedingly lean and so dirty as to suggest that he was remote
+from godliness. During the course of the conjuring this personage held
+the doctor by a certain meaning glance of his glittering eye, and when
+all was over the latter had a private information that Sata desired to
+speak with him. The naïve mind of the doctor regarded the name as
+significant in view of his mission; Sata was assuredly a Satanist. He
+consented incontinently, and was greeted by the juggler with certain
+mysterious signs which showed that he was a Luciferian of the sect of
+Carbuccia, though, by what device of the devil he divined the doctor's
+adeptship, the devil and not the doctor could alone explain at the
+moment.
+
+A miscellaneous language is apparently spoken by the Cingalese
+jugglers--Tamil, including a little bad French, not less convenient than
+needful in the present case. It was made clear by some brief
+explanations that the medical services of Dr Bataille were solicited at
+the death-bed of a personage named Mahmah, for which purpose the two
+entered a hired conveyance, while the rank and file of the jugglers
+followed at a brisk trot. In this manner they traversed a frightful
+desert, plunged into a forest of brushwood, finally forded a stream, and
+after two hours arrived at an open clearing, in the centre of which was
+a hut. An ape occupied the threshold, a vampire bat hung from a
+convenient beam, a cobra was curled underneath, and a black cat welcomed
+them with arched back. The ape spoke Tamil freely and then marched off,
+reflecting upon which circumstance, the doctor thought that it was quite
+the strangest thing in the world.
+
+The hut was the covering of a species of well, down which, with some
+quakings for the safety of limbs and body, our adventurer was persuaded
+to follow his guides, and they reached, at the end of a long flight of
+steps, an immense mortuary chamber. There, on a bed of cocoa-nut fibre,
+he found his patient, from whose mummified and hideous appearance he at
+once concluded that she was entirely given over to Satan and had long
+been a lost soul. As spiritually, so also physically, she was past all
+human aid; indeed she seemed dead already, and he gave his medical
+opinion to that effect. The countenance of this opinion was apparently
+the warrant required for the proceedings which immediately followed, and
+it is difficult to understand why fakirs in league with Satan--for such
+we are told they were--and possessed, no doubt, both of ordinary native
+and occult methods of diagnosis, could not have discovered this for
+themselves, more especially as the lady, who seems to have been a
+pythoness by profession, and commerced with a familiar spirit, had
+already reached the ripe age of 152 years.
+
+To shorten a long and peculiarly noisome story, the astounded doctor
+ultimately beheld the dying woman revive suddenly, and crawl to the end
+of the chamber, where there was an elaborate altar surmounted by a
+figure of Baphomet; the fakirs crowded round her; the ape, the bat, the
+snake, the cat, all appeared on the scene; a brilliant illumination was
+produced by means of eleven lamps suspended from the ceiling; the woman
+drew herself into an erect position; the fakirs piled resinous branches
+round her; amidst invocations, mysterious chants, and yells, she
+permitted herself to be burned to death, her body slowly blackening, her
+face turning scarlet in the flames, her eyes starting from her head,
+and so she passed into ashes.
+
+Why was the doctor privileged to be present at these proceedings?
+Because an agent of the fakirs had previously investigated his
+portmanteau on the hotel premises, and had discovered his Memphis
+insignia, which they returned to him in the mortuary chamber. As to the
+Baphomet, it is very fully described, and is identified with similar
+images of Masonic lodges in America, India, Paris, Rome, Shanghai, and
+Monte Video. The doctor says that it is the god of the occultists. The
+venerable Sata quoted Latin as intelligently as the ape spoke Tamil; he
+overwhelmed his benefactor with acknowledgments, and instead of a fee
+presented him with a winged lingam, by means of which he would be
+received among all worshippers of Lucifer in India, China,--in fact, as
+Sata said, _partout, partout_.
+
+So did Dr Bataille make his first acquaintance with practical occultism,
+and these things being done, he returned to his hotel and departed
+thankfully to bed.
+
+
+§ 4. _A House of Rottenness._
+
+Who would possess a lingam which was an _Open Sesame_ to devildom and
+not make use thereof? By effecting an exchange with another ship's
+doctor, the exploiter of Lucifer found himself presently at Pondicherry,
+with three months of comparative freedom before him to explore the
+mysteries of the oriental peninsula. Need I say that he had scarcely
+landed at the French seaboard town when he at once made acquaintance
+with the very person who of all others was most suitable to his scheme?
+This was Ramassamiponnotamly-palé-dobachi--quite a short name, he
+assures us, for the natives of this part. All Pondicherry more or less
+abounded in lingams and Lucifer, but as he carried his right hand
+clenched, the doctor at once suspected the half-naked Ramassam to be
+more than commonly devoted to the persuasion of perdition; nor was he
+mistaken, for the latter promptly inquired: "What is your age?" "Eleven
+years," said the doctor. "Whence do you come?" "From the eternal flame."
+"Whither do you go?" "To the flame eternal." And to their mutual
+satisfaction they agreed the sacred name of Baal-Zeboub, the doctor
+producing his winged lingam, at which the other fell down in the open
+streets and adored him. The exhibition of the patent of a Sovereign
+Grand Master _ad Vitam_ of the Rite of Memphis inspired further respect;
+it was evidently a document with which Ramassam had long been familiar;
+and he began to talk glibly of tyling. Like the horrors of Udolpho, the
+explanation was of course very simple: Mr John Campbell, an American,
+had instituted a lodge of the York Rite at Pondicherry which, in the
+most natural manner, admitted the Luciferian Fakirs as visitors, the
+Luciferian Fakirs admitted the members of the York Rite to their
+conventions, and they all bedevilled one another.
+
+It would be idle to suppose that F.·. Campbell was not at Pondicherry on
+business when the doctor chanced to arrive, and in the course of the
+afternoon the latter was taken by Ramassam to a house of ordinary
+appearance, into which they were admitted by another Indian, who, of
+course, like the guide, spoke good French. Through the greenery of a
+garden, the gloom of a well, and the entanglement of certain stairways,
+they entered a great dismantled temple devoted to the service of Brahma,
+under the unimpressive diminutive of Lucif. The infernal sanctuary had a
+statue of Baphomet, identical with that in Ceylon, and the
+ill-ventilated place reeked with horrible putrescence. Its noisome
+condition was mainly owing to the presence of various fakirs, who,
+though still alive, were in advanced stages of putrefaction. Most people
+are supposed to go easily and pleasantly to the devil, but these elected
+to do so by way of a charnel-house asceticism, and an elaborate system
+of self-torture. Some were suspended from the ceiling by a rope tied to
+their arms, some embedded in plaster, some stiffened in a circle, some
+permanently distorted into the shape of the letter S; some were head
+downwards, some in a cruciform position. It was really quite monstrous,
+says the doctor, but a native grand master explained, that they had
+postured for years in this manner, and one of them for a quarter of a
+century.
+
+Fr.·. John Campbell proceeded to harangue the assembly in ourdou-zaban,
+but the doctor comprehended completely, and reports the substance of his
+speech, which was violently anti-Catholic in its nature, and especially
+directed against missionaries. This finished, they proceeded to the
+evocation of Baal-Zeboub, at first by the Conjuration of the Four, but
+no fiend appeared. The operation was repeated ineffectually a second
+time, and John Campbell determined upon the Grand Rite, which began by
+each person spinning on his own axis, and in this manner
+circumambulating the temple in procession. Whenever they passed an
+embedded fakir, they obtained an incantation from his lips, but still
+Baal-Zeboub failed. Thereupon the native Grand Master suggested that the
+evocation should be performed by the holiest of all the fakirs, who was
+produced from a cupboard more fetid than the temple itself, and proved
+to be in the following condition:--(a) Face eaten by rats; (b) one
+bleeding eye hanging down by his mouth; (c) legs covered with gangrene,
+ulcers, and rottenness; (d) expression peaceful and happy.
+
+Entreated to call on Baal-Zeboub, each time he opened his mouth his eye
+fell into it; however, he continued the invocation, but no Baal-Zeboub
+manifested. A tripod of burning coals was next obtained, and a woman,
+summoned for this purpose, plunged her arm into the flames, inhaling
+with great delight the odour of her roasting flesh. Result, _nil_. Then
+a white goat was produced, placed upon the altar of Baphomet, set
+alight, hideously tortured, cut open, and its entrails torn out by the
+native Grand Master, who spread them on the steps, uttering abominable
+blasphemies against Adonaï. This having also failed, great stones were
+raised from the floor, a nameless stench ascended, and a large
+consignment of living fakirs, eaten to the bone by worms and falling to
+pieces in every direction, were dragged out from among a number of
+skeletons, while serpents, giant spiders, and toads swarmed from all
+parts. The Grand Master seized one of the fakirs and cut his throat upon
+the altar, chanting the satanic liturgy amidst imprecations, curses, a
+chaos of voices, and the last agonies of the goat. The blood spirted
+forth upon the assistants, and the Grand Master sprinkled the Baphomet.
+A final howl of invocation resulted in complete failure, whereupon it
+was decided that Baal-Zeboub had business elsewhere. The doctor departed
+from the ceremony, fraternising with Campbell, and kept his bed for
+eight-and-forty hours.
+
+
+§ 5. _The seven Temples and a Sabbath in Sheol._
+
+It was in the month of October 1880 that, in the course of his
+enterprise, Doctor Bataille reached Calcutta. Freemasonry, he informs
+us, invariably affects the horrible, and as he invests Calcutta with the
+sombre hues of living death and universal putrefaction, it naturally
+follows that the Indian city is one of the four great directing centres
+of Universal Freemasonry. Everywhere the pious Doctor discovered the
+hand of Lucifer; everywhere he beheld the consequences of superstition
+and Satanism; cataclysms, floods, tornados, typhoons, plagues, cholera,
+representing the normal state of health and habit, and the consequences
+of universal persuasion in favour of the fiend. A corpse, he testifies,
+is met with at every step, the smoke of burning widows ascends to
+heaven, and the plain of Dappah, in immediate contiguity to the city, is
+a vast charnel-house where innumerable multitudes of dead bodies are
+flung naked to the vultures. The English Mason will at once recognise
+that of all places in the world Calcutta is most suited to be a Mecca of
+the Fraternity and the capital of English India. The Kadosch of the
+Scotch Rite, the Sublime Chosen Master of the Royal Arch, the Commander
+of the White and Black Eagle of the rite of Herodom, the perfectly
+initiated Grand Inspector of the Scotch Philosophical Rite, the Elect
+Brother of the Johannite Rite of Zinnendorf, and the Brother of the Red
+Cross of Swedenborg, a thousand other dignitaries of a thousand
+illuminations, gather in the Grand Masonic Temple, and, as the Doctor
+gravely tells us, are employed in cursing Catholicity. By a special
+conjunction of the planets, the Doctor, on reaching head-quarters, had
+immediate intelligence that the great Phileas Walder had himself
+recently arrived on a secret mission from Charleston. There also he made
+acquaintance with another luminary of devildom, by name Hobbs, who
+presided at the important proceedings which resulted in the damnation of
+Carbuccia. Brother Hobbs, possessed of much experience in Lucifer, gave
+many assurances concerning the incessant apparitions of The Master of
+Evil to all worthy persons. Now the Doctor, by virtue of his Misraïm
+patent, was as much a priest for ever according to the Melchisedeck of
+Masonry, as if he had been born without father or mother, but at the
+moment he had not received the perfect initiation of the Palladium;
+technically, therefore, he had no right to participate in the Supreme
+Mysteries. However, it is needless to say that he had arrived in the
+nick of time to be present at a ceremony which takes place only once in
+ten years, provided that he was willing to undergo the trifle of a
+preliminary ordeal.
+
+On the same evening a select company of initiates proceeded in hired
+carriages through the desolation of Dappah, under the convoy of
+initiated coachmen, for the operation of a great satanic solemnity. At
+an easy distance from the city is the Sheol of the native Indians, and
+hard by the latter place there is a mountain 500 feet high and 2000
+long, on the summit of which seven temples are erected, communicating
+one with another by subterranean passages in the rock. The total absence
+of pagodas make it evident that these temples are devoted to the worship
+of Satan; they form a gigantic triangle superposed on the vast plateau,
+at the base of which the party descended from their conveyances, and
+were met by a native with an accommodating knowledge of French. Upon
+exchanging the Sign of Lucifer he conducted them to a hole in the rock,
+which gave upon a narrow passage guarded by a line of Sikhs with drawn
+swords, prepared to massacre anybody, and leading to the vestibule of
+the first temple, which was filled with a miscellaneous concourse of
+Adepts, from officers and tea-merchants even to tanners and dentists. In
+the first temple, which was provided with the inevitable statue of
+Baphomet, but was withal bare and meagrely illuminated, the doctor was
+destined to pass through his promised ordeal, for which he was stripped
+to the skin, placed in the centre of the assembly, and at a given signal
+one thousand odd venomous cobra de capellos were produced from holes in
+the wall and encouraged to fold him in their embraces, while the music
+of flute-playing fakirs alone intervened to prevent his instant death.
+He passed through this trying encounter with a valour which amazed
+himself, persisted in prolonging the ceremony, and otherwise proved
+himself a man of such extraordinary metal that he earned universal
+respect and received the most flattering testimonials even from Phileas
+Walder. That the serpents were undoubtedly venomous was afterwards
+proved upon the person of one of the natives present, who, delivered to
+their fury, fell, covered with apparently mortal bites, but was
+subsequently treated by native remedies and carried before the altar of
+Baphomet to be cured by the special intervention of the good God
+Lucifer. This ceremony was accomplished by the intervention of a lovely
+Indian Vestal, by the prayers of the Grand Master, a silk-mercer by
+commercial persuasion, and by the mock baptism of a serpent, after which
+the sufferer rose to his feet and the inconvenient venom spurted of
+itself out of his wounds. From the Sanctuary of the Serpents the company
+then proceeded, with becoming recollection, into the second temple or
+Sanctuary of the Phoenix.
+
+The second temple was brilliantly illuminated and ablaze with millions
+of precious stones wrested by the wicked English from innumerable
+conquered Rajahs; it had garlands of diamonds, festoons of rubies, vast
+images of solid silver, and a gigantic Phoenix in red gold more solid
+than the silver. There was an altar beneath the Phoenix, and a male and
+female ape were composed at the altar steps, while the Grand Master
+proceeded to the celebration of a black mass, which was followed by an
+amazing marriage of the two engaging animals, and the sacrifice of a
+lamb brought alive into the temple, bleating piteously, with nails
+driven through its feet. This was intended to symbolize an illuminated
+reprobation of celibacy and an approval of the married state, or its
+less expensive substitutes.
+
+The third temple was consecrated to the Mother of fallen women, who, in
+memory of the adventure of the apple, has a place in the calendar of
+Lucifer; the proceedings consisted of a dialogue between the Grand
+Master and the Vestal which the becoming modesty of the doctor prevents
+him from describing even in the Latin tongue.
+
+The fourth temple was a Rosicrucian Sanctuary, having an open sepulchre,
+from which blue flames continually emanated; there was a platform in the
+midst of the temple designed for the accommodation of more Indian
+Vestals, one of whom it was proposed should evaporate into thin air,
+after which a Fakir would be transformed before the whole company into a
+living mummy and be interred for a space of three years. These were
+among the events of the evening, and were accomplished with great
+success without much disturbing the mental equilibrium of the doctor,
+though he confessed to a certain impression when the Fakir introduced
+his performance by suspension in mid-air.
+
+The fifth temple was consecrated to the Pelican and was used by an
+English officer to deliver a short discourse on Masonic charity, which
+the doctor regarded as vulnerable from a moral point of view and
+suggestive of easy virtue.
+
+The sixth temple was that of the Future and was devoted to divinations,
+the oracles being given by a Vestal in a hypnotic condition, seated over
+a burning brazier. The doctor was accommodated with a test, but another
+inquirer who had the temerity to be curious as to what was being done in
+the Vatican received a severe rebuff; in vain did the spirit of the
+Clairvoyante strive to penetrate the "draughty and malarious" palace of
+the Roman Pontiff, and Phileas Walder, mortified and maddened, began to
+curse and to swear like the first Pope. The experiment disillusionized
+the assembly and they thoughtfully repaired to the seventh temple,
+which, being sacred to Fire, was equipped with a vast central furnace
+surmounted by a chimney and containing a gigantic figure of Baphomet;
+in spite of the intolerable heat pervading the entire chamber this idol
+contrived to preserve its outlines and to glow without pulverising. A
+ceremony of an impressive nature occurred in this apartment; a wild cat,
+which strayed in through an open window, was regarded as the appearance
+of a soul in transmigration, and, in spite of its piteous protests, was
+passed through the fire to Baal.
+
+And now the crowning function, the Magnum Opus of the mystery, must take
+place in the Sheol of Dappah; a long procession filed from the mountain
+temples to the charnel-house of the open plain; the night was dark, the
+moon had vanished in dismay, black clouds scudded across the heavens, a
+feverish rain fell slowly at intervals, and the ground was dimly lighted
+by the phosphorescence of the general putrefaction. The Adepts went
+stumbling over dead bodies, disturbing Rats and Vultures, and proceeded
+to the formation of the magic chain, which consisted in high-grade
+Masons, provided with silk hats, sitting down in a vast circle, every
+Adept embracing his particular corpse. The ceremony included the
+recitation of certain passages borrowed from popular grimoires, the
+object in view being the wholesale liberation of Spirits wandering in
+the immediate neighbourhood of their bodies. This closed the proceedings
+and the doctor confesses that the distractions of the evening occasioned
+him a disturbed sleep accompanied by nightmares.
+
+
+§ 6. _A Palladian Initiation._
+
+Before leaving Calcutta our adventurer purchased from Phileas Walder,
+for the sum of two hundred francs, the serviceable dignity of a
+Palladian Hierarch, "fortified with which he would be enabled to
+penetrate everywhere." Regarding all English possessions as peculiarly
+productive in the Dead Sea fruit of diabolism, Singapore was the next
+scene of his curious researches. The English as a nation are criminal,
+but Singapore is the yeast-house of British wickedness, where vice
+ferments continually; there man masonifies naturally and most Masons
+palladise. The doctor states plainly that one thing only has preserved
+the place from the doom of the cities of the plain, and that is the
+presence of certain good Christians, otherwise Catholics, in what he
+terms the accursed city. For himself he tarried only to witness the
+initiation of a Mistress-Templar according to the Palladian rite, which
+took place in a Presbyterian Chapel, the Presbyterian persuasion, as he
+tells us, being one of the broad roads leading to avowed Satanism. The
+password was appropriately the name of the first murderer, and the
+doctor was greeted to his great astonishment by an old acquaintance, an
+English pastor, whom he had frequently seen upon his own magnificent
+steam-boat, who also rejoiced in the nick-name of the Reverend Alcohol,
+being, like the majority of Englishmen, almost invariably drunk. The
+ceremony of initiation, which is described at great length in the
+narrative, is a variation from that of Leo Taxil; the doctor, in mercy
+to his readers, suppressing a part of the performance. Speaking
+generally, it was concerned, as we have previously seen, with an
+anti-Christian version of Gospel history and some commonplace outrages
+of the Eucharistic elements, during which proceedings our witness
+perspired freely. So, as he tells us, did one more Protestant pass over
+to the worship of Lucifer.
+
+The operations of the ritual were followed by a "divine solemnity,"
+which had something of the character of an ordinary spiritual séance,
+supposing it to have been held in a mad-house. I need only say that when
+the lights were turned up at the end, every article of furniture,
+including a large organ, was discovered hanging from the ceiling. As a
+final phenomenon, the Master of the Ceremonies detached his shadow from
+his substance, arranged it against the wall in the shape of a demon, and
+it responded to various questions by signs. There was a burst of loud
+applause, the proceedings terminated, and the Masonic Temple became once
+more a Presbyterian Chapel.
+
+
+§ 7. _The San-Ho-Hei._
+
+The doctor informs us that China is the gate of Hell, and that all its
+inhabitants are born damned; child-like and bland in appearance, the
+Chinaman is invariably by disposition a Satanist, having tastes wholly
+diabolical. As to the religion of Buddha, it is simply Satanism _à
+outrance_. Chinese occultism is centralised in the San-Ho-Hei, an
+association "parallel to high grade Masonry," having its head-quarters
+at Pekin, and welcoming all Freemasons who are affiliated to the
+Palladium. It does not, however, admit women, and has only one degree.
+Its chief occupation is to murder Catholic missionaries. When a
+Palladian Mason seeks admission for the first time to one of its
+assemblies, he betakes himself to the nearest opium den, carrying on his
+person the documents which prove his initiation; he places his umbrella
+head downwards on his left side, and stupefies himself with the divine
+drug. He is then quite sure that he will be transported in a comatose
+condition to the occult reunion. When the doctor reached Shanghai, he
+experienced some hesitation before he attempted an adventure so
+uncertain in its issue. He remembered, however, that he was possessed of
+a miraculous medal of St. Benedict, which he regarded as his trump
+card, a species of passport or return ticket, available at any date and
+by any line of Devildom. He determined to get drunk accordingly; but
+even as he entered Masonry with a becoming reservation of conscience, so
+he entered the drug-shop with a reservation as to the degree of his
+drunkenness, in spite of which he fell, however, into a deep sleep, and
+awoke in the assembly of The Secret Avengers, one of whom, to facilitate
+proceedings, had a good knowledge of English, and a perfect familiarity
+with all Charleston passwords. The Baphomet, of course, presided, but it
+appears that the Chinese have certain conscientious scruples on the
+subject of Goats, and hence a Dragon's head was substituted for that of
+the ordinary image. The doctor was not the only European present at the
+proceedings of the celestial assembly; but while he was the sole
+representative of his own nation, it goes without saying that there was
+a fair sprinkling of the abominable British.
+
+So complete is the unanimity which obtains between the initiates of
+China and Charleston that the bulk of the proceedings takes place in
+the English language; but for this disposition of Providence, the doctor
+would have been at a serious disadvantage. The first object of the
+company was to encompass the destruction of missionaries, and for this
+purpose a coffin was presently brought in, containing the skeleton of a
+deceased brother, who had so far diverged from duty that he had entered
+in league with the Jesuits, and had dared to act as a spy upon the
+august proceedings of the Sublime Society of Avengers. The first act may
+be regarded as somewhat bizarre in character; it consisted in evoking an
+evil spirit to animate the skeleton, and to answer certain questions.
+This was accomplished with absolute success. The bones of the departed
+brother had, however, been so consecrated by his Jesuitical proclivities
+that, even when animated by a devil, they discovered extreme reluctance
+in disclosing the number and quality of certain Franciscan zealots who
+had just started from Paris to convert the Empire. Ultimately, however,
+it was admitted that they were now on the high seas, which information
+given, the bony oracle could no longer contain its rage, but pursued an
+English Mason of the 33rd degree from end to end of the assembly, and
+succeeded in inflicting some furious bites and blows. The second act
+commenced by uncovering a species of exaggerated baptismal font, filled
+to the brim with water, and representing the great ocean over which the
+missionaries were passing. The assembly crowded round it, and by means
+of magic rods and other devices, succeeded in evoking a minute figure of
+a steam-ship containing the adventurers. Their magic also raised up a
+perfect tempest of wind in the closed apartment, but by no device could
+they effect the slightest disturbance upon the placid bosom of the
+water. The ceremony had, in fact, to be abandoned as a failure in its
+desired intention. Too well did the Spirit Yesu protect His
+missionaries. The assembly accordingly repaired into a second apartment.
+There the officiating dignitaries assumed the vestments of Catholic
+priests. They produced a wax figure, designed to represent a missionary,
+amused themselves with a mock trial, inflicted imaginary tortures, and
+returned the dummy to a cupboard, after which they proceeded to the
+crucifixion of a living pig. The third act was an agonising experience
+for the doctor, being nothing less than the sacrifice of one of the
+brethren, the selection being determined by lot. The doctor, in his
+quality of visitor, was, it is true, spared the chance of being himself
+the victim, but he nearly became executioner. One of the Chinese adepts
+having been chosen, to his intense satisfaction, and approved by some
+mechanical movements on the part of the dragon-headed Baphomet,
+permitted his limbs to be removed, and then earnestly invoked the
+assistance of the "Charleston brother" for the purpose of severing his
+head. It was an honour invariably accorded to the visitor of the highest
+grade. The doctor, who could not bring himself to the point, was saved
+at the last moment by the miraculous levitation of Phileas Walder from
+an immense distance, this occult personage having become transcendently
+cognisant of what was going forward in China, and being anxious to
+interrogate the severed head as to the possible recovery of his
+daughter, who was then seriously ill. In virtue of his superior dignity,
+he claimed the privilege of the execution, and the doctor modestly
+retired.
+
+Such were the adventures of our witness in the assembly of Holy
+Avengers. He enumerates at great length the evidence against
+hallucination as a result of his excess in opium, but I suggest to
+observing readers that there is a more obvious line of criticism.
+
+
+§ 8. _The Great City of Lucifer._
+
+It was in March of the year 1881 that Doctor Bataille proceeded for the
+first time to Charleston, to make acquaintance at head-quarters with the
+universal Masonry of Lucifer and its Pontiff Albert Pike. Charleston is
+the Venice of America, the Rome of Satan, and the great City of Lucifer.
+Always enormously prolix, and adoring the details which swell the flimsy
+issues of cheap periodical narratives, our witness describes at great
+length the city and its Masonic temple, with the temple which is within
+the temple and is consecrated to the good God. My second chapter has
+already provided the reader with sufficient information upon the persons
+alleged to be concerned in the foundation of Universal Freemasonry and
+in the elaboration of its cultus. Nor need I dwell at any length upon
+the personal communication which passed between Doctor Bataille, Albert
+Pike, Gallatin Mackey, Sophia Walder, Chambers, Webber, and the rest of
+the Charleston luminaries. Miss Walder explained to him the great hope
+of the Order concerning the speedy advent of anti-Christ, the abolition
+of the papacy, and the destruction of the Christian religion. She also
+related many of her private experiences with the infernal monarchy,
+being acquainted with the exact number of demons in the descending
+hierarchy, and with all their classes and legions. She confidently
+expected to be the great grandmother of anti-Christ, and in the meantime
+possessed the transcendental faculty of becoming fluidic at will. Mr
+Gallatin Mackey exhibited his _Arcula Mystica_, one of seven similar
+instruments existing at Charleston, Rome, Berlin, Washington, Monte
+Video, Naples, and Calcutta. To all appearance it resembled a
+liqueur-stand, but it was really a diabolical telephone worked like the
+Urimm and Thummimm, and enabling those who possessed it to communicate
+with each other, whatever the intervening distance. The Doctor, in his
+quality of initiate, was, of course, taken over the entire premises; he
+examined the head of the great templar Molay, deciding by his
+anthropological knowledge that the relic was not genuine, and that it
+was not the skull of a European. As to the templar Baphomet, situated in
+the Sanctum Regnum, and before which Lucifer is supposed to appear, it
+is sufficient to say that Doctor Bataille, who invariably treads
+cautiously where it is easy for other steps to follow him, has no
+personal testimony to furnish upon the subject of the apparition, and
+the relations of other persons do not concern us at the moment.
+
+
+§ 9. _Transcendental Toxicology._
+
+The memorials of Charleston are not entirely favourable to the true
+strength of our witness; it was requisite to "lie low" in America, but
+the Doctor bristles in Gibraltar; he is once more upon British soil.
+Does not the Englishman, consciously or otherwise, put a curse on
+everything he touches? Doctor Bataille affirms it; indeed this quality
+of malediction has been specially dispensed to the nation of heretics by
+God himself; so says Doctor Bataille. Since the British braggart began
+to embattle Gibraltar, having thieved it from Catholic Spain, a wind of
+desolation breathes over the whole country. An inscrutable providence,
+of which our witness is the mouthpiece, has elected to set apart this
+rock in order that the devil and the English, who, he says, are a pair,
+may continue their work of protestantising and filling the world with
+malefice. To sum the whole matter, the Britisher is an odious usurper
+"who has always got one eye open." Now, having regard to the fact that
+out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation a proportion to be
+numbered by millions is given over to devil-worship and Masonry, and
+that consequently there is an enormous demand for Baphomets and other
+idols, for innumerable instruments of black Magic, and for poisons to
+exterminate enemies, it is obviously needful that there should be a
+secret central department for the working of woods and metals and for
+Transcendental Toxicology. To Charleston the dogmatic directory, to
+Gibraltar the universal factory. But so colossal an output focussed at a
+single point could scarcely proceed unknown to Government at a given
+place, and any nation save England might object to this class of
+exports. The cause of Masonry and the devil being, however, dear to the
+English heart, it would, of course, pass unchallenged at Gibraltar, and
+at this point an anglo-phobe with a remnant of reason would have
+remained satisfied. Not so our French physician, who affirms that the
+exports in question do not merely escape inquisition at the hands of
+civil authority but are in fact a government industry.
+
+    "Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;
+     In the dimmest north-east distance dawned Gibraltar, grand and gray--
+     Here and here did England help me, how can I help England, say?"
+
+These are the words of Browning, and his question has well been
+answered by the institution of the secret workshops and the secret
+laboratory; as in most other cases England has helped herself, unless,
+indeed, it should occur to the doctor that the poet was a Satanist, like
+Pike, who himself was a poet, and had a chief finger in the pie.
+
+Now the great historic rock is tunnelled by innumerable caverns, which,
+our deponent witnesses, have never been explored by the tourist, and in
+the most impracticable portions of the great subterranean maze,
+whosoever has the audacity to penetrate will discover for himself the
+existence of the industrial department of diabolism, but he must not
+expect to come back unless he be a Sovereign Grand Master _ad vitam_,
+and an initiate of Lucifer. The doctor has explored these caverns, has
+seen the factory in full working order, has exhaustively described the
+way in, has returned from the gulf like Dante, and has given away the
+whole mystery. Possessed of his key to the labyrinth the wayfaring man
+shall not err therein, and it will, no doubt, be a new curiosity for the
+more daring among Cook's tourists. The workshops are supplied with
+mechanics by a simple expedient; hopeless specimens of English
+malefactors, condemned to penal servitude for the term of their natural
+life, are relegated to this region, a kind of grim humour characterising
+the selection. The most hideous convicts are chosen, and those most
+corresponding in outward appearance to the favourite devils of the
+hierarchy, under whose names they pass in the workshops, where they
+commonly communicate with each other in the language of Volapuk. The
+reason given is that this language has been adopted by the Spoeleic
+Rite, which I confess that I had not heard of previously, but I venture
+to think that the doctor has concealed the true reason, and that Volapuk
+has been thus chosen because it is a diabolical invention; a universal
+language prevailed previously to the confusion of Babel, and the new
+language is an irreligious attempt to produce _ordo ab chao_ by a return
+to unity of speech.
+
+The Toxicological Department is worked by a higher class of criminals,
+as for example, absconding trustees, who are there comfortably settled
+in life, enjoying many modern conveniences. It produces poisons which
+usually cause death by cerebral hemorrhage; but each has its special
+antidote, possessed of which the initiated poisoner can eat and drink
+with his victim; on this subject the doctor pursues, however, a policy
+of masterly reticence. But such, in brief, is the deep mystery of
+Gibraltar, such is the Toxicological department of universal
+Freemasonry.
+
+
+§ 10. _The Doctor and Diana._
+
+It would be impossible to follow the doctor through the entire course of
+his memoirs, not that they are wholly biographical, exclusively
+concerned with modern diabolism, or with the great conspiracy of Masons
+against God, Man, and the universe; one of his subsidiary and yet most
+important objects is to fill space, in which respect he has almost
+eclipsed the great classics of the penny dreadful in England. I must
+pass with a mere reference over his dealings in spiritualism; it is
+needless to say that in this branch of transcendental investigation he
+witnessed more astounding phenomena than falls commonly to the lot of
+even veteran students. His star prevailed everywhere, and the world
+unseen deployed its strongest forces. At Monte Video, for example,
+falling casually into a circle of spiritualists, he was seated,
+surrounded by a family of these unconscious and amateur diabolists,
+before an open window at night time; across the broad mouth of the river
+a great shaft of soft light from the lamp of the lighthouse opposite
+shone in mid-air, over the bosom of the water, and as it fell upon their
+faces he discerned, floating within the beam itself, the solid figure of
+a man. It was not the first time that the apparition, under similar
+circumstances, had been seen by the rest of the household, but for him
+it bore a message of deeper mystery than for these uninitiated
+spiritualists; although in man's clothes, his observant eye recognised
+the face of the spirit; terrible and suggestive truth, it was the face
+of the vestal Virgin, who, far off in Calcutta, had fluidified in the
+third temple, and he uttered a great cry! He has now decided to void
+the virginity of the vestal, and to assume that she was in reality a
+demon, and not a being of earth. At the same time, my readers must
+thoroughly understand that the doctor, when he meddles in spiritualism,
+is a man who is governed in his narratives by an intelligent faculty of
+criticism which borders on the purely sceptic; he delights in the
+display of instances where an element of trickery may be detected; no
+one better than himself can distinguish between bogus and bogey, and he
+takes pleasure in directing special attention to his extraordinary good
+judgment and sound common-sense in each and all these matters. Hence no
+one will be surprised to hear that at the house of a lady in London, an
+ordinary table, after a preliminary performance in tilting, transformed
+suddenly into a full-grown crocodile, and played touchingly on the
+piano, after which it again changed into a table, but the gin, the
+whisky, the pale ale, and the other intoxicants which are indispensable
+at séances in England, had been entirely consumed by the transcendental
+reptile to fortify him on his return journey to the mud-banks of the
+Nile. Nor has the spontaneous apparition been wanting to complete the
+experiences of Dr Bataille. He was seated in his cabin at midnight
+pondering over the theories formulated in natural history by Cuvier and
+Darwin, who diabolised the entire creation, when he was touched lightly
+on the shoulder, and discovered standing over him, in his picturesque
+Oriental costume, like another Mohini, the Arabian poisoner-in-chief of
+the Gibraltar Toxicological Department, who, after some honourable
+assurances that the Bible was not true, departed transcendentally as he
+came. This personage subsequently proved to be the demon Hermes. Even
+when he merely masonified, the doctor had unheard-of experiences in
+magic. For example, at Golden Square, in the west central district of
+this wicked city, an address which we have heard of before, at the
+conclusion of an ordinary Lodge meeting, there was an evocation of the
+demon Zaren, who appeared under the form of a monstrous three-headed
+dragon completely cased in steel, and, endeavouring to devour his
+evoker, was restrained by the magical pentagram, ultimately vanishing
+with the peculiar odour of Infernus.
+
+In connection with various marvels the doctor has much to tell us
+concerning two sisters in Lucifer who have long been at daggers drawn,
+and considering their supernatural attributes, it is incomprehensible in
+a high degree that they have not destroyed one another like the Magician
+and the Princess of a more credible narrative of wonders in the "Arabian
+Nights." Diana Vaughan, much heard and little seen, has since become
+famous by her conversion to the Catholic faith. Honoured with her
+acquaintance for a considerable period, the doctor invariably testifies
+the utmost respect for this wealthy, beautiful, and high-placed
+Palladian lady, so long protected by a demon, of the superior hierarchy,
+and enjoying what he somewhat obscurely terms an obsessional
+guardianship. On the 28th of February, 1884, at a theurgic séance of
+Templar Mistresses and Elect Magi of Louisville, the ceiling of the
+temple was riven suddenly, and Asmodeus, genius of Fire, descended to
+slow music, having in one hand a sword, and in the other the long tail
+of a lion. He informed the company that there had just been a great
+battle between the leaders of Lucifer and Adonaï, and that it had been
+his personal felicity to lop the Lion's tail of St Mark; he directed the
+members of the eleven plus seven triangle to preserve the trophy
+carefully, and, that it might not be a lifeless relic, he had
+thoughtfully informed it with one of his minor devils until such time as
+he himself should intervene to mark his omnipotent favour towards a
+certain predestined virgin. The vestal in question was Diana of the
+Charlestonians, elect sister in Asmodeus, who at that time was not
+affiliated to Palladism. When the doctor subsequently drew her on the
+subject of this history, she replied, after the manner of the walrus,
+"Do you admire the view?" For himself, the good doctor dislikes the
+narrative, not because it does violence to possibility, but because it
+did violence to St Mark; there is evidently an incomplete dignity about
+a tailless evangelist. As to the tail itself, he has no personal doubt
+that it was the property of an ordinary lion, and that it has since
+become possessed of a devil.
+
+At the risk of offending Miss Vaughan, the doctor expatiates on her
+case, and learnedly demonstrates that her possession is of so
+uninterrupted a kind that it has become a second nature, and belongs to
+the 5th degree; however this may be, he establishes at great length one
+important point in her favour, which has occasioned all French Catholics
+to earnestly desire her conversion. I have stated already that the grade
+of Templar-Mistress is concerned partly with profanations of the
+Eucharist. For example, the aspirant to this initiation is required to
+drive a stiletto into the consecrated Host with a becoming expression of
+fury. When Miss Vaughan visited Paris in the year 1885, where Miss
+Walder had sometime previously established herself, she was invited to
+enter this grade, and accepted the offer. A séance for initiation was
+held accordingly, but Miss Vaughan would have none of profanation, and
+refused blankly to stultify her liberal intelligence by the stabbing of
+a wheaten wafer. She did not believe in the Real Presence, and she did
+not wish to be childish. A great sensation followed; her initiation was
+postponed; appeal was made to Charleston; and the formality was
+dispensed with in her case by the intervention, as it was supposed at
+the moment, of Albert Pike's authority, even as her Father's
+intervention had excused her beforehand from another ordeal which could
+not be suffered with propriety. This episode implanted in the breast of
+Sophia Walder an extreme form of Palladian hatred for the Diana of
+Philalethes. Now, Sophia was in high favour with all the hosts of
+perdition, yet her rancorous relations with her sister Adept did not
+make Diana less a _persona grata_ to the peculiar intelligence which
+governs the descending hierarchy. In the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky the
+Palladian Magi and the Mistress Templars decided one day to have a
+little experiment with the Undines, so they shouldered their magical
+instruments; but the eager elementaries, habiting the dark abysses, did
+not wait to be evoked; the water bubbled in the Lake, the roof was
+constellated with stars, and who should appear but Asmodeus, on the bank
+opposite, in all his infernal glory! With open arms he loudly called on
+Diana, and that lady, suddenly transfigured, walked calmly over the
+water, and kissed the feet of her demon, who incontinently vanished.
+Inspired by a sense of deficiency, the doctor says that the visit to the
+Mammoth Cave terminated without any further incident. He was not an
+ocular witness of what he relates in this instance, but he received it
+from the lips of Diana, and the lips of Diana, in the opinion of all
+honourable men, would be preferable to the eyes of the doctor.
+
+But the doctor had the testimony of his eyes upon another occasion; it
+is known that Miss Vaughan's celebrity began with her hostility to the
+Italian Grand Master, Adriano Lemmi. When the seat of the Sovereign
+Pontificate, as deponents testify, was removed from Charleston, the
+great city of Lucifer, even unto the Eternal City, and many adepts
+demissioned, there was a doubt in the rebel camp as to the continued
+protection of Lucifer. If Diabolus had gone over to Lemmi, they were
+indeed bereft. Miss Vaughan, however, remained calm and sanguine:--"I am
+certain of the celestial protection of the Genii of Light," said Diana,
+and, producing her talisman, she bent her right knee to the ground,
+turned a complete somersault without falling, flung her tambourine into
+the air, which descended gently and remained suspended a yard from the
+ground, while she herself, passing into a condition of ecstasy, also
+rose into the air in a recumbent posture. She remained in this state for
+the space of fifteen minutes, the silence being only broken by the
+distant rumbling of thunder. Many of the spectators could not believe
+their eyes. At length very gently her body assumed a vertical position,
+head downwards, but as a concession to polite feeling the remaining laws
+of gravity were suspended, like herself, and her skirts were not
+correspondingly inverted. Slowly the ecstatic lady continued to
+circulate, the assembly stood at gaze "like Joshua's moon in Ajalon,"
+and presently she was in the vertical position of a swimmer, the
+phenomenon concluding by her restoration to _terra firma_. This wonder
+was accomplished by the magic power of a diabolical Rose which the lady
+carried in her bodice.
+
+On yet another occasion the doctor witnessed the prodigy of the
+bilocation of Diana by the assistance of a simple magical process, when
+to his most certain knowledge she was hundreds of leagues away; but the
+recitations of Doctor Bataille have reduced bilocation to a banality,
+and a mere reference will suffice.
+
+A monograph of Miss Vaughan's miracles would, however, be incomplete if
+it failed to exhibit her in her capacity as a breaker of spells;
+whatsoever has been bound by devildom can be loosed by Diana. At the
+height of the commotion occasioned by her persistent refusal to
+participate in sham sacrilege, there was one member of the Paris
+Triangle who manifested peculiar acrimony in demanding the expulsion of
+a delinquent who had dared to impeach the ritual. As a punishment for
+his own presumption, and in the presence of the assembled adepts, his
+head was suddenly reversed by an unseen power, and for the space of one
+and twenty days he was obliged to review the situation face backwards.
+This severe judgment dismayed all present; Miss Walder had recourse to
+an evocation and discovered that it had been inflicted by Asmodeus, the
+protector of her rival, who furthermore would not scruple to visit with
+violent disaster any person who discovered an evil design against so
+elect a sister as Diana. If the present culprit desired to be set free
+from his grotesque position, he must humbly have recourse to her. Miss
+Vaughan was in America at the moment, but she generously came to his
+rescue as soon as steam could carry her, and restored him his lost front
+view by a jocose imposition of hands. I should add that on the very day
+when this misadventure took place at Paris, Miss Vaughan was defending
+her standpoint in person before the Triangle of Louisville; opinion was
+divided about her, and the result appeared uncertain, when the demoniac
+tail of St Mark, evacuating the minor devil, who had hired it on a
+repairing lease, accepted Asmodeus as a tenant, and violently
+circumambulating the apartment belaboured all those whose voices had
+been raised against his Vestal. Finally the tassel of the tail turned
+into the head of the demon and vowed his devotion to Diana so long as
+she remained unmarried; did she dare, however, to desert him for an
+earthly consort, he was commander of fourteen legions, and he would
+strangle the man of clay.
+
+It would be unkind to Miss Sophia Walder if I let it be supposed for a
+moment that the palm of prestige is borne away by her rival. I have
+already noted that this lady occasionally fluidifies to the satisfaction
+of a select audience, but, like the materialising medium, she finds it a
+depleting performance which usually confines her to her room, and her
+price, therefore, is five thousand francs. She is first Sovereign in
+Bitru, and is defined by the doctor to be in a state of latent
+possession, having a semi-diabolical nature and the gift of
+substitution. It was possibly at Milan that he witnessed the most
+persuasive test of her occult powers. She took him confidentially apart
+and explained to him that she had been in a condition of "penetration"
+for about three hours. "At dinner the food of which I partake becomes
+volatile in my mouth; wine evaporates invisibly the moment it makes
+contact with my lips; I eat and drink in appearance, but my teeth
+masticate the air." Now this was due, not to the voracity of Bitru, but
+to the keen appetite of Baal-Zeboub; the magnetic lady did not, however,
+explain this point after the common method of speech; she fixed her
+blazing orbs upon the doctor, and he saw flames everywhere; a moment
+more and her feet were free from earth; she stretched out her left hand,
+and on the open palm he beheld the successive apparitions in characters
+of flame of the ten letters which constitute the great name. With a
+touch of internal collapse he commended himself to the Virgin Mary, the
+ecstatic paroxysm passed, and they wandered down another lane, for they
+were in the midst of leafy umbrage. Presently a tree gracefully arranged
+a portion of its branches in the form of a fan, and bowed with profound
+reverence. Still more fantastic, a paralysed branch produced a living
+human hand, which in the accompanying engraving is ornamented with an
+immaculate cuff, and that hand presented a bouquet to Sophia. By reason
+of these matters the doctor became pensive.
+
+A Palladian séance followed. The litany of Lucifer was chanted, and the
+prodigy of "substitution" was effected. The ceremony took place in a
+grotto with a stalactite roof; Miss Walder produced from a basket the
+serpent which was an inseparable companion of all her travels; it
+immediately genuflected in front of her, swarmed the wall, and assumed a
+pendant position attached to one of the stalactites. It was a reptile of
+no ordinary kind, for it began to develop an interminable length of
+coils till it had spread itself circlewise over the entire ceiling, and
+its head was joined to its tail. The doctor says that he was now
+prepared for anything. The serpent gave forth seven horrible hisses, and
+in the dim light, for the torches which illuminated the place were
+successively giving out of themselves, each person became conscious of
+an unseen entity blowing with burning breath in their faces. When at
+length there was complete darkness, Sophia herself became radiant, and
+brilliantly illuminated the grotto with an intense white light; five
+enormous hands could then be seen floating in space, also intensely
+luminous, but emitting a green lustre; each hand went wandering in
+search of its prey, ultimately seizing a brother, whom it drew
+irresistibly forward in the direction of Sophia. Moved by a mysterious
+influence, two of them grasped her arms, two clutched her by the
+shoulders, one placed his hand on her head. The serpent again hissed
+seven significant times, and in place of the solid Sophia the third
+Alexander of Macedon was substituted in phantom guise. When he faded
+Sophia reappeared and continued going and coming with a phantom between
+each of her appearances, so that she was in turn replaced by Luther,
+Cleopatra, Robespierre, and others, concluding with the Italian patriot
+Garibaldi, who eclipsed all the others, for his bust was converted into
+a bronze urn from which red flames burst forth. The flames took a human
+form, and gave back Sophia to the assembly.
+
+Such is the gift of substitution, which follows penetration, and such is
+the substance of the memoirs of M. Bataille, ship's doctor, who, in the
+year 1880, undertook to exploit Freemasonry and has come forth unsinged
+from Diabolism. There is one maxim of the Psalmist which the experience
+of most transcendentalists has taught them to lay to heart, and to
+repeat without the qualifications of David when certain aspects of
+supernatural narrative are introduced--_Omnis homo mendax!_ But lest I
+should appear to be discourteous, I should like to add a brief dictum
+from the Magus Éliphas Lévi. "The wise man cannot lie," because nature
+accommodates herself to his statement. In a polite investigation like
+the present, there is, therefore, no question whether Doctor Bataille is
+defined by the term _mendax_, which is forbidden to literary elegance;
+it is simply a question whether he is a wise man, or whether nature
+blundered and did not conform to his statement.
+
+The credibility, in whole or in part, of Dr Bataille's narrative will
+involve some extended criticism, and I purpose to postpone it till the
+remaining witnesses have been examined. We shall then be in a position
+to appreciate how far later revelations support his statements. Setting
+aside the miraculous element, which is tolerably separate from what
+most concerns our inquiry, namely, the existence of Palladian Masonry
+attached to the cultus of Lucifer, it may be stated that the most sober
+part of Dr Bataille's memoirs is the account of his visit to Charleston;
+here the miraculous element is entirely absent. He confirms by alleged
+personal investigations the existence of the New and Reformed Palladium;
+he is the first witness who distinguishes clearly between the Luciferian
+Order and the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite of
+Charleston. That distinction is made, however, at one expense; it
+assumes that the Supreme Council preserved the Baphomet idol as well as
+the reputed skull of Molay for nearly seventy years, and then
+surrendered it to another order with which it had no official
+acquaintance. Under what circumstances and why did it do that? The
+Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite is connected by its legend with the
+Templars, and for the Charleston Supreme Council to part with the
+trophies of the tradition seems no less unlikely than for a regiment to
+surrender its colours.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+DEALINGS WITH DIANA
+
+
+The philosophy of Horatius is supposed to represent incompletely the
+content of heaven and earth, but neither earth nor heaven, as at present
+constituted, would be capable of enclosing the entire content of Dr
+Bataille's memoirs. Miss Diana Vaughan, with whose history we are next
+concerned, comes before us under a different aspect. I have failed to
+ascertain under what circumstances she first became known in France. _Le
+Diable au XIX^e Siècle_ may have constituted her earliest introduction;
+she was certainly unknown to Leo Taxil when he published the Palladian
+rituals, or she would not have escaped mention in the account he there
+gives of Miss Sophia Walder. However this may be, we have made her
+acquaintance in the course of the previous chapter, but I am constrained
+to state that she has, up to the present, shown herself exceedingly
+circumspect in substantiating the evidence of her precursor.
+
+The whole world is aware, and I need not again repeat, that Miss Diana
+Vaughan was converted to the Catholic Church some time after Dr Bataille
+completed his astounding narrative. A Palladist of perfect initiation,
+comprehending the mysteries of the number 77, and doing reverence to the
+higher mystery of 666, Grand Mistress of the Temple, Grand Inspectress
+of the Palladium, and according to him who, in a sense, has prepared her
+way and made straight her paths, a sorceress and thaumaturge before
+whose daily performances the Black Sabbath turns white, Miss Vaughan
+quarrelled, as we have seen, with a sister initiate, Sophia Walder, and
+conceived for the Italian Grand Master, Adriano Lemmi, the charity of
+the evil angels, which is hatred. When the Supreme Dogmatic Directory of
+Universal Freemasonry was removed from Charleston to Rome and the
+pontificate passed over to Lemmi, as the revelations allege, Miss
+Vaughan closed her connection with the Triangles, carrying her colours
+to a vessel equipped by herself, and founded a new society under the
+title of the Free and Regenerated Palladium, incorporating the
+Anti-Lemmist groups, and soon after began a public propaganda by the
+issue of a monthly review, devoted to the elucidation of the doctrines
+of the Lucifer cultus and to the exposure of the Italian Grand Master.
+To hoist the black flag of diabolism, as Miss Vaughan would now term it,
+thus in the open day, naturally elicited a strong protestation from the
+Palladist Federation, so that she was in embroilment not only with Lemmi
+but also with the source of the initiation which she still appeared to
+prize. At the same time she exhibited no indications of going over to
+the cause of the Adonaïtes. Becoming known to the Anti-Masonic centres
+of the Roman Catholic Church only through her hostility to Lemmi, she
+was always a _persona grata_ whose conversion was ardently desired, but
+on several public occasions she advised them that their cause and hers
+were in radical opposition, and that, in fact, she would have none of
+them, being outside any need of their support, sympathy, or interest.
+She would cleave to the good God Lucifer, and she aspired to be the
+bride of Asmodeus. At length the long-suffering editor of the _Revue
+Mensuelle_, weary of his refractory protégé, would also have none of
+her, though he surrendered her with evident regret to be dealt with by
+the prayers of the faithful. One month after, M. Leo Taxil, through the
+medium of the same organ, announced the conversion of Miss Vaughan, and
+in less than another month, namely, in July, 1895, she began the
+publication of her "Memoirs of an ex-Palladist," which are still in
+progress, so that, limitations of space apart, my account of this lady
+will be unavoidably incomplete.
+
+Her memoirs are, unfortunately, not a literary performance; and their
+method, if such it can be called, is not chronological. Beginning with
+an account of her first introduction to Lucifer, _vis-à-vis_ in the
+_Sanctum Regnum_ of Charleston, on April 8th 1889, they leap, in the
+second chapter, over all the years intervening to a minute analysis of
+the sentiments which led to her conversion, and of the raptures which
+followed it, above all on the occasion of her first communion. It is not
+till the third chapter that we get an account of her Luciferian
+education, or, more correctly, an introduction thereto, for the better
+part of five monthly numbers has not brought us nearer to her
+personality than the history of an ancestor in the seventeenth century.
+As the publisher is still soliciting annual subscriptions to the
+enterprise, and offering a variety of advantages after methods not
+unknown in England among the by-ways of periodical literature, the
+completion of the work is probably a distant satisfaction for those who
+take interest therein.
+
+Now, having regard to the narrative of Dr Bataille, and having regard to
+the statements set forth in my second chapter, it is obvious that Miss
+Vaughan is a witness of the first importance as to whether there is a
+Masonry behind Masonry, which, more or less, manages, or attempts to
+manage, the entire society, unknown to the rank and file of its
+initiates, however high in grade; as to whether its seat is at
+Charleston, with Albert Pike for its founder, and as to whether its
+doctrine is anti-Christian, and its cultus that of Lucifer, supported by
+magical wonders, concerned with sacrilegious observances, and either a
+disguised Satanism, or drifting in that direction. As already hinted,
+the mythical and miraculous element,--in a word, that portion of Doctor
+Bataille's narrative which does violence to sense and reason,--Miss
+Vaughan has not at present imperilled her position by substantiating,
+but as to the points I have enumerated, she has most distinctly come
+forth out of Palladism to tell us that these things are so, and to
+reinforce what was previously stated by unveiling her private life.
+
+It is therefore my duty and desire to do her full justice, and with this
+purpose in view, I propose to recite briefly the chief heads of her
+memoir, so far as it has been published up to date. I must, however,
+premise at the beginning that she does not come before us with one trace
+of the uncertainty of accent which might have been expected to
+characterise the newly-acquired language, not merely of Christian
+faith, but of its Roman dialect. We find her speaking at once, and to
+the manner born. Could anything, by possibility, be narrower than
+certain perished sections of evangelical religion in England, it would
+be certain sections of ultramontane religion in France; but Miss Vaughan
+has acquired all the terminology of the latter, all the intellectual
+bitterness, all the fatuities, as one might say, in the space of five
+minutes. When she has wearied of her memoirs at the moment, or has
+reached, after the manner of the novelist, some crucial point in her
+narrative, she breaks off abruptly, brackets _à suivre_, and proceeds to
+an account of the latest wonder-working image, or a diatribe against
+spirit manifestations in the typical manner of the French clerical
+press. To be brief, Miss Vaughan has adopted, body and soul, precisely
+those abuses which Catholics of intelligence earnestly desire to see
+expunged from their great religion. She has probably never heard of the
+Forged Decretals, but she would defend their authenticity if she had;
+she has probably never heard of the corrupted, or any version of the
+Epistles of St Ignatius, but she would accept the corruptions bodily
+upon the smallest hint that they savoured better with the hierarchy, and
+she would do all this apparently in good faith on the authority of a
+purblind party within the Church, which exists to keep open its wounds.
+Now, I submit that a _volte face_ is possible, especially in religious
+opinions, but that a pronounced habit of religious thought cannot be
+acquired in a day, so that, in the history of Miss Vaughan's conversion,
+there is more than can be discerned on the surface. The precise nature
+of the element which eludes must be left to the judgment of my readers,
+but, personally, I reserve my own, out of fairness to an unfinished
+deposition.
+
+There is a generic difference between Doctor Bataille and Miss Vaughan.
+He is an ordinary human being, and if we may trust the many pictures
+which represent him in his narrative, exceedingly unpretending at that.
+We have also some portraits of Miss Vaughan, who is aggressive and good
+to look at; but this is not the generic distinction. Doctor Bataille,
+poor man, is the scion of an ordinary ancestry within the narrow limits
+of flesh and blood. Miss Vaughan, on the contrary--I hope my readers
+will bear with me--has been taught from her childhood to believe that
+she was of the blood royal of the descending hierarchy, and I cannot
+gather from her vague mode of expression whether she has altogether
+rejected the legend of her descent, which is otherwise sufficiently
+startling.
+
+The position of authority and influence occupied by Miss Vaughan in what
+she terms high Masonry is to be explained, as she modestly informs us,
+not by her personal qualities, but by a traditional secret concerning
+her family, which is known only to the Elect Magi. Miss Vaughan and her
+paternal uncle are the last descendants of the alchemist Thomas Vaughan,
+whom she terms a Rosicrucian, and identifies with Eirenæus Philalethes,
+author of "The Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King." On the
+25th of March 1645, she tells us, on the authority of her family
+history, Thomas Vaughan, having previously obtained from Cromwell the
+privilege of beheading the "noble martyr" Laud, Archbishop of
+Canterbury--the title to nobility, in her opinion, seems to rest in the
+probability of his secret connection with Rome--steeped a linen cloth in
+his blood, burnt the said cloth in sacrifice to Satan, who appeared in
+response to an evocation, and with whom he concluded a pact, receiving
+the philosophical stone, and a guaranteed period of life extending over
+thirty-three years from that date, after which he was to be transported
+without dying into the eternal kingdom of Lucifer, to live with a
+glorified body in the pure flames of the heaven of fire.
+
+After this compact, he wrote the "Open Entrance," the original MS. of
+which, together with its autograph Luciferian interpretation on the
+broad margins, is a precious heirloom in the family. Some two years
+later, in the course of his travels, he reached New England, where he
+dwelt for a month among the Lenni-Lennaps, and there in an open desert,
+on a clear night of summer, while the moon was shining in splendour, he
+was wandering in solitary meditation when the luminary in question,
+which was in the crescent phase, came down out of heaven, and proved to
+be an arched bed, very luminous and wonderful, containing a vision of
+sleeping female beauty. This was the nuptial couch of Thomas Vaughan and
+its occupant was Venus-Astarte, surrounded by a host of flower-bearing
+child-spirits, who conveniently provided a tent, and provided also
+delicious meals during a period of eleven days. Several curious
+particulars differentiated these Hermetic nuptials, undreamed of by
+Christian Rosencreutz, from those which govern more ordinary proceedings
+below the latitude of the Lenni-Lennaps. In the first place, goddess
+succubus, Astarte provided the ring, which was of red gold enriched with
+a diamond, and placed it on the finger of her lover; in the second
+place, transcendental gestation, celestial or otherwise, fulfils the
+mystery of generation with exceeding despatch, for Astarte was delivered
+of an infant on the eleventh day independently of medical assistance,
+whereupon she demanded the return of the nuptial ring, and vanished with
+tent and sprites astride of the crescent couch. The fruit of their union
+was left in the arms of Thomas, who was directed to trample on all
+sentiments of paternal affection, and to deliver the child into the
+charge of a tribe of fire-worshipping Indians. He does not appear to
+have sued for the restitution of conjugal rights, and cheerfully
+surrendered the human hybrid to a family of Lenni-Lennaps, together with
+his medallion portrait drawn by an artist from devildom, so that the
+daughter might recognise her father after the method which obtains among
+novelists. Thomas Vaughan placed the broad ocean between himself and the
+scene of his marriage, and he never re-visited his daughter, who, in
+spite of her miraculous origin, does not appear to have distinguished
+herself in any way, at least up to the point at present reached by the
+history.
+
+Miss Vaughan says that all the Elect Magi do not accept this legend of
+the blood royal, and she admits her own doubts subsequent to her
+conversion. As an article of intellectual faith I should prefer the
+birth-story of Gargantua, but it satisfied Miss Vaughan till the age of
+thirty years, and her father and grandfather before her, even supposing
+that it was _fabriquée par mon bisaïeul James, de Boston_, as hazarded
+by elect Magi whom a remnant of reason hinders.
+
+The "Memoirs of an Ex-Palladist" have not at present proceeded further
+than the translation of Thomas Vaughan into the paradise of Lucifer, but
+from the "Free and Regenerated Palladium" and from other sources the
+chief incidents of Miss Vaughan's early life may be collected and
+summarised briefly. We learn that she is the daughter of an American
+Protestant of Kentucky and of a French lady, also of that persuasion.
+She was born in Paris, and a part of her education seems to have been
+received in that city; her mother died in Kentucky when Diana was in her
+fourteenth year, and I infer that subsequently to this event she must
+have lived with her father, who had considerable property in the
+immediate vicinity of Louisville. When the Sovereign Rite of Palladism
+was created by Albert Pike, Vaughan became affiliated therewith, and was
+one of the founders of the Louisville triangle 11 + 7; he presided at
+the initiation of his daughter as apprentice, according to the Rite of
+Adoption, in 1883. She was raised to the grade of Companion, and
+subsequently to that of Mistress, and at the age of 20 years, says Dr
+Bataille, she crossed the threshold of the Triangles, as the Palladian
+lodges are termed.
+
+Three issues were published of "The Free and Regenerated Palladium," but
+since the conversion of Miss Vaughan, they have been withdrawn from
+circulation, except among ecclesiastics of the Roman Church, and up to
+the present I have failed to obtain copies. For the autobiographical
+portions of this organ, I am indebted to the notices which have appeared
+in the _Revue Mensuelle_. They contain an account of two apparitions on
+the part of the demon Asmodeus, accompanied by phenomena of levitation
+and fortified by arguments against the theory of hallucination. These
+early experiences are, however, of minor importance, nor need I again
+refer to the sensational incidents which accompanied her initiation as
+Templar-Mistress at the Paris Triangle of Saint-Jacques; but it appears
+from her memoirs that the intervention of Albert Pike was not in virtue
+of the supremacy of his personal authority, and that the ordeal of
+sacrilege was spared her by the clemency of Lucifer himself, who is
+supposed to appear in person at the Sanctum Regnum of Charleston and to
+instruct his chiefs, _Deo volente_ or otherwise, every Friday, the
+supreme dogmatic director, who had made his home in Washington, having
+the gift of "instantaneous transportation," whensoever he thought fit to
+be present in the "divine" board-room.
+
+On the 5th of April 1889, the "good God" assembled his Ancients and
+Emerites for a friendly conversation upon the "case" of Diana Vaughan,
+and ended by requesting an introduction in three days' time. After the
+best manner of the grimoires, Miss Vaughan began her preparations by a
+triduum, taking one meal daily of black bread, fritters of high-spiced
+blood, a salad of milky herbs, and the drink of rare old Rabelais. The
+preparations in detail are scarcely worth recording as they merely vary
+the directions in the popular chap-books of magic which abound in
+foolish France. At the appointed time she passed through the iron doors
+of the Sanctum Regnum. "Fear not!" said Albert Pike, and she advanced
+_remplie d'une ardente allegresse_, was greeted by the eleven prime
+chiefs, who presently retired, possibly for prayer or refreshments,
+possibly for operations in wire-pulling. Diana Vaughan remained alone,
+in the presence of the Palladium, namely, our poor old friend Baphomet,
+whom his admirers persist in representing with a goat's head, whereas he
+is the archetype of the ass.
+
+The Sanctum Regnum is described as triangular in shape; there was no
+torch, no lamp, no fire; the floor and the ceiling were therefore not
+unnaturally dark, but an inexplicable veil of strange phosphorescent
+light was diffused over the three walls, the source of which proved on
+examination to be innumerable particles of greenish flames each no
+larger than a pin's head. Seated in front of the Baphomet, Miss Vaughan
+apostrophised Lucifer sympathetically on the subject of the unpleasing
+form in which he was represented by his worshippers, and as she did so
+the little flames intensified, while floor and ceiling caught fire after
+the same ghostly incandescent fashion; a great dry heat filled the vast
+apartment, and, still spreading, the flames covered her chair, her
+garments, her entire person. At this point the inevitable thunder began
+to roll; three and one and two great thunders, after which came five
+breathings upon her face, and after those breathings five radiant
+spirits appeared, the first act closing impressively with a final salvo
+of artillery.
+
+The unhappy Baphomet, dismayed by these extreme proceedings, vanished
+entirely, and, no expense being spared through the whole of the costly
+tableaux, Lucifer manifested on a throne of diamonds, but whether the
+gems were furnished from the treasury of Avernus or from the pockets of
+bamboozled Freemasons through the wide world, _les renseignements_ do
+not state. Need I say that Miss Vaughan's first impulse was to fall in
+worship at his feet? But the sordid apparition, instead of accepting the
+homage with the grace which is native to empire, had recourse to the
+method of the novelist, and stayed her intention by a gesture. Even at
+this late date, and with the millstone of her conversion placed in the
+opposite scale, Miss Vaughan's description of her quondam deity would
+tempt sentimental young women to forgive all his devildom to a being so
+"superb" in "masculine beauty." I will refrain from spoiling the picture
+by much of her own minuteness, or by the exclamatory parentheses of her
+fury against the magnificent gentleman who deceived her. I should like
+also to omit all reference to the conversation which ensued between
+them, but for the sake of true art I am constrained to state that
+Lucifer descended to commonplace. M. Renan tells us that since he left
+Saint Sulpice he did nothing but degenerate, and the inference is
+obvious, that he ought to have gone back to Saint Sulpice, despite the
+literary splendours of the _Vie de Jésus_. Since he last broke a lance
+with Michael, the devil has debilitated mentally, and the substance of
+his _causerie_ with Diana reminds one of Robert Montgomery and even
+worse exemplars. In the unexplored regions of penny periodical romance I
+have met with many better specimens of supernatural dialogue. As to the
+sum of his observations, it goes without saying that Diana was chosen
+out of thousands, and this is what justifies my opinion that his
+proceedings on this occasion were more fatuous than any of his
+undertakings since he tried conclusions with divinity.
+
+Very silently during the course of this interview the eleven prime
+chiefs had returned like conspirators as they were, of course in the
+nick of time, to hear that Miss Vaughan was appointed as the
+grand-priestess of Lucifer, at which moment there was a fresh burst of
+circumambient flame and the young lady was transported by her divinity
+to take part in a grand spectacular drama, divided into two acts.--I.
+Appearance of Asmodeus with fourteen legions. Exchange of endearing
+expressions between this personage and Diana. Manifestation of the
+signature of Baal-Zeboub, generalissimo of the armies of Lucifer,
+written in fire upon the void. Spiritualisation of the sweetheart of
+Asmodeus. Diana hungers for the fray. Great pitched battle between the
+genii of Lucifer and the genii of Adonaï, termed Maleakhs, without the
+gates of Eden. The Terrestrial Paradise carried by storm after severe
+fighting. Grand panorama of Paradise. Explanatory dialogue between Diana
+and her future husband. Appearance of a snow white gigantic eagle on
+which Diana is to be transported to Oolis, "a solar world unknown to the
+profane, wherein Lucifer reigns and is adored." II. Miss Vaughan having
+been transported on another occasion to this mystic planet in the arms
+of Lucifer himself, the episodes of the second act are held over. She
+was, however, ultimately returned, safe and sound, to the Sanctum Regnum
+at Charleston, on the back of the white eagle.
+
+Such is Miss Vaughan's statement, and once more she proceeds to give
+reasons why she could not have been hypnotised or hallucinated. As in
+the case of Doctor Bataille I propose to postpone criticism until other
+witnesses have filed their depositions. At the moment it is sufficient
+to recognise that, apart from the supernatural element which admits of a
+simple explanation, if Miss Vaughan be a credible witness, then the
+central fact of the New and Reformed Palladium must be admitted with all
+it involves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+HOW LUCIFER IS UNMASKED.
+
+
+M. le Docteur Bataille is a mighty hunter before the face of the Lord in
+the land of Masonry, and through the whole country of Hiram; great also
+is Diana of the Palladians. After their monumental revelations and
+confessions, those of all other seceders and penitents who have come out
+of the mystery of iniquity, "are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as
+water unto wine." My readers in the two previous chapters have drunk raw
+spirit, and must now qualify it after the Scotch fashion. The aqueous
+intellectuality and quiet stream of unpretending deposition peculiar to
+M. Jean Kostka, will be well adapted to modify undue exaltations and
+restore order to a universe which has been intoxicated by sorcerers. He
+will show us how Lucifer is unmasked in an undemonstrative and
+gentlemanly fashion by a late Gnostic and initiate of the 33rd degree.
+He writes, as he frankly tells us, in a spirit of reparation and
+gratitude, having commerced freely with devils during a long series of
+unholy years. "Blessed be the omnipotent Lord, and blessed the loving
+kindness which drew me out of the abyss.... To glorify these I unmask
+the fallen angel." The delicacy of the motive and its setting of
+chivalrous sentiment will be appreciated even by the victim, and the
+tenderness of the treatment will prompt Lucifer to pardon his reviler,
+who has been already pardoned by M. Papus for betraying the order of the
+Martinists. And to do justice towards an amiable writer, who has
+scarcely the requisite qualities for seriously damaging or advancing any
+cause, it may be kind to add that he has considerably exaggerated his
+own case. After a careful examination of his statement, which is
+exceedingly naïve, I am tempted to conclude that he has never been near
+an abyss; he is innocent of either height or depth, and so far from
+having ever plunged into the infernal void, he has scarcely so much as
+paddled in a purgatorial puddle. His guilty transcendental experiences
+are in reality the most infantile afternoon occultism, and his
+drawing-room diablerie might be appropriately symbolised by the paper
+speaking-tube of our old friend John King; there is nothing in it when
+the voice is not speaking, and there is nothing in it when it is.
+
+Since his conversion, M. Jean Kostka has exhibited much harmless
+devotion towards Joan of Arc, an enthusiasm which originated among
+occultists, and he has pious memories of St Stanislaus Kostka, for which
+dispositions I trust that all my readers will have the complaisance to
+commend him. He writes, furthermore, "in the decline of maturity, on the
+threshold of age, in the late autumn of life," which is his dropsical
+method of saying that he is past sixty, and he veils a "futile name"
+under the patronymic of his favourite saint. Jean Kostka is not Jean
+Kostka, but it is without intent to deceive that he evades any possible
+responsibility in connection with his concealed identity; it is a kind
+of pious self-effacement, I hope everyone will believe what he says,
+and give him all credit for having "turned towards the outraged Church."
+In matters of evidence, pseudonymous statements are, however,
+objectionable, and I therefore identify our witness as Jules Doinel, who
+was chiefly concerned in the restoration of the Gnosis and the
+establishment of a "Gnostic church" in Paris about the year 1890, and is
+moreover not unknown as a Masonic orator, and in the world of
+belles-lettres. M. Papus, with the generosity of a mystic, can only
+speak well of the pious enthusiast who has betrayed his cause and
+scandalised the school he represents; he explains that Jules Doinel is a
+marvellous poet deficient in the scientific culture which might have
+enabled him to explain in a peaceable fashion the phenomena squandered
+upon him by the world invisible, so that there were only two courses
+open for him--renunciation of the transcendental path, or madness. "Let
+us bless heaven that the patriarch of the Gnosis has selected the
+former." It is possibly showing gratitude for small mercies, because our
+friend has saved his reason, but is blood-guilty in the matter of
+common sense. Meanwhile, the widowed Gnosis illuminates its Ichabod in
+the cryptic _quartiers_ of Paris, Lyons, and so forth.
+
+Every one may agree with M. Papus that Jean Kostka is a very pretty
+writer in a quiet and shallow way, but, with possibly one exception, he
+must have withheld the flower of his phenomena in the order of the
+spirit, for his book is full of sentimental and vapid experiences of the
+school-miss order, while over the light and spongy soil he has now set
+the ponderous paving-stones of his new explanation, and toils forward on
+the road of unreason.
+
+This apart, Jean Kostka, was evidently for many years familiar with the
+centres and workings of all the cross lights of esoteric thought which
+meet and interlace in the night of French common thought. He has dwelt
+among Gnostics, Martinists, Modern Albigenses, and Spiritualists; he
+appears to have been identified with all, and though he does not accuse
+himself of the capital offence of conscious Satanism, he has been quite
+well acquainted with Satanism, and, next best to seeing the devil one's
+self, he has known many who have. In those days, he tells us, that
+Lucifer could be visited _chez lui_ in an earthly tabernacle, situated
+in an unfrequented street, from whence the _lointain bruissement du
+Paris nocturne_ might be heard by the pensive traveller if he were not
+too intent on diabolising. Now, he has found out that Lucifer was _chez
+lui_ everywhere. _Je vise Satan et ses dogmes._ All his psychic
+faculties have concentrated into a transcendental apparatus for scenting
+devildom, and he mournfully comes forward to tell us, with a variation
+of Fludd's utterance; _Diabolus, in quam, diabolus ubique repertus est,
+et omnia diabolus et diabolus._ "Let it suffice to say that the
+demonologists have invented nothing and have exaggerated nothing." To
+the spiritualists Lucifer is John King and Allan Kardec; to the
+Gnostics, he is the Gnosis, Simon Magus, Helen Ennoia, and anything that
+comes handy from the Nile valley in the fourth century; to the
+Martinists, he is the _philosophe inconnu_; to the Albigenses, if there
+are Parisian Albigenses, he is whatever Albigenses invoke, if they
+invoke anything; to Madame X., he is Mary Stuart; to his own adepts,
+within sound of the _lointain bruissement_, he is a _jeune homme blond
+aux yeux bleus_, whom I understand to have worn a dalmatic, and to have
+been curiously indebted to the author of _Aut Diabolus aut Nihil_; for
+the Theosophists, he is that "illustrious demoniac," Madame
+Blawatsky--his innate delicacy leads him to the permutation of the
+Typhon V.; and then Freemasonry--it goes without saying that the little
+horn of Lucifer has displaced all other horns in all the grades and
+lodges, that the fraternity is his throne and his footstool, and the
+city of the great king.
+
+If we button-hole Jean Kostka, and ask him to tell us confidentially and
+upon honour what it is that has changed his views, making him discover
+the leer of Baal-Zeboub where he once saw the smile of the spiritual
+Eos, he turns Trappist at once, and goes into retreat with M. Huysman;
+there is not a syllable of information in all his _beau volume_ as to
+any intellectual process through which he passed on the way, and I
+suspect that his conversion partook of the nature of a "penetration," to
+speak his own language, and was not an intellectual operation, but a
+sudden _volte face_. Jean Kostka has changed his _pinces-nez_, and that
+is the whole secret:--
+
+    "The reason why I cannot tell,
+     But now I hold it comes from hell."
+
+Here is the proof positive; he has nothing in the shape of an
+accusation; he gets his Lucifer-interpretation out of everything with
+which he has cut off correspondence by a very simple and civil process
+of instillation. "I sense it"; _je vise Lucifer._ Thus, the Order of the
+Knights of Perfect Silence invite their initiates to become architects
+of the Holy City. Jean Kostka, in possession of the latest tip, says,
+"read Hell." The Martinists are concerned with the creation of Adam
+Kadmon, the ideal humanity. Jean Kostka tells you that they are
+concerned with nothing of the sort, and that Satan is the only person
+who can really put us up to the secret, which is curious because he
+immediately advises us himself that the exercise of the three cardinal
+virtues to the profit of Lucifer is the sum of the whole mystery and the
+real _sous-entendu_ of Martinism. The Masonic grades from Apprentice,
+Companion, Master, through Knight Rose-Cross to Knight Kadosch, and so
+forward, are exploited after the same manner by the baldest of
+processes, that of inverting everything. For example, the sacred word of
+the 33rd degree in the French Rite, namely, Sovereign Grand Inspector
+General, is _Deus meumque Jus_. That signifies, says Jean Kostka, that
+"Lucifer is the sole God and that the material, like the spiritual,
+world of right belongs to him." If you inquire the process of extraction
+by which he gets that result, he answers: "I must admit that I have had
+only a general intuition, but I assure you that it is immense," and he
+will immediately cite you a password, invite you to take every letter
+individually, and fit to it just that word which, by another intuition,
+he perceives belongs to it, when you will see for yourself. Thus, the
+Kadosch term _Nekam_, which signifies vengeance, having been duly
+anatomised, will come out as follows:--N (ex) E (xterminatio) K (risti)
+A (dversarii) M (agni), to wit: "Death, Extermination of Christ, the
+Great Enemy." Wicked and wily Jean Kostka to outrage the decencies of
+orthography and against all reason write the name of the Liberator with
+a K, thereby concealing the true meaning, which revealed for the first
+time is as follows:--N (equaquam) E (ritis) K (ostka) A (rtium)
+M (agister), which being interpreted still further, signifies that
+there was never such a clumsy device!
+
+Now, it goes without saying that a writer with these methods is not to
+be taken seriously, but it is worth while to appreciate the quality of
+intelligence which is received with acclamation by the Catholic Church
+in France as soon as it comes over from the enemy. "Lucifer Unmasked"
+appeared originally in the pages of the newspaper _La Vérité_. It was
+immediately reproduced in Spanish by the _Union Catolica_; the clerical
+press boomed full-mouthed salvos in its honour, and his Eminence
+Cardinal Parocchi has blessed book or author, or both, and believes that
+it will make a great impression, "undoubtedly contributing to enlighten
+minds and lead them back to God."
+
+Jean Kostka, as already indicated, is a spiritual sentimentalist; he
+has passed by a rapid transition common to such natures from the Gnostic
+transcendental initiate to the pious Catholic devotee, and he will make
+an excellent Lourdes pilgrim. As there will be no need to recur to him
+again, it will be permissible to justify my criticism by some account of
+his personal experiences. M. Papus speaks of him as the founder and
+patriarch of the Gnostic Church. Of this same patriarch and primate Jean
+Kostka also speaks as of another person, recites the facts of his
+conversion, and hopes he will do better work for the Church of God than
+he has done for Lucifer. Which is Dr Jekyll and which Mr Hyde in this
+duadic personality is not of serious consequence, as they have both got
+into a better way of thinking and acting. Now, since his demission from
+these high functions, Jean Kostka has found that the chief piece of
+Gnostic devilry is in denying that the lost angels are eternally damned.
+On this point he has attained what is rare in him, a touch of personal
+animosity. To supply the antipodes of heaven, let us say, with a lethal
+chamber, as a meaner order than that of theological charity does here,
+in the interests of homeless and snappy dogs, would, in his present
+state of grace, seem a very wicked proposition. Well, in 1890 Jean
+Kostka was invited, as I understand, by the chief of the Gnostic Church,
+that is, by himself, to a chapel in the palace of a lady who figures
+frequently in his pages under the name of Madame X.; the author takes
+great credit for concealing her real titles, but he has failed to
+conceal her identity, and there can be no harm in saying that the
+reference is to Lady Caithness. He was present upon serious business, in
+fact, nothing short of assisting at a séance. A medium had been secured,
+the proceedings began, rappings became audible, an intelligence desired
+to communicate, and, finally, there was a message, with a name given. It
+was Luciabel, "whom you know as Lucifer." To this day Jean Kostka does
+not seem conscious of any element of idiocy in the variation of the
+old-fashioned name. In the revelation which followed, the intelligence,
+who seemed amiably disposed despite his sinister connections, informed
+the circle that, like Jesus, he was engendered eternally from God, that
+he was exiled from the pleroma, and that he was the Sophia-Achamoth of
+Valentine, the Helena-Ennoia of Simon Magus, the thought of God which
+had become anathema, and that he was now in search of love and
+consolation, both of which might take shape in a Gnostic church, and
+would be highly acceptable. There is, so to speak, a commercial element
+in the overtures which dries up the feeling of pity, or one might be
+exceedingly sorry for this lost chord of eternal thought, hoping
+charitably that we should still somehow hear it in heaven.
+
+Since his conversion the unpretentious marvel of this séance has been a
+dire trouble to Jean Kostka, partly on account of its eschatology, but
+still more because the sitters were conscious at its close of a breath
+passing over their faces, while he himself felt the presence of lips
+against his own. Poor Jean Kostka! They were all abased on their knees,
+which happens occasionally, even at séances, to pious people in Paris,
+and he concludes that he was kissed by Helena-Ennoia, _alias_ Lucifer,
+_alias_ Luciabel, who is also described on the charge-sheet of orthodox
+theology by other and more objectionable titles. The shameful memory
+causes him to exclaim fervently:--"May he who purged the lips of Isaiah
+with a burning coal deign to purify mine by the sacred kiss of penitence
+and pardon: _in osculo sancto_." There is a touch of sublimity in that,
+and the _basia_ of Baal-Zeboub may well enough be more demoralising than
+those of Secundus. At the time, however, he founded the Gnostic Church.
+
+We become acquainted with ghosts after various manners, according to
+our psychic condition. There is the spontaneous and accidental ghost who
+is seldom caught in the act; there is the able-bodied materialised ghost
+whom we catch in the act occasionally, and preserve our mental balance
+by clinging to his watch-chain and seals; they may be distinguished as
+the timeless ghost and the ghost who occasionally does time. Over and
+above these two generic specimens there is the ghost that throws, who is
+separable from the ghost that _hurls_, as our French friends put it. To
+hurl is to utter objectionable and unreasonable yells, preferably in the
+dead of night and in lonely places. This ghost is much sought after by
+specialists. It would be tedious to name all the varieties, but I can
+guarantee the unequipped that all known specimens have been carefully
+labelled, except possibly the odorous ghost, the ghost, that is to say,
+who manifests exclusively to the olfactory organ. This is an exceedingly
+withdrawn inappreciable kind, but it is familiar to Jean Kostka, who is
+a connoisseur in the smell supernatural, and has a trained psychic nose.
+He can distinguish between the spiritual perfume which characterises,
+let us say, St Stanislaus and the _odorem suavitatis_ of Lucifer. He is
+also an authority on conditions, and gives a ravishing description of
+the voluptuous enervation diffused over all his limbs when he had a
+private memorandum from Isis by means of raps during the reception of a
+master in a blue lodge. On this occasion he tells us that he was
+inspired to pronounce one of his most wicked and dangerous Masonic
+discourses. Dear M. Kostka! Dynamite would lose its destroying power in
+his harmless hands.
+
+At another function--but this was in a red lodge--he was overwhelmed by
+the presence of Lucifer, who elected and commissioned him to fight in
+his cause. It was a moment of unwonted intelligence--these are his own
+words--and he agreed, so incompetence chose its minister, and Frater
+Diabolus again showed himself a short-sighted rogue, because has not his
+emissary converted and passed over to the makers of pilgrimages? M.
+Kostka also at this time was so wicked as to be guilty of a pact, but he
+reserved two points, "the person of Christ and His mother." The
+reservation of these sacraments is not specialised as to its kind, but,
+_mon Dieu_, how distraught was Lucifer to be so palpably tricked by a
+_trente-troisième_! Both these matters were, however, personal to the
+seer, and the lodges, whether red or blue, seem to have been quite
+unconscious that they had been entertaining divinity and demon unawares.
+M. Kostka has, in fact, been distinguished from the common herd of
+Masons by many favours of Lucifer, and he has naturally been ungrateful,
+for which I admire M. Kostka.
+
+In succeeding chapters he details at considerable length a variety of
+hallucinations which he experienced on the subject of Helena-Ennoia, and
+he has also had visions of Jansen, of a false Francis Xavier, a false
+Christ, &c., but his most important experience was that which he terms
+Penetration, commonly experienced in autumn seasons and during the mists
+and mildness of October nights. On these occasions he was conscious of a
+curious extension of personality by which he seemed to enter into all
+Nature, and all Nature took voice and interpreted herself intelligibly
+to him. After music came verbal communications, and then the apparition
+of forms, chiefly of classical mythology. Most people would have termed
+this poetic rapture passing into lucidity, but our friend avers that it
+is the Enemy.
+
+Such have been the experiences and adventures of Jean Kostka in the
+psychic world, and they are of precisely the same calibre as his
+critical method. I may say, in conclusion, that, if spared, he will do
+better in his next book, for he promises another, which is to exhibit in
+a convincing manner how Lucifer has been vanquished by Joan of Arc. In
+the meantime we may part from him with due recognition of his absolute
+good faith and extreme amiability; we may congratulate him on his
+conversion, and still more upon the very pleasant reading he provides;
+he does not appear to have unmasked Lucifer, but he has let us into the
+secret of the best that can be done in that way.
+
+Lastly, the point to be marked in connection with the memoirs and
+revelations of Jean Kostka is this, that neither in Paris nor elsewhere,
+neither in Masonry nor in other secret associations, concerning which he
+has had every opportunity to judge, has he come personally into contact
+with a cultus of Satan or Lucifer; that he chooses to term certain
+mystical opinions and practices diabolical, because they are condemned
+by the Latin Church, is a matter which is perfectly indifferent and
+exhibits only the forlorn position of a case which resorts to the
+expedient. But it is highly significant that a man who has mixed among
+mystics of all grades for probably thirty years, who is affiliated to
+innumerable orders, and in his present mood would be glad to expose
+everything, has nothing to tell us of the Palladium, though he dwelt at
+its gates, and the circles he frequented were at a stone's cast from the
+alleged Mother-Lodge Lotus of Paris.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE VENDETTA OF SIGNOR MARGIOTTA
+
+
+To Signor Domenico Margiotta we owe the most explicit account of the
+great compact between Mazzini and Albert Pike which produced the New and
+Reformed Palladium. With this institution he does not attempt to connect
+the anterior order founded in 1730; for him the possession of the
+Templar Baphomet explains the name which it received, and the passage of
+that idol from its original custodians he leaves in the same uncertainty
+as Dr Bataille. This difficulty apart, in Signor Margiotta the question
+of Lucifer has received a most important witness; he is the most recent,
+the most illustrious, and Masonically the most decorated of all. If I
+add that he is in one respect to be included among the most virulent, I
+do not necessarily detract from his value. So far as one can possibly
+be aware, he is a man of unimpeachable integrity, who gives us every
+opportunity to identify him, heraldically by his arms and emblazonments,
+historically by an account of his family, personally by extracts from
+the _Dizionario Biografico_, Masonically by a full enumeration of all
+his dignities, including photographs of his most brilliant diplomas and
+printed correspondence from Grand Masters and other exalted potentates
+of the great Fraternity. It would be difficult, however, in the last
+respect, to discover many more exalted than himself, for before his
+demission he was Secretary of the Lodge Savonarola of Florence;
+Venerable of the Lodge Giordano Bruno of Palmi; Sovereign Grand
+Inspector General, 33rd degree, of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite;
+Sovereign Prince of the Order (33rd .·., 90th .·., 95th .·.,) of the
+Rite of Memphis and Misraïm; Acting Member of the Sovereign Sanctuary of
+the Oriental Order of Memphis and Misraïm of Naples; Inspector of the
+Misraïm Lodges of the Calabrias and of Sicily; Honorary Member of the
+National Grand Orient of Haiti; Acting Member of the Supreme Federal
+Council of Naples; Inspector-General of all the Masonic Lodges of the
+three Calabrias; Grand Master, _ad vitam_, of the Oriental Masonic Order
+of Misraïm or Egypt (90th degree) of Paris; Commander of the Order of
+Knights-Defenders of Universal Masonry; Honorary Member, _ad vitam_, of
+the Supreme General Council of the Italian Federation of Palermo;
+Permanent Inspector and Sovereign Delegate of the Grand Central
+Directory of Naples for Europe (Universal High-grade Masonry), and,
+according to his latest portrait, Member of the New Reformed Palladium.
+That such a luminary could withdraw from the firmament of the Fraternity
+and not take after him the third part of the stars of heaven, above all
+that the Italian Grand Master could have the effrontery to affirm that
+he had never heard of him and had only discovered who he was after some
+investigation, are matters for astonishment to the simple.
+
+Professor Margiotta returned to the church of his childhood in the
+autumn of 1894, and the news of his conversion is said to have so
+overwhelmed the head-quarters of Italian Freemasonry at Rome that the
+annual rejoicings upon the 20th of September, when Rome became the
+Capital of United Italy and when Universal Freemasonry was instituted in
+1870, were incontinently suspended. My readers will not attach a high
+degree of accuracy to this statement, for there does not appear in
+reality to have been any convulsion of the Order; there was indeed more
+rejoicing in Jerusalem than lamentation in the tents of Kedron. Signor
+Margiotta was the recipient of flattering congratulations from eminent
+prelates; the bishop of Grenoble salutes him as "my dear friend"; the
+patriarch of Jerusalem invites him to take courage, for he is doing high
+service to humanity, labouring under the scourge of the Masonic plague;
+the bishop of Montauban expresses his lively sentiment and entire
+devotion; the archbishop of Aix regards the revelations as of great
+importance to the Church; the bishop of Limoges praises and blesses the
+books of M. Margiotta; the bishop of Mende does likewise, his
+enthusiasm taking shape in superlatives; the Cardinal-Archbishop of
+Bordeaux applauds the intention and the effort; the bishops of
+Tarentaise, of Oran, of Pamiers, of Annecy, take up the chant in turn,
+and his Holiness the Pope himself sends his Apostolic Benediction over
+the seal of Peter.
+
+Why did Signor Margiotta abandon Palladism and Masonry? It was not
+because these institutions were devoted to the cultus of Lucifer, for I
+do not gather that he was scandalised by that fact at the time when it
+appears to have become known to him. It was not because sacrilege and
+public indecency characterised the rituals of initiation in the case of
+the Palladian Order, for he does not zealously press this charge. It was
+not, so far as can be traced, because he trembled for the safety of his
+soul; he does not provide us with a sickly and suspicious narrative of
+the sentiments which led to his conversion or the interior raptures
+which followed it; he does not mention that he was the recipient of a
+special grace or a sudden illustration; he ceased to believe in Lucifer
+as the good God because that being had permitted his favoured
+Freemasonry to pass under the "supreme direction of a despised personage
+who is the last of rogues." In other words, Signor Domenico Margiotta
+has a strong loathing for Signor Adriano Lemmi; he has long and
+earnestly desired that Freemasonry should "vomit him" from her breast,
+but as this has not come to pass, Signor Margiotta decided to vomit
+himself. Now, when a man embraces religion, he is supposed to forgive
+his enemies, to do good to them that hate him, to avoid the propagation
+of scandals, and when he cannot speak well to say nothing; but this is
+not the special quality of grace which attaches to the second
+_trente-troisième_, who has come out of Freemasonry to expose and revile
+the order.
+
+The two narratives which comprise the exposure in question are
+respectively entitled, "Adriano Lemmi: Supreme Chief of Freemasonry,"
+and "Palladism, the Cultus of Satan-Lucifer." Both these books contain a
+violent impeachment of the Italian Grand Master, which, if it concerned
+us, would not convince us. Its main points go to show that in the days
+of his boyhood, Lemmi was guilty of an embezzlement at Marseilles, for
+which he is said to have suffered at the hands of justice; that he led
+the life of a Guzman d'Alfarache, in itself sufficiently romantic to
+condone an offence which should have been effaced with its penalty,
+supposing the allegation to be true; that he subsequently found himself
+at Constantinople, where he was thrown among Jews, and is there charged
+by his accuser with the commission of a still more terrible crime; he,
+in fact, became a proselyte of the gate, and suffered the rite of
+circumcision. Later on he is depicted as a political conspirator, an
+agent and friend of Mazzini, Kossuth, and the patriots of the
+Revolution, in connection with whom he is made responsible for
+innumerable villainies which connect him with the apostleship of
+dynamite. We may pass lightly over these matters, nor need we delay to
+inquire after what manner Adriano Lemmi may have amassed the wealth
+which he possesses, nor what questions on the subject of a monopoly in
+tobacco may have been raised or dropped in the Italian Parliament. All
+these points, including Signor Lemmi himself, are as little known as
+they are of little moment in England, and they are wholly outside our
+subject, except in so far as they exhibit the methods of his accuser,
+which, indeed, are so objectionable in their nature as to go far towards
+exonerating their object. Signor Margiotta, at any rate, puts himself so
+clearly in the wrong, and is altogether so virulent, as to place the
+inference of personal animosity almost in the region of certitude; one
+is therefore tempted to accept the explanation offered by the victim,
+that the Marseilles scandal turns upon a mistaken identity, and his
+explicit denial that he ever underwent the rite of Jewish initiation.
+Furthermore, I believe that I shall represent the opinion of tolerant
+Englishmen when I say that to insult and abuse a man for adopting
+another faith, however opposed to our own, and even ridiculous in
+itself, is an odious method in controversy, and for myself I see little
+to choose between a proselyte of the gate, a renegade Mason, and a
+demitted Roman Catholic.
+
+The true secret of the Margiotta-cum-Lemmi embroilment does not, I
+think, transpire in the narratives with which we are concerned; I mean
+to say that there is an eluding element which must, however, be assumed,
+if we are to account reasonably for the display of such extreme rancour.
+An honourable man may object to the jurisdiction of a person whom he
+regards as a convicted thief, but he does not usually pursue him with
+the violence of personal hatred. Now, in 1888 Signor Margiotta became a
+candidate for the Italian Parliament, and he attributes his failure to
+the hostility of Lemmi, who, prompted by Gallophobe tendencies, brought
+his influence to bear against a person who was friendly to the French
+nation. I submit that this assists us to understand the animus of the
+converted Mason and the lengths to which it has taken him. In all other
+respects Signor Margiotta displays the most perfect frankness, and does
+his best upon every occasion to substantiate his statements by
+formidable documentary evidence. I repeat therefore, that, much as we
+may regret his acrimony, he remains a most important witness to the
+existence of Universal Masonry, the existence of the Reformed Palladium,
+the transfer of the Masonic Supremacy at the death of Albert Pike to the
+Italian Grand Master, and the split in the camp which followed. He
+claims also that he is personally acquainted with Miss Diana Vaughan; he
+extols her innumerable virtues in pages of eloquent writing; he even
+goes so far as to photograph the envelope of a registered letter which
+he posted at Palmi, in Calabria, addressed to that lady in London. He
+indirectly substantiates the narrative of Carbuccia by a long account of
+his personal dealings with Giambattista Pessina, descending into the
+most curious particulars; he publishes the secret alphabet of the
+Palladium, specimens of litanies addressed to the good god Lucifer, and
+hymns of equivocal tendency attributed to Albert Pike. Finally, he fully
+admits the Satanic character of perfect Masonic initiation, and
+contributes a long chapter to swell our recent knowledge upon the
+subject of "Apparitions of Satan."
+
+As regards Universal Masonry, when announcing his demission and
+conversion to an officer of the Lodge, Giordano Bruno, at Palmi, Signor
+Margiotta reveals to him that he and his brethren are ruled, without
+knowing it, by a supreme rite, and that he, Margiotta himself, Venerable
+of the Lodge referred to, being a true elect and perfect initiate,
+constituted the link of connection between the ordinary Masonry of Palmi
+and this central and unsuspected power. On the same occasion he
+addressed a long communication to Miss Vaughan, in which he claims that
+he has ever acted as an honest Mason, faithful to the orthodoxy thereof,
+and having the cause of Charleston at heart. Now, the circumstances
+which occasioned these statements, and the good faith which seems to
+characterise them, are presumptive testimony to their truth; in the
+absence of any evidence, and merely on _à priori_ considerations, it
+would be intolerable to suggest that their author, while advertising his
+changed views upon a solemn subject, was guilty of wilful deception.
+
+The centralisation of Universal Masonry in an order known as the New
+and Reformed Palladium, with Albert Pike at its head, is supported by
+the citation of a document dated the 12th of September 1874, and being
+an authority from Charleston for the constitution of a secret federation
+of Jewish Freemasons, with a centre at Hamburg, under the title of
+Sovereign Patriarchal Council. It is not the only document emanating
+from the "Dogmatic Directory" which is printed by Signor Margiotta, but
+the others are not entirely new, having some of them previously appeared
+in the memoirs of Dr Bataille. The Luciferian opinions of Albert Pike
+are exhibited plainly in a letter addressed by him to Signor Rapisardi,
+famous in all Italy for his poem of "Lucifer," which Signor Margiotta
+affirms to have been written at the suggestion of the American Grand
+Master.
+
+But possibly the strongest evidence is less of a documentary kind; the
+minute account of the warfare waged by Signor Margiotta and other
+Italian Masons, in which they were helped by Miss Vaughan, to prevent
+the accession of Lemmi to the sovereign pontificate upon the death of
+Albert Pike and the transfer of the centre to Rome, seems to bear upon
+its surface every reasonable sign that it cannot be an invented
+narrative. Indeed, the first impulse upon reading the testimony of this
+witness leaps irresistibly to conclude that the denial of the main
+allegations is no longer possible. A searching analysis does, however,
+reveal sufficient grounds to warrant a different judgment. In the first
+place, whereas Signor Margiotta proclaims the supreme power of the
+Reformed Palladium, the documents which he cites in his support are, for
+the most part, documents of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, about
+the immense jurisdiction of which there is no question. In the second
+place, the authority of Albert Pike, as it is seen in most of the
+documents, is in virtue, not of the Palladium, but of his position as
+Supreme Chief of the Supreme Mother-Council of the Ancient and Accepted
+Scotch Rite. What Signor Margiotta terms Universal Freemasonry is not
+the Palladium at all, but simply the Scotch Rite; one of his own
+diplomas, reproduced at page 120 of "Adriano Lemmi," is proof positive
+of this; and in view of the universal diffusion of this rite, no one
+would deny it the name. In the third place, the documents of Signor
+Margiotta as regards the Palladium are not to be trusted, because in one
+instance a gross imposition has been practised provably upon him, and he
+may have been deceived in others. Hence, although he may be a member of
+a society termed the New and Reformed Palladium, it may not possess the
+jurisdiction or the history to which it pretends. In the fourth place I
+deny that the Grand Central Directories of which I have given
+particulars, derived from Signor Margiotta, in my second chapter, are in
+any sense Palladian directories. That of Naples for Europe is said to
+have twenty-seven triangular provinces, one of which is Manchester, and
+Mr John Yarker is said to be Provincial Grand Master. Now, I have Mr
+Yarker's own written testimony that he never heard of the Palladium
+until the report of it came over from France. Mr Yarker is a member of
+the 33rd degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, and he is also
+the Grand Master of the only legitimate body of the Supreme Oriental
+Rite of Memphis and Misraïm in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Moreover,
+in most Masonic countries of the world he is either Honorary Grand
+Master, or Honorary Member in the 95° of Memphis, 90° of Misraïm, and
+33° Scottish Rite, the last honorary membership including bodies under
+the Pike _régime_ as well as its opponents. He is perfectly well
+acquainted with the claim of the Charleston Supreme Council to supreme
+power in Masonry, and that it is a usurpation founded on a forgery. In a
+letter which he had occasion to address some time since to a Catholic
+priest on this very subject, he remarks:--"The late Albert Pike of
+Charleston, as an able Mason, was undoubtedly a Masonic Pope, who kept
+in leading strings all the Supreme Grand Councils of the world,
+including the Supreme Grand Councils of England, Ireland, and Scotland,
+the first of which includes the Prince of Wales, Lord Lathom, and other
+peers, who were in alliance with him, and in actual submission. Its
+introduction into America arose from a temporary schism in France in
+1762, when Lacorne, a disreputable panderer to the Prince of Clermont,
+issued a patent to a Jew named Stephen Morin. Some time after 1802, a
+pretended Constitution was forged and attributed to Frederick the Great
+of Prussia. This constitution gives power to members of the 33rd degree
+to _elect themselves_ to rule all Masonry, and this custom is
+followed.... The good feeling of Masonry has been perpetually destroyed
+in every country where the Ancient and Accepted Rite exists, and it must
+be so in the very nature of its claims and its laws." Mr Yarker has no
+connection with a supreme dogmatic directorate in any other form than
+this disputed but perfectly well-known assumption of the Charleston
+Supreme Council. The term "Supreme Dogmatic Directorate" was not used by
+Pike, and the confidence enjoyed by the American was never extended to
+Lemmi, though he may have desired it. Instead, therefore, of all Masonry
+being ruled by a central authority unknown to the majority of Masons, we
+have simply a bogus claim which has no effect outside the Scottish
+Rite, and of which all Masons may know if they will be at the pains to
+ascertain. When Signor Margiotta informed the officer of the Giordano
+Bruno Lodge that he secretly represented a central and unknown
+authority, it is in this sense that we must understand him--that is to
+say, he represented the interests of the Charleston Supreme Council.
+Hence the revelations concerning "Universal Masonry" are an exaggeration
+founded upon a fact, and the Palladian Order, of which Signor Margiotta
+tells us that he is a member, is at any rate not what it pretends. It
+has doubtless imposed on him by means of forged documents, as also upon
+Leo Taxil, and M. Adolphe Ricoux. The writings which it fathers upon
+Albert Pike, and quoted by Signor Margiotta, as in other cases, are
+stolen from Éliphas Lévi, the so-called alphabet of the Palladium
+included. The documentary _pièce de résistance_ upon which our author
+relies as evidence for the existence of an international Masonic
+organisation is a certain _voûte de Protestation_, on the part of a
+so-called Mother-Lodge Lotus of England, secret Temple of Oxford
+Street, against the transfer of the Dogmatic Directory from Charleston
+to Rome, the "Standing Committee of Protestation" being Alexander
+Graveson, Provincial Delegate of Philadelphia, U.S.A., V. F. Palacios,
+Provincial Delegate of Mexico, and Diana Vaughan, Provincial Delegate of
+New York and Brooklyn. Signor Domenico Margiotta has been grossly
+deceived over this document. What he prints as the English original in
+guarantee of good faith, side by side with a French translation, is a
+clumsy and ridiculous specimen of "English as she is wrote," and the
+French is really the original. I append some choice specimens:--"To the
+Most Illustrious, Most Puissant, Most _Lightened_ Brothers ...
+composing, by right of _Ancient and Members for life_, the Most Serene
+Grand College of _Emerited Masons_." Here the underlined passages are a
+Frenchman's method of interpreting into English _Très Eclairés Frères, à
+titre d'Anciens et de membres à vie_, and _Maçons Emérites_. Again: "The
+protesters numbered six-and-twenty, including twenty-five _sovereing_
+delegates present at the deed, and one sovereign delegate, who could
+not _stand by_ (_ne peut être présent_), but the substitute of _which_
+wisely and prudently abstained from the vote _at the first turn_ (_au
+premier scrutin_) and threw a blank ticket at the second, _expound_
+(verb governed by _protesters_) the _acts and situation thence
+disastrously resulting_ for our holy cause."
+
+Once more: "The present protesting vault _aims at the two ballots_
+(_vise les deux scrutins_), and _requests to be proceeded_ urgently to
+their annulment." Again: "_The Charleston's Brothers_ ... have not acted
+in such a manner as to forfeit _the whole Masonry's esteem_.... The
+direction ... has _not discontinued to prove foresight_.... It was
+_injust_ to transfer," &c., and so on for sixteen printed pages which
+certainly deserve to rank among the curiosities of literature. This is
+the precious document which appears over the signatures of Alexander
+Graveson and Diana Vaughan, after which I submit to my readers that
+Signor Domenico Margiotta may be dismissed with all his file of papers,
+not as himself deceiving, but as singularly liable to deception, of
+which he has otherwise given us several signal instances. For example he
+believes himself to have enjoyed the high privilege of beholding the
+Prince of Darkness upon two separate occasions. The first was in 1885 at
+Castelnuovo-Garfagnana in a beautiful old walled garden, belonging to a
+high-grade Mason named Orestes Cecchi, a fast friend of Margiotta. The
+time was the forenoon, and the two Masons were smoking under the shade
+of green trees surrounded by floral delights. Margiotta was a
+spiritualist and a follower of Allan Kardec; Cecchi had a turn for the
+Vedas and the occultism of the Eastern world; they were chatting upon
+the possibility of transmigration; the one doubted, the other affirmed;
+Cecchi, to convince his companion, informed him that he possessed a
+familiar who invariably appeared to him under the form of a goat, but he
+had a look in his eye which proved positively that he was the Grand
+Architect of the Universe! That there might be no doubt about the matter
+Cecchi called his familiar, who appeared suddenly, and joyfully caressed
+his master, at whose command he subsequently licked the hand of the
+overwhelmed Signor Margiotta, and it became red and painful. Cecchi
+playfully chided the apparition for not assuming human form, and hinted
+at the propriety of doing so, but the animal knowingly nodded and
+incontinently scurried away. Now, I put it to my readers, that Cecchi
+was exploiting his friend, that a domesticated animal appeared at the
+summons of his owner in a wooded garden, and that Signor Margiotta is
+fooling when he pretends to believe that it was the devil.
+
+The second experience was at Naples under the roof of Pessina, about
+half-past ten in the evening, after a Lodge meeting of the Misraïm rite.
+Then and there, as a matter of cordial good fellowship, the
+accommodating Imperial Grand Master evoked a devil to give evidence of
+his actuality to Margiotta, who, in spite of the episode of the goat,
+still posed as a doubting Thomas. It was managed by means of a
+whisky-bottle, out of which, after certain invocations and magical
+ceremonies, a vapour rose mysteriously, and resolved itself into a
+human figure, wearing a golden crown, with a brilliant star in the
+middle. According to the picture which accompanies this delicious
+narrative, the apparition had the wings of a bat and a tail of the
+bovine class. It was Beffabuc, the familiar of the magician, who begged
+him to enlighten the sceptic, but the latter, according to the
+apparition, was protected by a higher power and would never be persuaded
+to believe in him. Signor Margiotta gives the names of all who were
+present at the evocation--twelve members of the 33rd degree, to say
+nothing of Misraïm dignities. I submit, however, that the episode of the
+bottle would split the rock of Peter, that the absence of Signor Pessina
+for twenty minutes previous to the performance, eked out with a little
+ventriloquism, and some Pepper accessories would explain much, and that
+there is also another hypothesis which I will leave to the discernment
+of my readers, and to which I lean personally.
+
+Our witness, in any case, would not be a _persona grata_ to the Society
+for Psychical Research. As he is violent in his enmities, so is he
+gullible in marvels. His impeachment of Adriano Lemmi must be ruled
+completely out of court; his thaumaturgic experiences are paltry
+trickeries; his account of Albert Pike is largely borrowed matter; the
+magical practices which he attributes to Pessina are derived from the
+Little Albert and other well known grimoires; the most that follows from
+his narrative is that certain Italian Masons, probably atheists at
+heart, pose as partisans of Satan simply to accentuate their derisions
+of all religious ideas, much after the manner of Voltaire in some of his
+cynical correspondence. It is a continental form of pleasantry, and an
+artistic experiment in blasphemy which is taken seriously by the unwise.
+
+I need hardly add that the story of _Aut Diabolus aut Nihil_, which is
+accepted literally by Doctor Bataille, is also the subject of
+reverential belief on the part of Signor Margiotta, and as an
+illustration of his classifying talent, he terms Adriano Lemmi a Mormon
+because, having obtained a divorce, he, in the course of time,
+contracted another marriage. Furthermore, the very strong testimony
+which Signor Margiotta gives to Dr Bataille, directly by eulogium and
+indirectly by citation, as also the intimate relations which he
+maintained with Diana Vaughan, make his value as a witness of Lucifer
+dependent, to a large extent, upon the credibility of these persons,
+with consequences which will shortly appear. Lastly, his own personal
+credibility seems seriously at stake when he talks of "triangular
+provinces." He, and those connected with him, can alone explain what
+that means; they have never existed in Masonry. Mr Yarker, who, he says,
+is Grand Master of such a province, has never heard the expression. Mr
+R. S. Brown, Grand Secretary of the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of
+Scotland, also denies all knowledge of the one which, according to
+Signor Margiotta, is located at Edinburgh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+FEMALE FREEMASONRY
+
+
+Last on the list of our recent witnesses who have had a hand in creating
+the Question of Lucifer--not actually last in the order of time but the
+least in importance to our purpose--is M. A. C. de la Rive, author of
+"Child and Woman in Universal Freemasonry." He very fairly fulfils the
+presumption which is warranted by his name; he does not pretend to have
+come forth from the turbid torrent of Satanism and Masonry which is
+carrying multitudes into the abyss and effacing temples and thrones in
+its furious course. He has been content, like a sensible person, to
+stand on bank or brink and watch the rage and flow. He does not tell us
+anywhere in his narrative that he is himself a Mason; he has no personal
+acquaintance with Satan; he has not been guilty of magic, nor has he
+assisted at a Black Mass. He belongs to a wholly different order of
+witnesses, and he has produced what is in its way a genuine book, which
+does not pretend to be more than a careful compilation from rare but
+published sources, while we can all of us defer to the erudition of a
+Frenchman who has actually spent on collecting his materials the almost
+unheard-of space of twelve months. The result is correctly described as
+"grand in octavo, 746 pages," and is really an inflated piece of Masonic
+chronology, exceedingly ill-balanced, but, at the same time, undeniably
+useful. Beginning with the year 1730 it is brought down to 1894, and it
+is designed to demonstrate the existence at the present day of "adoptive
+lodges" wherein French gallantry once provided an inexpensive substitute
+for Masonry in which ladies had the privilege of participating. One of
+the most learned and illustrious of French Masonic writers, Jean-Marie
+Ragon, describes such androgyne or female lodges as "amiable
+institutions" invented by an unknown person some time previously to the
+year 1730, under the name of "mysterious amusements," which appears to
+describe them exactly, and one cannot be otherwise than astonished at
+the extraordinary gravity of nervous and well-intentioned persons who
+ascribe them such tremendous importance. Whereas they are the fringe of
+Freemasonry, writers like M. de la Rive persist in regarding them as its
+heart and centre, while it is also in such institutions that he and
+others of his calibre expect to discover Satanism. A celibate religion
+ever suspects the serpent in the neighbourhood of the woman. He
+discovers Satanism accordingly by reading it into handy passages and
+bracketing interpretations of his own when the text cannot otherwise be
+worked. Thus he gets oracles everywhere, and to compel Satan he finds
+the parenthesis quite as useful as the circle of black magic; it is a
+juggler's method, but among French anti-Masons it passes with high
+credit. The question of Female Freemasonry, apart from the Palladian
+Order, is quite outside our subject; its existence in Spain is a matter
+of public knowledge, and I have Mr Yarker's authority for stating that
+in certain countries, one of which is South America, the Rite of
+Memphis and Misraïm and the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite have both
+initiated women, the latter up to and including the 33rd degree. No
+adoptive lodges exist or would be tolerated in England within the
+jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge, and if it can be shown that the
+Palladian order initiates English women into Masonic secrets, that is
+performed surreptitiously and in defiance of our Masonic constitutions.
+As to the schismatic Grand Orient of France, whatever may be done in
+secret or devised in public upon this point, is of no importance here,
+but I should add that little credit, and deservedly, is attached in
+England to any of the so-called revelations which from time to time come
+over from Paris.
+
+As regards M. de la Rive, apart from this subject, we are unable to
+extract from his pages anything that is fresh or informing on the
+subject of our inquiry. Despite the sensational picture which emblazons
+the title-page, where a full-length Baphomet is directing a _décolletée_
+Templar-Mistress through the pillars Jakin and Bohaz, there is not a
+single page in the whole vast compilation which shows any connection
+between Satanism and Masonry until towards the close, when an adroit tax
+is levied on the still vaster storehouse of Doctor Bataille. The author
+tells us clearly enough how adoptive Masonry arose, what rites were
+instituted, what rituals published, what is contained in these, and it
+is all solid and instructive. His facts, as already indicated, are
+borrowed facts, but they come from a variety of sources, and original
+research was scarcely to be expected from a writer against whom the
+avenues of knowledge are sealed by his lack of initiation. He concludes,
+however, that Adoptive Masonry is Satanic by intention, and that even
+the orphanages of the Fraternity are part of a profound and infamous
+design to ruin the children of humanity and to perfect proselytes for
+perdition.
+
+The appearance of "Child and Woman in Universal Freemasonry" was hailed
+with acclamation in the columns of the _Revue Mensuelle_; it reviewed it
+by dreary instalments, and when reviewing was no longer possible, had
+recourse to tremendous citations; as a last effort, it supplied an
+exhaustive index to the whole work--a charitable and necessary action,
+for the twelve months' toil of the author had expired without the
+accomplishment of this serviceable means of reference. And still, as
+occasion offers, it gives it bold advertisement.
+
+The quaint methods of previous witnesses are amplified by M. de la Rive.
+Like Dr Bataille, he tells us that the Order of Oddfellows, though quite
+distinct from Palladism, is "essentially Luciferian," but he does not
+say why or how--instance of demonstrative method. He regards the Jews
+with holy hatred as chief ministers of Anti Christ, and characterises
+them as that nation of which Judas was "one of the most celebrated
+personages"--specimen recipe for the production of cheap odium in large
+quantities; but what about Jesus the Christ, whom men called King of the
+Jews? Fie, M. de la Rive! He informs us that Miss Alice Booth, daughter
+of General Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, is one of the
+foremost Palladists of England--instance of absurd slander which refutes
+itself.
+
+M. de la Rive must therefore on all counts of his evidence be ruled out
+of court as a witness. No one denies the existence of Adoptive Lodges in
+a few countries and under special circumstances, and no sensible person
+attributes them any importance. Freemasonry as an institution is not
+suited to women any more than is cricket as a sport, but they have
+occasionally wished to play at it as they have wished to play at
+cricket; the opportunity has been offered them, but, except as the vogue
+of a moment, it has come to nothing. It is, moreover, of no importance
+to our inquiry if it can be proved that the true head of the Grand Lodge
+in England is the Princess of Wales and not her royal husband; while
+concerning the existence of Devil-Worship M. de la Rive has nothing new
+to tell us, and nothing at first-hand. I therefore ask leave to dismiss
+him, hoping that he will devote another laborious year to the reissue of
+Masonic rituals, authentic or not, at the extremely moderate price which
+he asks for his first volume; originals are scarce and costly, and
+invention is a pleasant faculty. The interpretation which he chooses to
+put on them is an interpretation of no consequence, and can never have
+misled any one who is in any sense worth misleading.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE PASSING OF DOCTOR BATAILLE
+
+
+The most obvious line of criticism in connection with the memoirs
+entitled _Le Diable au XIX^e Siècle_ would be the preposterous and
+impossible nature of its supernatural narratives. To attribute a
+historical veracity to the adventures of Baron Munchausen might scarcely
+appear more unserious than to accept this _récit d'un témoin_ as
+evidence for transcendental phenomena. I need scarcely say that I regard
+this reasoning as so altogether sound and applicable that it is almost
+unnecessary to develop it. The personal adventures of Doctor Bataille as
+regards their supernatural element are so transparently fabulous that it
+would be intolerable to regard them from any other point of view. That
+an ape should speak Tamil is beyond the bounds of possibility; it is
+impossible also that a female fakir or pythoness, aged 152 years,
+should allow herself to be consumed in a leisurely manner by fire; it is
+impossible that any ascetics could have maintained life in their
+organisms under the loathsome conditions prevailing within the alleged
+temple at Pondicherry; it is impossible that any person could have
+survived the ordeal which Dr Bataille pretends to have suffered at
+Calcutta,--to have relished and even prolonged; it is impossible that
+tables and organs should be found suspended from a ceiling at the close
+of a spiritual séance; it is impossible that the serpent of Sophia
+Walder should have been elongated in the manner described. When I say
+that these things are impossible I am speaking with due regard to the
+claims of transcendental phenomena, and it is from the transcendental
+standpoint that I judge them. Genuine transcendental phenomena may
+extend the accepted limits of probability, but when alleged
+transcendental phenomena do violence to all probability, that is the
+unfailing test of hallucination or untruth on the part of those who
+depose to them. These things could not have occurred as they are
+narrated, and Dr Bataille is exploiting the ignorance of that class of
+readers to whom his mode of publication appealed. As products of
+imagination his marvels are crude and illiterate; in other words, they
+belong to precisely that type which is characteristic of romances
+published in penny numbers, and when he pledges his rectitude regarding
+them he does not enlist our confidence but indicates the slight value
+which he sets on his stake.
+
+At the same time, two reasons debar me from laying further stress upon
+this line of argument. In the first place we must remember that his
+unlettered readers have been taught by their religious instructors to
+believe in the unlimited power of the devil, and they have probably
+found in the outrageous nature of the narratives a real incentive to
+accept them. In the second place my own position as a transcendentalist
+connects me less or more with the acknowledgment of transcendental
+phenomena, and to distinguish the limits of possibility in these matters
+would involve a technical discussion for which there is no opportunity
+here. It is understood, however, that in the interests of
+transcendental science I reject the miraculous element in Dr Bataille's
+memoirs.
+
+Another line of criticism also open and leading to convincing results
+would dwell upon the glaring improbability of the entire story outside
+that miraculous element. There is no colourable pretence of likelihood,
+for example, in the connection instituted between fakirs and Freemasons,
+or between secret societies in China and a sect of Luciferians in
+Charleston. But the partisans of Dr Bataille are prepared to believe
+anything of Masonry, and to dismiss likelihood as they would dismiss
+impossibility. Some arguments are unassailable on account of their
+stupidity, and of such shelter I intend to deprive my witness. I shall
+therefore merely register my recognition that this criticism does obtain
+completely. For much the same reason I shall only refer in passing to
+another matter which in itself is sufficient to remove these memoirs
+from the region of actuality; they bristle with the kind of coincidences
+which are the common convenience of bad novelists to create or escape
+situations, and are rejected even by legitimate fiction, because they
+are untrue to life. At the present time the device of coincidence is
+left to its true monopolists, the Society for Psychical Research and the
+manufacturers of the penny dreadful. Unreasonable demands are, however,
+made upon it by Dr Bataille; never in an awkward predicament does the
+coincidence fail to help him; wheresoever he goes it times his arrival
+rightly to witness some occasional and rare event, and it places him at
+once in communication with the indispensable person whose presence was
+antecedently unlikely. The very existence of his memoirs would have been
+jeopardised had the Anadyr reached Point-de-Galle immediately before
+instead of immediately after the catastrophe which converted Carbuccia.
+At the beginning of his mission against Masonry, coincidence arranged
+the last illness of the Cingalese pythoness to the exigencies of his
+date of arrival; it brought John Campbell to Pondicherry and Phileas
+Walder to Calcutta; at Singapore it fixed a Palladic institution in the
+grade of Templar-Mistress to correspond with his flying visit on the
+road to Shanghai. Now, all these coincidences are of the class which
+come off in fiction and miss in the combinations of real life, but to
+insist on this point would not disillusionise the believers in Dr
+Bataille, who will say that he was assisted by Providence. We must show
+that he has deceived them in matters which admit of verification, over
+certain points of ordinary fact, which can be placed beyond the region
+of dispute, and by which the truth of his narrative may be held to stand
+or fall. I shall confine myself for this purpose to what he states at
+first hand in his capacity as an eyewitness, and to two salient cases
+which may be taken to represent the whole. Among the rest some are in
+course of investigation, and so far as they have gone are promising
+similar results; the locality of others has been so chosen as to baffle
+inquiry; and in one or two instances I have failed to obtain results. It
+is obviously impossible to prove that there is not a native hut in "a
+thick and impassable forest" at an unindicated distance from
+Point-de-Galle, or that this hut does not possess a vast subterranean
+chamber. When we cannot check our witness we must regard what he tells
+us in the light of those instances which it is possible to fix firmly.
+Among negative results I may mention an inquiry into the alleged death
+of a person named George Shekleton in a Masonic lodge at Calcutta. Sir
+John Lambert, K.C.S.I.E., the commissioner of police at that place, very
+courteously made investigations at my suggestion, first at the coroner's
+court, but the records for the year 1880 are not now in existence, and,
+secondly, among the oldest police officers, but also without result. I
+applied thereupon to Mr Robert William Shekleton, Q.C., J.P., inquiring
+whether any relative of his family had died under curious circumstances
+at Calcutta about the year 1880. His answer is this:--"I never heard
+anything about the death of a George Shekleton in Calcutta. My elder and
+younger brother were both living in Calcutta, and if any person of the
+same name had been living there I should have heard it from them. My
+younger brother Alexander Shekleton died at Madras on his way home with
+his wife and children of confluent small-pox; my eldest brother Joseph
+is still alive." The presumption, therefore, is that Carbuccia's story
+of the strange fatality which occurred in his presence at a Masonic
+lodge is without any foundation in fact, but I regard the result as
+negative because it falls short of demonstration. I am now setting other
+channels in operation, but as it is not a test case, and not an event
+which Dr Bataille claims to have witnessed himself, it is unnecessary to
+await the issue.
+
+If the reader will now glance at the several sections of the sixth
+chapter, he will find that one of the most important is that entitled
+"The Seven Temples and a Sabbath in Sheol," where Dr Bataille tells us
+that he witnessed unheard of operations in black magic on the part of
+Palladian Masons and diabolising fakirs. The locality was a plain called
+Dappah, two hours drive from Calcutta. The particulars which are given
+concerning the edifices on the mountain of granite, but more especially
+concerning an open charnel where the dead bodies of innumerable human
+beings, mixed indiscriminately with those of animals and with the town
+refuse, are left to rot under the eye of heaven, will not impress any
+one, however unacquainted with India, and with the vicinity of the
+English capital and seat of government, as wearing many of the features
+of probability. The facts are as follows:--A place called Dhappamanpour,
+and for brevity Dhappa, does exist in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, and
+thereto the town refuse is actually carried by a special line of
+railway; there is no granite mountain and there are no temples, while so
+far from it being a charnel into which human bodies are flung, or a
+place where the adepts of the Palladium could celebrate a black Sabbath
+and form a magic chain with putrid corpses, it is a great lake covering
+an area of thirty square miles, and is known by Anglo-Indians as the
+Saltwater Lake. In the year 1886 it was in course of reclamation, but
+all that Dr Bataille tells us is specifically untrue, and he could never
+have witnessed there the things which he describes as taking place in
+the year 1880. The _récit d'un témoin_ is in this matter an invented
+history.
+
+As a consequence of this bogus experience in Calcutta, Dr Bataille
+pretends to have been admitted within the charmed circle of the New and
+Reformed Palladium, and was therefore qualified to be present at the
+initiation of a Templar-Mistress which took place not long after at
+Singapore. His account of this initiation turns upon two or three points
+which do not appear in the synopsis of the sixth chapter. One of these
+is the existence of a Kadosch Areopagite of the Ancient and Accepted
+Scotch Rite. But at least, at the period in question, there was no such
+Areopagite, and the Scotch Rite did not exist at Singapore. The sole
+Masonic institution was a District Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and
+Accepted Masons of England in the Eastern Archipelago, working under the
+warrant of the English Grand Lodge, holding half-yearly communications,
+and special meetings when the District Grand Master deemed necessary.
+Its patent dates from March 3, 1878, and the District Grand Master at
+the time was the Hon. William H. Macleod Read. Three lodges worked
+under its jurisdiction, two of which were at Singapore and one at
+Penang, and to one of the former a Royal Arch Chapter was attached. It
+is needless to say that our author's Misraïm diploma would have obtained
+his admission to none, and there is no person here in England who would
+have the effrontery to affirm that he might have fared better by reason
+of his Palladian degree. It is sufficient, however, to state that there
+was no Lodge of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite in Singapore at the
+time of his visit. But the imposition does not end here; Dr Bataille
+does not merely describe what took place at a lodge which was not in
+existence--he gives particulars of an address delivered by a certain Dr
+Murray at a meeting attended by himself. Now, at the date in question,
+there was no such person either in the town, in its vicinity, or in
+Penang. There is fortunately an institution among us which is termed the
+British Museum, and it enables us to verify questions of this kind.
+Furthermore, when describing the Palladian meeting at the Presbyterian
+chapel--there was such a chapel by the way--he tells us that the Grand
+Master was named Spencer, and that he was a _négociant_ of Singapore,
+but there was again no such person in the town or its vicinity at the
+time, and so his entire narrative, with its ritual reproduced from Leo
+Taxil, is demolished completely. I submit that these two instances are
+sufficient to indicate the kind of man with whom we are dealing. It may
+be a matter of astonishment to my readers that a work even of imposition
+should be performed so clumsily as to betray itself at once to a little
+easy research, but it must be remembered that the class of French
+readers to whom Dr Bataille made appeal are so ignorant of all which
+concerns the English that skill is not required to exploit them; it is
+enough that the English are abused. Of our author's qualifications in
+this respect I have already given some specimens, but they convey no
+idea of his actual resources in the matter of abuse and calumny. A
+direct quotation will not be beside the purpose in this
+place:--"Wheresoever religious influence can make itself felt, there
+the wife and maid are the purest, the most ingenuous expression of the
+creation and the divinely touching idea synthetised by the immaculate
+Mother of Christ, the Virgin Mary; but, on the contrary, in England, and
+still more especially in the English colonies, under the pernicious
+influence of the Protestant heresy engendered by revolts of truly
+diabolical inspiration, the wife and maid are in some sort the
+opprobrium of humanity. The example, moreover, comes from an exalted
+place, as is known. The whole world is acquainted with that which John
+Bull does not himself confess, namely, the private history of her whom
+Indians term 'the old lady of London,' given over to vice and
+drunkenness from her youth--Her Majesty Wisky the 1st." I have made this
+quotation, because it gives the opportunity to dispense with the
+civility of discussion which is exercised by one gentleman towards
+another, but would be out of place on the part of a gentleman who is
+giving a deserved castigation to a disgusting and foul-mouthed rascal.
+This is the nameless refuse which flings itself to bespatter Masonry.
+Down, unclean dog, and back, scavenger, to your offal! The scullion in
+the Queen's kitchen would, I think, disdain to whip you.
+
+Setting aside these scandalous slanders, and returning to the subject in
+hand, it is clear that when a writer who comes forward with a budget of
+surprising revelations is shown to have invented his materials in
+certain signal instances, it becomes superfluous to subject his entire
+testimony to a laborious sifting, and there is really no excuse to delay
+much longer over the memoirs of Dr Bataille. It will be needless to
+state that my researches have failed to discover any such dismantled
+temple as that described at Pondicherry, and affirmed to be on the
+English soil adjacent to the French town. It is equally unnecessary to
+say that the story of the caves of Gibraltar is a gross and absurd
+imposture, for, in fact, it betrays itself. Parisian literature of the
+by-ways has its own methods, and its purveyors are shrewd enough to know
+what will be tolerated and what enjoyed by their peculiar class of
+patrons; transcendental toxicology and an industry in idols worked by
+criminals intercommunicating by means of Volapuk may be left to them.
+
+Nor is it needful to do more than touch lightly upon a pleasant process
+in piracy by which Dr Bataille lightens the toils of authorship. He has
+done better than any other among the witnesses of Lucifer in his
+gleanings from Éliphas Lévi. On p. 32 of his first volume there is a
+brazen theft concerning the chemistry of black magic, and there is
+another, little less daring, on p. 67, being a description of a
+Baphometic idol. It goes without saying that the Conjuration of the Four
+is imported, as others have imported it, from the _Rituel de la Haute
+Magie_. The vesture of the master of ceremonies who officiated in the
+Sanctuary of the Phoenix, one of the mythical temples of Dhappa, is a
+property derived from the same quarter. So in like manner is part of a
+magical adjuration in the account of a Sabbath in Sheol. Finally, a
+method of divination described in a later place (vol. i., pp. 343, 344)
+will be found in Christian's _Histoire de la Magie_.
+
+The artist who has illustrated the memoirs has acted after the same
+manner. The two Baphometic figures (vol. i., pp. 9 and 89), are
+reproductions from Lévi's plates. The Sabbatic figure (_Ib._, p. 153) is
+a modification from Christian. The original idea of the shadow-demon on
+p. 201 will be found in Lévi's sacerdotal hand making the sign of
+esotericism. The four figures of the Palladian urn on p. 313 are
+plagiarised in a similar way. The illustration on p. 337, which purports
+to be a gnostic symbol of the dual divinity, is actually the
+frontispiece to Lévi's _Dogme de la Haute Magie_. The magical urn on p.
+409 is the facsimile of a similar object in another of Lévi's drawings;
+and if it were worth while to continue, the material for a further
+enumeration is not wanting. But these matters, after all, are of
+inferior moment, and to complete the exposure of this witness, I pass to
+the final points of my criticism.
+
+Dr Bataille publishes an alleged Table of High-grade Masonry as it
+existed on March 1, 1891, and this document, which is similar in many
+respects to another of a slightly anterior date, produced by Signor
+Margiotta, is said to have been prepared by Albert Pike himself; it
+includes a long list of the persons then in correspondence with the
+Supreme Dogmatic Directory as Inspectors General "in permanent mission."
+It is a bizarre medley which includes the Orders of the Druids, Mopses,
+Oddfellows, and Mormon Moabites in the same connection as the Ancient
+and Accepted Scotch Rite, the Rites of Memphis and Misraïm, and the
+San-Ho-Hei. As such, it would be, in any case, a large tax upon the
+gullibility of readers outside the back streets of Paris. But I
+determined to make some inquiries among the English names mentioned. For
+example, Mr R. W. Shekleton, to whom I have already referred, is said,
+at the period in question, to have been in official correspondence with
+the Dogmatic Directory, representing the special relations of Ireland,
+and, having drawn his attention to the point, he has furnished me with
+the following contradiction:--"The statement in your letter, taken from
+the book you refer to, that I was in the year '91 in direct
+correspondence with the Supreme Dogmatic Directory of Charleston is
+utterly false. I never even heard of any such Body as the Supreme
+Directory, or of what is called the New and Reformed Palladium. The only
+communication I ever had with General Albert Pike (whom I had never
+seen) was in reference to a question of Masonic procedure in America. So
+far as I am aware the existence of either of the Bodies you refer to is
+unknown to any of the Masonic Body in Ireland, and I can, with almost
+certainty, make the same statement in reference to the English and
+Scotch Masons. Having been for nearly twenty-seven years the Acting Head
+of the Order in Ireland, I can speak with authority, and you are at
+liberty in my name to give the most emphatic contradiction to the
+statements quoted from the book. So far as I am aware, General Pike was
+never anything more than Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme
+Council of the 33rd Southern Jurisdiction of America."
+
+The case of Mr John Yarker, Grand Master of the Memphis Rite in England,
+I have already had occasion to mention, and have cited his explicit
+denial of any acquaintance with the New and Reformed Palladium, but he
+is included by Dr Bataille in his wonderful enumeration. Upon the
+general question, Mr Yarker observes: (a) that the Scottish or Ancient
+and Accepted Rite has nothing occult about it, but the Memphis and
+Misraïm Rites are wholly occultism. (b) That Pike has, however, in his
+lectures added occult matters from these occult Rites. (c) That Pike, as
+a very able man, ruled the whole of the Supreme Grand Councils of the
+33° (Ancient and Accepted), which almost all originated from Charleston.
+(d) That this is the only form in which there can be said to have been a
+Dogmatic Directorate.
+
+In like manner, Mr William Officer of Edinburgh, an initiate of the
+Scotch Rite, Inspector-General of the Supreme Council of the French
+Grand Orient, and Hon. Member of its Grand College of Rites, denies his
+alleged connection with any Central Directory, and has heard nothing of
+such an institution.
+
+I do not conceive that there is any call to fill space by the
+multiplication of these denials, and I need therefore only add that I
+have others equally explicit in my possession. The obvious conclusion is
+that the alleged Table of High-Grade Masonry is a bogus document founded
+on some official lists of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite.
+
+Lastly, there are certain statements made by Dr Bataille which warrant
+the presumption that he could have had little, if any, active
+acquaintance with the Memphis Rite. That he may have purchased a diploma
+from Pessina is probable enough; what I learn of the Grand Master of the
+Neapolitan Sovereign Sanctuary, through sources not tainted like those
+of the witnesses of Lucifer, does not place him wholly above financial
+considerations, but Pessina was, and is, totally unrecognised by any
+Masonic power in the world of Craft Masonry. So far, therefore, from
+such a diploma acting as an _Open Sesame_, it would have sealed all
+doors against its owner, and this statement is true not only for
+ordinary Craft Masonry, but for the great majority of lodges under the
+Misraïm obedience. Dr Bataille would not, therefore, have much
+opportunity for participating in that Rite to which he had purchased
+entrance, and, as a fact, he is wholly ignorant concerning it. For
+example, he seems to represent the Memphis and Misraïm Rites as enjoying
+recognition from the Scotch Rite, and the latter as consciously
+subordinate and inferior, whereas the position is this. Memphis
+recognises the 33° of the Ancient and Accepted as its first steps, and
+places 62 degrees upon them, which are not recognised in return. Misraïm
+also includes the 33° of the Scotch Rite, but in a more irregular
+arrangement, other degrees being interspersed among them. Pessina's
+Misraïm Rite has been reduced by him from 90° to 33°, which are
+virtually those of the Ancient and Accepted Rite approximated to Misraïm
+teaching. So also he states that General Garibaldi was in 1860, and had
+been so for many previous years, the Grand Master and Grand Hierophant
+of the Rite of Memphis for all countries of the globe. This is
+completely untrue, for, as a matter of fact, Garibaldi succeeded
+Jacques Etienne Marconis of Paris, becoming president of a confederation
+of the Rites which was brought about by Mr John Yarker in the year 1881.
+Before this period he was simply an Hon. Grand Master of Pessina's body.
+The articles of this treaty, with a true copy of all the signatures
+attached to it, and with the seals of the Sovereign Sanctuaries against
+them, is before me as I write. I may state, in conclusion, that Dr
+Bataille also falsely represents himself to have met with Mr Yarker, who
+told him that he had personally aspired to the succession at the death
+of Garibaldi, which Mr Yarker characterises as "an infamous concoction."
+
+I am in possession of ample materials for illustrating more fully the
+marvellous inventions produced by this witness of Lucifer, but the
+instalment here given is sufficient for the present purpose.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+DIANA UNVEILED
+
+
+The discovery of Leo Taxil and of M. Ricoux has one remaining witness in
+the person of Miss Diana Vaughan. She also, as we have seen, is a writer
+of memoirs, and in giving some account of her narrative I have already
+indicated in substance certain lines of criticism which might be applied
+with success thereto. We must obviously know more about this lady, and
+have some opportunity of verifying the particulars of her past life
+before we can accept her statement that she has written while fresh from
+"conversion," and is speaking for the first time the language of a
+Christian and a Catholic. The supernatural element of her memoirs it is
+not worth while to discuss. Were she otherwise worthy of credit, we
+might exonerate her personal veracity by assuming that she was tricked
+over the apparition and hallucinated in the vision that followed it, but
+I propose submitting to my readers sufficient evidence to justify a
+conclusion that she does not deserve our credit, and though out of
+deference to her sex it is desirable, so far as may be possible, to
+speak with moderation, I must establish most firmly that the motive she
+betrays in her memoirs is not in many respects preferable to that of the
+previous witness.
+
+It will be advisable, however, to distinguish that part of the narrative
+for which Miss Vaughan is admittedly and personally responsible from
+that which she claims to be derived from her family history. I must
+distinguish between them, not that I am prepared to admit as a
+legitimate consequence of her statement that there is any real
+difference or that I unquestionably regard Miss Vaughan as having
+created a strong presumption that she is in possession of the documents
+which she claims to have. I am simply recognising the classification
+which she may herself be held to make. If in this respect it can be
+shown that I have mistaken the actual position, I will make such
+reparation as may be due from a man of letters, whose reasonable
+indignation in the midst of much imposture will, in such case, have
+misled him. But there is only one course which is open to Miss Vaughan
+in the matter, and that is to produce the original documents on which
+she has based her narrative for the opinion of competent English
+investigators, in which case Miss Vaughan may be held to have
+established not the truth of her family history, which is essentially
+beyond establishment, but her _bona fides_ in connection with its
+relation. After this the portion for which she is personally
+responsible, and from which there is no escape, will still fasten the
+charge of falsehood ineffaceably upon her narrative.
+
+In addition, then, to her personal history, Miss Vaughan's memoirs
+contain:--I. A mendacious biography of the English mystic, Thomas
+Vaughan. II. A secret history of the English Rosicrucian Fraternity, and
+of its connection with Masonry, which is also an impudent fraud. The two
+constitute one of the most curious literary forgeries which are to be
+met with in the whole range of Hermetic literature; and Hermetic
+literature, it is known, has been enriched by many triumphs of
+invention. I shall deal with the narratives plainly on the provisional
+assumption that Miss Vaughan has been herself deceived in regard to
+them. They are based upon family papers said to be now in possession of
+the Charleston Dogmatic Directory. The central facts which are sought to
+be established by means of these papers have been mentioned already in
+my eighth chapter, namely, that Miss Vaughan is one of the two last
+descendants of the alchemist Thomas Vaughan; that this personage made a
+compact with Satan in the year 1645, that under the name of Eirenæus
+Philalethes, he wrote the well-known alchemical work entitled "An Open
+Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King," and that he consummated a
+mystical marriage with Venus-Astarte, of which the Palladian
+Templar-Mistress is the last development. For the purposes of these
+narratives the birth of Thomas Vaughan is placed in the year 1612, and
+his death, or rather translation, in the year 1678. At the age of
+twenty-four years, that is to say, in 1636, he proceeded to London, and
+there connected himself with the mystic Robert Fludd, by whom he was
+initiated into a lower grade of the Rosicrucian Fraternity, and received
+a letter of introduction to the Grand Master, Johann Valentin Andreæ,
+which he took over to Stuttgart and presented. In 1637, having returned
+to London, he was present at the death of Robert Fludd, which occurred
+in that year. In 1638 he made his first voyage to America, where he was
+hospitably entertained by a Protestant minister, named John Cotton, but
+his visit was not characterised by any remarkable occurrence. At this
+period the alchemist is represented by his descendant as a Puritan
+impregnated with the secret doctrine of Robert Fludd. In 1639 Vaughan
+returned to England, but was immediately attracted to Denmark by the
+discovery of a golden horn adorned with mysterious figures, which he and
+his colleagues in alchemy supposed to typify the search for the
+philosophical stone. At the age of twenty-eight, Vaughan made further
+progress in the Rosicrucian Fraternity, being advanced to the grade of
+_Adeptus Minor_ by Amos Komenski, in which year also Elias Ashmole
+entered the order. Accompanied by Komenski, Vaughan proceeded to
+Hamburg, thence by himself to Sweden, and subsequently to the Hague,
+where he initiated Martin de Vriès. A year later he visited Italy, and
+made acquaintance with Berigard de Pisa. This was a pious pilgrimage
+which testified his devotion to Faustus Socinus, for Miss Vaughan, on
+the authority of her documents, regards the Italian heretic, not only as
+a conscious Satanist, but as the founder of the Rosicrucian Society, and
+the initiator of Johann Valentin Andreæ, whom he also won over to
+Lucifer. On his return Thomas Vaughan tarried a short time in France,
+where he conceived the project of organising Freemasonry as it exists at
+the present day, and there also it occurred to him that the guilds of
+the Compagnage might serve him for raw material. When, however, he
+returned to England, he concluded that the honorary or Accepted Masons,
+received by the Masonic guilds of England, were better suited to his
+purpose. Some of these were already Rosicrucians, and among them he set
+to work. In the year 1644 he presided over a Rosicrucian assembly at
+which Ashmole was present. At this time also Oliver Cromwell is said to
+have been an accepted Mason, and it was by his intervention that, a year
+later, Thomas Vaughan was substituted for the headsman at the execution
+of Archbishop Laud, for the object already described. It was after his
+compact with Lucifer that the alchemist wrote the "Open Entrance." His
+activity in the Rosicrucian cause then became prodigious, and the
+followers of Socinus, apparently all implicated in the Satanism of their
+master, began to swell the ranks of the Accepted Masons. At this time
+also he began his collaborations with Ashmole for the composition of the
+Apprentice, Companion, and Master grades, that is to say, for the
+institution of symbolical Masonry. In 1646 he again visited America, and
+consummated his mystic marriage, as narrated in the eighth chapter. In
+1648 he returned to England, and one year later completed the Master
+grade, that of Companion having been produced during his absence, but
+following the indications he had given, by Elias Ashmole. In 1650 he
+began to issue his Rosicrucian and alchemical writings, namely,
+_Anthroposophia Theomagica_ and _Anima Magica Abscondita_, followed by
+_Lumen de Lumine_ and _Aula Lucis_ in 1651. The Rosicrucian Grand Master
+Andreæ died in 1654, and was succeeded by Thomas Vaughan, whose next
+step was the publication of his work, entitled "Euphrates, or the Waters
+of the East." In 1656 he is said to have published the complete works of
+Socinus, two folio volumes in the collection, entitled _Bibliotheca
+Fratrum Polonorum_. Three years later appeared his "Fraternity of R.C.,"
+and in 1664 the _Medulla Alchymiæ_. In 1667 he decided to publish the
+"Open Entrance," the MS. of which was returned to him by the editor
+Langius after printing, and was subsequently annotated in the way I have
+previously mentioned. During the early days of the same year Vaughan
+converted Helvetius, the celebrated physician of the Hague, who in his
+turn became Grand Master of the Rosicrucian Fraternity. In 1668 he
+published his "Experiments with Sophic Mercury" and _Tractatus Tres_,
+while ten years later, or in 1678, the year of his infernal translation,
+he produced his edition of "Ripley Revived" and the _Enarratio Trium
+Gebri_.
+
+From beginning to end, generally and particularly, the narrative I have
+summarised above is a gross and planned imposture, nor would any
+epithets be so severe as to be undeserved by the person who has
+concocted it, because it does outrage to the sacred dead, in particular
+to the greatest of the English spiritual mystics, Thomas Vaughan, and to
+the greatest of the English physical mystics, Eirenæus Philalethes. For
+the mendacious history confuses two entirely distinct persons--Eugenius
+and Eirenæus Philalethes. It is true that this confusion has been made
+frequently, and it is true also that at the beginning of my researches
+into the archæology of Hermetic literature I was one of its victims, for
+which I was sharply brought to book by those who knew better. But a
+young and unassisted investigator, imperfectly equipped, has an excuse
+which will exonerate him at least from a malicious intention. It is
+otherwise with a pretended family history. When documents of this kind
+reproduce blunders which are pardonable to ignorance alone, and upon a
+subject about which two opinions are no longer possible, it is certain
+that such documents are not what they claim; in other words, they have
+been fabricated, and the fabrication of historical papers is essentially
+a work of malice. Furthermore, when such forgeries impeach persons long
+since passed to their account, on the score of unheard of crimes, they
+are the work of diabolical malice, and this is a moderately worded
+judgment on the case now in hand. Thomas Vaughan, otherwise Eugenius
+Philalethes, was born in the year 1621 at Newton, in Brecknockshire. The
+accepted and perfectly correct authority for this statement is the
+_Athenæ Oxonienses_ of Anthony Wood, but he is not the only authority,
+and if he be not good enough for Miss Vaughan, she can take in his place
+the exhaustive researches of the Rev. A. B. Grosart, whose edition of
+the works of the Silurist Henry Vaughan have probably been neither seen
+nor heard of by this unwise woman, in the same way that she is ignorant
+of most essential elements in the matters which she presumes to treat.
+The authority of a laborious scholar like Dr Grosart will probably be of
+greater weight than the foul narrative of a Palladian memoir-maker, who
+has not produced her documents. From this date it follows that in the
+year 1636 Thomas Vaughan was still in the schoolboy period, not even of
+sufficient age to begin a college career. He could not, as alleged, have
+visited Fludd, the illustrious Kentish mystic, in London, nor would he
+have been ripe for initiation, supposing that Fludd could have dispensed
+it. In like manner, Andreæ, assuming that he was Grand Master of the
+Rosicrucians, would not have welcomed a youngster of fifteen years,
+supposing that in those days he was likely to travel from London to
+Stuttgart, but would have recommended him to return to his
+lesson-books. The first voyage to America and all the earlier incidents
+of the narrative are untrue for the same reason. In place of wandering
+through Denmark, the Hague, and Sweden, initiating and being initiated,
+he was drumming through a course at Oxford; in place of pious
+pilgrimages to the shrine of Socinus, he was preparing to take orders in
+the English Church, and the narrative which is untrue to his early is
+untrue also to his later life. After receiving Holy Orders he returned
+to his native village and took over the care of its souls. He was never
+a Puritan; he was never a friend of Cromwell; he was a high-churchman
+and a Royalist, and he was ejected from his living because he was
+accused by political enemies of carrying arms for the king. He never
+travelled; on the contrary, he married, at what period is unknown, but
+his tender devotion to his wife is commemorated on the reverse pages of
+an autograph alchemical MS. now in the British Museum, which belies
+furthermore, in every line and word, the Luciferian imposture of the
+Paris-cum-Yankee documents, by its passionate religious aspiration and
+its adoring love of Christ.
+
+When Vaughan came up to London, it was as a man who was somewhat out of
+joint with English, in spite of his Oxford career, because he was a
+Welsh speaking man, and when he took to writing books, he apologises for
+his awkward diction. He accentuates also his youth, which would be
+warrantable at the age of twenty-eight, but would be absurd in a writer
+approaching forty years. This point may be verified by any one who will
+refer to my edition of Vaughan's _Anthroposophia Theomagica_. The works
+of Thomas Vaughan, besides _Anthroposophia Theomagica_, are _Anima
+Magica Abscondita_, published in 1650; _Magia Adamica_ 1650, apparently
+forgotten by the "authentic documents" of Miss Vaughan, as are also "The
+Man-Mouse" and "The Second Wash, or the Moore scoured once
+More"--satires on Henry More, written in reply to that Platonist, who
+had attacked the previous books. These belong to the year 1651, as also
+does _Lumen de Lumine_; "The Fame and Confession of the Fraternity
+R.C." appeared in 1652, not 1659, as the "family history" affirms; _Aula
+Lucis_, 1652 (not 1651); and "Euphrates," 1655. What is obvious
+everywhere in these priceless little books is the devotion of a true
+mystic to Jesus Christ, and to gift them with the sordid interpretation
+of a French-born cultus of Lucifer is about as possible as to attribute
+a Christian intention to the calumnies of Miss Vaughan's documents.
+
+In the year 1665, at the house of the rector of Albury, a chemical
+experiment with mercury cost the Welsh alchemist his life, and he was
+buried in the churchyard of that village in Oxfordshire.
+
+It is clear, therefore, that the wonderful archives in the possession of
+Miss Vaughan give a bogus history of Eugenius Philalethes, but they are
+also untrue of Eirenæus. It is untrue that this mysterious adept, whose
+identity has never been disclosed, was born in 1612; he was born some
+ten years later.
+
+The source of both dates is "The Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of
+the King"; but that which Miss Vaughan champions is based upon a
+corrupt reading in a bad version, and she has evidently never seen the
+original and best of the Latin impressions, that of Langius, though she
+has the presumption to cite it. That edition establishes that he wrote
+the treatise in the year 1645, he being then in the twenty-third year of
+his age--whence it follows that the date of his birth was most probably
+1622, and the history with which he is invested by Miss Vaughan is again
+a misfit; it is putting man's garments on a boy. Furthermore, there is
+not one item in her statements concerning the "Open Entrance" which is
+not directly and provably false. It was not printed, as she indicates,
+under the supervision of the author; it was not printed from the
+original MS., nor was that MS. returned to Philalethes after it had
+passed through the press. It is shameful for any person, male or female,
+however little they may consider their own fair fame, to so far violate
+the canons of literary honour as to make dogmatic statements concerning
+a work which they cannot have seen. The preface prefixed to this
+edition by Langius completely refutes Miss Vaughan. Here is a passage in
+point:--"Truly who or what kind of person was author of this sweet,
+must-like work, I know no more than he who is most ignorant, nor, since
+he himself would conceal his name, do I think fit to enquire so far,
+lest I get his displeasure." Again--"To pick out the roses from the most
+thorny bushes of writings, and to make the elixir of philosophers by his
+own industry, without any tutor, and at twenty-three years of age, this
+perchance hath been granted to none, or to most few hitherto." Langius,
+moreover, laments explicitly the fact that he did not print from an
+original MS. He printed from a Latin translation, the work of an unknown
+hand, which had come into his possession, as he tells us, from a man who
+was learned in such matters. Miss Vaughan's pretended autograph, with
+its despicable marginal readings, is obviously a Latin copy, whatever be
+its history otherwise. The original was in English, and when Langius was
+regretting its loss, "a transcript, probably written from the author's
+copy, or very little corrupted," was in possession of the bookseller
+William Cooper, of Little Saint Bartholomews, near Little Britain, in
+the city of London, who published it in the year 1669, to correct the
+imperfections in the edition of Amsterdam. This transcript also
+establishes that the "Open Entrance" was penned when the author was in
+his twenty-third year.
+
+As a matter of fact, Philalethes does not appear to have superintended
+the publication of any of his writings, and here Miss Vaughan again
+exhibits her unpardonable ignorance concerning the works with which she
+is dealing. To prove that her reputed ancestor was alive after the
+accepted date of Thomas Vaughan's death, she triumphantly observes that
+in the year 1668 he published his experiments on the preparation of
+Sophic Mercury and _Tractatus Tres_. But the latter volume was a piracy,
+for in his preface to "Ripley Revived" the author expressly laments that
+two of its three treatises had passed out of his hands, and he feared
+lest they should get into print, because they were imperfect works
+preceding the period of solid knowledge which produced the "Open
+Entrance." Again, so little was he consulted over the appearance of the
+"Sophic Mercury" that the printer represents it as the work of an
+American philosopher, whence it has been fathered upon George Starkey.
+
+Eirenæus Philalethes was undoubtedly a great traveller and he visited
+America, but there is no ground for supposing that he was ever in Italy,
+and that either he or Thomas Vaughan edited the works of Socinus is an
+ignorant fiction, for which even Miss Vaughan can find no better warrant
+than the evasive place of publication which figures on the title-page of
+the _Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum_, namely, Eirenæopolis. In like
+manner she erroneously credits him with the authorship of the _Medulla
+Alchemiæ_, which is the work of Eirenæus Philoponos Philalethes,
+otherwise George Starkey.
+
+These facts fully establish the fraudulent nature of Miss Vaughan's
+family history, by whomsoever it has been devised, and seeing that where
+it is possible to check it, it breaks down at every point, we need have
+no hesitation in rejecting the information which it provides in those
+cases where it cannot be brought to book. The connection of Faustus
+Socinus with the Rosicrucian Fraternity, as founder, is one instance;
+this is merely an extension of the imposture of Abbé Lefranc in his
+"Veil Raised for the Curious," and it rests, like its original, on no
+evidence which can be traced. Another is the Rosicrucian Imperatorship
+of Andreæ, and yet another the initiation of Robert Fludd. Again, the
+connection of Philalethes with John Frederick Helvetius is based on
+speculation only, and that of Ashmole with the institution of symbolical
+Masonry has never been more than hypothesis, and not very deserving at
+that. I regret to add that, on the authority of her bogus documents,
+Miss Vaughan has given currency to a rumour that the founder of the
+Ashmolean Museum poisoned his first wife. She deserves the most severe
+reprobation for having failed to test her materials before she made
+public this foul slander. Furthermore, in that portion of her materials
+which is concerned with her family history, she is not above tampering
+with the sense of printed books. The worshippers of Lucifer are
+represented as invariably terming their divinity the "good God"--_Dieu
+bon_,--or our God--_notre Dieu_--to distinguish him from the God of the
+Adonaïtes, and the references made to the Deity by Philalethes in the
+"Open Entrance" she falsely translates by these Luciferian equivalents,
+thus creating an impression in the minds of the ignorant that he is not
+speaking of the true Divinity. After this it will hardly surprise my
+readers that a pretended translation from a MS. of Gillermet de
+Beauregard, which she states to be preserved in the archives of the
+Sovereign Patriarchal Council of Hamburg, is simply stolen from an
+_Instruction à la France sur la vérité de l'Histoire des Frères de la
+Roze-Croix_, by Gabriel Naudé, who ridiculed and reviled the Order. I
+submit in conclusion that, in view of the facts already elicited, it is
+not worth while to inquire into the value of the episode concerned with
+the judicial murder of Archbishop Laud, and to elaborately argue that
+Oliver Cromwell was the last person in England to be implicated in such
+a transaction, he, at the period in question, being briskly employed in
+checkmating his King, who was at Oxford in winter quarters, and having
+neither the power nor opportunity to meddle with the details of an
+execution. The incident, in a word, is worth as much and as little as
+the abominable story of the subsequent pact with Lucifer or the foolery
+of the mystic marriage.
+
+The critical investigation of Miss Vaughan's alleged documents having
+led to these results, it remains to be seen how far the other portions
+of her narrative will bear analysis. So long as she confined the more
+responsible part of her memoirs to personal experiences in the science
+of conversion and to the relation of her Eucharistic raptures, the
+lovers of ardent reading in this order of sensation were the only
+persons who could lay a complaint against her if she failed to fulfil
+their requirements. So long also as she fixed the scene of her history
+in a comparatively remote place, and among men now dead, she was
+partially protected from exposure, but when she transfers her
+revelations to England she is treading on dangerous ground, and she has
+in fact fallen into the pit. She has had the temerity to meddle with the
+modern history of Rosicrucian societies, and has undertaken to inform
+her readers after what manner she has come into possession of the
+rituals of the revived Rosicrucian Order, and her account is
+specifically untrue. She is undoubtedly acquainted with the grades of
+the order, but she could have obtained these from more than one
+published source--as, for example, the late Kenneth McKenzie's
+"Cyclopædia of Freemasonry," or from my own "Real History of the
+Rosicrucians." But even if she possess the rituals, she has not come by
+them in the manner she describes. Her account is as follows:--"The
+Fraternity of the Rose-Cross comprises nine degrees of initiation--1.
+Zelator; 2. Theoricus; 3. Practicus (Miss Vaughan writes _Praticus_,
+which would be the error of a French person who does not read Latin and
+not the error of an English or American person as she claims to be); 4.
+Philosophus; 5. Adeptus Minor, according to the variants of Valentin
+Andreæ, or Adeptus Junior, according to the variants of Nick Stone
+(those were the variants of Nick Stone which were ostensibly burned in
+1720 by the Grand Master Theophilus Desaguliers, but were not in reality
+destroyed; transmitted to trusty English brethren, after the death of
+Desaguliers, they passed from reliable hands to others also reliable,
+until the reconstitution of the Rose-Cross; for the reconstituted
+association exists actually in England, Scotland, the United States, and
+Canada, and those variants of the grades which were made by Nick Stone,
+are at the present day deposited with Doctor W. W. W., living at Cambden
+(_sic_) Road, London, Supreme Magus of the Rose-Cross for England, AT
+WHOSE HOUSE I HAVE TRANSCRIBED THEM); 6. Adeptus Major; 7. Adeptus
+Exemptus; 8. Magister Templi; 9. Magus."
+
+Miss Vaughan's literary methods are not exactly captivating, and the
+enormous parenthesis is hers, but the capitals which close it are mine.
+The English doctor mentioned is well known to transcendentalists, and he
+is actually a high-grade Mason; he is also personally well-known to
+myself. To the best of his recollection he has never at any time met any
+person terming herself Diana Vaughan. More especially, no such
+individual has ever called at his house, much less copied any rituals of
+which he may be in possession. There is therefore only one term by which
+it is possible to qualify Miss Vaughan in her account of this matter,
+and if I refrain from applying it, it is more out of literary grace than
+from considerations of gallantry, for when persons of the opposite sex
+elect to make themselves odious by gross imposition, they cannot expect
+to escape the legitimate consequences at the hands of criticism any more
+than another class of female malefactors will escape on the plea of
+their sex at the hand of justice.
+
+The subject of Luciferian Freemasonry has been under discussion in the
+columns of _Light_ long before the appearance of this volume, and a
+number of transcendentalists, including one of great eminence--Mr
+Charles Carleton Massey--a few high-grade Masons, and myself, have
+exposed the pretensions of the French conspiracy. In most cases, and by
+more than one person, copies of the various issues were sent to Miss
+Vaughan through her publisher, and if she be not, as I hinted in that
+journal, the Mrs Harris of Freemasonry, there is little doubt that they
+reached her like other friendly offerings which she acknowledges in odd
+corners of her memoirs. It is probably in consequence of the exposures
+made in _Light_ in connection with others said to have been made
+recently in Canada that in the eighth number of her memoirs she
+threatens to turn somewhat desperately on her critics. I understand that
+the Australian boomerang is a weapon that comes back to its caster, and
+the vindictive feeling which has prompted Miss Vaughan to a fresh burst
+of revelation has returned upon herself in a very overwhelming manner.
+"I am driven, and I will do it," is her position. "I will reveal the
+English Palladists such as they actually and personally are." And she
+does so to her own destruction as follows:--
+
+"The actual chief of the English Luciferians is Doctor William Wynn
+Westcott, living at 396 Cambden Road, London, whom on a previous
+occasion I mentioned only by his initials. It is he who is the actual
+custodian of the diabolical rituals of Nick Stone; it is he who is the
+Supreme Magus of the Socinian Rose-Cross for England." She proceeds to
+give the names of the Senior and Junior Sub-Magi, the members of the
+Grand Council, the chiefs of what she terms the Third Luciferian Order,
+and the Masters of the Temple, otherwise the Metropolitan College.
+Similar particulars follow concerning the York College, the College of
+Newcastle-on-Tyne, and that of Edinburgh.
+
+Now, Dr Wynn Westcott is a high-grade Mason, as I have said, and he
+occupies a professional position of influence and importance; it is
+clear that a gratuitous attempt to fasten upon him charges of an odious
+character is an exceedingly evil proceeding and places the person who
+does so outside all limits of tender consideration. When Miss Vaughan
+states that Dr Westcott is a Palladist, a diabolist, a worshipper of
+Lucifer, or however she may elect to distinguish it, I reply that she is
+guilty of a gross libel, which is at the same time an abominable and
+cruel falsehood. When she says that she has been received at his house,
+I reply that she has not been received there, and that Dr Westcott is
+likely to require better credentials from female visitors than are
+supplied by the infamous inventions in the "Memoirs of an Ex-Palladist."
+When Miss Vaughan affirms that she has transcribed Dr Westcott's rituals
+at the house of Dr Westcott, I reply that this would be an untrue
+statement if the lady who made it were an intimate friend, and it is
+doubly untrue when affirmed by a perfect stranger. When Miss Vaughan
+states that Dr Westcott is the head of a Society which worships Lucifer,
+I reply that she is speaking falsely of a body concerning which she is
+in complete ignorance, and when an ignorant person thus attributes evil
+she or he does not only act foolishly but with exceeding malice. Miss
+Vaughan is henceforth upon all accounts outside that category of
+literary honour which makes it possible for criticism to be concerned
+with her and still preserve its dignity. Lastly, Miss Vaughan alleges
+that the official appointments made by Dr Westcott as Supreme Magus of
+the Society in question for the year 1896 were submitted to Adriano
+Lemmi and approved by him. This allegation is false _in toto_. Neither
+in a general nor a special sense is Dr Westcott responsible to Lemmi or
+to any Italian Freemason; what is more, no personal or written
+communication has at any time passed between them, and save as a past
+Grand Master Dr Westcott has never heard of the person to whose commands
+he is thus supposed to be subject. It will be seen that the baseless
+nature of this absurd statement involves all others of its kind, and
+there is no reason to attach the slightest credibility to anything which
+has been advanced concerning the supreme position of Adriano Lemmi, who,
+further, himself denies it, and, whatever his past history, is as much
+entitled to belief as accusers who betray their true character in this
+unenviable manner.
+
+The Society which has thus been attacked in the person of its Supreme
+Magus is of singularly unpretending nature, simple as regards its
+history, and making no claim either to Masonic or Mystical importance.
+It does not claim or possess a connection with the original Rosicrucian
+Fraternity. It does not attribute antiquity to the rituals which it
+uses. It was founded by Robert Wentworth Little, who died in 1878, and
+has been in existence somewhat less than forty years. Its sole
+connection with Masonry is that it only initiates Masons. It neither
+enjoys nor expects recognition from the Grand Lodge of England. It is
+literary and antiquarian in its object, and came into existence chiefly
+for the study of the history of Freemasonry and of other secret
+societies. Its members are required to believe in the fundamental
+principles of Christian doctrine. The Metropolitan College has only four
+convocations and one banquet annually; the number of Fratres upon the
+Roll of Subscribers is fifty-four. It has attracted Masons interested in
+the antiquities of their craft and has no other sphere of influence. It
+publishes occasional transactions, the dimensions of which are regulated
+by an exceedingly modest income. I mention many of these particulars
+merely to place a check upon exaggerated notions. Some of the provincial
+Colleges have a larger membership, but they are of precisely the same
+character. It is not a society of occultists, though, like innumerable
+other bodies, it counts occultists among its brethren. Finally, no
+religious cultus of any kind is performed at its meetings, and no woman
+has ever passed its threshold.
+
+The Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia is Rosicrucian only in its name, as
+it is Masonic only in its name, and its members are not Miss Vaughan's
+_ex-Frères d'Angleterre_.
+
+It is certainly and in all respects necessary that something effectual
+should be done to curb a slanderous and evil tongue which has the
+audacity to impress the most sacred feelings of religion into the
+service of wilful lying. Dr Westcott is not the only English Mason who
+has suffered the undeserved indignity of gross aspersion from this
+unclean pen. Another victim is Mr Robert S. Brown, Grand Secretary of
+the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland, who is also a member
+of the Ancient and Accepted Rite, and of nearly all Masonic Orders, the
+Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia included. This honourable gentleman is
+especially recommended by Miss Vaughan to the attention of Catholics in
+Edinburgh, being the city in which he resides. She describes him as a
+dangerous sectarian, a veritable sorcerer, and the evil genius of one of
+her own relatives. She states further that he is an Elect Magus of the
+Palladium, that he protects Sophia Walder when she visits Scotland, and
+that he was a great admirer of Phileas Walder, at whose instance he
+consecrated himself to the demon anti-Christ. In each and all these
+statements this malicious woman has lied foully. I communicated with Mr
+Brown on the subject, and hold his written denials, which are at the
+service of any person who desires to see them. Mr Brown says:--"I am not
+an Elect Magus of the Palladium. I never to my knowledge saw Miss
+Walder, and never knew Miss Vaughan, or anyone of the name, man, woman,
+or child. I never heard Miss Walder named till I received your letter,
+and never knew of the existence of the Palladian Order, if it does
+exist, till I saw it mentioned in articles in 'Light' and the
+'Freemason's Chronicle' (London).... With reference to the particular
+statements in this copy of the _Mémoires_, no doubt the writer has
+succeeded in getting hold of the facts in most cases as to the official
+positions of the parties named, which of course are easily obtained; the
+little details regarding some of us would indicate the presence of an
+agent in our midst or near at hand. The 'inventions' and most slanderous
+statements regarding most of us are, however, outrageously false and
+wicked. My house has never had the honour(!!!) of entertaining Miss
+Walder or any other lady of like character; it is not a chemical
+laboratory, and I have never exercised myself in these _mysterious
+experiences_ either there or elsewhere. I am a humble member of the
+Episcopal Church of Scotland, and, I trust, a sincere follower of the
+Master.... I count nearly all the gentlemen named in this vile
+proclamation among my friends, they are all good men and true, and I
+hope to associate with them for many years to come. I most emphatically
+deny the vile aspersions cast on their characters and my own, and you
+have my full authority to do so as far as the same may serve your
+purpose." My readers will agree that the clear and temperate statement
+of Mr R. S. Brown brands Diana Vaughan with indelible disgrace in the
+eyes of the civilised world.
+
+There is a limit to the necessity of exposure, but should Miss Vaughan
+manifest any desire to have further instances of her mis-statements I
+will undertake to supply them. I will only add here in conclusion my
+personal opinion that Miss Vaughan has not been for any length of time a
+resident in an English-speaking country, much less can she have
+received, as it is alleged by some of her friends, an American
+education. The proof is that she makes characteristic French blunders
+over English names. Thus, we have _Cambden_ on each occasion for Camden,
+_Wescott_ for Westcott; we have _baronnet_ for baronet, _Cantorbéry_ for
+Canterbury, _Kirkud-Bright_ for Kirkcudbright; we have hybrid
+combinations like _Georges_ Dickson, impossibilities like _Tiers-Ordre
+Luciferien d'Honoris Causa_, and numerous similar instances.
+
+To behold "Diana unveiled" was equivalent in alchemical terminology to
+attaining the _magnum opus_. The reputed author of the "New Light of
+Alchemy" testifies that some persons had in his own day and to his
+certain knowledge attained this supreme privilege. It is not of my own
+seeking if in another sense I have made public the same spectacle, and
+thus broken with the traditions of secret science. It would have been
+preferable from one point of view to have discovered Lucifer behind the
+mask of Masonry than to have found the conspiracy against it another
+_Tableau des Inconstances des Démons_ in which the _infidelité et
+mécreance_ connected with the old false witness, abound after a manner
+undreamed of by Bodin and Wierus, for it is distinctly disconcerting to
+think that a great church is so little honoured by her combatants and
+converts.
+
+It only remains to state, and I do so with extreme reluctance, that the
+evidence of Signor Domenico Margiotta, which seems so strong in itself,
+can only be accepted, as we have seen, in connection with the
+credibility of Miss Vaughan, and as this has completely broken down, we
+cannot do otherwise than regard that part of his evidence which is
+concerned with Palladism as the narrative of a person who has been very
+seriously misled. And I think he has otherwise shown us that he is not a
+judicious critic of the materials which have come into his hands. He
+should never, for example, have printed his list of Palladian Lotus
+Lodges--so far as regards Great Britain, it is undeniably a false list.
+Take that of Edinburgh as a typical instance. Mr Brown, who has every
+opportunity of knowing, tells me there is absolutely no truth in the
+statement that there is in Edinburgh a Mother, or any, Lodge of the
+Palladian Order. "Neither is there a Triangular Province--whatever that
+may mean--such as is described. All is absolutely false."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE RADIX OF MODERN DIABOLISM
+
+
+We have finished with the witnesses of Lucifer, and I think that the
+search-light of a drastic criticism has left them in considerable
+disarray. We approach the limit of the present inquiry, but before
+summing up and presenting such a general statement or conclusion as may
+be warranted by the facts, there is one point, left over hereunto, and
+designed for final consideration, because it appeals more exclusively to
+professed transcendentalists, which it will be necessary to treat
+briefly. I have already indicated that sporadic revivals of black magic
+have occasionally been heard of by mystics here in England, and from
+time to time we have also heard vaguely of obscure assemblies of
+Luciferians. Quite recently an interview with Papus, the French
+occultist, published in _Light_, mentions a society which was devoted to
+the cultus of Lucifer, star of the morning, quite distinct from Masonry,
+quite unimportant, and since very naturally dead. Now, a large
+proportion of mystics here in England are High-Grade Masons, and if a
+society of the Palladium had extended to anything remotely approaching
+the proportions alleged, they could not have failed to know of it. I
+will go further and affirm that our non-Masonic transcendental
+associations have abundant opportunities to become acquainted with
+institutions similar to their own, and it is preposterous to suppose
+that there could be several Palladian triangles working their degrees in
+this country without our being aware of the fact. But we have not been
+aware of it, and our only informations concerning Palladism have come to
+us from France. We do not accept these informations; we know that the
+persons here in England who are alleged by French false witnesses to be
+connected with the Palladium are not so connected, and are now learning
+of it for the first time. The statements concerning Mr John Yarker are
+categorically untrue; the gross calumny published by the "converted"
+Diana Vaughan about Dr Wynn Westcott, who happens to be a High-Grade
+Mason, she will never dare to come forth from her "retreat" and
+re-affirm within the jurisdiction of these islands, because she knows
+well that a British jury would make a large demand upon her reputed
+American dollars. Let us, however, put aside for the moment the
+mendacities and forgeries which complicate the question of Lucifer, and
+let us approach Palladism from an altogether different side. I believe
+that I may speak with a certain accent of authority upon any question
+which connects with the French magus Éliphas Lévi. I am an old student
+of his works, and of the aspects of occult science and magical history
+which arise out of them; in the year 1886 I published a digest of his
+writings which has been the only attempt to present them to English
+readers until the present year when I have undertaken a translation _in
+extenso_ of the _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie_, which is actually
+in the hands of the printer. Now, it has not been alleged in so many
+words that the radix of Modern Diabolism and the Masonic cultus of
+Lucifer is to be found in Éliphas Lévi, but that is the substance of the
+charge. Most, or all, of the witnesses agree in representing him as an
+atrocious Satanist, an invoker of Lucifer, a celebrater of black masses,
+and an adept in the practical blasphemies of Eucharistic sacrilege; all
+of them father either upon the Palladium or upon Pike a variety of
+documents containing gross thefts from Lévi; some of them, directly and
+upon their own responsibility, cite passages from his works, always with
+conspicuous bad faith. Finally, they agree in connecting him with the
+foundation of the New and Reformed Palladium through his alleged
+disciple Phileas Walder; and one of them goes so far as to say that
+Palladism was a further development or restoration of a Satanic society
+directed by Éliphas Lévi and operating his theurgic system, which he in
+turn, if I rightly understand the mixed hypothesis of M. de la Rive, may
+have derived from the Palladic rite of 1730. If we accept for the
+moment this origin of the reformed order, it will follow that if the
+occult doctrines of Éliphas Lévi have been seriously misunderstood or
+grossly defamed by the witnesses, the diabolical or Luciferian
+connection of Palladism does not wear the complexion which has been
+ascribed to it. It is represented as: (a) outwardly Masonic, and (b)
+actually theurgic. (c) It is Manichæan in doctrine. (d) It regards
+Lucifer as an eternal principle co-existent, but in a hostile sense,
+with Adonaï. (e) It holds that the beneficent deity is Lucifer, while
+Adonaï is malevolent; (f) Certain sections of Palladists, however,
+recognise that Lucifer is identical with Satan, and is the evil
+principle. (g) This section adores the evil principle as such. Now, in
+each and all these matters the Palladian system conflicts with that of
+Lévi.
+
+To give a colourable aspect to their hypothesis, the witnesses affirm
+that Lévi was a high-grade Mason. He was nothing of the kind; he affirms
+most distinctly in his "History of Magic," that for any knowledge which
+he possessed about the mysteries of the fraternity, he owed his
+initiation only to God and to his individual studies. Secondly, the
+practice of ceremonial magic, which is what the witnesses understand by
+theurgy, is a practice condemned by Lévi, except as an isolated
+experiment to fortify intellectual conviction as to the truth of magical
+theorems. He attempted it for this purpose in the spring of the year
+1854, and having satisfied himself as to the fact, he did not renew it.
+Thirdly, the philosophy of Éliphas Lévi is in direct contrast to
+Manichæan doctrine; it cannot be explained by dualism, but must be
+explained by its opposite, namely, triplicity in unity. He shows that
+"the unintelligent disciples of Zoroaster have divided the duad without
+referring it to unity, thus separating the pillars of the temple, and
+seeking to halve God" (_Dogme_, p. 129, 2nd edition). Is that a
+Manichæan doctrine? Again: "If you conceive the Absolute as two, you
+must immediately conceive it as three to recover the unity principle"
+(_Ibid._). Once more: "Divinity, one in its essence, has two fundamental
+conditions of being--necessity and liberty" (_Ibid._, p. 127). And yet
+again: "If God were one only, He would never be Creator nor Father. If
+He were two, there would be antagonism or division in the infinite, and
+this would be severance or death for every possible existence; He is
+therefore three for the creation by Himself, and in His image of the
+infinite multitude of beings and numbers. Thus He is really one in
+Himself and triple in our conception, by which we also behold Him triple
+in Himself and one in our intelligence and in our love. This is a
+mystery for the faithful and a logical necessity for the initiate of the
+absolute and true sciences" (_Ibid._, p. 138). And the witnesses of
+Lucifer have the effrontery to represent Lévi as a dualist! I will not
+discredit their understanding by supposing that they could misread so
+plain a principle, nor dissemble my full conviction that they acted with
+intentional bad faith. Fourthly, Éliphas Lévi regarded Lucifer as a
+conception of transcendental mythology, and the devil as an impossible
+fiction, or an inverted and blasphemous conception of God--divinity _à
+rebours_. He describes the Ophite heresy which offered adoration to the
+serpent and the Caïnite heresy which justified the revolt of the first
+angel and the first murderer as errors fit for classification with the
+monstrous idols of the anarchic symbolism of India (_Rituel_, pp. 13,
+14). Is that diabolism? Is that the cultus of Lucifer? True, Lévi did
+not believe in the personal existence of a father of lies, and if it be
+Satanism not to do so, let us be content to diabolise with Lévi while
+the false witnesses illustrate the methods of their father.
+
+It is unnecessary to multiply quotations, but here is one more: "The
+author of this book is a Christian like you; his faith is that of a
+Catholic deeply and strongly convinced; therefore his mission is not to
+deny dogmas, but to combat impiety under one of its most dangerous
+forms, that of erroneous belief and superstition.... Away with the idol
+which hides our Saviour! Down with the tyrant of falsehood! Down with
+the black god of the Manichæans! Down with the Ahriman of the old
+idolaters! Live God alone and His incarnate Logos, Jesus the Christ,
+Saviour of the world, who beheld Satan precipitated from heaven!" Go to,
+M. le Docteur Bataille! _À bas_, Signor Margiotta! Phi, diabolus and Leo
+Taxil!
+
+Seeing then that Éliphas Lévi has been calumniously represented, and
+that he was not a Satanist, he could not have founded a Satanic society,
+nor could a Manichæan order have been developed out of his doctrines.
+Hence if a Palladian Society do exist at Charleston, it either owes
+nothing to Lévi, or its cultus has been falsely described. In other
+words, from whatever point we approach the witnesses of Lucifer, they
+are subjected to a rough unveiling. In the words of the motto on my
+title, the first in this plot was Lucifer--_videlicet_, the Father of
+Lies!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+It remains for us now to appreciate the exact position in which the
+existence of the Palladian Order is left after all suspicious
+information has been subtracted. We have examined in succession the
+testimony of every witness to the discovery of Leo Taxil and M. Adolphe
+Ricoux, and it has been made entirely evident that they are of a most
+unsatisfactory kind. I make no pretence to pass a precise judgment upon
+Leo Taxil, for I am not in a position to prove that the Palladian
+rituals which appear in "Are there Women in Freemasonry?" can be
+characterised as invented matter. Granting his personal good faith,
+there are still many obvious questions, one of which is the connection
+between the Palladians and Masonry. As regards the so-called Paris
+triangle, from which the information was obtained, as regards the
+ritual itself, there is obviously no such connection, except the
+fantastic and arbitrary rule that initiation is imparted exclusively to
+persons possessed of Masonic degrees. It is patent that such an
+institution is not Masonic, though it possesses some secrets of Masonry.
+The Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, as we have seen, is an association
+based upon precisely the same regulation, but it has no official
+position. Should a circle of Catholic priests conspire for the formation
+of a society dedicated to black magic and the celebration of the Satanic
+mass, that would not be the Church diabolising. No institution, and no
+society, is responsible for the unauthorised acts of individual members.
+At the same time, if it should be advanced by hostile criticism that the
+invention of rituals is easy, and that the literary antecedents of Leo
+Taxil are not precisely of that kind which would lead any cautious
+person to place blind confidence in his unchecked statements, I am
+compelled to say that I should find considerable difficulty in
+challenging such a position.
+
+Mgr. Meurin, the next witness, deserves, by his position and ability,
+our very sincere respect; compared with the octogenarian sentimentalism
+of Jean Kostka, the violence of Signor Margiotta, and the paste-pot of
+M. de la Rive, one breathes _à pleine poitrine_ in the altitudes of
+ecclesiastical erudition, artificial as their eminence turns out; the
+art sacerdotal does not concern itself with preposterous narratives, so
+that it disputes nothing with the art of Bataille; it has never stood in
+need of conversion, and hence is exempt from the hysterical ardours and
+languors of Diana Vaughan. But the archbishop's interpretation of
+Masonry is based upon another interpretation of Kabbalistic literature,
+which can be accepted by no person who is acquainted therewith, and
+would have scarcely been attempted by himself if he had known it at
+first hand. In the matter of Palladian Masonry, he can tell us only what
+he has learned from Ricoux.
+
+It is agreed upon all sides that we dismiss Dr Bataille. He does not
+disclose the name and nation which he adopted during his Masonic career,
+and hence the persons whom he states that he met are, with one
+exception, not in a position to contradict him, because they are not in
+a position to identify him. The personality of the one exception is not
+particularised, but may be guessed without the exercise of much skill in
+divination, and here I must leave the point, not because I am
+disinclined to speak plainly and thus risk the possibility of being
+mistaken, but because Dr Bataille informs us that this one confidant is
+in his power, and that he could procure for him or her a term of penal
+servitude. Lastly, he is not in a position to exhibit his Palladian
+diplomas, which were demanded by the dispensing authorities when he
+first fell under their suspicion and have not been returned to him.
+While we are therefore prevented from checking his affirmations in what
+most concerns our inquiry, we see that at all points where it is
+possible to control him he has completely broken down; the miraculous
+element of his narrative transcends credit, and his statements upon a
+multitude of ordinary matters of fact are beneath it. When we connect
+these points with the mode of publication he has seen fit to adopt, and
+remember the kind of motive which usually attaches to that mode, we have
+no other course but to set him entirely outside consideration. His book
+is evidentially valuable only to close the question. He may have visited
+Charleston; he may have made the personal acquaintance of Albert Pike,
+Gallatin Mackey, Phileas Walder, and his daughter Sophia; three of these
+persons are dead and cannot testify; the fourth acknowledges that he
+attended her medically at Naples; she protests against his betrayal, but
+she does not betray in return his Masonic identity, though I need
+scarcely add that she does not substantiate his statements. On these
+points my readers may be reasonably left to form their own judgments.
+
+Miss Diana Vaughan is a lady who, in spite of much notoriety, is not in
+evidence; with one exception no credible person has ever said that he
+has seen her; that exception is Signor Margiotta. It would not, however,
+be the strongest line of criticism to dispute her existence; we may
+accept very gladly all that her Italian friend is good enough to say in
+regard to her personal characteristics, but we know that she has tried
+to deceive us, with conspicuous ill-success it is true, yet in a gross
+and most wicked manner. As to Signor Margiotta himself, with all his
+imperfections, he is the strongest witness to the discovery of Leo
+Taxil. I have admitted the great apparent force which belongs to his
+enormous array of documentary evidence, and I have established the
+nature of the complications which make that evidence extremely difficult
+to accept.
+
+Lastly, Jean Kostka and M. A. C. de la Rive, though they came within the
+scope of our inquiry, are not Palladian witnesses. It would appear,
+therefore, that Leo Taxil and M. Adolphe Ricoux are, for the most part,
+neither honoured in their witnesses nor in a position to stand alone.
+The evidence which has grown out of their discovery is in an exceedingly
+corrupt state, and in summing the Question of Lucifer, as an impartial
+critic, I shall therefore simply propose to my readers the following
+general statement:--In the year 1891, Leo Taxil and M. Adolphe Ricoux
+state that they have discovered certain documents which show the
+existence of a Palladian Society, claimed to be at the head of Masonry,
+and in the year 1895 Signor Domenico Margiotta states that he belonged
+to that society and gives further particulars concerning it. A number of
+other witnesses have also come forward whose evidence must, for various
+reasons, be completely rejected. It is in all respects much to be
+deplored that Signor Margiotta has largely and approvingly cited the
+testimony of two of these witnesses who are most open to condemnation,
+and that he has himself exercised an imperfect and uncritical censorship
+over papers which have come into his hands. From first to last all
+documents are open to strong suspicion.
+
+Such is the slender residue which results from this sifting of Lucifer;
+if I have made my final statement thus indeterminate in its character,
+it is because I wish my readers to form their own conclusions as to Leo
+Taxil and Domenico Margiotta, and because I believe that, before long,
+further evidence will be forthcoming. I have little personal doubt as to
+the ultimate nature of the verdict, but at the present stage of the
+inquiry, with all the exposures which I have had the satisfaction of
+making fresh and clear in my mind, I would dissuade any one from saying
+that there is "nothing in" the Question of Lucifer; it is at least
+obvious that there is no end to its impostures, in which respect I do
+not claim to have done more than trim the fringes of the question. It is
+not therefore closed, and, if I may so venture to affirm, it assumes a
+fresh interest with the appearance of this book. It deserves to rank
+among the most extraordinary literary swindles of the present, perhaps
+of any, century. The field which it covers is enormous, and there is
+room, and more than room, for a score of other investigators who will
+none fail of their reward. Within the limits of a moderate volume, it is
+impossible to take into account the whole of the issues involved, while
+the importance which is to be attributed to the subject should not be
+lightly regarded, seeing that in France, at the time of writing, it
+provides an apparently remunerative circulation to two monthly reviews,
+and that its literature is otherwise still growing. At the present
+moment, and for the purposes of this criticism, a few concluding
+statements alone remain to be made; they concern the position of Italy
+in connection with the so-called Universal Masonry, some aspects of the
+history of the Scotch Rite in connection with the recent revelations,
+and the interference of the Catholic Church, wisely or not, in the
+question.
+
+The one Mason whose rank corresponds in Italy to that of Albert Pike in
+America is not Adriano Lemmi, but Signor Timoteo Riboli, Sovereign Grand
+Commander of the 33rd and last degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch
+Rite. Adriano Lemmi is, or was, Grand Master of the Craft Section of
+Italy and Deputy Grand Commander only of the Supreme Council of Italy of
+the 33°. The pretended Grand Central Directory of Naples, which governs
+all Europe in the interests of Charleston, with Giovanni Bovio for
+Sovereign Director, is a Masonic myth--_pace_ Signor Margiotta. Signor
+Bovio is a Member of the Grand Master's Council and a 33° at Rome. There
+is a Neapolitan Section of the Ancient and Accepted Rite, but it has
+powers only up to the 30°, and as such has no authority in general
+government, nor does Bovio appear to be a member of the Neapolitan
+section, though as a member of Lemmi's Council, and a 33°, he no doubt
+has his share in the government of the Neapolitans.
+
+The history of the Ancient and Accepted Rite as given by Signor
+Margiotta and sketched in my second chapter is an incorrect history. The
+facts are as follows:--A person named Isaac Long was engaged in
+propagating the French Rite of Perfection of 25° in America before 1796;
+in that year he gave the degrees to one de Grasse and also to de la
+Hogue, who established a Consistory of the 25° at Charleston. In 1802
+this Consistory had blossomed into a Supreme Grand Council, 33°, and at
+a little later period they forged the name of Voltaire's friend,
+Frederick the Great of Prussia, to what Mr Yarker terms "one of the most
+stupidly concocted documents ever palmed upon an ignorant public."
+However this may be, Long does not seem to have been at any time a
+member of this body. This is how the "Mother Council of the World" is
+said to have come into existence, and Charleston has established Supreme
+Councils 33°, between 1811 and 1846, in France, Ireland, Scotland,
+England, and elsewhere.
+
+There is no foundation for the legend of the Charleston Templar relics,
+namely, the skull of Jacques de Molay and the Baphomet, beyond the fact
+that one of the grades, the 23° of the old Rite of Perfection and the
+30° of the modern Rite, uses a representation of the Papal tiara in its
+ceremonies and also of the crown of France, in allusion to Pope Clement
+V. and Philip le Bel.
+
+I can find no Mason, of what grade or rite soever, who has ever heard of
+Pike's Sepher d'Hebarim, his book called Apadno, or lectures in which he
+imparted extracts unacknowledged from Éliphas Lévi; they may rank with
+triangular provinces, Lucifer _chez lui_, the skull of Molay, and the
+Palladium; in other words, they are lying myths. Nothing which Pike has
+or is known to have written has any Luciferian complexion. He has
+collected into his lectures a mass of mystical material from rites like
+Memphis and Misraïm, but it is alchemical, theosophical, or dealing with
+ancient symbolism, the mysteries, pre-christian theology, &c. As to Pike
+himself, a Mason of high authority observes in a private letter:--"He
+was one of the greatest men who ever adorned our Order. He was a giant
+among men, his learning was most profound, his eloquence great, and his
+wisdom comprehensive; he was a scholar in many languages, and a most
+voluminous writer. He was an ornament to the profession to which he
+belonged, namely, Law; he fought the cause of the red man against the
+American government many years ago, and prevailed in a large degree. I
+believe he was a true and humble servant of the One True and Living God,
+and a lover of humanity."
+
+Having regard to all these facts, it is much to be regretted that the
+Catholic Church should have warmly approved and welcomed the extremely
+unsatisfactory testimony which connects Masonry with Diabolism. When the
+report of Diabolism first reached the ears of English mystics, and it
+was understood that the Church had concerned herself very seriously in
+the matter, I must confess that a hidden motive was immediately
+suspected. A recrudescence of mediæval Black Magic was in no sense
+likely to attain such proportions as to warrant the august interference;
+it seemed much as if Her Majesty's government should think it worth
+while to suppress the League of the White Rose. But when it transpired
+that the Question of Lucifer was a new aspect of the old question of
+Catholic hostility to Masonry, the astonishment evaporated; it was at
+once seen that Modern Diabolism had acquired an extrinsic importance
+because it was alleged to be connected with that Fraternity which the
+Church has long regarded as her implacable enemy. I must be permitted to
+register clearly the general conviction that if black magic, sorcery,
+and the Sabbath up to date had been merely revived demonomania, had been
+merely concerned with the black paternoster, the black mass, or even
+with transcendental sensualism and the ordeal of the pastos, the Roman
+hierarchy would not have taken action as it has, nor would the witnesses
+concerning these things have been welcomed with open arms; as a fact,
+no interest whatsoever is manifested in the doings of diabolists who
+operate apart from Masonry. Now, the hostility of Continental Masons
+towards Catholicism, in so far as it provably exists, has been largely
+or exclusively created by the hostility of the Church, and we know that
+he hates most who hates the first. In so far, therefore, as the Church
+has concerned herself by encouragement, which has something of the
+aspect of incitement, in the recent revelations, we shall have to bear
+in mind her attitude, while the history of forged decretals and bogus
+apostolic epistles will reveal to us that she does not invariably
+exercise a searching criticism upon documents which serve her purpose.
+
+The sorcery of the nineteenth century is under no circumstances likely
+to justify the faggots of the fifteenth; it might be easier to justify
+the sorcery. As much by mystics as by the Church Catholic, modern black
+magic may be left to perish of its own corruption. But an attempt on the
+part of the Church to fasten the charge of diabolism on the Masonic
+Fraternity has credibly another motive than that of political hostility,
+which seems held to justify almost any weapon that comes to hand. At the
+bottom of her hatred of Masonry there is also her dread of the mystic.
+Transcendental science claims to have the key of her doctrines, and
+there is evidence that she fears that claim. Black magic, which, by the
+hypothesis, is the use of the most evil forces for the most evil
+purposes, she does not fear, for it wears its condemnation on its
+forehead; but mysticism, which accepts her own dogmas and interprets
+them in a sense which is not her own, which claims a certitude in
+matters of religion that transcends the certitude of faith, seems to
+hint that at one point it is possible to undermine her foundations.
+Hence she has ever suspected the mystic, and a part of her suspicion of
+Masonry has been by reason of its connection with the mystic; she has
+intuitively divined that connection, which by Masons themselves, for the
+most part, is not dreamed at this day, and when suggested is generally
+somewhat lightly cast aside. It would be quite out of place at the
+close of the present inquiry, which, from a wholly independent
+standpoint, has sought to justify a great fraternity from a singularly
+foul aspersion, to attempt enforcing upon Masons a special view of their
+institution, but it is desirable, at the same time, to be just towards
+the Catholic Church, and to affirm that we, as mystics, are on this
+point substantially in agreement with her. The connection in question
+was for a time visible, and remains in historical remembrance; from the
+beginning of its public appearance till the close of the eighteenth
+century, the history of Masonry is part of transcendental history. That
+connection has now ceased to manifest, but there is another which is
+integral and permanent, and is a matter of common principles and common
+objects. Let it be remembered, however, that connection is not identity;
+it is not intended to say that the threshold of Masonry is a gate of
+Mysticism, but that there is a community of purpose, of symbolism, of
+history, and indirectly of origin, between the two systems.
+
+All true religion, all true morality, all true mysticism have but one
+object, and that is to act on humanity, collective and individual, in
+such a manner that it shall correspond efficiently with the great law of
+development, and co-operate consciously therewith to achieve the end of
+development. Under all the mysteries of its symbolism, behind the
+impressive parables of its ritual, and as equally, but if possible more
+effectually concealed, beneath the commonplace insistences of its moral
+maxims, this end is also proposed by the occult initiations of Masonry;
+and if it be defined more explicitly as the perfection of man both here
+and hereafter, and his union with what is highest in the universe, we
+shall see more clearly not only that it is the sole fundamental
+principle of all religion, its very essence, divested of creed and
+dogma, but also inherent in the nature of symbolical Masonry, and
+"inwrought in the whole system of Masonic ceremonies."
+
+As mystics, however, we consider that the ethical standard of Masonry
+will produce good citizens to society and good brethren to the
+Fraternity, but it will not produce saints to Christ. There is an
+excellence which is other than the moral, and stands to morality in
+precisely the same relation that genius bears to talent. The moral
+virtues are not the _summum bonum_, nor the totality of all forces at
+work in the development of man, nor actually the perfect way, though
+they are the gate of the way of perfection. Now, the mystic claims to be
+in possession of the higher law which transcends the ethical, from which
+the ethical derives, and to which it must be referred for its reason.
+That the lost secret of Freemasonry is concerned with special
+applications of this higher law which connect with mysticism, we, as
+mystics, do hold and can make evident in its proper time and place.
+Here, and personally, I am concerned only with a comprehensive
+statement. In addition to its body of moral law, which is founded in the
+general conscience, or in the light of nature, Masonry has a body of
+symbolism, of which the source is not generally known, and by which it
+is identified with movements and modes of thought, and with
+evolutionary processes, having reference to regions already described as
+transcending the ethical world and concerned with the spiritual man.
+From every Masonic candidate, ignoring the schismatic and excommunicated
+sections, there is required a distinct attitude of mind towards the
+world without and the world within. He is required to believe in the
+existence of a Supreme Intelligence, with which his essential nature
+corresponds in the possession of an indestructible principle of
+conscious or understanding life. Beyond these doctrines, Masonry is
+wholly unsectarian; it recognises no other dogmas; it accredits no form
+of faith. Now, Mysticism is a body of spiritual methods and processes,
+based, like the Masonic body of ethical methods and processes, on these
+same doctrines. Every man who believes in God and immortality is the raw
+material of a mystic; every man who believes that there is a
+discoverable way to God is on the path of conscious mysticism. As this
+path has been pursued in all ages and nations by persons of widely
+divergent creeds, it is clear that however much mysticism has been
+identified with special spheres of religious thought and activity, it is
+independent of all.
+
+But while Masonry would appear to regard the evolution of our physical,
+intellectual, and moral nature as the best preparation for that larger
+existence which is included in its central doctrine, and would thus work
+inward from without, mysticism deems that the evolution of the spiritual
+man and the production of a human spirit at one with the divine,
+constitute the missing condition requisite for the reconstruction of
+humanity, and would thus work outward from within. Neither Mason nor
+Mystic, however, can ignore either method. The one supplements the
+other; and seeing that the processes of mysticism are distinct from what
+is still a subject of derision under the name of transcendental
+phenomena, as they are wholly philosophical and interior, not to be
+appreciated by the senses, a secret experience within the depths and
+heights of our spiritual being, an institution which believes in God and
+immortality, and by the fact of immortality in the subsistence of an
+intimate relation between the spirit and God, will not look suspiciously
+on mysticism when it comes to understand it better.
+
+I have spoken of Masonic symbolism, and the method of instruction in
+Masonry is identical with that of mysticism; both systems are "veiled in
+allegory and illustrated by symbolism." The significance of this
+correspondence would not be measurably weakened were there no similarity
+in the typology, no trace of mystic influence in Masonic rite and
+legend. But there is a resemblance, and the types are often identical,
+though the accredited interpretation varies. Masonry, as a fact,
+interprets the types which belong to our own science according to the
+criterion of ethics, and thus provides a prolegomena to Mysticism, as
+ethics are a necessary introduction to the inner science of the soul.
+There is naturally a minor body of conventional typology which is
+tolerably exclusive to the craft, but the grand and universal emblems,
+characteristic of symbolical Masonry as distinct from the operative
+art--these are our own emblems. The All-Seeing Eye, the Burning Star,
+the Rough and Perfect Ashlar, the Point within a Circle, the Pentalpha,
+the Seal of Solomon, the Cubic Stone--all these belong to the most lofty
+and arcane order of occult symbolism, but in mystic science they
+illumine more exalted zones of the heaven of mind. The rites, legends,
+and mysteries of the great Fraternity are also full of mystical
+allusions, and admit of mystical interpretation in the same manner, but
+their evidential force is weaker, because ceremonial and legend in the
+hands of a skilful commentator can be made to take any shape and any
+complexion; it is otherwise with the symbols of the Brotherhood which
+were possessed by us before the historical appearance of Masonry. So
+also the Masonic reverence for certain numbers which are apparently
+arbitrary in themselves is in reality connected with a most recondite
+and curious system of mystic methodical philosophy, while in the high
+titles of Masonic dignity there is frequently a direct reference to
+Mysticism.
+
+If we turn from these considerations and approach the historical
+connection through those still undetermined problems which concern the
+origin of Masonry, we shall discern not unfortunately a way clear to
+their solution, but a significant characteristic pervading every Masonic
+hypothesis almost without exception--namely, an instinctive desire to
+refer Masonry in its original form to sources that are provably mystic.
+In the fanciful and extravagant period, when archæology and comparative
+mythology were as yet in their childhood, this tendency was not less
+strong because it was mostly quite unconscious. To pass in review before
+us the chief institutions of antiquity with which Masonry was then said
+to be connected, would be to sweep the whole field of transcendental
+history, and when we come to a more sober period which recognised the
+better claim of the building guilds to explain the beginnings of the
+Fraternity, the link with Mysticism was not even then abandoned, and a
+splendid variant of the Dionysian dream took back the mediæval
+architects to the portals of Eleusis and of Thebes.
+
+When the history of Freemasonry becomes possible by the possession of
+materials, its chief philosophical interest centres in one country of
+Europe; there is no doubt that it exercised an immense influence upon
+France during that century of quakings and quickenings which gave birth
+to the great revolution, transformed civilisation in the West, and
+inaugurated the modern era. Without being a political society, it was an
+instrument eminently adaptable to the sub-surface determination of
+political movements. At a later date it may have contributed to the
+formation of Germany, as it did certainly to the creation of Italy, but
+the point and centre of Masonic history is France in the eighteenth
+century. To that country also is mainly confined the historical
+connection between Masonry and mystic science, for the revival of
+Mysticism which originated in Germany at the close of the eighteenth
+century, and thence passed over to England, found its final field in
+France at the period in question. There Rosicrucianism reappeared, there
+Anton Mesmer recovered the initial process of transcendental practice,
+there the Marquis de Puységur discovered clairvoyance, there Martines de
+Pasqually instructed his disciples in the mysteries of ceremonial magic;
+there the illustrious Saint-Martin, _le philosophe inconnu_, developed a
+special system of spiritual reconstruction; there alchemy flourished;
+there spiritual and political princes betook themselves to extravagant
+researches after an elixir of life; there also, as a consequence, rose
+up a line of magnificent impostors who posed as initiates of the occult
+sciences, as possessors of the grand secret and the grand mastery;
+there, finally, under the influences of transcendental philosophy,
+emblematic Freemasonry took root and grew and flourished, developing ten
+thousand splendours of symbolic grades, of romantic legends, of sonorous
+names and titles. In a word, the Mysticism of Europe concentrated its
+forces at Paris and Lyons, and all French Mysticism gathered under the
+shadow of the square and compass. To that, as to a centre, the whole
+movement gravitated, and thence it worked. There is nothing to show that
+it endeavoured to revolutionise Masonry in its own interest. The
+Fraternity naturally attracted all Mystics to its ranks, and the
+development of the mystic degrees took place as the result of that
+attraction.
+
+By the year 1825 a variety of circumstances had combined to suspend
+transcendental activity, and the connection with Masonry ended, but the
+present revival of mystic thought is rapidly picking up the links of the
+broken chain; secretly or unobtrusively the spirit of transcendentalism
+is working within the Fraternity, and the bogus question of Lucifer is
+simply a hostile and unscrupulous method of recognising that fact. If
+Masonry and Mysticism could be shown in the historical world to be
+separated by the great sea, the consanguinity of their intention would
+remain, which is more important than external affinity, and they are
+sisters by that bond. But they have not been so separated, and on either
+side there is no need to be ashamed of the connection. With all brethren
+of the Fraternity, "we also do believe in the resurrection of Hiram,"
+and we regard the Temple as "an edifice immediately realisable, for we
+rebuild it in our hearts." We also adore the Grand Architect, and offer
+our intellectual homage to the divine cipher which is in the centre of
+the symbolic star; and we believe that some day the Mason will recognise
+the Mystic. He is the heir of the great names of antiquity, the
+philosophers and hierarchs, and the spiritual kings of old; he is of the
+line of Orpheus and Hermes, of the Essenes and the Magi. And all those
+illustrious systems and all those splendid names with which Masonry has
+ever claimed kindred belong absolutely to the history of Mysticism.
+
+THE END
+
+TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Devil-Worship in France, by Arthur Edward Waite
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+Project Gutenberg's Devil-Worship in France, by Arthur Edward Waite
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Devil-Worship in France
+       or The Question of Lucifer
+
+Author: Arthur Edward Waite
+
+Release Date: April 30, 2007 [EBook #21258]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEVIL-WORSHIP IN FRANCE ***
+
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+Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Tamise Totterdell, Brian
+Janes and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
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+</pre>
+
+
+
+<h1 class="padded2">DEVIL-WORSHIP IN FRANCE</h1>
+
+<h3>OR</h3>
+
+<h2>THE QUESTION OF LUCIFER</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><i>A RECORD OF THINGS SEEN AND HEARD IN THE<br />
+SECRET SOCIETIES ACCORDING TO THE<br />
+EVIDENCE OF INITIATES</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">BY</p>
+
+<h2>ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE</h2>
+
+<p class="center">&ldquo;The first in this plot was Lucifer.&rdquo;&mdash;<span class="smcap">Thomas Vaughan</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">LONDON<br />
+GEORGE REDWAY<br />
+1896</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenumpadded'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="padded"><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> term Modern Satanism is not intended to signify the development of
+some new aspect of old doctrine concerning demonology, or some new
+argument for the personification of the evil principle in universal
+nature. It is intended to signify the alleged revival, or, at least, the
+reappearance to some extent in public, of a <i>cultus diabolicus</i>, or
+formal religion of the devil, the existence of which, in the middle
+ages, is registered by the known facts of the Black Sabbath, a
+department, however, of historical research, to which full justice yet
+remains to be done. By the hypothesis, such a religion may assume one of
+two forms; it may be a worship of the evil principle as such, namely, a
+conscious attempt on the part of human minds to identify themselves with
+that principle, or it may be the worship of a power which is regarded as
+evil by other religions, from which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span> view the worshippers in question
+dissent. The necessity for this distinction I shall make apparent in the
+first chapter of this book. A religion of the darkness, subsisting under
+each of these distinctive forms, is said to be in practice at the
+present moment, and to be characterised, as it was in the past, by the
+strong evidence of miracles,&mdash;in other words, by transcendental
+phenomena of a very extraordinary kind, connecting in a direct manner
+with what is generically termed Black Magic. Now, Black Magic in the
+past may have been imposture reinforced by delusion, and to state that
+it is recurring at the present day does not commit anyone to an opinion
+upon its veridical origin. To say, also, that the existence of modern
+diabolism has passed from the region of rumour into that of exhaustive
+and detailed statement, is to record a matter of fact, and I must add
+that the evidence in hand, whatever its ultimate value, can be regarded
+lightly by those only who are unacquainted with its extent and
+character. This evidence is, broadly, of three kinds:&mdash;(<i>a</i>) The
+testimony of inde<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span>pendent men of letters, who would seem to have come in
+contact therewith; (<i>b</i>) the testimony volunteered by former initiates
+of such secret associations as are dedicated to a <i>cultus diabolicus</i>;
+(<i>c</i>) the testimony of certain writers, claiming special sources of
+information, and defending some affected interests of the Roman Catholic
+Church.</p>
+
+<p>My purpose in this book is to distinguish, so far as may be possible,
+what is true from what is false in the evidence, and I have undertaken
+the task, firstly, because modern mystics are accused, <i>en masse</i>, of
+being concerned in this cultus; secondly, because the existence of
+modern Satanism has given opportunity to a conspiracy of falsehood which
+is wide in its ramifications, and serious on account of its source;
+thirdly, because the question itself has awakened considerable interest
+both within and without transcendental circles, and it is desirable to
+replace hazy and exaggerated notions by a clear and formal statement.</p>
+
+<p>I have connected the new diabolism with France in my title, because the
+evidence in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span> each of its kinds has been filed by French writers, and we
+have no other source of information. So far as that evidence is sound,
+we have to thank France for producing it; but, on the other hand, should
+it prove that a whole city of invention has been constructed, &ldquo;with all
+its spires and gateways,&rdquo; upon a meagre basis of fact, it is just that
+French imagination should have full credit for the decorative art which
+has adorned this Question of Lucifer.</p>
+
+<p>The plan of my work had been sketched, and a number of chapters written,
+when I found myself to some extent preceded by a writer well known to
+occultists under the pseudonym of Papus, who has quite recently
+published a small brochure, entitled <i>Le Diable et L&rsquo;Occultisme</i>, which
+is a brief defence of transcendentalists against the accusations in
+connection with Satanism. I gladly yield to M. Papus the priority in
+time, which was possible to a well-informed gentleman, at the centre of
+the conspiracy. His little work, however, does not claim to be either a
+review or a criticism, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span> does not therefore, in any sense, cover the
+ground which I have travelled. It is an exposition and exoneration of
+his own school of mystic thought, which is that of the Martinists, and I
+have mentioned it in this connection in its proper place.</p>
+
+<h2 class="padded"><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></p>
+
+<table class="toc" summary="Table of Contents">
+<tr>
+<td class="right" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">PAGE</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="smcap">Preface</span></td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#Page_v">v</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER I</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="smcap">Satanism in the Nineteenth Century</span></td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER II</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="smcap">The Mask of Masonry</span></td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER III</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="smcap">The First Witnesses of Lucifer</span></td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER IV</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="smcap">Ex Ore Leonis</span></td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER V</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="smcap">The Discovery of M. Ricoux</span></td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER VI</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="smcap">Art Sacerdotal</span></td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#Page_82">82</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER VII</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="smcap">The Devil and the Doctor</span></td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span></p>
+<table class="toc" summary="Table of Contents continued">
+<tr>
+<td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER VIII</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="smcap">Dealings with Diana</span></td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#Page_162">162</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER IX</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="smcap">How Lucifer is Unmasked</span></td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#Page_182">182</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER X</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="smcap">The Vendetta of Signor Margiotta</span></td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#Page_201">201</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER XI</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="smcap">Female Freemasonry</span></td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#Page_225">225</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER XII</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="smcap">The Passing of Doctor Bataille</span></td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#Page_233">233</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER XIII</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="smcap">Diana Unveiled</span></td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#Page_255">255</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER XIV</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="smcap">The Radix of Modern Diabolism</span></td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#Page_290">290</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER XV</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="smcap">Conclusion</span></td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#Page_299">299</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><span class='pagenumpadded'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="padded"><a name="DEVIL-WORSHIP_IN_FRANCE" id="DEVIL-WORSHIP_IN_FRANCE"></a>DEVIL-WORSHIP IN FRANCE</h2>
+
+<h2 class="padded"><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>SATANISM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">If</span> a short time ago that ultimate and universal source of reference, the
+person of average intelligence, had been asked concerning Modern
+Diabolism, or the Question of Lucifer,&mdash;What it is? Who are its
+disciples? Where is it practised? And why?&mdash;he would have replied,
+possibly with some asperity:&mdash;&ldquo;The question of Lucifer! There is no
+question of Lucifer. Modern Diabolism! There is no modern Diabolism.&rdquo;
+And all the advanced people and all the strong minds would have extolled
+the average intelligence, whereupon the matter would have been closed
+hermetically, without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> disquieting and unwelcome investigations like the
+present.</p>
+
+<p>The Great Teacher of Christianity beheld Lucifer fall from heaven like
+lightning, and, in a different sense, the modern world has witnessed a
+similar spectacle. Assuredly the demon of Milton has been cast down from
+the sky of theology, and, except in a few centres of extreme doctrinal
+concentration, there is no place found for him. The apostles of material
+philosophy have in a manner searched the universe, and have
+produced&mdash;well, the material philosophy, and therein is no question of
+Lucifer. At the opposite pole of thought there is, let us say, the
+spiritualist, in possession of many instruments superior, at least by
+the hypothesis, to the search-lights of science, through which he
+receives the messages of the spheres and establishes a partial
+acquaintance with an order which is not of this world; but in that order
+also there appears to be no question of Lucifer, though vexed questions
+there are without number concerning &ldquo;unprogressed spirits,&rdquo; to say
+nothing of the elementary. Between these poles there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> is the flux and
+reflux of multitudinous opinions; but, except at the centres mentioned,
+there is still no question of Lucifer; it has been shelved or dropped.</p>
+
+<p>The revival of mystical philosophy, and, moreover, of transcendental
+experiment, which is prosecuted in secret to a far greater extent than
+the public can possibly be aware, has, however, set many old oracles
+chattering, and they are more voluble at the present moment than the
+great Dodonian grove. As might be expected, they whisper occasionally of
+deeds done in the darkness which look weird when exposed to the day. The
+terms Satanism, Luciferianism, Diabolism, and their equivalents, have
+been buzzed frequently, though with some indistinctness, of late, and in
+accents that indicate the existence of a living terror&mdash;people do not
+quite know of what kind&mdash;rather than an exploded superstition. To be
+plain, the Question of Lucifer has reappeared, and in a manner which
+must be eminently disconcerting to the average intelligence and the
+advanced and strong in mind. It has reappeared not as a speculative
+inquiry into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> the possibility of a personal embodiment of evil operating
+mysteriously, but after a wholly spiritual manner, for the propagation
+of the second death; we are asked to acknowledge that there is a visible
+and tangible manifestation of the descending hierarchy taking place at
+the close of a century which has denied that there is any prince of
+darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Now there are some subjects which impress one at first sight as
+unserious, but we come to regard them differently when we find that they
+are being taken seriously. We have been accustomed, with some show of
+reason, to connect the idea of devil-worship with barbarous rites
+obtaining among savage nations, to regard it, in fact, as a suitable
+complement of the fetish. It seems hypothetically quite impossible that
+there can be any person, much less any society or class of persons, who,
+at this day, and in London, Paris, or New York, adore the evil
+principle. Hence, to say that there is Black Magic actively in function
+at the present moment; that there is a living cultus of Lucifer; that
+Black Masses are celebrated, and involve revolting profanations of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> the
+Catholic Eucharist; that the devil appears personally; that he possesses
+his church, his ritual, his sacraments; that men, women, and children
+dedicate themselves to his service, or are so devoted by their sponsors;
+that there are people, assumed to be sane, who would die in the peace of
+Lucifer; that there are those also who regard his region of eternal
+fire&mdash;a variety unknown to the late Mr Charles Marvin&mdash;as the true abode
+of beatitude&mdash;to say all this will not enhance the credibility or
+establish the intelligence of the speaker.</p>
+
+<p>But this improbable development of Satanism is just what is being
+earnestly asserted, and the affirmations made are being taken in some
+quarters <i>au grand s&eacute;rieux</i>. They are not a growth of to-day or
+precisely of yesterday; they have been more or less heard for some
+years, but their prominence at the moment is due to increasing
+insistence, pretension to scrupulous exactitude, abundant detail, and
+demonstrative evidence. Reports, furthermore, have quite recently come
+to hand from two exceedingly circumstantial and exhaustive witnesses,
+and these have created<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> distinctly a fresh departure. Books have
+multiplied, periodicals have been founded, the Church is taking action,
+even a legal process has been instituted. The centre of this literature
+is at Paris, but the report of it has crossed the Channel, and has
+passed into the English press. As it is affirmed, therefore, that a
+cultus of Lucifer exists, and that the men and women who are engaged in
+it are neither ignorant nor especially mad, nor yet belonging to the
+lowest strata of society, it is worth while to investigate the matter,
+and some profit is possible, whatever the issue.</p>
+
+<p>If the devil be actually among us, then for the sake of much which has
+seemed crass in orthodox religion, thus completely exonerated; for the
+sake of the fantastic in fiction and the lurid in legend, thus
+unexpectedly actualised; and, further, as it may be, for the sake of our
+own souls, we shall do well to know of it. If Abaddon, Apollyon, and the
+Lord of Flies are to be understood literally; above all, if they are
+liable to confront us <i>in propria persona</i> between Free Mason&rsquo;s Hall and
+Duke Street, or between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> Duke Street and Avenue Road, then the sooner we
+can arrange our reconciliation with the one Church which has
+consistently and invariably taught the one full-grown, virile doctrine
+of devils, and has the <i>bon&acirc;-fide</i> recipes for knowing, avoiding, and at
+need of exorcising them, why the better will it be, more especially if
+we have had previously any leanings towards the conception of an
+universal order not pivoting on perdition.</p>
+
+<p>If, on the other hand, what is said be of the category of Ananias, as
+distinguished from what alchemists call the Code of Truth, it will be
+well also to know that some portions of the old orthodoxies still wait
+for their deliverance from the bonds of scepticism, that the actual is
+to be discriminated from the fantastic by the old test, namely, its
+comparative stupidity, and that we may still create our universe about
+any pivot that may please us.</p>
+
+<p>I am writing ostensibly for transcendentalists, of whom I am one; it is
+as a student of transcendentalism that I have been led to examine this
+modern mystery, equipped as it is with such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> portentous phenomena.
+Diabolism is, of course, a transcendental question, and black magic is
+connected with white by the same antinomy that connects light and
+darkness. Moreover, we mystics are all to some extent accused by the
+accusations which are preferred in the matter of modern diabolism, and
+this is another reason for investigating and making known the result. At
+the same time, the general question has many aspects of interest for
+that large class which would demur to be termed transcendental, but
+confesses to being curious.</p>
+
+<p>The earliest rumour which I have been able to recall in England
+concerning existing occult practices to which a questionable purpose
+might be attributed, appeared in a well-known psychological journal some
+few years since, and was derived from a continental source, being an
+account of a certain society then existing in Paris, which was devoted
+to magical practices and in possession of a secret ritual for the
+evocation of planetary angels; it was an association of well-placed
+persons, denying any connection with spiritualism, and pretending to an
+acquaintance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> with more effectual thaumaturgic processes than those
+which obtain at s&eacute;ances. The account passed unchallenged, for in the
+absence of more explicit information, it seemed scarcely worth while to
+draw attention to the true character of the claim. The secret ritual in
+question could not have been unknown to specialists in magical
+literature, and was certainly to myself among these; as a fact, it was
+one of those numerous clavicles of the go&euml;tic art which used to
+circulate surreptitiously in manuscript some two centuries ago. There is
+no doubt that the planetary spirits with which the document was
+concerned were devils in the intention of its author, and must have been
+evoked as such, supposing that the process was practised. The French
+association was not therefore in possession of a secret source of
+knowledge, but as impositions of this kind are to be <i>&agrave; priori</i> expected
+in such cases by transcendentalists of any experience, I for one
+refrained from entering any protest at the time.</p>
+
+<p>Much about the same period it became evident that a marked change had
+passed over certain aspects of thought in &ldquo;the most en<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>lightened city of
+the world,&rdquo; and that among the <i>jeunesse dor&eacute;e</i>, in particular, there
+was a strong revulsion against paramount material philosophy; an epoch
+of transcendental and mystic feeling was, in fact, beginning. Old
+associations, having transcendental objects, were in course of revival,
+or were coming into renewed prominence. Martinists, Gnostics,
+Kabbalists, and a score of orders or fraternities of which we vaguely
+hear about the period of the French Revolution, began to manifest great
+activity; periodicals of a mystical tendency&mdash;not spiritualistic, not
+neo-theosophical, but Hermetic, Kabbalistic, and theurgic&mdash;were
+established, and met with success; books which had grievously weighted
+the shelves of their publishers for something like a quarter of a
+century were suddenly in demand, and students of distinction on this
+side of the channel were attracted towards the new centre. The interest
+was intelligible to professed mystics; the doctrine of transcendentalism
+has never had but one adversary, which is the density of the
+intellectual subject, and wherever the subject clarifies, there is
+idealism in philosophy and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> mysticism in religion. Moreover, on the part
+of mystics, especially here in England, the way of that revival had been
+prepared carefully, and there could be no astonishment that it came, and
+none, too, that it was accompanied, as it is accompanied almost
+invariably, by much that does not belong to it in the way of
+transcendental phenomena. When, therefore, the rumours of Black Magic,
+diabolism, and the abuse of occult forces began to circulate, there was
+little difficulty in attributing some foundation to the report.</p>
+
+<p>A distinguished man of letters, M. Huysman, who has passed out of
+Zolaism in the direction of transcendental religion, is, in a certain
+sense, the discoverer of modern Satanism. Under the thinnest disguise of
+fiction, he gives in his romance of <i>La Bas</i>, an incredible and
+untranslatable picture of sorcery, sacrilege, black magic, and nameless
+abominations, secretly practised in Paris. Possessing a brilliant
+reputation, commanding a wide audience, and with a psychological
+interest attaching to his own personality, which more than literary
+excel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>lence infuses a contagious element into private views and
+impressions, he has given currency to the Question of Lucifer, has
+promoted it from obscurity into prominence, and has made it the vogue of
+the moment. It is true that, by his vocation of novelist, he is
+suspected of inventing his facts, and Dr &ldquo;Papus,&rdquo; president of the
+influential Martinist group in French occultism, states quite plainly
+that the doors of the mystic fraternities have been closed in his face,
+so that he can know nothing, and his opinions are consequently
+indifferent. I have weighed these points carefully, but unless the
+mystic fraternities are connected with diabolism, which Papus would most
+rightly deny, the exclusion does not remove the opportunity of
+first-hand knowledge concerning the practice of Satanism, and,
+&ldquo;brilliant imagination&rdquo; apart, M. Huysman has proved quite recently that
+he is in mortal earnest by his preface to a historical treatise on
+&ldquo;Satanism and Magic,&rdquo; the work of a literary disciple, Jules Bois. In a
+criticism, which for general soberness and lucidity does not leave much
+to be desired, he there affirms<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> that a number of persons, not specially
+distinguished from the rest of the world by the mark of the beast in
+their foreheads, are &ldquo;devoted in secret to the operations of Black
+Magic, communicate or seek to communicate with Spirits of Darkness, for
+the attainment of ambition, the accomplishment of revenge, the
+satisfaction of their passions, or some other form of ill-doing.&rdquo; He
+affirms also that there are facts which cannot be concealed and from
+which only one deduction can be made, namely, that the existence of
+Satanism is undeniable.</p>
+
+<p>To understand the first of these facts I must explain that the attempt
+to form a partnership with the lost angels of orthodox theology, which
+attempt constitutes Black Magic, has, in Europe at least, been
+invariably connected with sacrilege. By the hypothesis of demonology,
+Satan is the enemy of Christ, and to please Satan the sorcerer must
+outrage Christ, especially in his sacraments. The facts are as
+follow:&mdash;(<i>a</i>) continuous, systematic, and wholesale robberies of
+consecrated hosts from Catholic Churches, and this not as a consequence
+of importing the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> vessels of the sanctuary, which are often of trifling
+value and often left behind. The intention of the robbery is therefore
+to possess the hosts, and their future profanation is the only possible
+object. Now, before it can be worth while to profane the Eucharist, one
+must believe in the Real Presence, and this is acknowledged by only two
+classes, the many who love Christ and some few who hate Him. But He is
+not profaned, at least not intentionally, by His lovers; hence the
+sacrilege is committed by His enemies in chief, namely, practisers of
+Black Magic. It is difficult, I think, to escape from that position; and
+I should add that sacramental outrages of this astonishing kind, however
+deeply they may be deplored by the Church, are concealed rather than
+paraded, and as it is difficult to get at the facts, it may be inferred
+that they are not exaggerated, at least by the Church; (<i>b</i>) The
+occasional perpetration of certain outrageous crimes, including murder
+and other abominations, in which an element of Black Magic has been
+elicited by legal tribunals. But these are too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> isolated in place and
+too infrequent in time to be evidence for Satanic associations or
+indications of a prevalent practice. They may therefore be released from
+the custody of the present inquiry to come up for judgment when called
+on; (<i>c</i>) The existence of a society of Palladists, or professors of
+certain doctrines termed Palladism, as demonstrated, <i>inter alia</i>, by
+the publication of a periodical review in its interests.</p>
+
+<p>M. Huysman&rsquo;s facts, therefore, resolve into acts of sacrilege,
+indicating associations existing for the purpose of sacrilege, which
+purpose must, however, be regarded as a means and not an end, and the
+end in question is to enter into communication with devils.
+Independently of M. Huysman, I believe there is no doubt about the
+sacrilege. It is a matter of notoriety that in 1894 two ciboria,
+containing one hundred consecrated hosts, were carried off by an old
+woman from the cathedral of Notre Dame under circumstances which
+indicate that the vessels were not the objects of the larceny. Similar
+depredations are said to have increased in an extraordinary manner
+during recent years, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> have occurred in all parts of France. No less
+than thirteen churches belonging to the one diocese of Orleans were
+despoiled in the space of twelve months, and in the diocese of Lyons the
+archbishop recommended his clergy to transform the tabernacles into
+strong boxes. The departments of Aude, Is&egrave;re, Tarn, Gard, Ni&egrave;vre,
+Loiret, Yonne, Haute-Garonne, Somme, Le Nord, and the Dauphiny have been
+in turn the scene of outrage. Nor are the abominations in question
+confined to France: Rome, Liguria, Salerno have also suffered, while so
+far off as the Island of Mauritius a peculiarly revolting instance
+occurred in 1895.</p>
+
+<p>I am not able to say that the personal researches of the French novelist
+have proceeded beyond the statistics of sacrilege, which, however, he
+has collected carefully, and these in themselves constitute a strong
+presumption. M. Huysman is exhaustive in fiction and reticent in
+essay-writing, yet he gives us to understand explicitly that the
+infamous Canon Docre of <i>La Bas</i> is actually living in Belgium, that he
+is the leader of a &ldquo;demoniac clan,&rdquo; and, like the Count<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> de St Germain,
+is in frequent terror of the possibilities of the life to come. An
+interviewer has represented M. Huysman as stating that his information
+was derived from a person who was himself a Satanist, but the
+revelations disturbed the sect, and the communication ceased, though the
+author had originally been welcomed &ldquo;as one of their own.&rdquo; But it is
+clear to my own mind that for his descriptions of the orgies which take
+place at the assemblies of modern black magicians, M. Huysman is mainly
+indebted to documents which have been placed in his hands by existing
+disciples of the illumin&eacute; Eugene Vintras, and the &ldquo;Dr Johannes&rdquo; of <i>La
+Bas</i>. Vintras was the founder of a singular thaumaturgic sect,
+incorporating the aspirations of the Saviours of Louis XVII.; he
+obtained some notoriety about the year 1860, and an account of his
+claims and miracles will be found in &Eacute;liphas L&eacute;vi&rsquo;s <i>Histoire de la
+Magie</i>, in the same writer&rsquo;s <i>Clef des Grands Myst&egrave;res</i>, and in Jules
+Bois&rsquo; <i>Petites Religions de Paris</i>. He left a number of manuscripts
+behind him, recounting his life-long combats with the priests of black<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
+magic&mdash;a series of fervid narratives which savour strongly of
+hallucination, but highly picturesque, and in some quarters accepted
+quite seriously.</p>
+
+<p>In like manner, concerning the existence of Satanic associations, and
+especially the Palladium, M. Huysman admittedly derives his knowledge
+from published sources. We may take it, therefore, that he speaks from
+an accidental and extrinsic acquaintance, and he is therefore
+insufficient in himself to create a question of Satanism; he indicates
+rather than establishes that there is a question, and to learn its scope
+and nature we must have recourse to the witnesses who claim to have seen
+for themselves. These are of two kinds, namely, the spy and the
+seceder&mdash;the witness who claims to have investigated the subject at
+first hand with a view to its exposure, and those who have come forward
+to say that they once were worshippers of Lucifer, worshippers of Satan,
+operators of Black Magic, or were at least connected with associations
+which exist for these purposes, who have now, however, suspended
+communication, and are stating what they know. In the first class we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
+find only Doctor Bataille; in the second, Diana Vaughan, Jean Kostka,
+Domenico Margiotta, and Leo Taxil.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, we have, as stated in the preface, some testimony from writers
+representing the interests of the Latin Church, in a special manner, and
+speaking with the authority of that Church. The most important of these
+is the late Archbishop Meurin. At the same time, M. Huysman apart&mdash;who
+occupies much the same quasi-religious position as that which attached a
+fleeting interest to the personality of Mr W. H. Mallock&mdash;all writers
+and all witnesses are, or assume to be, at the present time, convinced
+and zealous Roman Catholics.</p>
+
+<p>I have already stated that the purpose of Black Magic is simply and
+obviously to communicate with devils, and if we interrogate our sources
+of knowledge as to the object of such communication, it must be admitted
+that the response is vague. Perhaps the object will best be defined as
+the reinforcement of human ability by diabolical power and intelligence
+for the operation of evil along the lines of individual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> desire and
+ambition. For the fulfilment of what is good man aspires towards God,
+and to fulfil evil he attempts to conspire with Satan.</p>
+
+<p>It must, however, be observed that modern devil-worship, as exposed by
+its French experts, has two aspects, corresponding to the distinction
+already laid down in my preface. There is (<i>a</i>) devil-worship pure and
+simple, being an attempt to communicate with evil spirits, admitting
+that they are evil; (<i>b</i>) the cultus of Lucifer, star of the morning, as
+distinguished from Satan, on the hypothesis that he is a good spirit. It
+will be seen very readily that the essence of diabolism is wanting in
+the second division, namely, the Satanic intention, so that it belongs
+really to another category, though the classification may be accepted
+for the moment to prevent dispute at the beginning of a somewhat complex
+inquiry. The first division is, in any case, Satanism proper, and its
+adepts are termed Satanists; those of the second division are, on the
+other hand, Luciferians, Palladists, &amp;c. The two orders are further
+distinguished as unorganised and as organised diabolism. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> cultus of
+Satan is supposed to be mainly practised by isolated persons or small
+and obscure groups; that of Lucifer is centralised in at least one great
+and widespread institution&mdash;in other words, the first is rare and
+sporadic, the second a prevalent practice. We accordingly hear little of
+the one, while the testimonies which have been collected are concerned
+exclusively with the other. It is possible, in fact, to dismiss Satanism
+of the primary division in a few words, because materials are wanting
+for its history. It is founded on orthodox Christianity; it acknowledges
+that the devil is a lost angel, but it affirms that the God of the
+Christians has deceived His believers, has betrayed the cause of
+humanity, has exacted the suppression of the nature with which He
+Himself has endowed it; they have therefore abandoned a cruel and
+tyrannical Master, and have gone over in despair to His enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Satanism of the second division, its principles and its origin, will be
+described in the second chapter.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenumpadded'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="padded"><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MASK OF MASONRY</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> identification of the cultus of Lucifer with devil-worship pure and
+simple is not, as we have seen, at first sight an entirely just
+proceeding, but at the same time it is inevitable. As already observed,
+the source of all our knowledge concerning Modern Diabolism exists
+within the pale of the Catholic Church; the entire literature is written
+from the standpoint of that church, and has been created solely in its
+interests. Some of that literature has been put forth with the special
+marks of high ecclesiastical approbation, and to some this guarantee is
+wanting, but the same spirit informs the whole. To insist on this point
+is important for many reasons which will become apparent at the close of
+our enquiry, and for one which concerns us now. It is impossible for
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> Catholic Church to do otherwise than brand the cultus of Lucifer as
+identical with that of Satan, because, according to her unswerving
+instruction, the name Lucifer is an equivalent of Satan, and, moreover,
+the Luciferian cultus is so admittedly anti-Christian that no form of
+Christianity could do otherwise than regard it as a worship of darkness
+and evil. While, therefore, the adoration of a good principle under this
+discredited name may in one of its aspects be merely an error of
+judgment, and not the worship of a devil, apart from other facts which
+destroy this consideration, we must all agree that from the standpoint
+of Christian and Latin orthodoxy the Luciferian is a diabolist, though
+not in the sense of the Satanist.</p>
+
+<p>The doctrine of Lucifer has been tersely described by Huysman as a kind
+of reversed Christianity&mdash;a Catholicism <i>&agrave; rebours</i>. It is, in fact, the
+revival of an old heresy founded on what we have most of us been
+accustomed to regard as a philosophical blunder; in a word, it is a
+Manich&aelig;an system having a special anti-Christian application, for while
+affirming the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> existence of two equal first principles, Adona&iuml; and
+Lucifer, it regards the latter as the god of light and goodness, while
+the Christian Adona&iuml; is the prince of darkness and the veritable Satan.
+It is inferred from the condition of the world at the present time that
+the mastery of the moment resides with the evil principle, and that the
+beneficent Deity is at a disadvantage. Adona&iuml; reigns surely, as the
+Christian believes, but he is the author of human misery, and Jesus is
+the Christ of Adona&iuml;, but he is the messenger of misfortune, suffering,
+and false renunciation, leading ultimately to destruction when the <i>Deus
+maledictus</i> shall cease to triumph. The worshippers of Lucifer have
+taken sides in the cause of humanity, and in their own cause, with the
+baffled principle of goodness; they co-operate with him in order to
+insure his triumph, and he communicates with them to encourage and
+strengthen them; they work to prepare his kingdom, and he promises to
+raise up a Saviour among them, who is Antichrist, their leader and king
+to come.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the doctrine of Lucifer according to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> the testimony of witnesses
+who have come out from his cultus; it is not an instruction which <i>&agrave;
+priori</i> would seem likely to commend itself to a numerically powerful
+following, but the society which is concerned with its propagation is
+affirmed to have spread over the whole world, and to be represented in
+all its chief cities. It is that which we have already found mentioned
+by M. Huysman as possessing a demonstrated existence and being a proof
+positive of modern Satanism, namely, the Palladian Order. Having broadly
+ascertained its principles, our next course is to discover its alleged
+history, and here it is necessary to admit that it is a matter of some
+difficulty to place the position in such an aspect that it will be a
+tolerable subject for inquiry among readers in England. The mystery of
+modern Diabolism and the Cultus of Lucifer is a part of the mystery of
+Masonry as interpreted by an Anti-Masonic movement now at work in
+France. The black magic, of which we hear so much, involves a new aspect
+of the old Catholic Crusade against the Fraternity of the Square and
+Compass, and by the question<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> of Lucifer is signified an alleged
+discovery that Masons diabolise.</p>
+
+<p>Now, we are all well acquainted with the historical fact that the Latin
+Church has long been hostile to Masonry, that popes have condemned the
+order, and have excommunicated its initiates. Having regard to the
+position of the brotherhood here in England, most of us have been
+content to infer in this respect that the ripe old age of the Church is
+passing into a second childhood; some, however, have concluded that
+there may be more in Continental Freemasonry than meets the English eye,
+and here the Church herself comes forward to assure them that the
+fraternity abroad is a hotbed of political propaganda, and is
+responsible for the most disastrous revolutions which have perplexed the
+modern world; that it is actually, as the exploded Robison described it,
+a conspiracy against crowned heads; and that it is at the present time
+the most potent, most secret enemy which checkmates and hinders herself.</p>
+
+<p>It is now further affirmed that behind the Masonry of to-day&mdash;here in
+England posing as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> a benefit society, and political or not upon the
+Continent, but everywhere disclaiming any connection with a religious
+propaganda&mdash;there is affirmed to be another Masonry, of which the
+ordinary Mason knows nothing, secretly directing the order, and devoted
+to the cultus of Lucifer. This organisation, which has sprung up within
+recent years, is largely, though not exclusively, recruited from
+Masonry; it works through the powerful Masonic apparatus, and, according
+to the evidence which has been put in, it has obtained a substantial and
+masterful control over the entire Fraternity. It has focussed the raw
+material of Masonic hostility towards the Catholic Church; as it is
+anti-Christian in religion, so is it revolutionary in politics; and once
+more, it is called the Palladian Order.</p>
+
+<p>This exceedingly grave and important accusation, together with its side
+issues, has perhaps all the more claim on our consideration because,
+apart from actual diabolism, which is in itself so paralysing as almost
+to arrest discussion, it conflicts with all that we know or believe
+concerning the Masonic constitution. Let me briefly collect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> the points.
+(<i>a</i>) Masonry possesses a secret directing centre&mdash;which has been
+strenuously denied by the Fraternity. (<i>b</i>) It has a religious mission
+and a doctrinal propaganda&mdash;which has also been invariably denied. (<i>c</i>)
+It is concerned with political objects&mdash;which, for the most part, is
+denied. (<i>d</i>) It has a transcendental teaching&mdash;which is generally
+denied, and (<i>e</i>) is concerned largely with transcendental practices and
+phenomena&mdash;which would be denied absolutely, had the question been
+seriously raised till this day. (<i>f</i>) It initiates women&mdash;which, except
+in a very secondary, occasional, and insignificant manner, is <i>in toto</i>
+and at all times denied. The last point is brought within the scope of
+our inquiry because the Palladium is an androgyne order.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it will be fairly well known to many who are not within the ranks
+of the fraternity that the Grand Lodges of every country are supposed to
+be autonomous, and that there has been no previous impeachment of this
+fact; that, ostensibly at least, there is no central institution to
+which they are answerable in Masonry. Individual lodges derive from a
+single Grand Lodge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> and are responsible thereto, but Grand Lodges
+themselves are supreme and irresponsible. It will be known also that the
+Masonic system in England differs from that of France, that the French
+rite has always occupied a somewhat heterodox position, and that since
+the Grand Orient expunged the Grand Architect of the Universe, so to
+speak, from its symbolism, official communication has been suspended by
+the Grand Lodge of England. It will be known further that outside
+recognised Masonic systems many rites have arisen which are only Masonic
+to the extent that their point of departure is from the Master-grade. As
+a special instance may be cited the Supreme Oriental Rite of Memphis and
+Misra&iuml;m. In England the Lodge meetings of these rites are never suffered
+to take place in the great central institution of Freemasons Hall; in
+France, the Grand Orient has consistently forbidden its members to
+participate in the Memphis system. To hold Masonry responsible for
+irregularities or abuses which from time to time may obtain in these
+fantastic developments from the parent institution, would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> be about as
+just and reasonable as to impeach the Latin Church on the score of
+corruptions now existing in the heresies which have separated from her.</p>
+
+<p>Having established these points in view of the result of our inquiry,
+let us now trace the manner in which a supreme authority, frequently
+termed by the accusers Universal Masonry, is alleged to have grown up.
+Upon this subject not only the most complete information but the only
+formal narratives are provided by the later witnesses, so that the
+following account, while in no sense translation, is based exclusively
+upon the works of Domenico Margiotta and Dr Bataille.</p>
+
+<p>On the 20th of May, 1737, there was constituted in France the Order of
+the Palladium, or Sovereign Council of Wisdom, which, after the manner
+of the androgyne lodges then springing into existence, initiated women
+under the title of Companions of Penelope. The ritual of this order was
+published by the Masonic arch&aelig;ologist Ragon, so that there can be no
+doubt of its existence. At the same time, so far as I am aware, there
+are few materials forthcoming for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> its history. In some way which
+remains wholly untraceable this order is inferred to have been connected
+by more than its name with the legendary Palladium of the Knights
+Templars, well known under the title of Baphomet. In any case it failed
+to spread, and it is uncertain whether the New and Reformed Palladium,
+also an androgyne order, with which we shall presently be concerned, is
+a metamorphosis or reconstruction of the original institution, but a
+connection of some kind is affirmed. For a period exceeding sixty years
+we hear little of the legendary Palladium; but in 1801 the Israelite
+Isaac Long is said to have carried the original Baphomet and the skull
+of the Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay from Paris to Charleston in
+the United States, and was afterwards concerned in the reconstruction of
+the Scotch Rite of Perfection and of Herodom under the name of the
+Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, which subsequently became widely
+diffused, and it is stated that the lodge of the thirty-third degree of
+the Supreme Council of Charleston has been the parent of all others, and
+is therefore, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> this rite, the first supreme council of the entire
+globe.</p>
+
+<p>Eight years later, on the 29th of December 1809, a man of great
+importance to the history of Freemasonry was born in the city of Boston.
+Albert Pike came of parents in a humble position, who, however,
+struggled with their difficulties and sent him to Harvard College, where
+he duly graduated, taking his degree as M.A. in the year 1829. He began
+his career as a schoolmaster, but subsequently led a romantic and
+wandering life, his love of untrodden ground leading him to explore the
+Rocky Mountains, then very imperfectly known. In 1833 he settled in
+Arkansas, and, drifting into journalism, founded the <i>Arkansas
+Advocate</i>, wherein his contributions, both prose and verse, but the
+latter especially, obtained him a reputation in literature. The
+admission of Arkansas into the confederation of the United States was in
+part his work, and from this period he began to figure in politics,
+becoming also the recorder of the Supreme Court in that state. One year
+after the civil war, in which he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> took active part, Pike removed to
+Memphis in Tennessee, where he again followed law and literature,
+establishing the <i>Memphis Appeal</i>, which he sold in 1868, and migrated
+to Washington. His subsequent history is exclusively concerned with
+unwearying Masonic labours.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it was at Little Rock in Arkansas that Albert Pike was first
+initiated, and ten years later, that is, in 1859, he was elected
+Sovereign Commander Grand Master of the Supreme Council of Charleston.
+Having extraordinary powers of organisation, he became a person of wide
+influence in the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, and a high authority
+also on the ritual, antiquities, history, and literature of Masonry.
+Under his guidance, the Scotch Rite extended and became dominant. Hence,
+when the Italian patriot Mazzini is said to have projected the
+centralization of high grade Masonry, he could find no person in the
+whole fraternity more suited by his position and influence to
+collaborate with him. Out of this secret partnership there was begotten
+on September 20, 1870&mdash;that is to say, on the very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> day when the Italian
+troops entered the Eternal City&mdash;a Supreme Rite and Central Organisation
+of Universal High Grade Masonry, the act of creation being signed by the
+American Grand Master and the Italian liberator, the two founders also
+sharing the power between them. A Supreme Dogmatic Directory was created
+at Charleston, with Pike at its head, under the title of Sovereign
+Pontiff of Universal Freemasonry. Mazzini took over the Supreme
+Executive, having Rome as its centre, under the title of Sovereign Chief
+of Political Action.</p>
+
+<p>If we now recur to the statements that the genuine Templar Baphomet and
+the skull of Jacques de Molay had been deposited at Charleston for the
+space of seventy years, and that Albert Pike was Grand Master of the
+Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite in that city, we
+shall understand why it was that the new institution was termed the New
+Reformed Palladian Rite, or the Reformed Palladium. Subsequently, five
+Central Grand Directories were established&mdash;at Washington for North
+America, Monte Video for South America,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> Naples for Europe, Calcutta for
+the Eastern World, and Port Louis in Mauritius for Africa. A Sovereign
+Universal Administrative Directory was fixed at Berlin subsequently to
+the death of Mazzini. As a result of this astute organisation, Albert
+Pike is said to have held all Masonry in the hollow of his hand, by
+means of a twofold apparatus&mdash;the Palladium and the Scotch Rite. During
+all his remaining days, and he lived to a great age, he laboured
+indefatigably in both causes, and the world at the present moment is
+filled with the organisation that he administered.</p>
+
+<p>Four persons are cited as having been coadjutors in his own country&mdash;his
+old friend Gallatin Mackey, in honourable memory among Masons; a
+Scotchman named Longfellow, whom some French writers have ludicrously
+confused with the poet; one Holbrook, about whom there are few
+particulars; and, finally, Phileas Walder, a native of Switzerland,
+originally a Lutheran Minister, afterwards said to have been a Mormon,
+but, in any case, at the period in question, a well-known spiritualist,
+an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> earnest student of occultism, as were also Holbrook and Longfellow,
+and, what is more to the purpose, a personal friend and disciple of the
+great French magus &Eacute;liphas L&eacute;vi. Albert Pike was himself an occultist,
+whether upon his independent initiative, or through the influence of
+these friends I am unable to say. Miss Diana Vaughan, who is one of the
+seceding witnesses, affirms that it was an early and absorbing passion.
+However this may be, the New Reformed Palladium was kept most rigidly
+separate from all other Masonry, the Scotch Rite included; that is to
+say, no initiate of even the highest grade had, as such, the right or
+opportunity of entrance into the occult order, which, at the same time,
+was chiefly recruited, as already stated, from the higher ordinary
+grades, but the recipients of the new light became silent from the
+moment that it was imparted. Now, it was exclusively in the Palladian
+order that Albert Pike and his confidants propagated transcendental
+religion, as it is said to have been understood by them. In other words,
+while the Scotch Rite continued to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> speculate, the Palladium betook
+itself to magic and succeeded so well that there was a perpetuity of
+communication between Charleston and the unseen world. It does not
+appear from the evidence either when or why Albert Pike and his
+collaborators transferred their allegiance from the God of the sages to
+Lucifer. The Catholic Church regards all magic as diabolism, and makes
+or tolerates no mystic distinction between the black and white
+departments of transcendental practice, but the specific character of
+the Palladian cultus is so clearly defined in the depositions that it
+cannot pass as a presentation of magical doctrine distorted by
+prejudice. It is almost stripped of correspondence with any existing
+school of occult teaching, and it is either the true statement of a
+system founded by Pike, or the deliberate invention of malice. The
+thaumaturgic phenomena tabulated in connection therewith are of an
+extremely advanced kind, including the real and bodily presence of
+Lucifer at frequent and regular intervals.</p>
+
+<p>When Mazzini died he indicated to Albert<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> Pike a possible successor in
+Adriano Lemmi, who became in due course the chief of the Executive
+Department, and when in the fulness of years the pontiff of Luciferian
+Freemasonry himself passed on to the higher life of fire, which is the
+Palladian notion of beatitude, and in the peace and joy of Lucifer, the
+sovereign pontificate itself, after resting for a short period upon
+incompetent shoulders in the person of Albert George Mackey, was
+transferred to the Italian; the seat of the Dogmatic Directory was
+removed to Rome; a split in the camp ensued, inspired by a lady
+initiate, since famous under the name of Diana Vaughan, and to this we
+owe most of the revelations. Furthermore, with the death of Albert Pike
+the cultus of Lucifer is said to have undergone a significant
+transfiguration. For him the conception of Satan was a blasphemous
+fiction, devised by Adona&iuml;te priestcraft to obscure the veridic lustre
+which inheres in the angel of the morning-star; but this view
+represented, as it is said, rather the private opinion of the Masonic
+pontiff, impressed by his strong personality on the lodges<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> he
+controlled, and propagated by the instruction of his rituals. The more
+discerning among his disciples regarded it as the besetting weakness of
+their grand old man, and surreptitiously during his life-time the cultus
+of Satan pure and simple, that is, of devil-worship, the adoration of
+the evil principle as evil, was practised at numerous Palladian centres.
+After his death, it is said to have unmasked altogether, and Adriano
+Lemmi himself is depicted as an avowed Satanist.</p>
+
+<p>Now, I believe it will fairly interpret the feeling of all readers to
+admit that when the authority of a great church has been brought into
+operation to crush a great institution by charges which most seriously
+discredit it&mdash;which represent it as diametrically and in all respects
+opposite in its internal nature to its ostensible appearance&mdash;we must by
+no means make light of the impeachment; we must remember the high
+position and the many opportunities of knowledge which are possessed by
+such an accuser; we must extend to that accuser at least the common
+justice of an im<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>partial and full hearing; <i>&agrave; priori</i> considerations of
+probability and inferences from our previous knowledge, much less from
+opinions obtained at second-hand, must not be permitted to prejudge a
+case of so great importance; we must be prepared, if necessary, to admit
+that we have been egregiously deceived; and if the existence of
+Palladian Masonry can be proved an undoubted fact, we must assuredly do
+full honour to the demonstration, and must acknowledge with gratitude
+that the Church has performed a service to humanity by unveiling the
+true character of an institution which is imposing on a vast number of
+well-intentioned persons within its own ranks, who are admittedly
+unaware of the evil to which they are lending countenance and support.
+On the other hand, the same spirit of liberality and justice will
+require that the demonstration in question shall be complete; in support
+of such terrible accusations, only the first quality of evidence can
+obviously be admitted.</p>
+
+<p>In the chapters which follow immediately, I shall produce in succession
+the evidence of every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> witness who has anything to tell us about
+Palladism, including those whose experience is of a personal kind and
+those whose knowledge is derived. Where possible, the testimony of each
+witness will be weighed as we proceed; what is unconvincing or
+irrelevant will be dismissed, while that which is important will be
+carried over to the final summary. In two cases only will it be found
+necessary to reserve examination for special and separate treatment.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenumpadded'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="padded"><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FIRST WITNESSES OF LUCIFER</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">That</span> the witnesses of Lucifer are in all cases attached to the Latin
+Church, whether as priests or laymen, is no matter for astonishment when
+it is once realised that outside this Church there is no hostility to
+Masonry. For example, Robison&rsquo;s &ldquo;Proofs of a Conspiracy&rdquo; is almost the
+only work possessing, deservedly or not, any aspect of importance, which
+has ever been penned by a Protestant or independent writer in direct
+hostility to the Fraternity. Moreover, Catholic hostility varies in a
+vanishing direction with distance from the ecclesiastical centre. Thus,
+in England, it exists chiefly in a latent condition, finding little or
+no expression unless pressure is exercised from the centre, while in
+America the enforced promulgation of the <i>Humanum Genus</i> encyclical has
+been one of the serious blunders<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> of the present pontificate as regards
+that country. The bibliography of Catholic Anti-Masonic literature is
+now, however, very large, nor is it confined to one land, or to a
+special epoch; it has an antiquity of nearly 150 years, and represents
+most of the European continent. That of France, which is nearest to our
+own doors, is naturally most familiar to us; it is also one of the most
+productive, and may be assumed to represent the whole. We are concerned
+with it in this place only during the period which is subsequent to the
+alleged foundation of the New and Reformed Palladium. During this period
+it falls obviously into two groups, that which preceded any knowledge of
+the institution in question and that which is posterior to the first
+promulgation of such knowledge. In the first we find mainly the old
+accusations which have long ceased to exert any conspicuous influence,
+namely, Atheism, Materialism, and revolutionary plotting. Without
+disappearing entirely, these have been largely replaced in the second
+group by charges of magic and diabolism, concerning which the
+denunciations have been loud and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> fierce. One supplementary impeachment
+may be said in a certain sense to connect both, because it is common to
+both; it is that of unbridled licence fostered by the asserted existence
+of adoptive lodges. We shall find during the first period that Masonry
+was freely described as a diabolical and Satanic institution, and it is
+necessary to insist on this point because it is liable to confuse the
+issues. Before the year 1891 the diabolism identified with Masonry was
+almost exclusively intellectual. That is to say, its alleged atheism,
+from the standpoint of the Catholic Church, was a diabolical opinion in
+matters of religion; its alleged materialism was a diabolical philosophy
+in matters of science; its alleged revolutionary plottings, being
+especially directed against the Catholic Church, constituted diabolical
+politics. Such descriptions will seem arbitrary enough to most persons
+who do not look forth upon the world from the windows of the Vatican,
+but they are undeniably consistent at Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Of actual diabolism prior to the date I have named, there is, I believe,
+only the solitary accu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>sation made by Mgr. de S&eacute;gur, and having
+reference to a long anterior period. He states that in the year 1848
+there was a Masonic lodge at Rome, where the mass of the devil was
+celebrated in the presence of men and women. A ciborium was placed on an
+altar between six black candles; each person, after spitting and
+trampling on a crucifix, deposited in this ciborium a consecrated host
+which had been purchased or received in church. The sacred elements were
+stabbed by the whole assembly, the candles were extinguished at the
+termination of the mass, and an orgie followed, similar, says Mgr. de
+S&eacute;gur, to those of &ldquo;Pagan mysteries and Manich&aelig;an re-unions.&rdquo; Such
+abominations were, however, admittedly rare, and the story just recited
+rests on nothing that can be called evidence.</p>
+
+<p>During the years intervening between 1870 and 1891 we may search the
+literature of French Anti-Masonry in vain for any hint of the Palladium.
+In 1884 the collaboration of Louis D&rsquo;Estampes and Claudio Jannet
+produced a work entitled &ldquo;Freemasonry and the Revolution,&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> which
+affirms that the immense majority of Masons, including those who have
+received the highest grades, do not enjoy the confidence of the true
+secrets, but the establishment of atheism in religion and socialism in
+politics as designs of the Fraternity are the only secrets intended.</p>
+
+<p>The New and Reformed Palladium connects with the Order of the Temple by
+its supposed possession of the original Baphomet idol, but in 1882 this
+was entirely unknown to Mgr. Fava, who denies all the reputed connection
+between Templars and Masons, and traces the latter to Faustus Socinus as
+founder, following Abb&eacute; Lefranc in his &ldquo;Veil raised for the Curious.&rdquo; A
+mystic and diabolic aspect of the Fraternity is so remote from his mind
+that in his &ldquo;Secret of Freemasonry&rdquo; the Bishop of Grenoble affirms that
+its sole project is to replace Christianity by rationalism.</p>
+
+<p>The third and concluding volume of P&egrave;re Deschamps&rsquo; great compilation on
+&ldquo;Society and the Secret Societies,&rdquo; supports, on the contrary, the
+hypothesis rejected by Fava. It recites<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> much old knowledge concerning
+adoptive lodges, the Illumin&eacute;s, the Orders of Philalethes, of Martinez
+Pasquales, and of Saint-Martin, on which subjects few writers indeed can
+say anything that is new; but while specially devoted to the political
+activity of the Fraternity all over Europe, Deschamps tells us nothing
+of the conspiracy which produced the New Palladium, though the alleged
+collaboration of Mazzini gave it a strong political complexion; of Pike
+nothing; of Diabolism still nothing. I may add that his work claims to
+be verified at all points.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1886 another ecclesiastic, Dom. Benoit, published two
+formidable volumes on &ldquo;Freemasonry and the Secret Societies,&rdquo; forming
+part of a vaster work, entitled &ldquo;The City of anti-Christ in the
+Nineteenth Century.&rdquo; Like D&rsquo;Estampes and Jannet, he distinguishes
+between a small number of initiates and a vast crowd of dupes who swell
+the ranks of the Fraternity. &ldquo;Many Masons ascend the ladder of the
+grades without receiving the revelation of the mysteries.&rdquo; The highest
+functions of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> most lodges are said to be given to the dupes, while the
+ruling chiefs are concealed behind humble titles. It is further
+represented that in certain countries there are secret rites above the
+ordinary rites, and these are imparted only to the true initiates, which
+sounds like a vague and formless hint concerning a directing centre; but
+so far from supposing that such an institution may exist in Masonry, the
+author affirms that unity is impossible therein:&mdash;&ldquo;Image of hell and
+hell anticipated, Masonry is the realm of hatred, and consequently of
+division. The leaders mutually despise and detest one another, and
+universally endeavour to deceive and supplant each other. A common
+hatred of the Church and her regular institutions alone unites them, and
+scarcely have they scored a victory than they fall out and destroy each
+other.&rdquo; The first seeds of the Manich&aelig;an accusation are found in the
+second volume, but the term is not used in the sense of Albert Pike&rsquo;s
+Luciferian transcendentalism, but merely as an equivalent of
+Protestantism coloured by the idea of its connection with the Socinian
+heresy. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> conformity with this view, Dom Benoit attaches himself to
+the Templar hypothesis, saying that the Albigenses and the Knights of
+the Temple are the immediate ancestors of Masonry. But the point which
+is of most interest in connection with our inquiry is where Dom Benoit
+asserts that Satan is the god of Freemasonry, citing an obscure grade in
+which the ritual is connected with serpent-worship, and another in which
+the recipient is adjured &ldquo;in the sacred name of Lucifer,&rdquo; to &ldquo;uproot
+obscurantism.&rdquo; It is, however, only a loose and general accusation, for
+he says also that the Masonic deity is &ldquo;the creature,&rdquo; that is,
+humanity, the mind of man, human reason; it is also &ldquo;the infamous
+Venus,&rdquo; or the flesh; finally, &ldquo;all divinities of Rome, Greece, Persia,
+India, and every pagan people, are the gods of Masonry.&rdquo; This is merely
+indiscriminate defamation which is without force or application, and the
+writer evidently knows nothing of a defined cultus of Lucifer existing
+in the Lodges of the Fraternity. So also when he elsewhere states that
+sexual excesses are sometimes accompanied in Masonry by Eucharistic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
+profanations, he has only Mgr. de S&eacute;gur&rsquo;s out-of-date narrative to
+support him, and when he hints at magical practices, it is only in a
+general way, and apparently referring to acts of individual Masons. In
+one more significant passage he records, as a matter of report, that
+apparitions of the demon have occurred &ldquo;recently&rdquo; in Masonic assemblies,
+&ldquo;where he is said even to have presided under a human form.&rdquo; While there
+is no mention of Palladism and none of Pike in his treatise, we may
+regard Dom Benoit as a herald of the coming accusation, speaking vaguely
+of things half heard.</p>
+
+<p>Some time previous to 1888, Paul Rosen, a Sovereign Grand
+Inspector-General of the 33rd and last degree of the French rite, had
+come to the conclusion that the mysteries of Freemasonry are abominable,
+and in that year he published a work, entitled &ldquo;Satan and Co.,&rdquo;
+suggesting that in this case a witness to the desired point had at last
+come forward, and, as a matter of fact, the writer does take us a few
+paces beyond the point reached by Benoit. So far as I am aware, he is
+the first French anti-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>Mason who mentions Albert Pike, with one
+exception, to be considered separately in the next chapter. He describes
+him as the Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Mother Council of
+every Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, and he
+tells the story of the foundation of that Rite, but he knows nothing of
+Isaac Long, the Palladium, or the skull. He cites also certain works
+which Pike wrote for the exclusive use of initiates, apparently of the
+higher grades of these rites, namely, &ldquo;The Sephar H&rsquo;Debarim,&rdquo; &ldquo;Ethics
+and Dogmas of Freemasonry,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Legenda Magistralia.&rdquo; But so far from
+accrediting the order with a supernatural aspect, he affirms that its
+war-cry is annihilation and anathema thereto. The end of Freemasonry is,
+in fact, social anarchy, the overthrowal of monarchical government, and
+the destruction of the Catholic religion. The Satanism imputed to
+Freemasonry by Paul Rosen is therefore of an arbitrary and fantastic
+order, having no real connection with this inquiry. Two years later the
+same author published a smaller volume, &ldquo;The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> Social Enemy,&rdquo; which
+contains no material of importance to our purpose, but is preceded by a
+Pontifical Brief, conveying the benediction of Leo XIII. to the writer
+of &ldquo;Satan and Co.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>We pass now to the year of revelation 1891.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenumpadded'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="padded"><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>EX ORE LEONIS</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">For</span> over ten years past Leo Taxil, that is to say, M. Gabriel
+Jogand-Pages, has been the great accuser of Masonry, and he possesses an
+indistinct reputation in England as a man whose hostility is formidable,
+having strong points in his brief. During the entire period of his
+impeachment, which is represented by many volumes, he has uniformly
+sought to identify the Fraternity with the general purposes of Lucifer,
+but until the year 1891, it was merely along the broad and general lines
+mentioned in the last chapter. Now, in presence of such attributions as,
+for example, the Satanic character of tolerance in matters of religion,
+I, for one, would unconditionally lay down my pen, as there is no common
+ground upon which a discussion could take place.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>From the vague imputation Leo Taxil passed, however, to an exceedingly
+definite charge&mdash;and it is beyond all dispute that by his work entitled
+&ldquo;Are there Women in Freemasonry?&rdquo;&mdash;he has created the Question of
+Lucifer in its connection with the Palladian Order. He is the original
+source of information as to the existence of that association; no one
+had heard of it previously, and it is therefore of the first importance
+that we should know something of the discoverer himself, and everything
+as to the particulars of his discovery, including the date thereof.</p>
+
+<p>Previously to the year 1891 Leo Taxil knew nothing of the Reformed
+Palladium. He is the one Anti-Masonic writer named in the last chapter
+as preceding Paul Rosen with information about Albert Pike. This was in
+the year 1885, and in a work entitled, &ldquo;The Brethren of the Three
+Points,&rdquo; which began the &ldquo;complete revelations concerning Freemasonry&rdquo;
+undertaken by this witness. Like Paul Rosen, he represents Pike merely
+as a high dignitary of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, but he does
+so under the incorrect title of Sovereign Com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>mander Grand Master of the
+Supreme Council of the United States. He states further that the Grand
+Orient of France, as also the Supreme Council of the Scotch Rite of
+France, &ldquo;send their correspondence&rdquo; to the Grand Master of Washington. I
+conceive that no importance, as indeed no definite meaning, can be
+attached to this statement beyond the general and not very significant
+fact that there was some kind of communication between the three
+centres. In the year 1888 Pike was so little in harmonious relation with
+the French Grand Orient that by the depositions of later witnesses he
+placed it under the ban of his formal excommunication in virtue of his
+sovereign pontificate. For the rest, the &ldquo;Brethren of the Three Points&rdquo;
+contains no information concerning the New and Reformed Palladium, and
+this is proof positive that it was unknown at the time to the writer,
+for it would have been valuable in view of his purpose. The same
+observation applies to a second work published shortly after, &ldquo;The
+Cultus of the Grand Architect.&rdquo; Had Leo Taxil been acquainted with a
+worship of Lucifer subsisting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> in Palladian Masonry he could not have
+failed to make use of it in a volume so entitled. The work in question
+is concerned, however, with the solemnities which obtain in Masonic
+temples, with the names and addresses of all French lodges, so that it
+is a directory as much as a revelation, with the political organisation
+of the Carbonari, with the Judge-Philosophers, and with certain official
+documents of Masonry.</p>
+
+<p>But it may occur to those of my readers who are acquainted at first hand
+with the revelations of Leo Taxil that his knowledge was held over in
+view of his plan of publication, and that the Palladium would be
+disclosed in due course when he came to treat of androgyne or adoptive
+Masonry. Let us pass, therefore, to his next work, entitled, &ldquo;Sister
+Masons, or Ladies&rsquo; Freemasonry,&rdquo; which appeared in 1888, and in which we
+certainly meet with diabolism and also with Palladism, but not in
+connection with Albert Pike or the Charleston Central Directory. The
+reference in the first case is to practices which are alleged to obtain
+in the Egyptian Rite of Adoption, called the Rite of Cagliostro,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> and in
+the second to the Order of the Palladium as it was originally instituted
+in the year 1730. At the same time the information given is of serious
+importance, because it enables us to gauge the writer&rsquo;s method and
+credibility in the one case, and his knowledge at the period in the
+other. Once more, in the year 1886, Leo Taxil did not know of the
+Palladium as a reformed or revived institution; had he known he could
+not have failed to tell us.</p>
+
+<p>I have not been able to trace all the sources of his information
+concerning the older Palladian Rite, but it comes chiefly from Ragon; he
+divides it into two systems:&mdash;(<i>a</i>) The Order of the Seven Sages, which
+was for men only, and appears as a banal invention with a ritual mainly
+derived from the &ldquo;Travels of Anacharsis&rdquo;; (<i>b</i>) The Order of the
+Palladium, composed of two masculine grades and one feminine grade,
+respectively, Adelphos and Companion of Ulysses for men, and Companion
+of Penelope for women. It pretends to have been founded by Fenelon, but
+at the same time claims an antiquity previous to the birth of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> the great
+Archbishop of Cambrai. Leo Taxil accuses it of gallantry, but the
+flirtations described in the ritual impress an impartial reader as a
+species of childish theatricals, a criticism practically exhausting the
+entire motive of the order, which, as I have already stated, lapsed into
+obscurity, and, so far as can be traced, into desuetude, though our
+witness uniformly refers to it in the present tense, and as if it were
+in active operation. However this may be, the description and summary of
+the ritual given by Leo Taxil place it outside the possibility of a
+connection with Templar Masonry, and also with the Baphomet Palladium in
+spite of what is alleged to the contrary. Accepting the worst
+construction which is placed on its intention, it could have offered no
+point of contact with the alleged project of Albert Pike. So far,
+therefore, the information contained in <i>Les S&#339;urs Ma&ccedil;onnes</i> conflicts
+with the history of the New and Reformed Palladium as given in my second
+chapter.</p>
+
+<p>It has been said, however, that Leo Taxil charges another Masonic order
+of the androgyne<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> type with satanic practices. He divides the Egyptian
+Rite of Adoption into three grades; in that of apprentice, the discourse
+represents Adona&iuml; as the Genius of Pride, and the serpent-tempter of
+Genesis as the eternal principle of goodness; in that of Companion, the
+symbolism of the ritual enforces the necessity of rehabilitating the
+character of the mystic serpent; in that of Egyptian Mistress, there is
+a pretended evocation of planetary spirits by means of a clairvoyante,
+and Leo Taxil affirms on his own authority that the Supreme Being
+referred to in the discourse at initiation is Satan. &ldquo;According to the
+doctrine of the sect, the divinity is formed of two opposite principles,
+the genius of Being, who is Lucifer, and the genius of Destruction, who
+is Adona&iuml;.&rdquo; This is so obviously the doctrine of the Luciferian
+Palladians that it is difficult to understand why the institution of
+Charleston is not connected, as to purpose, if not as to origin, with
+the Egyptian Adoptive Rite of Misra&iuml;mite Masonry.</p>
+
+<p>At this point, however, it becomes my duty to state that there are some
+very curious facts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> in connection with the &ldquo;Catechism of the Officiating
+Mistress,&rdquo; which is the source of information for the alleged Manich&aelig;an
+character of the third degree. The more considerable and essential
+portion of that document, so far from being referable to the supposed
+founder of the Rite, namely, Count Cagliostro, is a series of mutilated
+passages taken from &Eacute;liphas L&eacute;vi&rsquo;s <i>Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie</i>,
+and pieced clumsily together. That is to say, Leo Taxil, while claiming
+to make public for the first time an instruction forming an essential
+part of a rite belonging to the last century, presents to us in that
+instruction the original philosophical reflections of a writer in the
+year 1856, and, moreover, he distorts palpably the fundamental principle
+of that writer, who, so far from establishing dualism and antagonism in
+God, exhibits most clearly the essential oneness in connection with a
+threefold manifestation of the divine principle. I conceive that there
+is only one construction to be placed upon this fact, and although it is
+severe upon the documents it cannot be said that it is unjust. When,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+therefore, Leo Taxil terminates his study of the Egyptian Rite by
+&ldquo;divulging some essentially diabolical practices of the Misra&iuml;m Lodges,&rdquo;
+namely, evocations of the elementary spirits, we shall not be surprised
+to find that the ritual of the proceedings is taken bodily from the same
+author who has been previously taxed for contributions. The reader need
+only compare <i>Les S&#339;urs Ma&ccedil;onnes</i>, pp. 323 to 330, with the
+&ldquo;Conjuration of the Four&rdquo; in the fourth chapter of the <i>Rituel de la
+Haute Magie</i>. It will be objected that this conjuration is derived by
+L&eacute;vi himself from a source which he does not name, and as a fact part of
+it is found in the <i>Comte de Gabalis</i>. Quite so, but my point is, that
+it has come to the Taxil documents through &Eacute;liphas L&eacute;vi. The proof is
+that part of the exorcisms are given in Latin and part in French, by the
+author of the <i>Rituel</i>, for arbitrary and unassignable reasons, and that
+<i>Les S&#339;urs Ma&ccedil;onnes</i> reproduces them in the same way. It is evident,
+therefore, that we must receive Leo Taxil&rsquo;s &ldquo;divulgations&rdquo; with severe
+caution. I may add that the proceedings of the Holy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> Inquisition in the
+trial of Count Cagliostro were published at Rome by order of the
+Apostolic Chamber, and they include some particulars concerning the
+Egyptian Rite, of which Cagliostro was the author. These particulars in
+part correspond with the documents of the &ldquo;Sister-Masons,&rdquo; but offer
+also significant variations even along the lines of correspondence.</p>
+
+<p>Having established, in any case, that Leo Taxil knew nothing of the
+Reformed Palladium in the year 1886, we may pass over his next work,
+which reproduces a considerable though selected proportion of some of
+his previous volumes, because precisely the same observation applies to
+&ldquo;The Mysteries of Freemasonry,&rdquo; and we may come at once to the year
+1891. Some time subsequently to the third of August, our witness
+published a volume entitled &ldquo;Are there Women in Freemasonry?&rdquo; which, so
+far as one can see, bears the marks of hurried production. It is, in
+fact, &ldquo;The Sister Masons&rdquo; almost <i>in extenso</i>&mdash;that work being still in
+circulation&mdash;with the addition of important fresh material. The bulk of
+the new matter is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> concerned with the rituals of the New and Reformed
+Palladium, consisting of five degrees, conformable, as regards the first
+three, with the somewhat banal but innocent grades of the Modern Rite of
+Adoption, and passing, as regards the two final, into pure Luciferian
+doctrine. How did Leo Taxil become possessed of these rituals? He
+informs us quite frankly that by means of arguments <i>sonnants et
+tr&eacute;buchants</i>, that is to say, by a bribe, he persuaded an officer of a
+certain Palladian Grand Council located at Paris to forget his pledges
+for the time required in transcribing them. That was not a very
+creditable proceeding, but in exposing Freemasonry ordinary ethical
+considerations seem to be ruled out of court, and it is idle to examine
+methods when we are in need of documents. By these documents, and by the
+editorial matter which introduces and follows them, Leo Taxil, as
+already observed, created the Question of Lucifer. Premising that a dual
+object governed the institution of androgyne lodges, namely, the
+opportunity for forbidden enjoyments, and the creation of powerful
+un<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>suspected auxiliaries for political purposes, he states that the
+latter part of this programme was specially surrendered to the old
+Palladian Masonry. Now it is clear that the rituals of the order which
+he published in 1886 bear no such construction as he here, and for the
+first time, imputes; they connect with part one of the programme, and he
+was content at the time with their impeachment on the ground of sexual
+disorder. Why has he changed the impeachment? No assignable reason
+appears from his subsequent remarks, but he goes on to allege that,
+under the auspices of Albert Pike and his group, the original order
+developed the New and Reformed Palladian Rite, in which the political
+purpose was itself subordinated to &ldquo;Satanism pure and simple.&rdquo;
+Originating in the United States, it has invaded Europe, where it
+propagates with truly unheard of rapidity, so that in Paris alone there
+are three active lodges&mdash;that of the Lotus, founded in 1881, and
+situated in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, which has in turn created the
+lodges of St James, 1884, and of St Julian, 1889. The Lotus itself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> was
+preceded &ldquo;by the organisation of some Areopagites of the Kadosch Grade
+of the French Rite and of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite,&rdquo; who
+practised theurgy under the direction of Ragon and &Eacute;liphas L&eacute;vi, both of
+whom are represented as given over, body and soul, to all the practices
+of lawless diabolism, the latter being apparently the leader, after
+whose death the association met only infrequently, until it was revived
+by Phileas Walder, the friend, as we have already seen, of Albert Pike.
+It was he who imported the New and Reformed Palladium from America into
+France, and, assembling the disciples of L&eacute;vi, founded the Mother-Lodge
+of the Lotus.</p>
+
+<p>The ritual obtained by Leo Taxil was printed in Latin and English, with
+an interleaved French version in manuscript. As presented by its
+discoverer, there is no doubt that it is an execrable production,
+involving the practice in open lodge of obscenity, diabolism, and
+sacrilege. Passing over the first three grades, and beginning &ldquo;at the
+point of bifurcation,&rdquo; we find it stated in the ritual of the fourth
+degree of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> Elect that the New and Reformed Palladium has been instituted
+&ldquo;to impart a new force to the traditions of high-grade Masonry,&rdquo; that
+the Palladium which gives its name to the order was presented to the
+fathers of the order by Eblis himself, that it is now at Charleston, and
+that Charleston is the first supreme Council of the globe. Thus it will
+be seen that the Palladian ritual confuses the Palladium Order with the
+Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite. For the rest, the legend of the fourth
+degree is the first part of what is termed a blasphemous life of Jesus,
+representing Baal-Zeboub as his ancestor, Joseph as his father,
+according to physical generation, and Mirzam as his mother, who is
+highly honoured as the parent of many other children. Adona&iuml; is the
+principle of evil, and Eblis, otherwise Lucifer, the good God. But the
+ritual of the fourth grade is innocent in its character when compared
+with the abominations of the fifth degree of Templar-Mistress. The
+central point of the ceremonial is the resurrection of Lazarus, which is
+symbolically accomplished by the postulant suffering what is termed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+ordeal of the Pastos, that is to say, by means of public fornication.
+The purpose of this ordeal is to show that the sacred act of physical
+generation is the key to the mystery of being. The life of Jesus begun
+in the previous grade is completed in the present, and it will be
+sufficient for my purpose to indicate that it represents the Saviour of
+Christianity, who originally &ldquo;began well,&rdquo; passing over from the service
+of the good god Lucifer, and making a pact with the evil Adona&iuml;, in sign
+of which he ceased indiscriminate commerce with the women who followed
+him and pledged himself to live in chastity, for which he was abandoned
+by Baal-Zeboub, and is cursed by Palladists. &ldquo;The duty of a
+Templar-Mistress is to execrate Jesus, anathematise Adona&iuml;, and adore
+Lucifer.&rdquo; The rite concludes by the recipient spitting on a consecrated
+host and the whole assembly piercing it in turn with stilettos.</p>
+
+<p>So far the sole testimony to the actual operation, as indeed to the
+existence, of these infamous ceremonies, is Leo Taxil, and it is once
+more my duty to state that the documents are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> in no sense above the
+suspicion of having been fraudulently produced by some one. It seems
+scarcely credible, but the instruction of the Elect Grade incorporates
+Masonic references <i>literatim</i> from the scandalous memoirs of Cassanova.
+That is a fact which sets open a wide door to scepticism. Again, the
+instruction of the fifth degree contains more plagiarisms from L&eacute;vi, and
+in a section entitled &ldquo;Evocations,&rdquo; Leo Taxil again reproduces the
+&ldquo;Conjuration of the Four&rdquo; which he has previously fathered on the Rite
+of Memphis and Misra&iuml;m, and now states to be in use among Palladists.
+Once more, he prints a long list of the spirits of light which
+Palladians recommend for evocation, and this list is a haphazard
+gleaning among the eighty-four genii of the twelve hours given in L&eacute;vi&rsquo;s
+interpretation of the &ldquo;Nuctemeron according to Apollonius.&rdquo; But these
+latter points are not arguments which necessarily reflect upon Leo
+Taxil, for, seeing that the New and Reformed Palladium was constituted
+in 1870, it is obvious that the author of the rituals may have drawn
+from the French magus, and Leo Taxil does connect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> the Palladium, as
+others have connected it, with Alphonse Louis Constant, partly through
+Phileas Walder his disciple, and partly by representing Constant as the
+leader of an occult association of Knights Kadosch. But when he
+represents Constant as himself a Mason we have to remember that &Eacute;liphas
+L&eacute;vi explicitly denied his initiation in his <i>Histoire de la Magie</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I should add that Leo Taxil in one of the illustrations represents a
+lodge of the Templar-Mistress Rite, wherein the altar is over-shadowed
+by a Baphomet which is a reduction in facsimile of the frontispiece to
+L&eacute;vi&rsquo;s <i>Rituel</i>, and all reasonable limits seem to be transgressed when
+he quotes from Albert Pike&rsquo;s &ldquo;Collection of Secret Instructions,&rdquo; an
+extended passage which swarms with thefts from the same source, everyone
+of which I can identify when required, showing them page by page in the
+originals. Leo Taxil tells us that the &ldquo;Collection&rdquo; was communicated to
+him, but by whom he does not say. We are evidently dealing with an
+exceedingly complex question, and many points must be made clear before
+we can definitely accept evidenced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> which is so mixed and uncertain in
+character.</p>
+
+<p>If we ask the author of these disclosures what opportunities he has had
+to become personally acquainted with Masonry, we shall find that they
+are exceedingly few, for he was expelled from the order after receiving
+only the first degree. I do not say that this expulsion reflects in any
+sense discreditably upon him as a man of honour, but it closed his
+Masonic career almost as soon as it had begun, so that his title to
+speak rests only on his literary researches and other forms of derived
+knowledge, good enough, no doubt, in their way, but not so exhaustive as
+could be wished in view of the position he has assumed. It was shortly
+after this episode that Leo Taxil returned to the Catholic Church and
+attached himself to the interests of the clerical party. Previously to
+this his literary history must be for him a painful memory. He was a
+writer of anti-clerical romances and the editor of an anti-clerical
+newspaper&mdash;legitimate occupations in one sense, but in this instance too
+frequently connected with literary methods of a gravely discreditable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+kind. A catalogue of the defunct <i>Libraire Anti-Cl&eacute;ricale</i> is added to
+one of the romances, and advertises, among other productions from the
+same pen, the following contributions made by Leo Taxil to the
+literature of sacrilege and scandal:&mdash;1st, a Life of Jesus, being an
+instructive and satirical parody of the Gospels, with 500 comic designs;
+2nd, The Comic Bible (<i>Bible Amusante</i>); 3rd, The Debaucheries of a
+Confessor, a romance founded on the affair of the Jesuit Girarde and
+Catherine Cadi&egrave;re; 4th, a Female Pope, being the adventures and crimes
+of Pope Joan, written in collaboration with F. Laffont; 5th, The Pope&rsquo;s
+Mistress, a &ldquo;grand historical romance,&rdquo; written in collaboration with
+Karl Milo; 6th, Pius the Ninth before history, his life political and
+pontifical, his debaucheries, follies, and crimes, 3 vols.; 7th, The
+Poisoner Leo Thirteenth, an account of thefts and poisoning committed
+with the complicity of the present pontiff; 8th, Contemporary
+Prostitution, a collection of revolting statistics upon, <i>inter alia</i>,
+the methods, habits, and physical peculiarities of persons who practice
+p&aelig;derasty.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>It will be seen that since his conversion our author has changed his
+objects without altering his methods. As in the past he unveiled the
+supposed ill-doings of popes and priests, as he exposed the corrupt
+practices of the Parisian police in the matter of crying social evils,
+so now he divulges the infamies of Masonic gatherings in the present. He
+claimed then to be actuated by a high motive and he claims it now. We
+must not deny the motive, but we certainly abhor the proceeding. In some
+very curious memoirs which have obtained wide circulation Leo Taxil
+acknowledges that he was gravely mistaken then, and he may be mistaken
+now. It must also be respectfully stated in conclusion that few persons
+who have contributed to lubricity in literature have ever failed to
+speak otherwise than from an exalted standpoint. When a short time ago
+M. Huysman went in search of a type to which he could refer Luciferian
+&ldquo;blasphemies&rdquo; and outrages, he could find nothing more suitable to his
+purpose than Leo Taxil&rsquo;s &ldquo;Bouffe Jesus.&rdquo; We do not refuse to accept him
+as a witness against Masonry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> because of these facts, but we must ask
+him as an honourable gentleman not to insist that we should do so on
+trust, and at the present moment the only opportunities which he has
+given us to check his statements do not wholly encourage us to accept
+them. It will be seen therefore that the knowledge of Palladian Masonry
+was first brought to light under circumstances of a debatable kind.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenumpadded'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="padded"><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DISCOVERY OF M. RICOUX</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">By</span> the year 1891 Masonic revelations in Paris had become too numerous
+for one more or less to fix the volatile quality of public interest
+unless a new horror were attached to it. Passwords and signs and
+catechisms, all the purposes and the better half of the
+secrets&mdash;everyone outside the Fraternity who concerned themselves with
+Masonry and cared for theoretical initiation knew these, or was
+satisfied by the belief that he did. The literature of Anti-Masonry
+became a drug in the market, failing some novelty in revelation. The
+last work of Leo Taxil was eminently a contribution towards this missing
+quantity. He was already in a certain sense the discoverer of &ldquo;Female
+Freemasonry,&rdquo; that is to say, he was the only equipped person who
+seriously maintained that the exploded andro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>gyne system was worked in
+modern France, and when he added the development of the Palladium as the
+climax to the mystery of iniquity, it is small wonder that his book
+achieved notoriety to the extent of five thousand copies. He was
+assailed as a venal pamphleteer and his past achievements in literature
+were freely disinterred for his own benefit and for public instruction,
+but he was more than compensated by the approbation of Mgr. Fava, bishop
+of Grenoble, with whose opinions upon Satanism in Masonry we have
+previously made acquaintance. The Church indeed had all round agreed to
+overlook Leo Taxil&rsquo;s early enormities; she forgot that she had attempted
+to prosecute him and to fine him a round sum of 60,000 francs; the
+supreme pontiff forgave him the accusation of poisoning, and transmitted
+his apostolical benediction; he was complimented by the cardinal-vicar
+of Rome; and he is in the proud position of a man who has received
+felicitations and high approval from eighteen ecclesiastical
+dignitaries, whether cardinals, archbishops, or bishops. With his back
+against the <i>turris fortitudinis</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> he faced his accusers stoutly and
+returned them blow for blow. Nor did he lack his lay defenders, one of
+whom, by the mode which he adopted, became himself, somewhat
+unexpectedly, a witness of Lucifer.</p>
+
+<p>To those who disbelieve in the existence of Female Freemasonry, Leo
+Taxil had offered two pieces of wise advice: Go to the Biblioth&egrave;que
+Nationale, search the files of the Masonic organ <i>La Chaine d&rsquo;Union</i>,
+and you will find proof positive of your mistake. Next proceed to the
+Maison T&mdash;&mdash;, there is no need to reproduce the address, but it is given
+by Leo Taxil in full, and obtain their current price-list of lodge
+furniture, insignia, and other accessories, and you will find
+particulars of aprons for sisters, diplomas for sisters, garters for
+sisters, jewels for sisters. Except upon the signs of initiation, the
+catalogue is not surrendered, but in view of the literature of
+revelation the signs are no longer secret, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>All this is clearly outside the subject of Satanism, but it leads up,
+notwithstanding, to the discovery of M. Ricoux. As to this gentle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>man
+himself there are no particulars forthcoming; he has promised an account
+of his adventures during four years as an emigrant in Chili; and he has
+promised a patriotic epic in twelve cantos, but so far as my information
+goes they remain in the womb of time. But he has a claim on our
+consideration because it occurred to him that he would put in practice
+the advice of Leo Taxil, which he did accordingly in the autumn of 1891,
+and demonstrated to his own satisfaction that &ldquo;Are there Women in
+Freemasonry?&rdquo; is a book of true disclosure, and a question that must be
+answered in the affirmative. He performed thereupon a very creditable
+action; he wrote a pamphlet entitled &ldquo;The Existence of Lodges for Women:
+Researches on this subject,&rdquo; &amp;c., in which he stated the result of his
+investigation, collected the controversy on the subject which had been
+scattered through the press of the period, and defended Leo Taxil with
+the warmth of an <i>alter Ego</i>. But he had not limited his researches to
+the directions indicated in his author. Encouraged by the success which
+had attended his initial efforts,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> he determined upon an independent
+experiment in bribery, and after the same manner that Leo Taxil procured
+the &ldquo;Ritual of the New and Reformed Palladium,&rdquo; so he succeeded in
+obtaining the &ldquo;Collection of Secret Instructions to Supreme Councils,
+Grand Lodges, and Grand Orients,&rdquo; printed at Charleston in the year
+1891. &ldquo;This collection,&rdquo; he tells us, &ldquo;is certainly a document of the
+first order; for it emanates from General Albert Pike, that is to say,
+from the &lsquo;Pope of the Freemasons.&rsquo;&rdquo; On this document he bases the
+following statements:&mdash;(<i>a</i>) Universal Freemasonry possesses a Supreme
+Directory as the apex of its international organisation, and it is
+located at Berlin. (<i>b</i>) Four subsidiary Central Directories exist at
+Naples, Calcutta, Washington, and Monte Video. (<i>c</i>) Furthermore, a
+Chief of Political Action resides at Rome, commissioned to watch over
+the Vatican and to precipitate events against the Papacy. (<i>d</i>) A Grand
+Depositary of Sacred Traditions, under the title of Sovereign Pontiff of
+Universal Freemasonry, is located at Charleston, and at the time of the
+discovery was Albert Pike.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>Some of these statements, it will be observed, require rectification, in
+the light of fuller disclosures made by Palladian initiates, from whom
+the material of my second chapter has been chiefly derived, but it will
+be seen that it is substantially correct. M. Ricoux further states that
+&ldquo;Albert Pike reformed the ancient Palladian Rite, and imparted thereto
+the Luciferian character in all its brutality. Palladism, for him, is a
+selection; he surrenders to the ordinary lodges the adepts who confine
+themselves to materialism, or invoke the Grand Architect without daring
+to apply to him his true name, and under the title of Knights Templars
+and Mistress Templars, he groups the fanatics who do not shrink from the
+direct patronage of Lucifer.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The most serious mistake which has been made in the use of the material
+is an unconscious attempt to read into the &ldquo;encyclicals&rdquo; of Albert Pike
+a proportion of Leo Taxil&rsquo;s material, for which the long citations given
+by M. Ricoux do not afford a warrant. What he really appears to have
+obtained is the instructions of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> Pike as Supreme Commander Grand Master
+of the Supreme Council of the Mother-Lodge of the Ancient and Accepted
+Scotch Rite of Charleston to the Twenty-three Supreme Confederated
+Councils of the Globe. And the Scotch Rite is, by the hypothesis, apart
+from the Palladium. In other respects, the information comes to much the
+same thing. The long document which the pamphlet prints <i>in extenso</i>
+exhibits Albert Pike preaching Palladism in the full foulness of its
+doctrine and practice&mdash;the &ldquo;resolution of the problem of the flesh&rdquo; by
+indiscriminate satisfaction of the passions; the multiplication of
+androgyne lodges for this purpose; the dual nature of the Divine
+Principle; and the cultus of Lucifer as the good God. The most curious
+feature of the performance is that here again it is from end to end a
+travesty of &Eacute;liphas L&eacute;vi, slice after slice from his chief writings,
+combined with interlineal additions, which give them a sense
+diametrically opposed to that of the great magus. Now, it is impossible
+that two persons, working independently for the production of bogus
+documents,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> should both borrow from the same source; hence Leo Taxil and
+M. Ricoux, if they have been guilty of imposition, must certainly have
+collaborated. It is unreasonable, however, to advance such an accusation
+in the absence of any evidence, and if we accept the contribution of M.
+Ricoux as made in perfect good faith, we must acknowledge that it
+exonerates Leo Taxil from the possible suspicion of himself adapting
+L&eacute;vi; and then the existence of a theurgic society, based on Manich&aelig;an
+principles, instituted by Albert Pike, and possessing a magical ritual
+taken in part from L&eacute;vi, wears a more serious aspect than when it rested
+on the unsupported assurance of one witness. The discovery of M. Ricoux
+is obviously of the first importance, and it is certainly to be
+regretted that he has not substantiated it by depositing the &ldquo;Collection
+of Instructions&rdquo; in the National Library, supposing it to be in his
+possession, or by photographing instead of transcribing, supposing he
+was pledged to its return.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenumpadded'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="padded"><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>ART SACERDOTAL</h3>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Some</span> few months after the first testimonies to Palladism appeared, under
+the signatures of the witnesses whom we have already examined, a fresh
+contribution was made to the literature of Diabolism in its connection
+with Masonry, by a work entitled &ldquo;Freemasonry, the Synagogue of Satan.&rdquo;
+The exalted ecclesiastical position of the author, Mgr. L&eacute;on Meurin,
+S.J., Archbishop of Port Louis in Mauritius, gave new impetus and an
+aspect of increased importance to accusations preferred at the
+beginning, as we have seen, by comparatively obscure or directly
+suspected writers. The performance, moreover, was apparently so learned,
+in some respects so unlooked for, and withal so methodical, that it
+became subsequently a source of universal reference in anti-Masonic
+literature.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> To this day M. Huysman remains dazzled, and to those in
+search of reliable information on the subject, he says:&mdash;&ldquo;If you would
+be saved from the excesses of unseated reason, and from narratives of
+Dunciad dulness, try Mgr. Meurin; read the Archbishop on Palladism.&rdquo;
+Within certain limits the advice is well-grounded; the art sacerdotal in
+its application to Anti-Masonry may leave much to be desired, but as a
+specimen of the superior criticism obtaining upon this subject in higher
+circles, it offers a strong contrast to the general tone and touch among
+the rank and file of the accusers. We are, in fact, warranted upon every
+consideration, in expecting a valuable contribution to our knowledge;
+but, I may say at once, that this expectation is unfortunately not
+realised. With a keen philosophical anticipation one turns the pages of
+&ldquo;Freemasonry, the Synagogue of Satan,&rdquo; admires their beautiful
+typography, lingers with delight over the elaborate appendix of
+allegorical engravings, and experiences a brief sense of intellectual
+inferiority in the presence of such formidable sections, and so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
+portentous a table of contents. It should be impossible to speak of the
+Archbishop without a mental genuflexion, but it remains true that our
+expectation is not realised. It will become us, at the same time, to
+speak as tenderly as possible of a pious and learned prelate who has now
+passed where Masons cease from Satanising and the thirty-three degrees
+are at rest. But it must be said plainly that the contents of his very
+large volume offer little to our purpose.</p>
+
+<p>By the nature of his episcopal charge Mgr. Meurin had special facilities
+for ascertaining how men diabolise; the island of Mauritius has enjoyed
+many privileges of Infernus. There we lose sight of the Rosicrucians on
+the road to India; there the Comte de Chazal initiated Dr Bacstrom, and
+all this, of course, is diabolical from the standpoint of Anti-Masonry.
+Moreover, it must not be forgotten that Mgr. Meurin, in a series of
+wonderful conferences, has exhibited the superstitions of Mauritius,
+and, accepting the test of M. Huysman, the existence of Black Magic in
+this French colony is proved to hilt and handle by wholesale
+Euchar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>istic depredations, the sacrifice of cats at midnight upon the
+altars of rifled churches, and the discovery of the blood of the victims
+in the chalices used for the elements. The Church does not stir in the
+matter; it deplores and prays, which seems, in some respects, an
+ineffectual method of protecting the <i>latens Deitas</i>. If the Eucharist
+be liable to profanation, why reserve the Eucharist? Surely the
+negligence which makes such profanations possible is the offer of
+opportunity to Deicide, and great carelessness is cousin to condonation.
+However this may be, Mgr. Meurin seems to have been quite the authority
+to whom one would naturally refer for specific information upon
+devil-worship as it obtains within his own diocese, even if apart from
+Masonry. But he is too erudite to concern himself with individual facts,
+and he so far transcends diocesan limitations as to forget Mauritius
+completely. Another witness, who perhaps never visited Port Louis,
+affirms that the Central Directory of the Palladium for Africa is
+established in that place, but the prelate of Port Louis, from whom the
+informa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>tion would have been precious, seems acquainted with nothing of
+the kind. The weapon of the mitred warrior is, at the same time, a
+sufficiently portentous thesis, as follows:&mdash;that Freemasonry is
+connected with Satanism by the fact that it has the Jews for its true
+authors, and the Jewish Kabbalah for the key of its mysteries; that the
+Kabbalah is magical, idolatrous, and essentially diabolical; that
+Freemasonry, considered as a religion, is therefore a judaized
+devil-worship, and considered as a political institution, it is an
+engine designed for the attainment of universal empire, which has been
+the dream of the Jews for centuries.</p>
+
+<p>My readers will be inclined to consider that such a hypothesis, though
+it may square with the Satanism of Adriano Lemmi, who, as we shall see,
+is accused of circumcision, can hardly be brought into harmony with the
+universal Masonry of Albert Pike, as the latter was neither Jew nor
+Judaiser. But common hatred of the Catholic Church is, in the opinion of
+Mgr. Meurin, a sufficient bond to identify the interests of both
+parties. Let us start, therefore,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> with the archbishop&rsquo;s own hypothesis,
+which he compresses into a single sentence: &ldquo;To encircle the brow of the
+Jew with the royal diadem, and to place the kingdom of the world at his
+feet&mdash;such is the true end of Freemasonry.&rdquo; And again: &ldquo;The Jewish
+Kabbalah is the philosophical basis and Key of Freemasonry.&rdquo; Once more:
+&ldquo;The end of Freemasonry is universal dominion, and Freemasonry is a
+Jewish institution.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Accepting these statements as points that admit of being argued with
+deference to the rules of right reason, let us establish in turn two
+positions which do not admit of being argued because they are evident in
+themselves: (<i>a</i>) Where the significance of symbols is uncertain, it is
+easy to interpret falsely; (<i>b</i>) When a subject is obscure and
+difficult, no person is qualified to speak positively if his knowledge
+be obtained at second-hand. Now, have we good reason to suppose that
+Mgr. Meurin is possessed of first-hand knowledge, and is consequently in
+a position to interpret truly upon the difficult subject he has
+undertaken, namely, the esoteric<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> doctrines of the Kabbalah? If not, we
+are entitled to dismiss him without further examination. As a fact, in
+this preliminary and essential matter the archbishop can stand no test.
+The antiquity of the Kabbalah is necessary to work his hypothesis, and
+he assumes it as if unaware that its antiquity had ever been impugned.
+There may be much to be said upon both sides of this hotly-debated
+question, but there is nothing to be said for a writer who seems
+ignorant that there is a question. And hence my readers will in no way
+be astonished to learn that his information is obtained at second-hand,
+or that his one authority is Franck. This fact is the key to his entire
+work, and the sole credit that is due to him is the skilful appearance
+of erudition which he has given to a shallow performance, and the
+natural mental elegance which has prevented him from being noisy and
+violent.</p>
+
+<p>Our inquiry into modern devil-worship does not warrant us in discussing
+the position of writers who choose to assume that the Kabbalah,
+Gnosticism, and other systems are <i>&agrave; priori</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> diabolical, because
+assumptions of this kind are unreasonable. There are writers at this
+moment in France who argue that the English word God is the equivalent
+of Lucifer, but one does not dispute with these. For the satisfaction of
+my readers, it may, however, be as well to state that the voluminous
+treatise of Mgr. Meurin has come into existence because he has
+discovered, as one might say, accidentally, that the number 33, which is
+that of the degrees in French Freemasonry, is the number of the
+divinities in the Vedas, thus creating a presumption that the mysteries
+of Freemasonry connect with those of antiquity. Of course they connect
+with antiquity, for the simple reason that there is a solidarity between
+all symbolisms, and, moreover, it is perfectly clear that Masonry has
+either inherited from the past by a perpetuated tradition, or has
+borrowed therefrom. Mgr. Meurin had therefore as little reason to be
+astonished at the correctness of his presumption when he came to work it
+out as he had to be delighted with the inference which prevails
+throughout his inquiry, namely, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> the mysteries of pagan antiquity
+were delusions of the devil, and that modern mysteries which connect
+with those are also diabolical delusions. Indeed he is so continually
+making discoveries which are fresh to himself, and to no one acquainted
+with the subject, that one would be pleasantly diverted by his
+simplicity if it were not for the bad faith which underlies his
+assumptions. For example, every one who knows anything of Go&euml;tic
+literature is aware that the rituals of black magic incorporate
+heterogeneous elements from Kabbalistic sources, but to Mgr. Meurin this
+fact comes with the force of a surprise.</p>
+
+<p>His Masonic erudition is about as great and as little as his proficiency
+in Kabbalah; he quotes Carlyle as &ldquo;an authority,&rdquo; applies the term
+orthodox to French Freemasonry exclusively, whereas the developments of
+the Fraternity in France have always had a heterodox complexion, while
+his tripartite classification of the 33 degrees of that rite and of the
+Ancient Accepted Scotch Rite is made in an arbitrary manner to suit a
+preconceived theory, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> entirely effaces the importance inherent in
+the first three grades, which are themselves the sum of Masonry.
+Moreover, the classification in question is presented as a most secret
+instruction imparted in some fastness of Masonry outside the 33 degrees,
+but no authority is named.</p>
+
+<p>Such being the qualifications and such the methods of the archbishop, I
+do not propose to accompany him through the long course of his
+interpretations, but will supply instead, for the economy of labour on
+the part of those who may wish to follow in his footsteps, a skeleton
+plan of procedure by which they will be able to prove learnedly anything
+they please in Freemasonry.</p>
+
+<p>It is well known that the Fraternity makes use of mystic numbers and
+other symbols. Take, therefore, any mystic number, or combination of
+numbers, as <i>e.g.</i>, 3 &times; 3 = 9. You will probably be unacquainted with
+the meaning which attaches to the figure of the product, but it will
+occur to you that the 9 of spades is regarded as the disappointment in
+cartomancy. Begin, therefore, by confidently expecting some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>thing bad.
+Reflect upon the fact that cards have been occasionally denominated the
+Devil&rsquo;s Books. Conclude thence that Freemasonry is the Devil&rsquo;s
+Institution. Do not be misled by the objection that there is no
+traceable connection between cards and Masonry; anticipate an occult
+connection or secret <i>liaison</i>. The term last used has probably occurred
+to you by the will of God; do not forget that it describes a
+questionable sexual relationship. Be sure, therefore, that Freemasonry
+is a veil of the worst species of moral licence. You have now reached an
+important stage in the unmasking of Masonry, and you can sum it as
+follows:&mdash;Freemasonry is the cultus of the Phallus. If you know anything
+of ecclesiastical Latin, the words <i>noctium phantasmata</i> may perhaps
+occur to you, and the whole field of demonology in connection with the
+Fraternity will open before you. But if you would confine yourself to
+the region of lubricity, recollect that our first parents went naked
+till the serpent tempted them, and then they wore aprons. Hence the
+apron, which is a Masonic emblem, has from time immemorial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> been the
+covering of shame. Should it occur to you&mdash;vide <i>Genesis</i>&mdash;that God made
+the aprons, dismiss it as a temptation of the devil, who would, if
+possible, prevent you from unveiling him. By this time it will be well
+to recur to the number 9; your chain of reasoning has established that
+it possesses a horrible significance. Now take the number and follow it
+through the history of religions by means of some theological
+ready-reckoner, such as a cheap dictionary by Migne. You will be sure to
+find something to your purpose&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, something sufficiently bad.
+Place that significance against the use of that number in Masonry.
+Repeat this process, picking up anything serviceable by the way, and
+continue so doing till your volume has attained its required dimensions.
+You will never want for materials, and this is how Masonry is unveiled.</p>
+
+<p>There is no exaggeration in this sketch; Mgr. Meurin is indeed by far
+more fatuous. On the 26th of May 1876 the Supreme Council of Sovereign
+Grand Inspectors General of the 33rd Degree of the Ancient and Accepted
+Scotch Rite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> are said to have issued a circular, dated from 33 Golden
+Square, London. Will my readers believe their own eyes or my sincerity
+when I say that the most illustrious of the French Anti-Masonic
+interpreters, member of the Society of Jesus, and Archbishop of Port
+Louis, solemnly enjoins us to &ldquo;remark the No. 33 and the square of gold,
+which signify the supreme place in the world assigned to the liberty of
+gold&rdquo;? By thus commenting on a significant number attaching to a real
+address, situated, as everyone knows, in the most central district of
+this city, Archbishop Meurin believes that he is not descending from
+pleasant comedy into screaming farce of interpretation, but that he is
+acting seriously and judiciously, has a right to look wise, and to
+believe that he has hit hard!</p>
+
+<p>No person who is acquainted with the Kabbalah, even in its historical
+aspects, much less the ripe scholar, M. A. Franck, from whom the
+materials are derived, will tolerate for a moment the theory that this
+mystical literature of the Jewish nation is capable of a diabolical
+inter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>pretation. In particular it lends itself to the crude Manich&aelig;an
+system attributed to Albert Pike about as much and as little as it does
+to atheistic materialism. The reading of Mgr. Meurin may be compared
+with that of Mirandola, who discovered, not dualism, but the Christian
+mystery of the Trinity contained indubitably therein, who regarded it
+with more reason as the bridge by which the Jew might ultimately pass
+over to Christ, who infected a pontiff with his enthusiasm, and it will
+be seen that the Catholic Archbishop looks ridiculous in the lustre of
+his derived erudition. To insist further on this point is, however,
+scarcely to our purpose. The Kabbalah does not possess that integral
+connection with Masonry which is argued by Mgr. Meurin, and if it did,
+does not bear the interpretation which he assigns it, while his
+anti-Semitic thesis is demolished with the other hypothesis. But these
+things are largely outside the question which concerns us most directly.
+Over and above these points, does the witness whom we are examining
+contribute anything to our knowledge on the subject<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> of the New and
+Reformed Palladium, otherwise Universal Masonry? The reply is perfectly
+clear. His one source of knowledge is Adolphe Ricoux; by some oversight
+he has not even the advantage of the rituals published by Leo Taxil. He
+may, therefore, be dismissed out of hand. The Satanism which he exhibits
+in Masonry is an imputed Satanism, and as to any actual Devil-Worship he
+reproduces as true the clever story of <i>Aut Diabolus aut Nihil</i>, which
+appeared originally in &ldquo;Blackwood&rsquo;s Magazine,&rdquo; and has since been
+reprinted by its author, who states, what most people know already, that
+it is entirely fictitious.</p>
+
+<p>In parting with the writer of &ldquo;Freemasonry, the Synagogue of Satan,&rdquo; as
+with a witness whose evidence has broken down, it must be repeated that
+he has, by his exalted position, elegance of method, and show of
+learning, been a chief pillar of the Satanic hypothesis.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenumpadded'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="padded"><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DEVIL AND THE DOCTOR</h3>
+
+<p class="center">&sect; 1. <i>Le Diable au XIX<sup>e</sup> Si&egrave;cle</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Although</span> the New and Reformed Palladium is said to have been founded so
+far back as the year 1870, it will be seen that at the close of the year
+1891 very little had become public concerning it. It is difficult to
+conceive that an institution diffused so widely should have remained so
+profound a secret, when the many enemies of the Fraternity, who in their
+way are sleepless, would have seized eagerly upon the slightest hint of
+a directing centre of Masonry. Moreover, an association which initiates
+ladies is perhaps the last which one would expect to be unknown, for
+while the essential matter of a secret is undeniably safe with women, it
+is on condition that they are known to possess it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> When the first hint
+was provided in 1891, Leo Taxil certainly lost no time, and Mgr. Meurin
+must have written his large treatise almost at fever speed. On the 20th
+of November in the same year, another witness came forward in the person
+of Dr Bataille, who speedily made it apparent that he was in a position
+to reveal everything about Universal Masonry and diabolism in connection
+therewith, because, unlike those who had preceded him, he possessed
+first-hand knowledge. If he had not himself beheld Lucifer in all his
+lurid glory, he had at least seen his messengers; he was an initiate of
+most secret societies which remotely or approximately are supposed to
+connect with Masonry; he had visited Charleston; he had examined the
+genuine Baphomet and the skull of Jacques de Molay; he was personally
+acquainted with Albert Pike, Phileas Walder, and Gallatin Mackey; he
+was, moreover, an initiate of the Palladium. He was evidently the
+missing witness who could unveil the whole mystery, and it would be
+difficult to escape from his conclusions. Finally, he was not a person
+who had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> come out of Masonry by a suspicious and sudden conversion;
+believing it to be evil, he had entered it with the intention of
+exposing it, had spent ten years in his researches, and now stepped
+forward with his results. The office of a spy is not usually clean or
+wholesome, but occasionally such services are valuable, and in some
+cases there may be certain ends which justify the use of means which
+would in other cases be questionable, so that until we can prove the
+contrary, it will be reasonable to accept the solemn declaration of this
+witness that he acted with a good intention, and that what he did was in
+the interests of the church and the world.</p>
+
+<p>But, unfortunately, Dr Bataille has seen fit to publish his testimony in
+precisely that form which was most calculated to challenge the motive;
+it is a perfervid narrative issued in penny numbers with absurd
+illustrations of a highly sensational type; in a word, <i>Le Diable au
+XIX<sup>e</sup> Si&egrave;cle</i>, which is the title given to his memoirs by the present
+witness, connects in manner and appearance with that class of literature
+which is known as the &ldquo;penny dreadful.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> Some years ago the slums of
+London and Paris were inundated with romances published in this fashion
+and continued so long as they maintained a remunerative circulation; in
+many cases, they ended abruptly, in others they extended, like <i>Le
+Diable au XIX<sup>e</sup> Si&egrave;cle</i> to hundreds of issues; they possess special
+characteristics which are known to experts in the by-ways of periodical
+literature, and all these are to be found in the narrative of Dr
+Bataille. No one in England would dream of publishing in this form a
+work which was to be taken seriously, nor am I acquainted with any
+precedent for it abroad. It is therefore a discreditable and unfortunate
+choice, but seeing that a section of the clerical press in France has
+agreed to pass over this point, and to accept Dr Bataille as a credible
+witness, and seeing also that he has been followed by other writers who
+must be taken into account and stand or fall with him, we must not
+regard his method as an excuse for refusing to hear him. Apart from him
+and his adherents there is indeed no first-hand evidence for Palladian
+Masonry. The present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> chapter will therefore contain a summary of what
+was seen and heard by Dr Bataille in the course of his researches.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">&sect; 2. <i>Why Signor Carbuccia was Damned.</i></p>
+
+<p>In the year 1880, Dr Hacks, who makes, I believe, no attempt to conceal
+himself under the vesture of Dr Bataille, was a ship&rsquo;s surgeon on board
+the steam-boat <i>Anadyr</i>, belonging to the <i>Compagnie des Messageries
+Maritimes</i>, and then returning from China with passengers and
+merchandise. On a certain day in the June of the year mentioned, he was
+to the fore at his post of duty&mdash;that is to say, he was extended idly
+over the extreme length of a comfortable deck-chair, and the <i>hotel
+flottant</i> was anchored at Point-de-Galle, a port at the southern
+extremity of Ceylon, and one of the reputed regions of the terrestrial
+paradise. While the doctor, like a good Catholic, put a polish on the
+tropical moment by a little gloss of speculation over the mystery of
+Eden, some passengers presently came on board for the homeward voyage,
+and among them was Ga&euml;tano Carbuccia, an Italian,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> who was originally a
+silk-merchant, but owing to Japanese competition, had been forced to
+change his <i>m&eacute;tier</i>, and was now a dealer in curiosities. His numerous
+commercial voyages had made them well acquainted with each other, but on
+the present occasion Carbuccia presented an appearance which alarmed his
+friend; a <i>gaillard grand et solide</i> had been metamorphosed suddenly
+into an emaciated and feeble old man. There was a mystery somewhere, and
+the ship&rsquo;s doctor was destined to diagnose its character. After wearing
+for a certain period the aspect of a man who has something to tell, and
+cannot summons courage to tell it&mdash;a position which is common in
+novels&mdash;the Italian at length unbosomed himself, beginning dramatically
+enough by a burst of tears, and the terrific information that he was
+damned. But the Carbuccia of old was a riotous, joyful, foul-tongued,
+pleasure-loving atheist, a typical commercial traveller, with a strain
+of Alsatia and the mountain-brigand. How came this red-tied scoffer so
+far on the road of religion as to be damned? Some foolish fancy had made
+the ribald Ga&euml;tano<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> turn a Mason. When one of his boon companions had
+suggested the evil course, he had refused blankly, apparently because he
+was asked, rather than because it was evil; but he had scarcely regained
+his home in Naples than he became irreparably initiated. The ceremony
+was accomplished in a street of that city by a certain Giambattista
+Pessina, who was a Most Illustrious Sovereign Grand Commander, Past
+Grand Master, and Grand Hierophant of the Antique and Oriental Rite of
+Memphis and Misra&iuml;m, who, for some reason which escapes analysis,
+recognised Carbuccia as a person who deserved to be acquainted with the
+whole physiology and anatomy of Masonry. It would cost 200 francs to
+enter the 33rd grade of the sublime mystery. Carbuccia closed with this
+offer, and was initiated there and then across the table, becoming a
+Grand Commander of the Temple, and was affiliated, for a further
+subscription of 15 francs annually, to the Areopagite of Naples,
+receiving the passwords regularly.</p>
+
+<p>Impelled by an enthusiasm for which he himself was unable to account, he
+now lent a ready<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> ear to all dispensers of degrees; Memphis initiates of
+Manchester allured him into Kabbalistic rites; he fell among occult
+Masons like the Samaritan among thieves; he became a Sublime Hermetic
+Philosopher; overwhelmed with solicitations, he fraternised with the
+Brethren of the New Reformed Palladium, and optimated with the Society
+of Re-Theurgists, from whom he ultimately received the veritable
+initiation of the Magi. Everywhere lodges opened to him, everywhere
+mysteries unveiled; everywhere in the higher grades he found spiritism,
+magic, evocation; his atheism became impossible, and his conscience
+troubled.</p>
+
+<p>Ultimately his business led him to revisit Calcutta, where his last
+unheard-of experience had overwhelmed his whole being, just eight days
+previously to his encounter with Doctor Bataille. He had found the
+Palladists of that city in a flutter of feverish excitement because they
+had succeeded in obtaining from China the skulls of three martyred
+missionaries. These treasures were indispensable to the successful
+operation of a new magical rite composed by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> Supreme Pontiff of
+Universal Freemasonry and Vicegerent of Lucifer, General Albert Pike. A
+s&eacute;ance was about to be held; Brother George Shekleton of immortal
+memory, the hero who had obtained the skulls, was present with those
+trophies; and the petrified quondam atheist took part, not because he
+wished to remain, but because he did not dare to go. The proceedings
+began, the skulls were placed on the tables; Adona&iuml; and his Christ were
+cursed impressively, Lucifer as solemnly blessed and invoked at the
+altar of Baphomet. Nothing could be possibly more successful&mdash;result,
+shocks of earthquake, threatened immediate demolishment of the whole
+place, confident expectation of being entombed alive, terrific burst of
+thunder, a brilliant light, an impressive silence of some seconds, and
+then the sudden manifestation of a being in human form seated in the
+chair of the Grand Master. It was an instantaneous apparition of
+absolute bodily substance, which carried its own warrant of complete
+<i>bona fides</i>. Everyone fell on their knees; everyone was invited to
+rise; everyone rose accordingly; and Carbuccia found that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> had to do
+with a male personage not exceeding eight and thirty years, naked as a
+drawn sword, with a faint flush of Infernus suffusing his skin, a
+species of light inherent which illuminated the darkness of the
+salon&mdash;in a word, a beardless Apollo, tall, distinguished, infinitely
+melancholy, and yet with a nervous smile playing at the corners of his
+mouth, the apparition of <i>Aut Diabolus aut Nihil</i> divested of evening
+dress. This Unashamed Nakedness, who was accepted as the manifestation
+of Lucifer, discoursed pleasantly to his children, electing to use
+excellent English, and foretold his ultimate victory over his eternal
+enemy; he assured them of continued protection, alluded in passing to
+the innumerable hosts which surrounded him in his eternal domain, and
+incited his hearers to work without ceasing for the emancipation of
+humanity from superstition.</p>
+
+<p>The discourse ended, he quitted the da&iuml;s, approached the Grand Master,
+and eye to eye fixed him in deep silence. After a pause he passed on,
+without committing himself to any definite observation; yet there seems
+to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> been a meaning in the ceremony, for he successively repeated it
+in the case of every dignitary congregated at the eastern side, and
+finally of the ordinary members. When it came to the turn of Carbuccia,
+he would have given ten years of his life to have been at the Galleys
+rather than Calcutta, but he contrived to pull through, without,
+however, creating a favourable impression, for <i>adversarius noster
+diabolus</i> passed on with contracted brow, and when the disconcerting
+inquiry was over, returned to the centre of the circle, gave a final
+glance around, approached Shekleton, and civilly requested him to shake
+hands. The importer of missionary skulls complied with a horrible yell;
+there was an electric shock, sudden darkness, and general
+<i>coup-de-th&eacute;&acirc;tre</i>. When the torches were rekindled, the apparition had
+vanished, Shekleton was discovered to be dead, and the initiates
+crowding round him, sang: &ldquo;Glory immortal to Shekleton! He has been
+chosen by our omnipotent God.&rdquo; It was too much for the galliard
+merchant, and he swooned.</p>
+
+<p>Now, this is why Signor Carbuccia concluded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> that he was damned, which
+appears to have been precipitate. He has contrived, by the good offices
+of his lay confessor, to square matters with the hierarchy of Adona&iuml;,
+who belongs to the Latin persuasion; he has changed his name, adopted a
+third profession, and is so safe in retreat that his friends are as
+unlikely to find him as are the enemies who thirst for his blood.</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Bataille, faithful to his r&ocirc;le of good Catholic, perceived at
+once that the Merchant&rsquo;s Story of these new Arabian Nights was
+characterised by extreme frankness, was devoid of a sinister motive, and
+was not the narrative of a maniac. A physician, he adds sententiously,
+is not to be deceived. He determined thereupon that he himself would
+descend into the abyss, taking with him a mental reservation in all he
+said and did as a kind of discharge in full. The Church and humanity
+required it. Behold him then presently at Naples, making acquaintance
+with Signor Pessina, and outdoing Carbuccia by expending 500 francs in
+the purchase of the 90th Misra&iuml;m grade, thus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> becoming a Sovereign Grand
+Master for life! &ldquo;I will be the exploiter and not the accomplice of
+modern Satanism,&rdquo; said the pious Doctor Bataille.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">&sect; 3. <i>A Priestess of Lucifer.</i></p>
+
+<p>Fortified with the purchase of his Memphis sovereignty, and the
+possession of various signs and passwords communicated by Carbuccia,
+which, by some interposition of Providence, must be assumed to have
+remained unchanged in the intervening period, Dr Bataille entered on his
+adventurous mission, bedewed with many tears, and sanctified by many
+blessings of an old spiritual adviser, who, needless to say, was at
+first hostile to the enterprise, and was afterwards as inevitably
+disarmed by the eloquence and enthusiasm of his disciple. Having regard
+to the fact that Masonry and Diabolism abound everywhere, according to
+the hypothesis, it obviously mattered little at what point he began the
+prosecution of his design; all roads lead to Rome, and the statement is
+equally true of the Rome of Masonry and the Vatican of Lucifer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> As a
+fact, he started where Carbuccia may be said to have left off, namely,
+at Point-de-Galle in Southern Ceylon. There he determined to acquaint
+himself with Cingalese Kabbalism, a department of transcendental
+philosophy, about as likely to be met with in that reputed region of the
+Terrestrial Paradise as a cultus from the great south sea in the back
+parts of Notting Hill. Signor Pessina, however, had provided him with
+the address of a society which operated something that the doctor agrees
+to term Kabbalah, after the same manner that he misnames most subjects.
+But he was not destined to Kabbalize.</p>
+
+<p>Repairing to the principal hotel, he there witnessed, through one of
+those fortuitous occurrences which are sometimes the mask of fate, a
+sufficiently indifferent performance by native jugglers, the chief of
+whom was exceedingly lean and so dirty as to suggest that he was remote
+from godliness. During the course of the conjuring this personage held
+the doctor by a certain meaning glance of his glittering eye, and when
+all was over the latter had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> a private information that Sata desired to
+speak with him. The na&iuml;ve mind of the doctor regarded the name as
+significant in view of his mission; Sata was assuredly a Satanist. He
+consented incontinently, and was greeted by the juggler with certain
+mysterious signs which showed that he was a Luciferian of the sect of
+Carbuccia, though, by what device of the devil he divined the doctor&rsquo;s
+adeptship, the devil and not the doctor could alone explain at the
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>A miscellaneous language is apparently spoken by the Cingalese
+jugglers&mdash;Tamil, including a little bad French, not less convenient than
+needful in the present case. It was made clear by some brief
+explanations that the medical services of Dr Bataille were solicited at
+the death-bed of a personage named Mahmah, for which purpose the two
+entered a hired conveyance, while the rank and file of the jugglers
+followed at a brisk trot. In this manner they traversed a frightful
+desert, plunged into a forest of brushwood, finally forded a stream, and
+after two hours arrived at an open clear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>ing, in the centre of which was
+a hut. An ape occupied the threshold, a vampire bat hung from a
+convenient beam, a cobra was curled underneath, and a black cat welcomed
+them with arched back. The ape spoke Tamil freely and then marched off,
+reflecting upon which circumstance, the doctor thought that it was quite
+the strangest thing in the world.</p>
+
+<p>The hut was the covering of a species of well, down which, with some
+quakings for the safety of limbs and body, our adventurer was persuaded
+to follow his guides, and they reached, at the end of a long flight of
+steps, an immense mortuary chamber. There, on a bed of cocoa-nut fibre,
+he found his patient, from whose mummified and hideous appearance he at
+once concluded that she was entirely given over to Satan and had long
+been a lost soul. As spiritually, so also physically, she was past all
+human aid; indeed she seemed dead already, and he gave his medical
+opinion to that effect. The countenance of this opinion was apparently
+the warrant required for the proceedings which immediately followed, and
+it is difficult to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> understand why fakirs in league with Satan&mdash;for such
+we are told they were&mdash;and possessed, no doubt, both of ordinary native
+and occult methods of diagnosis, could not have discovered this for
+themselves, more especially as the lady, who seems to have been a
+pythoness by profession, and commerced with a familiar spirit, had
+already reached the ripe age of 152 years.</p>
+
+<p>To shorten a long and peculiarly noisome story, the astounded doctor
+ultimately beheld the dying woman revive suddenly, and crawl to the end
+of the chamber, where there was an elaborate altar surmounted by a
+figure of Baphomet; the fakirs crowded round her; the ape, the bat, the
+snake, the cat, all appeared on the scene; a brilliant illumination was
+produced by means of eleven lamps suspended from the ceiling; the woman
+drew herself into an erect position; the fakirs piled resinous branches
+round her; amidst invocations, mysterious chants, and yells, she
+permitted herself to be burned to death, her body slowly blackening, her
+face turning scarlet in the flames, her eyes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> starting from her head,
+and so she passed into ashes.</p>
+
+<p>Why was the doctor privileged to be present at these proceedings?
+Because an agent of the fakirs had previously investigated his
+portmanteau on the hotel premises, and had discovered his Memphis
+insignia, which they returned to him in the mortuary chamber. As to the
+Baphomet, it is very fully described, and is identified with similar
+images of Masonic lodges in America, India, Paris, Rome, Shanghai, and
+Monte Video. The doctor says that it is the god of the occultists. The
+venerable Sata quoted Latin as intelligently as the ape spoke Tamil; he
+overwhelmed his benefactor with acknowledgments, and instead of a fee
+presented him with a winged lingam, by means of which he would be
+received among all worshippers of Lucifer in India, China,&mdash;in fact, as
+Sata said, <i>partout, partout</i>.</p>
+
+<p>So did Dr Bataille make his first acquaintance with practical occultism,
+and these things being done, he returned to his hotel and departed
+thankfully to bed.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>&sect; 4. <i>A House of Rottenness.</i></p>
+
+<p>Who would possess a lingam which was an <i>Open Sesame</i> to devildom and
+not make use thereof? By effecting an exchange with another ship&rsquo;s
+doctor, the exploiter of Lucifer found himself presently at Pondicherry,
+with three months of comparative freedom before him to explore the
+mysteries of the oriental peninsula. Need I say that he had scarcely
+landed at the French seaboard town when he at once made acquaintance
+with the very person who of all others was most suitable to his scheme?
+This was Ramassamiponnotamly-pal&eacute;-dobachi&mdash;quite a short name, he
+assures us, for the natives of this part. All Pondicherry more or less
+abounded in lingams and Lucifer, but as he carried his right hand
+clenched, the doctor at once suspected the half-naked Ramassam to be
+more than commonly devoted to the persuasion of perdition; nor was he
+mistaken, for the latter promptly inquired: &ldquo;What is your age?&rdquo; &ldquo;Eleven
+years,&rdquo; said the doctor. &ldquo;Whence do you come?&rdquo; &ldquo;From the eternal flame.&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Whither do you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> go?&rdquo; &ldquo;To the flame eternal.&rdquo; And to their mutual
+satisfaction they agreed the sacred name of Baal-Zeboub, the doctor
+producing his winged lingam, at which the other fell down in the open
+streets and adored him. The exhibition of the patent of a Sovereign
+Grand Master <i>ad Vitam</i> of the Rite of Memphis inspired further respect;
+it was evidently a document with which Ramassam had long been familiar;
+and he began to talk glibly of tyling. Like the horrors of Udolpho, the
+explanation was of course very simple: Mr John Campbell, an American,
+had instituted a lodge of the York Rite at Pondicherry which, in the
+most natural manner, admitted the Luciferian Fakirs as visitors, the
+Luciferian Fakirs admitted the members of the York Rite to their
+conventions, and they all bedevilled one another.</p>
+
+<p>It would be idle to suppose that F.&middot;. Campbell was not at Pondicherry on
+business when the doctor chanced to arrive, and in the course of the
+afternoon the latter was taken by Ramassam to a house of ordinary
+appearance, into which they were admitted by another Indian, who, of
+course, like the guide, spoke good French.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> Through the greenery of a
+garden, the gloom of a well, and the entanglement of certain stairways,
+they entered a great dismantled temple devoted to the service of Brahma,
+under the unimpressive diminutive of Lucif. The infernal sanctuary had a
+statue of Baphomet, identical with that in Ceylon, and the
+ill-ventilated place reeked with horrible putrescence. Its noisome
+condition was mainly owing to the presence of various fakirs, who,
+though still alive, were in advanced stages of putrefaction. Most people
+are supposed to go easily and pleasantly to the devil, but these elected
+to do so by way of a charnel-house asceticism, and an elaborate system
+of self-torture. Some were suspended from the ceiling by a rope tied to
+their arms, some embedded in plaster, some stiffened in a circle, some
+permanently distorted into the shape of the letter S; some were head
+downwards, some in a cruciform position. It was really quite monstrous,
+says the doctor, but a native grand master explained, that they had
+postured for years in this manner, and one of them for a quarter of a
+century.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>Fr.&middot;. John Campbell proceeded to harangue the assembly in ourdou-zaban,
+but the doctor comprehended completely, and reports the substance of his
+speech, which was violently anti-Catholic in its nature, and especially
+directed against missionaries. This finished, they proceeded to the
+evocation of Baal-Zeboub, at first by the Conjuration of the Four, but
+no fiend appeared. The operation was repeated ineffectually a second
+time, and John Campbell determined upon the Grand Rite, which began by
+each person spinning on his own axis, and in this manner
+circumambulating the temple in procession. Whenever they passed an
+embedded fakir, they obtained an incantation from his lips, but still
+Baal-Zeboub failed. Thereupon the native Grand Master suggested that the
+evocation should be performed by the holiest of all the fakirs, who was
+produced from a cupboard more fetid than the temple itself, and proved
+to be in the following condition:&mdash;(<i>a</i>) Face eaten by rats; (<i>b</i>) one
+bleeding eye hanging down by his mouth; (<i>c</i>) legs covered with
+gangrene, ulcers, and rottenness; (<i>d</i>) expression peaceful and happy.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>Entreated to call on Baal-Zeboub, each time he opened his mouth his eye
+fell into it; however, he continued the invocation, but no Baal-Zeboub
+manifested. A tripod of burning coals was next obtained, and a woman,
+summoned for this purpose, plunged her arm into the flames, inhaling
+with great delight the odour of her roasting flesh. Result, <i>nil</i>. Then
+a white goat was produced, placed upon the altar of Baphomet, set
+alight, hideously tortured, cut open, and its entrails torn out by the
+native Grand Master, who spread them on the steps, uttering abominable
+blasphemies against Adona&iuml;. This having also failed, great stones were
+raised from the floor, a nameless stench ascended, and a large
+consignment of living fakirs, eaten to the bone by worms and falling to
+pieces in every direction, were dragged out from among a number of
+skeletons, while serpents, giant spiders, and toads swarmed from all
+parts. The Grand Master seized one of the fakirs and cut his throat upon
+the altar, chanting the satanic liturgy amidst imprecations, curses, a
+chaos of voices, and the last agonies of the goat. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> blood spirted
+forth upon the assistants, and the Grand Master sprinkled the Baphomet.
+A final howl of invocation resulted in complete failure, whereupon it
+was decided that Baal-Zeboub had business elsewhere. The doctor departed
+from the ceremony, fraternising with Campbell, and kept his bed for
+eight-and-forty hours.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">&sect; 5. <i>The seven Temples and a Sabbath in Sheol.</i></p>
+
+<p>It was in the month of October 1880 that, in the course of his
+enterprise, Doctor Bataille reached Calcutta. Freemasonry, he informs
+us, invariably affects the horrible, and as he invests Calcutta with the
+sombre hues of living death and universal putrefaction, it naturally
+follows that the Indian city is one of the four great directing centres
+of Universal Freemasonry. Everywhere the pious Doctor discovered the
+hand of Lucifer; everywhere he beheld the consequences of superstition
+and Satanism; cataclysms, floods, tornados, typhoons, plagues, cholera,
+representing the normal state of health and habit, and the consequences
+of universal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> persuasion in favour of the fiend. A corpse, he testifies,
+is met with at every step, the smoke of burning widows ascends to
+heaven, and the plain of Dappah, in immediate contiguity to the city, is
+a vast charnel-house where innumerable multitudes of dead bodies are
+flung naked to the vultures. The English Mason will at once recognise
+that of all places in the world Calcutta is most suited to be a Mecca of
+the Fraternity and the capital of English India. The Kadosch of the
+Scotch Rite, the Sublime Chosen Master of the Royal Arch, the Commander
+of the White and Black Eagle of the rite of Herodom, the perfectly
+initiated Grand Inspector of the Scotch Philosophical Rite, the Elect
+Brother of the Johannite Rite of Zinnendorf, and the Brother of the Red
+Cross of Swedenborg, a thousand other dignitaries of a thousand
+illuminations, gather in the Grand Masonic Temple, and, as the Doctor
+gravely tells us, are employed in cursing Catholicity. By a special
+conjunction of the planets, the Doctor, on reaching head-quarters, had
+immediate intelligence that the great Phileas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> Walder had himself
+recently arrived on a secret mission from Charleston. There also he made
+acquaintance with another luminary of devildom, by name Hobbs, who
+presided at the important proceedings which resulted in the damnation of
+Carbuccia. Brother Hobbs, possessed of much experience in Lucifer, gave
+many assurances concerning the incessant apparitions of The Master of
+Evil to all worthy persons. Now the Doctor, by virtue of his Misra&iuml;m
+patent, was as much a priest for ever according to the Melchisedeck of
+Masonry, as if he had been born without father or mother, but at the
+moment he had not received the perfect initiation of the Palladium;
+technically, therefore, he had no right to participate in the Supreme
+Mysteries. However, it is needless to say that he had arrived in the
+nick of time to be present at a ceremony which takes place only once in
+ten years, provided that he was willing to undergo the trifle of a
+preliminary ordeal.</p>
+
+<p>On the same evening a select company of initiates proceeded in hired
+carriages through the desolation of Dappah, under the convoy of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
+initiated coachmen, for the operation of a great satanic solemnity. At
+an easy distance from the city is the Sheol of the native Indians, and
+hard by the latter place there is a mountain 500 feet high and 2000
+long, on the summit of which seven temples are erected, communicating
+one with another by subterranean passages in the rock. The total absence
+of pagodas make it evident that these temples are devoted to the worship
+of Satan; they form a gigantic triangle superposed on the vast plateau,
+at the base of which the party descended from their conveyances, and
+were met by a native with an accommodating knowledge of French. Upon
+exchanging the Sign of Lucifer he conducted them to a hole in the rock,
+which gave upon a narrow passage guarded by a line of Sikhs with drawn
+swords, prepared to massacre anybody, and leading to the vestibule of
+the first temple, which was filled with a miscellaneous concourse of
+Adepts, from officers and tea-merchants even to tanners and dentists. In
+the first temple, which was provided with the inevitable statue of
+Baphomet, but was withal bare and meagrely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> illuminated, the doctor was
+destined to pass through his promised ordeal, for which he was stripped
+to the skin, placed in the centre of the assembly, and at a given signal
+one thousand odd venomous cobra de capellos were produced from holes in
+the wall and encouraged to fold him in their embraces, while the music
+of flute-playing fakirs alone intervened to prevent his instant death.
+He passed through this trying encounter with a valour which amazed
+himself, persisted in prolonging the ceremony, and otherwise proved
+himself a man of such extraordinary metal that he earned universal
+respect and received the most flattering testimonials even from Phileas
+Walder. That the serpents were undoubtedly venomous was afterwards
+proved upon the person of one of the natives present, who, delivered to
+their fury, fell, covered with apparently mortal bites, but was
+subsequently treated by native remedies and carried before the altar of
+Baphomet to be cured by the special intervention of the good God
+Lucifer. This ceremony was accomplished by the intervention of a lovely
+Indian Vestal, by the prayers of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> Grand Master, a silk-mercer by
+commercial persuasion, and by the mock baptism of a serpent, after which
+the sufferer rose to his feet and the inconvenient venom spurted of
+itself out of his wounds. From the Sanctuary of the Serpents the company
+then proceeded, with becoming recollection, into the second temple or
+Sanctuary of the Ph&#339;nix.</p>
+
+<p>The second temple was brilliantly illuminated and ablaze with millions
+of precious stones wrested by the wicked English from innumerable
+conquered Rajahs; it had garlands of diamonds, festoons of rubies, vast
+images of solid silver, and a gigantic Ph&#339;nix in red gold more solid
+than the silver. There was an altar beneath the Ph&#339;nix, and a male and
+female ape were composed at the altar steps, while the Grand Master
+proceeded to the celebration of a black mass, which was followed by an
+amazing marriage of the two engaging animals, and the sacrifice of a
+lamb brought alive into the temple, bleating piteously, with nails
+driven through its feet. This was intended to symbolize an illuminated
+reprobation of celibacy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> and an approval of the married state, or its
+less expensive substitutes.</p>
+
+<p>The third temple was consecrated to the Mother of fallen women, who, in
+memory of the adventure of the apple, has a place in the calendar of
+Lucifer; the proceedings consisted of a dialogue between the Grand
+Master and the Vestal which the becoming modesty of the doctor prevents
+him from describing even in the Latin tongue.</p>
+
+<p>The fourth temple was a Rosicrucian Sanctuary, having an open sepulchre,
+from which blue flames continually emanated; there was a platform in the
+midst of the temple designed for the accommodation of more Indian
+Vestals, one of whom it was proposed should evaporate into thin air,
+after which a Fakir would be transformed before the whole company into a
+living mummy and be interred for a space of three years. These were
+among the events of the evening, and were accomplished with great
+success without much disturbing the mental equilibrium of the doctor,
+though he confessed to a certain impression when the Fakir intro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>duced
+his performance by suspension in mid-air.</p>
+
+<p>The fifth temple was consecrated to the Pelican and was used by an
+English officer to deliver a short discourse on Masonic charity, which
+the doctor regarded as vulnerable from a moral point of view and
+suggestive of easy virtue.</p>
+
+<p>The sixth temple was that of the Future and was devoted to divinations,
+the oracles being given by a Vestal in a hypnotic condition, seated over
+a burning brazier. The doctor was accommodated with a test, but another
+inquirer who had the temerity to be curious as to what was being done in
+the Vatican received a severe rebuff; in vain did the spirit of the
+Clairvoyante strive to penetrate the &ldquo;draughty and malarious&rdquo; palace of
+the Roman Pontiff, and Phileas Walder, mortified and maddened, began to
+curse and to swear like the first Pope. The experiment disillusionized
+the assembly and they thoughtfully repaired to the seventh temple,
+which, being sacred to Fire, was equipped with a vast central furnace
+surmounted by a chimney<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> and containing a gigantic figure of Baphomet;
+in spite of the intolerable heat pervading the entire chamber this idol
+contrived to preserve its outlines and to glow without pulverising. A
+ceremony of an impressive nature occurred in this apartment; a wild cat,
+which strayed in through an open window, was regarded as the appearance
+of a soul in transmigration, and, in spite of its piteous protests, was
+passed through the fire to Baal.</p>
+
+<p>And now the crowning function, the Magnum Opus of the mystery, must take
+place in the Sheol of Dappah; a long procession filed from the mountain
+temples to the charnel-house of the open plain; the night was dark, the
+moon had vanished in dismay, black clouds scudded across the heavens, a
+feverish rain fell slowly at intervals, and the ground was dimly lighted
+by the phosphorescence of the general putrefaction. The Adepts went
+stumbling over dead bodies, disturbing Rats and Vultures, and proceeded
+to the formation of the magic chain, which consisted in high-grade
+Masons, provided with silk hats, sitting down in a vast circle, every
+Adept<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> embracing his particular corpse. The ceremony included the
+recitation of certain passages borrowed from popular grimoires, the
+object in view being the wholesale liberation of Spirits wandering in
+the immediate neighbourhood of their bodies. This closed the proceedings
+and the doctor confesses that the distractions of the evening occasioned
+him a disturbed sleep accompanied by nightmares.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">&sect; 6. <i>A Palladian Initiation.</i></p>
+
+<p>Before leaving Calcutta our adventurer purchased from Phileas Walder,
+for the sum of two hundred francs, the serviceable dignity of a
+Palladian Hierarch, &ldquo;fortified with which he would be enabled to
+penetrate everywhere.&rdquo; Regarding all English possessions as peculiarly
+productive in the Dead Sea fruit of diabolism, Singapore was the next
+scene of his curious researches. The English as a nation are criminal,
+but Singapore is the yeast-house of British wickedness, where vice
+ferments continually; there man masonifies naturally and most Masons
+palladise. The doctor states plainly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> that one thing only has preserved
+the place from the doom of the cities of the plain, and that is the
+presence of certain good Christians, otherwise Catholics, in what he
+terms the accursed city. For himself he tarried only to witness the
+initiation of a Mistress-Templar according to the Palladian rite, which
+took place in a Presbyterian Chapel, the Presbyterian persuasion, as he
+tells us, being one of the broad roads leading to avowed Satanism. The
+password was appropriately the name of the first murderer, and the
+doctor was greeted to his great astonishment by an old acquaintance, an
+English pastor, whom he had frequently seen upon his own magnificent
+steam-boat, who also rejoiced in the nick-name of the Reverend Alcohol,
+being, like the majority of Englishmen, almost invariably drunk. The
+ceremony of initiation, which is described at great length in the
+narrative, is a variation from that of Leo Taxil; the doctor, in mercy
+to his readers, suppressing a part of the performance. Speaking
+generally, it was concerned, as we have previously seen, with an
+anti-Christian version of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> Gospel history and some commonplace outrages
+of the Eucharistic elements, during which proceedings our witness
+perspired freely. So, as he tells us, did one more Protestant pass over
+to the worship of Lucifer.</p>
+
+<p>The operations of the ritual were followed by a &ldquo;divine solemnity,&rdquo;
+which had something of the character of an ordinary spiritual s&eacute;ance,
+supposing it to have been held in a mad-house. I need only say that when
+the lights were turned up at the end, every article of furniture,
+including a large organ, was discovered hanging from the ceiling. As a
+final phenomenon, the Master of the Ceremonies detached his shadow from
+his substance, arranged it against the wall in the shape of a demon, and
+it responded to various questions by signs. There was a burst of loud
+applause, the proceedings terminated, and the Masonic Temple became once
+more a Presbyterian Chapel.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">&sect; 7. <i>The San-Ho-Hei.</i></p>
+
+<p>The doctor informs us that China is the gate of Hell, and that all its
+inhabitants are born<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> damned; child-like and bland in appearance, the
+Chinaman is invariably by disposition a Satanist, having tastes wholly
+diabolical. As to the religion of Buddha, it is simply Satanism <i>&agrave;
+outrance</i>. Chinese occultism is centralised in the San-Ho-Hei, an
+association &ldquo;parallel to high grade Masonry,&rdquo; having its head-quarters
+at Pekin, and welcoming all Freemasons who are affiliated to the
+Palladium. It does not, however, admit women, and has only one degree.
+Its chief occupation is to murder Catholic missionaries. When a
+Palladian Mason seeks admission for the first time to one of its
+assemblies, he betakes himself to the nearest opium den, carrying on his
+person the documents which prove his initiation; he places his umbrella
+head downwards on his left side, and stupefies himself with the divine
+drug. He is then quite sure that he will be transported in a comatose
+condition to the occult reunion. When the doctor reached Shanghai, he
+experienced some hesitation before he attempted an adventure so
+uncertain in its issue. He remembered, however, that he was possessed of
+a miraculous medal of St. Benedict,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> which he regarded as his trump
+card, a species of passport or return ticket, available at any date and
+by any line of Devildom. He determined to get drunk accordingly; but
+even as he entered Masonry with a becoming reservation of conscience, so
+he entered the drug-shop with a reservation as to the degree of his
+drunkenness, in spite of which he fell, however, into a deep sleep, and
+awoke in the assembly of The Secret Avengers, one of whom, to facilitate
+proceedings, had a good knowledge of English, and a perfect familiarity
+with all Charleston passwords. The Baphomet, of course, presided, but it
+appears that the Chinese have certain conscientious scruples on the
+subject of Goats, and hence a Dragon&rsquo;s head was substituted for that of
+the ordinary image. The doctor was not the only European present at the
+proceedings of the celestial assembly; but while he was the sole
+representative of his own nation, it goes without saying that there was
+a fair sprinkling of the abominable British.</p>
+
+<p>So complete is the unanimity which obtains between the initiates of
+China and Charleston<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> that the bulk of the proceedings takes place in
+the English language; but for this disposition of Providence, the doctor
+would have been at a serious disadvantage. The first object of the
+company was to encompass the destruction of missionaries, and for this
+purpose a coffin was presently brought in, containing the skeleton of a
+deceased brother, who had so far diverged from duty that he had entered
+in league with the Jesuits, and had dared to act as a spy upon the
+august proceedings of the Sublime Society of Avengers. The first act may
+be regarded as somewhat bizarre in character; it consisted in evoking an
+evil spirit to animate the skeleton, and to answer certain questions.
+This was accomplished with absolute success. The bones of the departed
+brother had, however, been so consecrated by his Jesuitical proclivities
+that, even when animated by a devil, they discovered extreme reluctance
+in disclosing the number and quality of certain Franciscan zealots who
+had just started from Paris to convert the Empire. Ultimately, however,
+it was admitted that they were now on the high seas, which information<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
+given, the bony oracle could no longer contain its rage, but pursued an
+English Mason of the 33rd degree from end to end of the assembly, and
+succeeded in inflicting some furious bites and blows. The second act
+commenced by uncovering a species of exaggerated baptismal font, filled
+to the brim with water, and representing the great ocean over which the
+missionaries were passing. The assembly crowded round it, and by means
+of magic rods and other devices, succeeded in evoking a minute figure of
+a steam-ship containing the adventurers. Their magic also raised up a
+perfect tempest of wind in the closed apartment, but by no device could
+they effect the slightest disturbance upon the placid bosom of the
+water. The ceremony had, in fact, to be abandoned as a failure in its
+desired intention. Too well did the Spirit Yesu protect His
+missionaries. The assembly accordingly repaired into a second apartment.
+There the officiating dignitaries assumed the vestments of Catholic
+priests. They produced a wax figure, designed to represent a missionary,
+amused themselves with a mock trial, inflicted imaginary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> tortures, and
+returned the dummy to a cupboard, after which they proceeded to the
+crucifixion of a living pig. The third act was an agonising experience
+for the doctor, being nothing less than the sacrifice of one of the
+brethren, the selection being determined by lot. The doctor, in his
+quality of visitor, was, it is true, spared the chance of being himself
+the victim, but he nearly became executioner. One of the Chinese adepts
+having been chosen, to his intense satisfaction, and approved by some
+mechanical movements on the part of the dragon-headed Baphomet,
+permitted his limbs to be removed, and then earnestly invoked the
+assistance of the &ldquo;Charleston brother&rdquo; for the purpose of severing his
+head. It was an honour invariably accorded to the visitor of the highest
+grade. The doctor, who could not bring himself to the point, was saved
+at the last moment by the miraculous levitation of Phileas Walder from
+an immense distance, this occult personage having become transcendently
+cognisant of what was going forward in China, and being anxious to
+interrogate the severed head as to the possible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> recovery of his
+daughter, who was then seriously ill. In virtue of his superior dignity,
+he claimed the privilege of the execution, and the doctor modestly
+retired.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the adventures of our witness in the assembly of Holy
+Avengers. He enumerates at great length the evidence against
+hallucination as a result of his excess in opium, but I suggest to
+observing readers that there is a more obvious line of criticism.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">&sect; 8. <i>The Great City of Lucifer.</i></p>
+
+<p>It was in March of the year 1881 that Doctor Bataille proceeded for the
+first time to Charleston, to make acquaintance at head-quarters with the
+universal Masonry of Lucifer and its Pontiff Albert Pike. Charleston is
+the Venice of America, the Rome of Satan, and the great City of Lucifer.
+Always enormously prolix, and adoring the details which swell the flimsy
+issues of cheap periodical narratives, our witness describes at great
+length the city and its Masonic temple, with the temple which is within
+the temple and is consecrated to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> the good God. My second chapter has
+already provided the reader with sufficient information upon the persons
+alleged to be concerned in the foundation of Universal Freemasonry and
+in the elaboration of its cultus. Nor need I dwell at any length upon
+the personal communication which passed between Doctor Bataille, Albert
+Pike, Gallatin Mackey, Sophia Walder, Chambers, Webber, and the rest of
+the Charleston luminaries. Miss Walder explained to him the great hope
+of the Order concerning the speedy advent of anti-Christ, the abolition
+of the papacy, and the destruction of the Christian religion. She also
+related many of her private experiences with the infernal monarchy,
+being acquainted with the exact number of demons in the descending
+hierarchy, and with all their classes and legions. She confidently
+expected to be the great grandmother of anti-Christ, and in the meantime
+possessed the transcendental faculty of becoming fluidic at will. Mr
+Gallatin Mackey exhibited his <i>Arcula Mystica</i>, one of seven similar
+instruments existing at Charleston, Rome, Berlin, Washington, Monte
+Video, Naples, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> Calcutta. To all appearance it resembled a
+liqueur-stand, but it was really a diabolical telephone worked like the
+Urimm and Thummimm, and enabling those who possessed it to communicate
+with each other, whatever the intervening distance. The Doctor, in his
+quality of initiate, was, of course, taken over the entire premises; he
+examined the head of the great templar Molay, deciding by his
+anthropological knowledge that the relic was not genuine, and that it
+was not the skull of a European. As to the templar Baphomet, situated in
+the Sanctum Regnum, and before which Lucifer is supposed to appear, it
+is sufficient to say that Doctor Bataille, who invariably treads
+cautiously where it is easy for other steps to follow him, has no
+personal testimony to furnish upon the subject of the apparition, and
+the relations of other persons do not concern us at the moment.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">&sect; 9. <i>Transcendental Toxicology.</i></p>
+
+<p>The memorials of Charleston are not entirely favourable to the true
+strength of our witness; it was requisite to &ldquo;lie low&rdquo; in America, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+the Doctor bristles in Gibraltar; he is once more upon British soil.
+Does not the Englishman, consciously or otherwise, put a curse on
+everything he touches? Doctor Bataille affirms it; indeed this quality
+of malediction has been specially dispensed to the nation of heretics by
+God himself; so says Doctor Bataille. Since the British braggart began
+to embattle Gibraltar, having thieved it from Catholic Spain, a wind of
+desolation breathes over the whole country. An inscrutable providence,
+of which our witness is the mouthpiece, has elected to set apart this
+rock in order that the devil and the English, who, he says, are a pair,
+may continue their work of protestantising and filling the world with
+malefice. To sum the whole matter, the Britisher is an odious usurper
+&ldquo;who has always got one eye open.&rdquo; Now, having regard to the fact that
+out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation a proportion to be
+numbered by millions is given over to devil-worship and Masonry, and
+that consequently there is an enormous demand for Baphomets and other
+idols, for innumerable instruments of black Magic, and for poisons to
+exterminate enemies, it is obviously needful that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> there should be a
+secret central department for the working of woods and metals and for
+Transcendental Toxicology. To Charleston the dogmatic directory, to
+Gibraltar the universal factory. But so colossal an output focussed at a
+single point could scarcely proceed unknown to Government at a given
+place, and any nation save England might object to this class of
+exports. The cause of Masonry and the devil being, however, dear to the
+English heart, it would, of course, pass unchallenged at Gibraltar, and
+at this point an anglo-phobe with a remnant of reason would have
+remained satisfied. Not so our French physician, who affirms that the
+exports in question do not merely escape inquisition at the hands of
+civil authority but are in fact a government industry.</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+&ldquo;Bluish &lsquo;mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;<br />
+&nbsp;In the dimmest north-east distance dawned Gibraltar, grand and gray&mdash;<br />
+&nbsp;Here and here did England help me, how can I help England, say?&rdquo;
+</div>
+
+<p>These are the words of Browning, and his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> question has well been
+answered by the institution of the secret workshops and the secret
+laboratory; as in most other cases England has helped herself, unless,
+indeed, it should occur to the doctor that the poet was a Satanist, like
+Pike, who himself was a poet, and had a chief finger in the pie.</p>
+
+<p>Now the great historic rock is tunnelled by innumerable caverns, which,
+our deponent witnesses, have never been explored by the tourist, and in
+the most impracticable portions of the great subterranean maze,
+whosoever has the audacity to penetrate will discover for himself the
+existence of the industrial department of diabolism, but he must not
+expect to come back unless he be a Sovereign Grand Master <i>ad vitam</i>,
+and an initiate of Lucifer. The doctor has explored these caverns, has
+seen the factory in full working order, has exhaustively described the
+way in, has returned from the gulf like Dante, and has given away the
+whole mystery. Possessed of his key to the labyrinth the wayfaring man
+shall not err therein, and it will, no doubt, be a new curiosity for the
+more daring among Cook&rsquo;s tourists. The workshops are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> supplied with
+mechanics by a simple expedient; hopeless specimens of English
+malefactors, condemned to penal servitude for the term of their natural
+life, are relegated to this region, a kind of grim humour characterising
+the selection. The most hideous convicts are chosen, and those most
+corresponding in outward appearance to the favourite devils of the
+hierarchy, under whose names they pass in the workshops, where they
+commonly communicate with each other in the language of Volapuk. The
+reason given is that this language has been adopted by the Sp&#339;leic
+Rite, which I confess that I had not heard of previously, but I venture
+to think that the doctor has concealed the true reason, and that Volapuk
+has been thus chosen because it is a diabolical invention; a universal
+language prevailed previously to the confusion of Babel, and the new
+language is an irreligious attempt to produce <i>ordo ab chao</i> by a return
+to unity of speech.</p>
+
+<p>The Toxicological Department is worked by a higher class of criminals,
+as for example, absconding trustees, who are there comfortably<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> settled
+in life, enjoying many modern conveniences. It produces poisons which
+usually cause death by cerebral hemorrhage; but each has its special
+antidote, possessed of which the initiated poisoner can eat and drink
+with his victim; on this subject the doctor pursues, however, a policy
+of masterly reticence. But such, in brief, is the deep mystery of
+Gibraltar, such is the Toxicological department of universal
+Freemasonry.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">&sect; 10. <i>The Doctor and Diana.</i></p>
+
+<p>It would be impossible to follow the doctor through the entire course of
+his memoirs, not that they are wholly biographical, exclusively
+concerned with modern diabolism, or with the great conspiracy of Masons
+against God, Man, and the universe; one of his subsidiary and yet most
+important objects is to fill space, in which respect he has almost
+eclipsed the great classics of the penny dreadful in England. I must
+pass with a mere reference over his dealings in spiritualism; it is
+needless to say that in this branch of transcendental investigation he
+witnessed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> more astounding phenomena than falls commonly to the lot of
+even veteran students. His star prevailed everywhere, and the world
+unseen deployed its strongest forces. At Monte Video, for example,
+falling casually into a circle of spiritualists, he was seated,
+surrounded by a family of these unconscious and amateur diabolists,
+before an open window at night time; across the broad mouth of the river
+a great shaft of soft light from the lamp of the lighthouse opposite
+shone in mid-air, over the bosom of the water, and as it fell upon their
+faces he discerned, floating within the beam itself, the solid figure of
+a man. It was not the first time that the apparition, under similar
+circumstances, had been seen by the rest of the household, but for him
+it bore a message of deeper mystery than for these uninitiated
+spiritualists; although in man&rsquo;s clothes, his observant eye recognised
+the face of the spirit; terrible and suggestive truth, it was the face
+of the vestal Virgin, who, far off in Calcutta, had fluidified in the
+third temple, and he uttered a great cry! He has now decided to void
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> virginity of the vestal, and to assume that she was in reality a
+demon, and not a being of earth. At the same time, my readers must
+thoroughly understand that the doctor, when he meddles in spiritualism,
+is a man who is governed in his narratives by an intelligent faculty of
+criticism which borders on the purely sceptic; he delights in the
+display of instances where an element of trickery may be detected; no
+one better than himself can distinguish between bogus and bogey, and he
+takes pleasure in directing special attention to his extraordinary good
+judgment and sound common-sense in each and all these matters. Hence no
+one will be surprised to hear that at the house of a lady in London, an
+ordinary table, after a preliminary performance in tilting, transformed
+suddenly into a full-grown crocodile, and played touchingly on the
+piano, after which it again changed into a table, but the gin, the
+whisky, the pale ale, and the other intoxicants which are indispensable
+at s&eacute;ances in England, had been entirely consumed by the transcendental
+reptile to fortify him on his return journey to the mud-banks of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> the
+Nile. Nor has the spontaneous apparition been wanting to complete the
+experiences of Dr Bataille. He was seated in his cabin at midnight
+pondering over the theories formulated in natural history by Cuvier and
+Darwin, who diabolised the entire creation, when he was touched lightly
+on the shoulder, and discovered standing over him, in his picturesque
+Oriental costume, like another Mohini, the Arabian poisoner-in-chief of
+the Gibraltar Toxicological Department, who, after some honourable
+assurances that the Bible was not true, departed transcendentally as he
+came. This personage subsequently proved to be the demon Hermes. Even
+when he merely masonified, the doctor had unheard-of experiences in
+magic. For example, at Golden Square, in the west central district of
+this wicked city, an address which we have heard of before, at the
+conclusion of an ordinary Lodge meeting, there was an evocation of the
+demon Zaren, who appeared under the form of a monstrous three-headed
+dragon completely cased in steel, and, endeavouring to devour his
+evoker, was restrained by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> magical pentagram, ultimately vanishing
+with the peculiar odour of Infernus.</p>
+
+<p>In connection with various marvels the doctor has much to tell us
+concerning two sisters in Lucifer who have long been at daggers drawn,
+and considering their supernatural attributes, it is incomprehensible in
+a high degree that they have not destroyed one another like the Magician
+and the Princess of a more credible narrative of wonders in the &ldquo;Arabian
+Nights.&rdquo; Diana Vaughan, much heard and little seen, has since become
+famous by her conversion to the Catholic faith. Honoured with her
+acquaintance for a considerable period, the doctor invariably testifies
+the utmost respect for this wealthy, beautiful, and high-placed
+Palladian lady, so long protected by a demon, of the superior hierarchy,
+and enjoying what he somewhat obscurely terms an obsessional
+guardianship. On the 28th of February, 1884, at a theurgic s&eacute;ance of
+Templar Mistresses and Elect Magi of Louisville, the ceiling of the
+temple was riven suddenly, and Asmodeus, genius of Fire, descended to
+slow music, having in one hand a sword, and in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> other the long tail
+of a lion. He informed the company that there had just been a great
+battle between the leaders of Lucifer and Adona&iuml;, and that it had been
+his personal felicity to lop the Lion&rsquo;s tail of St Mark; he directed the
+members of the eleven plus seven triangle to preserve the trophy
+carefully, and, that it might not be a lifeless relic, he had
+thoughtfully informed it with one of his minor devils until such time as
+he himself should intervene to mark his omnipotent favour towards a
+certain predestined virgin. The vestal in question was Diana of the
+Charlestonians, elect sister in Asmodeus, who at that time was not
+affiliated to Palladism. When the doctor subsequently drew her on the
+subject of this history, she replied, after the manner of the walrus,
+&ldquo;Do you admire the view?&rdquo; For himself, the good doctor dislikes the
+narrative, not because it does violence to possibility, but because it
+did violence to St Mark; there is evidently an incomplete dignity about
+a tailless evangelist. As to the tail itself, he has no personal doubt
+that it was the property of an ordinary lion, and that it has since
+become possessed of a devil.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>At the risk of offending Miss Vaughan, the doctor expatiates on her
+case, and learnedly demonstrates that her possession is of so
+uninterrupted a kind that it has become a second nature, and belongs to
+the 5th degree; however this may be, he establishes at great length one
+important point in her favour, which has occasioned all French Catholics
+to earnestly desire her conversion. I have stated already that the grade
+of Templar-Mistress is concerned partly with profanations of the
+Eucharist. For example, the aspirant to this initiation is required to
+drive a stiletto into the consecrated Host with a becoming expression of
+fury. When Miss Vaughan visited Paris in the year 1885, where Miss
+Walder had sometime previously established herself, she was invited to
+enter this grade, and accepted the offer. A s&eacute;ance for initiation was
+held accordingly, but Miss Vaughan would have none of profanation, and
+refused blankly to stultify her liberal intelligence by the stabbing of
+a wheaten wafer. She did not believe in the Real Presence, and she did
+not wish to be childish. A great sensation followed;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> her initiation was
+postponed; appeal was made to Charleston; and the formality was
+dispensed with in her case by the intervention, as it was supposed at
+the moment, of Albert Pike&rsquo;s authority, even as her Father&rsquo;s
+intervention had excused her beforehand from another ordeal which could
+not be suffered with propriety. This episode implanted in the breast of
+Sophia Walder an extreme form of Palladian hatred for the Diana of
+Philalethes. Now, Sophia was in high favour with all the hosts of
+perdition, yet her rancorous relations with her sister Adept did not
+make Diana less a <i>persona grata</i> to the peculiar intelligence which
+governs the descending hierarchy. In the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky the
+Palladian Magi and the Mistress Templars decided one day to have a
+little experiment with the Undines, so they shouldered their magical
+instruments; but the eager elementaries, habiting the dark abysses, did
+not wait to be evoked; the water bubbled in the Lake, the roof was
+constellated with stars, and who should appear but Asmodeus, on the bank
+opposite, in all his infernal glory! With open<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> arms he loudly called on
+Diana, and that lady, suddenly transfigured, walked calmly over the
+water, and kissed the feet of her demon, who incontinently vanished.
+Inspired by a sense of deficiency, the doctor says that the visit to the
+Mammoth Cave terminated without any further incident. He was not an
+ocular witness of what he relates in this instance, but he received it
+from the lips of Diana, and the lips of Diana, in the opinion of all
+honourable men, would be preferable to the eyes of the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>But the doctor had the testimony of his eyes upon another occasion; it
+is known that Miss Vaughan&rsquo;s celebrity began with her hostility to the
+Italian Grand Master, Adriano Lemmi. When the seat of the Sovereign
+Pontificate, as deponents testify, was removed from Charleston, the
+great city of Lucifer, even unto the Eternal City, and many adepts
+demissioned, there was a doubt in the rebel camp as to the continued
+protection of Lucifer. If Diabolus had gone over to Lemmi, they were
+indeed bereft. Miss Vaughan, however, remained calm and sanguine:&mdash;&ldquo;I am
+certain of the celestial protection<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> of the Genii of Light,&rdquo; said Diana,
+and, producing her talisman, she bent her right knee to the ground,
+turned a complete somersault without falling, flung her tambourine into
+the air, which descended gently and remained suspended a yard from the
+ground, while she herself, passing into a condition of ecstasy, also
+rose into the air in a recumbent posture. She remained in this state for
+the space of fifteen minutes, the silence being only broken by the
+distant rumbling of thunder. Many of the spectators could not believe
+their eyes. At length very gently her body assumed a vertical position,
+head downwards, but as a concession to polite feeling the remaining laws
+of gravity were suspended, like herself, and her skirts were not
+correspondingly inverted. Slowly the ecstatic lady continued to
+circulate, the assembly stood at gaze &ldquo;like Joshua&rsquo;s moon in Ajalon,&rdquo;
+and presently she was in the vertical position of a swimmer, the
+phenomenon concluding by her restoration to <i>terra firma</i>. This wonder
+was accomplished by the magic power of a diabolical Rose which the lady
+carried in her bodice.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>On yet another occasion the doctor witnessed the prodigy of the
+bilocation of Diana by the assistance of a simple magical process, when
+to his most certain knowledge she was hundreds of leagues away; but the
+recitations of Doctor Bataille have reduced bilocation to a banality,
+and a mere reference will suffice.</p>
+
+<p>A monograph of Miss Vaughan&rsquo;s miracles would, however, be incomplete if
+it failed to exhibit her in her capacity as a breaker of spells;
+whatsoever has been bound by devildom can be loosed by Diana. At the
+height of the commotion occasioned by her persistent refusal to
+participate in sham sacrilege, there was one member of the Paris
+Triangle who manifested peculiar acrimony in demanding the expulsion of
+a delinquent who had dared to impeach the ritual. As a punishment for
+his own presumption, and in the presence of the assembled adepts, his
+head was suddenly reversed by an unseen power, and for the space of one
+and twenty days he was obliged to review the situation face backwards.
+This severe judgment dismayed all present; Miss Walder had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> recourse to
+an evocation and discovered that it had been inflicted by Asmodeus, the
+protector of her rival, who furthermore would not scruple to visit with
+violent disaster any person who discovered an evil design against so
+elect a sister as Diana. If the present culprit desired to be set free
+from his grotesque position, he must humbly have recourse to her. Miss
+Vaughan was in America at the moment, but she generously came to his
+rescue as soon as steam could carry her, and restored him his lost front
+view by a jocose imposition of hands. I should add that on the very day
+when this misadventure took place at Paris, Miss Vaughan was defending
+her standpoint in person before the Triangle of Louisville; opinion was
+divided about her, and the result appeared uncertain, when the demoniac
+tail of St Mark, evacuating the minor devil, who had hired it on a
+repairing lease, accepted Asmodeus as a tenant, and violently
+circumambulating the apartment belaboured all those whose voices had
+been raised against his Vestal. Finally the tassel of the tail turned
+into the head of the demon and vowed his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> devotion to Diana so long as
+she remained unmarried; did she dare, however, to desert him for an
+earthly consort, he was commander of fourteen legions, and he would
+strangle the man of clay.</p>
+
+<p>It would be unkind to Miss Sophia Walder if I let it be supposed for a
+moment that the palm of prestige is borne away by her rival. I have
+already noted that this lady occasionally fluidifies to the satisfaction
+of a select audience, but, like the materialising medium, she finds it a
+depleting performance which usually confines her to her room, and her
+price, therefore, is five thousand francs. She is first Sovereign in
+Bitru, and is defined by the doctor to be in a state of latent
+possession, having a semi-diabolical nature and the gift of
+substitution. It was possibly at Milan that he witnessed the most
+persuasive test of her occult powers. She took him confidentially apart
+and explained to him that she had been in a condition of &ldquo;penetration&rdquo;
+for about three hours. &ldquo;At dinner the food of which I partake becomes
+volatile in my mouth; wine evaporates invisibly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> the moment it makes
+contact with my lips; I eat and drink in appearance, but my teeth
+masticate the air.&rdquo; Now this was due, not to the voracity of Bitru, but
+to the keen appetite of Baal-Zeboub; the magnetic lady did not, however,
+explain this point after the common method of speech; she fixed her
+blazing orbs upon the doctor, and he saw flames everywhere; a moment
+more and her feet were free from earth; she stretched out her left hand,
+and on the open palm he beheld the successive apparitions in characters
+of flame of the ten letters which constitute the great name. With a
+touch of internal collapse he commended himself to the Virgin Mary, the
+ecstatic paroxysm passed, and they wandered down another lane, for they
+were in the midst of leafy umbrage. Presently a tree gracefully arranged
+a portion of its branches in the form of a fan, and bowed with profound
+reverence. Still more fantastic, a paralysed branch produced a living
+human hand, which in the accompanying engraving is ornamented with an
+immaculate cuff, and that hand presented a bouquet to Sophia. By reason
+of these matters the doctor became pensive.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>A Palladian s&eacute;ance followed. The litany of Lucifer was chanted, and the
+prodigy of &ldquo;substitution&rdquo; was effected. The ceremony took place in a
+grotto with a stalactite roof; Miss Walder produced from a basket the
+serpent which was an inseparable companion of all her travels; it
+immediately genuflected in front of her, swarmed the wall, and assumed a
+pendant position attached to one of the stalactites. It was a reptile of
+no ordinary kind, for it began to develop an interminable length of
+coils till it had spread itself circlewise over the entire ceiling, and
+its head was joined to its tail. The doctor says that he was now
+prepared for anything. The serpent gave forth seven horrible hisses, and
+in the dim light, for the torches which illuminated the place were
+successively giving out of themselves, each person became conscious of
+an unseen entity blowing with burning breath in their faces. When at
+length there was complete darkness, Sophia herself became radiant, and
+brilliantly illuminated the grotto with an intense white light; five
+enormous hands could then be seen floating in space, also intensely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
+luminous, but emitting a green lustre; each hand went wandering in
+search of its prey, ultimately seizing a brother, whom it drew
+irresistibly forward in the direction of Sophia. Moved by a mysterious
+influence, two of them grasped her arms, two clutched her by the
+shoulders, one placed his hand on her head. The serpent again hissed
+seven significant times, and in place of the solid Sophia the third
+Alexander of Macedon was substituted in phantom guise. When he faded
+Sophia reappeared and continued going and coming with a phantom between
+each of her appearances, so that she was in turn replaced by Luther,
+Cleopatra, Robespierre, and others, concluding with the Italian patriot
+Garibaldi, who eclipsed all the others, for his bust was converted into
+a bronze urn from which red flames burst forth. The flames took a human
+form, and gave back Sophia to the assembly.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the gift of substitution, which follows penetration, and such is
+the substance of the memoirs of M. Bataille, ship&rsquo;s doctor, who, in the
+year 1880, undertook<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> to exploit Freemasonry and has come forth unsinged
+from Diabolism. There is one maxim of the Psalmist which the experience
+of most transcendentalists has taught them to lay to heart, and to
+repeat without the qualifications of David when certain aspects of
+supernatural narrative are introduced&mdash;<i>Omnis homo mendax!</i> But lest I
+should appear to be discourteous, I should like to add a brief dictum
+from the Magus &Eacute;liphas L&eacute;vi. &ldquo;The wise man cannot lie,&rdquo; because nature
+accommodates herself to his statement. In a polite investigation like
+the present, there is, therefore, no question whether Doctor Bataille is
+defined by the term <i>mendax</i>, which is forbidden to literary elegance;
+it is simply a question whether he is a wise man, or whether nature
+blundered and did not conform to his statement.</p>
+
+<p>The credibility, in whole or in part, of Dr Bataille&rsquo;s narrative will
+involve some extended criticism, and I purpose to postpone it till the
+remaining witnesses have been examined. We shall then be in a position
+to appreciate how far later revelations support his statements. Setting
+aside the miraculous element, which is tolerably<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> separate from what
+most concerns our inquiry, namely, the existence of Palladian Masonry
+attached to the cultus of Lucifer, it may be stated that the most sober
+part of Dr Bataille&rsquo;s memoirs is the account of his visit to Charleston;
+here the miraculous element is entirely absent. He confirms by alleged
+personal investigations the existence of the New and Reformed Palladium;
+he is the first witness who distinguishes clearly between the Luciferian
+Order and the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite of
+Charleston. That distinction is made, however, at one expense; it
+assumes that the Supreme Council preserved the Baphomet idol as well as
+the reputed skull of Molay for nearly seventy years, and then
+surrendered it to another order with which it had no official
+acquaintance. Under what circumstances and why did it do that? The
+Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite is connected by its legend with the
+Templars, and for the Charleston Supreme Council to part with the
+trophies of the tradition seems no less unlikely than for a regiment to
+surrender its colours.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenumpadded'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="padded"><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>DEALINGS WITH DIANA</h3>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> philosophy of Horatius is supposed to represent incompletely the
+content of heaven and earth, but neither earth nor heaven, as at present
+constituted, would be capable of enclosing the entire content of Dr
+Bataille&rsquo;s memoirs. Miss Diana Vaughan, with whose history we are next
+concerned, comes before us under a different aspect. I have failed to
+ascertain under what circumstances she first became known in France. <i>Le
+Diable au XIX<sup>e</sup> Si&egrave;cle</i> may have constituted her earliest introduction;
+she was certainly unknown to Leo Taxil when he published the Palladian
+rituals, or she would not have escaped mention in the account he there
+gives of Miss Sophia Walder. However this may be, we have made her
+acquaintance in the course of the previous chapter, but I am constrained
+to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> state that she has, up to the present, shown herself exceedingly
+circumspect in substantiating the evidence of her precursor.</p>
+
+<p>The whole world is aware, and I need not again repeat, that Miss Diana
+Vaughan was converted to the Catholic Church some time after Dr Bataille
+completed his astounding narrative. A Palladist of perfect initiation,
+comprehending the mysteries of the number 77, and doing reverence to the
+higher mystery of 666, Grand Mistress of the Temple, Grand Inspectress
+of the Palladium, and according to him who, in a sense, has prepared her
+way and made straight her paths, a sorceress and thaumaturge before
+whose daily performances the Black Sabbath turns white, Miss Vaughan
+quarrelled, as we have seen, with a sister initiate, Sophia Walder, and
+conceived for the Italian Grand Master, Adriano Lemmi, the charity of
+the evil angels, which is hatred. When the Supreme Dogmatic Directory of
+Universal Freemasonry was removed from Charleston to Rome and the
+pontificate passed over to Lemmi, as the revelations allege, Miss
+Vaughan closed her con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>nection with the Triangles, carrying her colours
+to a vessel equipped by herself, and founded a new society under the
+title of the Free and Regenerated Palladium, incorporating the
+Anti-Lemmist groups, and soon after began a public propaganda by the
+issue of a monthly review, devoted to the elucidation of the doctrines
+of the Lucifer cultus and to the exposure of the Italian Grand Master.
+To hoist the black flag of diabolism, as Miss Vaughan would now term it,
+thus in the open day, naturally elicited a strong protestation from the
+Palladist Federation, so that she was in embroilment not only with Lemmi
+but also with the source of the initiation which she still appeared to
+prize. At the same time she exhibited no indications of going over to
+the cause of the Adona&iuml;tes. Becoming known to the Anti-Masonic centres
+of the Roman Catholic Church only through her hostility to Lemmi, she
+was always a <i>persona grata</i> whose conversion was ardently desired, but
+on several public occasions she advised them that their cause and hers
+were in radical opposition, and that, in fact, she would have none of
+them, being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> outside any need of their support, sympathy, or interest.
+She would cleave to the good God Lucifer, and she aspired to be the
+bride of Asmodeus. At length the long-suffering editor of the <i>Revue
+Mensuelle</i>, weary of his refractory prot&eacute;g&eacute;, would also have none of
+her, though he surrendered her with evident regret to be dealt with by
+the prayers of the faithful. One month after, M. Leo Taxil, through the
+medium of the same organ, announced the conversion of Miss Vaughan, and
+in less than another month, namely, in July, 1895, she began the
+publication of her &ldquo;Memoirs of an ex-Palladist,&rdquo; which are still in
+progress, so that, limitations of space apart, my account of this lady
+will be unavoidably incomplete.</p>
+
+<p>Her memoirs are, unfortunately, not a literary performance; and their
+method, if such it can be called, is not chronological. Beginning with
+an account of her first introduction to Lucifer, <i>vis-&agrave;-vis</i> in the
+<i>Sanctum Regnum</i> of Charleston, on April 8th 1889, they leap, in the
+second chapter, over all the years intervening to a minute analysis of
+the sentiments which led<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> to her conversion, and of the raptures which
+followed it, above all on the occasion of her first communion. It is not
+till the third chapter that we get an account of her Luciferian
+education, or, more correctly, an introduction thereto, for the better
+part of five monthly numbers has not brought us nearer to her
+personality than the history of an ancestor in the seventeenth century.
+As the publisher is still soliciting annual subscriptions to the
+enterprise, and offering a variety of advantages after methods not
+unknown in England among the by-ways of periodical literature, the
+completion of the work is probably a distant satisfaction for those who
+take interest therein.</p>
+
+<p>Now, having regard to the narrative of Dr Bataille, and having regard to
+the statements set forth in my second chapter, it is obvious that Miss
+Vaughan is a witness of the first importance as to whether there is a
+Masonry behind Masonry, which, more or less, manages, or attempts to
+manage, the entire society, unknown to the rank and file of its
+initiates, however high in grade; as to whether its seat is at
+Charleston,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> with Albert Pike for its founder, and as to whether its
+doctrine is anti-Christian, and its cultus that of Lucifer, supported by
+magical wonders, concerned with sacrilegious observances, and either a
+disguised Satanism, or drifting in that direction. As already hinted,
+the mythical and miraculous element,&mdash;in a word, that portion of Doctor
+Bataille&rsquo;s narrative which does violence to sense and reason,&mdash;Miss
+Vaughan has not at present imperilled her position by substantiating,
+but as to the points I have enumerated, she has most distinctly come
+forth out of Palladism to tell us that these things are so, and to
+reinforce what was previously stated by unveiling her private life.</p>
+
+<p>It is therefore my duty and desire to do her full justice, and with this
+purpose in view, I propose to recite briefly the chief heads of her
+memoir, so far as it has been published up to date. I must, however,
+premise at the beginning that she does not come before us with one trace
+of the uncertainty of accent which might have been expected to
+characterise the newly-acquired<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> language, not merely of Christian
+faith, but of its Roman dialect. We find her speaking at once, and to
+the manner born. Could anything, by possibility, be narrower than
+certain perished sections of evangelical religion in England, it would
+be certain sections of ultramontane religion in France; but Miss Vaughan
+has acquired all the terminology of the latter, all the intellectual
+bitterness, all the fatuities, as one might say, in the space of five
+minutes. When she has wearied of her memoirs at the moment, or has
+reached, after the manner of the novelist, some crucial point in her
+narrative, she breaks off abruptly, brackets <i>&agrave; suivre</i>, and proceeds to
+an account of the latest wonder-working image, or a diatribe against
+spirit manifestations in the typical manner of the French clerical
+press. To be brief, Miss Vaughan has adopted, body and soul, precisely
+those abuses which Catholics of intelligence earnestly desire to see
+expunged from their great religion. She has probably never heard of the
+Forged Decretals, but she would defend their authenticity if she had;
+she has probably never heard of the cor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>rupted, or any version of the
+Epistles of St Ignatius, but she would accept the corruptions bodily
+upon the smallest hint that they savoured better with the hierarchy, and
+she would do all this apparently in good faith on the authority of a
+purblind party within the Church, which exists to keep open its wounds.
+Now, I submit that a <i>volte face</i> is possible, especially in religious
+opinions, but that a pronounced habit of religious thought cannot be
+acquired in a day, so that, in the history of Miss Vaughan&rsquo;s conversion,
+there is more than can be discerned on the surface. The precise nature
+of the element which eludes must be left to the judgment of my readers,
+but, personally, I reserve my own, out of fairness to an unfinished
+deposition.</p>
+
+<p>There is a generic difference between Doctor Bataille and Miss Vaughan.
+He is an ordinary human being, and if we may trust the many pictures
+which represent him in his narrative, exceedingly unpretending at that.
+We have also some portraits of Miss Vaughan, who is aggressive and good
+to look at; but this is not the generic distinction. Doctor Bataille,
+poor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> man, is the scion of an ordinary ancestry within the narrow limits
+of flesh and blood. Miss Vaughan, on the contrary&mdash;I hope my readers
+will bear with me&mdash;has been taught from her childhood to believe that
+she was of the blood royal of the descending hierarchy, and I cannot
+gather from her vague mode of expression whether she has altogether
+rejected the legend of her descent, which is otherwise sufficiently
+startling.</p>
+
+<p>The position of authority and influence occupied by Miss Vaughan in what
+she terms high Masonry is to be explained, as she modestly informs us,
+not by her personal qualities, but by a traditional secret concerning
+her family, which is known only to the Elect Magi. Miss Vaughan and her
+paternal uncle are the last descendants of the alchemist Thomas Vaughan,
+whom she terms a Rosicrucian, and identifies with Eiren&aelig;us Philalethes,
+author of &ldquo;The Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King.&rdquo; On the
+25th of March 1645, she tells us, on the authority of her family
+history, Thomas Vaughan, having previously obtained from Cromwell the
+privilege of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> beheading the &ldquo;noble martyr&rdquo; Laud, Archbishop of
+Canterbury&mdash;the title to nobility, in her opinion, seems to rest in the
+probability of his secret connection with Rome&mdash;steeped a linen cloth in
+his blood, burnt the said cloth in sacrifice to Satan, who appeared in
+response to an evocation, and with whom he concluded a pact, receiving
+the philosophical stone, and a guaranteed period of life extending over
+thirty-three years from that date, after which he was to be transported
+without dying into the eternal kingdom of Lucifer, to live with a
+glorified body in the pure flames of the heaven of fire.</p>
+
+<p>After this compact, he wrote the &ldquo;Open Entrance,&rdquo; the original MS. of
+which, together with its autograph Luciferian interpretation on the
+broad margins, is a precious heirloom in the family. Some two years
+later, in the course of his travels, he reached New England, where he
+dwelt for a month among the Lenni-Lennaps, and there in an open desert,
+on a clear night of summer, while the moon was shining in splendour, he
+was wandering in solitary meditation when the luminary in question,
+which was in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> crescent phase, came down out of heaven, and proved to
+be an arched bed, very luminous and wonderful, containing a vision of
+sleeping female beauty. This was the nuptial couch of Thomas Vaughan and
+its occupant was Venus-Astarte, surrounded by a host of flower-bearing
+child-spirits, who conveniently provided a tent, and provided also
+delicious meals during a period of eleven days. Several curious
+particulars differentiated these Hermetic nuptials, undreamed of by
+Christian Rosencreutz, from those which govern more ordinary proceedings
+below the latitude of the Lenni-Lennaps. In the first place, goddess
+succubus, Astarte provided the ring, which was of red gold enriched with
+a diamond, and placed it on the finger of her lover; in the second
+place, transcendental gestation, celestial or otherwise, fulfils the
+mystery of generation with exceeding despatch, for Astarte was delivered
+of an infant on the eleventh day independently of medical assistance,
+whereupon she demanded the return of the nuptial ring, and vanished with
+tent and sprites astride of the crescent couch. The fruit of their union
+was left in the arms of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> Thomas, who was directed to trample on all
+sentiments of paternal affection, and to deliver the child into the
+charge of a tribe of fire-worshipping Indians. He does not appear to
+have sued for the restitution of conjugal rights, and cheerfully
+surrendered the human hybrid to a family of Lenni-Lennaps, together with
+his medallion portrait drawn by an artist from devildom, so that the
+daughter might recognise her father after the method which obtains among
+novelists. Thomas Vaughan placed the broad ocean between himself and the
+scene of his marriage, and he never re-visited his daughter, who, in
+spite of her miraculous origin, does not appear to have distinguished
+herself in any way, at least up to the point at present reached by the
+history.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Vaughan says that all the Elect Magi do not accept this legend of
+the blood royal, and she admits her own doubts subsequent to her
+conversion. As an article of intellectual faith I should prefer the
+birth-story of Gargantua, but it satisfied Miss Vaughan till the age of
+thirty years, and her father and grandfather before her,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> even supposing
+that it was <i>fabriqu&eacute;e par mon bisa&iuml;eul James, de Boston</i>, as hazarded
+by elect Magi whom a remnant of reason hinders.</p>
+
+<p>The &ldquo;Memoirs of an Ex-Palladist&rdquo; have not at present proceeded further
+than the translation of Thomas Vaughan into the paradise of Lucifer, but
+from the &ldquo;Free and Regenerated Palladium&rdquo; and from other sources the
+chief incidents of Miss Vaughan&rsquo;s early life may be collected and
+summarised briefly. We learn that she is the daughter of an American
+Protestant of Kentucky and of a French lady, also of that persuasion.
+She was born in Paris, and a part of her education seems to have been
+received in that city; her mother died in Kentucky when Diana was in her
+fourteenth year, and I infer that subsequently to this event she must
+have lived with her father, who had considerable property in the
+immediate vicinity of Louisville. When the Sovereign Rite of Palladism
+was created by Albert Pike, Vaughan became affiliated therewith, and was
+one of the founders of the Louisville triangle 11 + 7; he presided at
+the initiation of his daughter as apprentice, according to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> Rite of
+Adoption, in 1883. She was raised to the grade of Companion, and
+subsequently to that of Mistress, and at the age of 20 years, says Dr
+Bataille, she crossed the threshold of the Triangles, as the Palladian
+lodges are termed.</p>
+
+<p>Three issues were published of &ldquo;The Free and Regenerated Palladium,&rdquo; but
+since the conversion of Miss Vaughan, they have been withdrawn from
+circulation, except among ecclesiastics of the Roman Church, and up to
+the present I have failed to obtain copies. For the autobiographical
+portions of this organ, I am indebted to the notices which have appeared
+in the <i>Revue Mensuelle</i>. They contain an account of two apparitions on
+the part of the demon Asmodeus, accompanied by phenomena of levitation
+and fortified by arguments against the theory of hallucination. These
+early experiences are, however, of minor importance, nor need I again
+refer to the sensational incidents which accompanied her initiation as
+Templar-Mistress at the Paris Triangle of Saint-Jacques; but it appears
+from her memoirs that the intervention of Albert Pike was not in virtue
+of the supremacy of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> personal authority, and that the ordeal of
+sacrilege was spared her by the clemency of Lucifer himself, who is
+supposed to appear in person at the Sanctum Regnum of Charleston and to
+instruct his chiefs, <i>Deo volente</i> or otherwise, every Friday, the
+supreme dogmatic director, who had made his home in Washington, having
+the gift of &ldquo;instantaneous transportation,&rdquo; whensoever he thought fit to
+be present in the &ldquo;divine&rdquo; board-room.</p>
+
+<p>On the 5th of April 1889, the &ldquo;good God&rdquo; assembled his Ancients and
+Emerites for a friendly conversation upon the &ldquo;case&rdquo; of Diana Vaughan,
+and ended by requesting an introduction in three days&rsquo; time. After the
+best manner of the grimoires, Miss Vaughan began her preparations by a
+triduum, taking one meal daily of black bread, fritters of high-spiced
+blood, a salad of milky herbs, and the drink of rare old Rabelais. The
+preparations in detail are scarcely worth recording as they merely vary
+the directions in the popular chap-books of magic which abound in
+foolish France. At the appointed time she passed through the iron doors
+of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> Sanctum Regnum. &ldquo;Fear not!&rdquo; said Albert Pike, and she advanced
+<i>remplie d&rsquo;une ardente allegresse</i>, was greeted by the eleven prime
+chiefs, who presently retired, possibly for prayer or refreshments,
+possibly for operations in wire-pulling. Diana Vaughan remained alone,
+in the presence of the Palladium, namely, our poor old friend Baphomet,
+whom his admirers persist in representing with a goat&rsquo;s head, whereas he
+is the archetype of the ass.</p>
+
+<p>The Sanctum Regnum is described as triangular in shape; there was no
+torch, no lamp, no fire; the floor and the ceiling were therefore not
+unnaturally dark, but an inexplicable veil of strange phosphorescent
+light was diffused over the three walls, the source of which proved on
+examination to be innumerable particles of greenish flames each no
+larger than a pin&rsquo;s head. Seated in front of the Baphomet, Miss Vaughan
+apostrophised Lucifer sympathetically on the subject of the unpleasing
+form in which he was represented by his worshippers, and as she did so
+the little flames intensified, while floor and ceiling caught fire after
+the same ghostly in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>candescent fashion; a great dry heat filled the vast
+apartment, and, still spreading, the flames covered her chair, her
+garments, her entire person. At this point the inevitable thunder began
+to roll; three and one and two great thunders, after which came five
+breathings upon her face, and after those breathings five radiant
+spirits appeared, the first act closing impressively with a final salvo
+of artillery.</p>
+
+<p>The unhappy Baphomet, dismayed by these extreme proceedings, vanished
+entirely, and, no expense being spared through the whole of the costly
+tableaux, Lucifer manifested on a throne of diamonds, but whether the
+gems were furnished from the treasury of Avernus or from the pockets of
+bamboozled Freemasons through the wide world, <i>les renseignements</i> do
+not state. Need I say that Miss Vaughan&rsquo;s first impulse was to fall in
+worship at his feet? But the sordid apparition, instead of accepting the
+homage with the grace which is native to empire, had recourse to the
+method of the novelist, and stayed her intention by a gesture. Even at
+this late date, and with the millstone of her conversion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> placed in the
+opposite scale, Miss Vaughan&rsquo;s description of her quondam deity would
+tempt sentimental young women to forgive all his devildom to a being so
+&ldquo;superb&rdquo; in &ldquo;masculine beauty.&rdquo; I will refrain from spoiling the picture
+by much of her own minuteness, or by the exclamatory parentheses of her
+fury against the magnificent gentleman who deceived her. I should like
+also to omit all reference to the conversation which ensued between
+them, but for the sake of true art I am constrained to state that
+Lucifer descended to commonplace. M. Renan tells us that since he left
+Saint Sulpice he did nothing but degenerate, and the inference is
+obvious, that he ought to have gone back to Saint Sulpice, despite the
+literary splendours of the <i>Vie de J&eacute;sus</i>. Since he last broke a lance
+with Michael, the devil has debilitated mentally, and the substance of
+his <i>causerie</i> with Diana reminds one of Robert Montgomery and even
+worse exemplars. In the unexplored regions of penny periodical romance I
+have met with many better specimens of supernatural dialogue. As to the
+sum of his observations, it goes without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> saying that Diana was chosen
+out of thousands, and this is what justifies my opinion that his
+proceedings on this occasion were more fatuous than any of his
+undertakings since he tried conclusions with divinity.</p>
+
+<p>Very silently during the course of this interview the eleven prime
+chiefs had returned like conspirators as they were, of course in the
+nick of time, to hear that Miss Vaughan was appointed as the
+grand-priestess of Lucifer, at which moment there was a fresh burst of
+circumambient flame and the young lady was transported by her divinity
+to take part in a grand spectacular drama, divided into two acts.&mdash;I.
+Appearance of Asmodeus with fourteen legions. Exchange of endearing
+expressions between this personage and Diana. Manifestation of the
+signature of Baal-Zeboub, generalissimo of the armies of Lucifer,
+written in fire upon the void. Spiritualisation of the sweetheart of
+Asmodeus. Diana hungers for the fray. Great pitched battle between the
+genii of Lucifer and the genii of Adona&iuml;, termed Maleakhs, without the
+gates of Eden. The Terrestrial Paradise carried by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> storm after severe
+fighting. Grand panorama of Paradise. Explanatory dialogue between Diana
+and her future husband. Appearance of a snow white gigantic eagle on
+which Diana is to be transported to Oolis, &ldquo;a solar world unknown to the
+profane, wherein Lucifer reigns and is adored.&rdquo; II. Miss Vaughan having
+been transported on another occasion to this mystic planet in the arms
+of Lucifer himself, the episodes of the second act are held over. She
+was, however, ultimately returned, safe and sound, to the Sanctum Regnum
+at Charleston, on the back of the white eagle.</p>
+
+<p>Such is Miss Vaughan&rsquo;s statement, and once more she proceeds to give
+reasons why she could not have been hypnotised or hallucinated. As in
+the case of Doctor Bataille I propose to postpone criticism until other
+witnesses have filed their depositions. At the moment it is sufficient
+to recognise that, apart from the supernatural element which admits of a
+simple explanation, if Miss Vaughan be a credible witness, then the
+central fact of the New and Reformed Palladium must be admitted with all
+it involves.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenumpadded'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="padded"><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>HOW LUCIFER IS UNMASKED.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">M. le Docteur Bataille</span> is a mighty hunter before the face of the Lord in
+the land of Masonry, and through the whole country of Hiram; great also
+is Diana of the Palladians. After their monumental revelations and
+confessions, those of all other seceders and penitents who have come out
+of the mystery of iniquity, &ldquo;are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as
+water unto wine.&rdquo; My readers in the two previous chapters have drunk raw
+spirit, and must now qualify it after the Scotch fashion. The aqueous
+intellectuality and quiet stream of unpretending deposition peculiar to
+M. Jean Kostka, will be well adapted to modify undue exaltations and
+restore order to a universe which has been intoxicated by sorcerers. He
+will show us how Lucifer is unmasked in an undemonstrative and
+gentle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>manly fashion by a late Gnostic and initiate of the 33rd degree.
+He writes, as he frankly tells us, in a spirit of reparation and
+gratitude, having commerced freely with devils during a long series of
+unholy years. &ldquo;Blessed be the omnipotent Lord, and blessed the loving
+kindness which drew me out of the abyss.... To glorify these I unmask
+the fallen angel.&rdquo; The delicacy of the motive and its setting of
+chivalrous sentiment will be appreciated even by the victim, and the
+tenderness of the treatment will prompt Lucifer to pardon his reviler,
+who has been already pardoned by M. Papus for betraying the order of the
+Martinists. And to do justice towards an amiable writer, who has
+scarcely the requisite qualities for seriously damaging or advancing any
+cause, it may be kind to add that he has considerably exaggerated his
+own case. After a careful examination of his statement, which is
+exceedingly na&iuml;ve, I am tempted to conclude that he has never been near
+an abyss; he is innocent of either height or depth, and so far from
+having ever plunged into the infernal void, he has scarcely so much as
+paddled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> in a purgatorial puddle. His guilty transcendental experiences
+are in reality the most infantile afternoon occultism, and his
+drawing-room diablerie might be appropriately symbolised by the paper
+speaking-tube of our old friend John King; there is nothing in it when
+the voice is not speaking, and there is nothing in it when it is.</p>
+
+<p>Since his conversion, M. Jean Kostka has exhibited much harmless
+devotion towards Joan of Arc, an enthusiasm which originated among
+occultists, and he has pious memories of St Stanislaus Kostka, for which
+dispositions I trust that all my readers will have the complaisance to
+commend him. He writes, furthermore, &ldquo;in the decline of maturity, on the
+threshold of age, in the late autumn of life,&rdquo; which is his dropsical
+method of saying that he is past sixty, and he veils a &ldquo;futile name&rdquo;
+under the patronymic of his favourite saint. Jean Kostka is not Jean
+Kostka, but it is without intent to deceive that he evades any possible
+responsibility in connection with his concealed identity; it is a kind
+of pious self-effacement, I hope everyone will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> believe what he says,
+and give him all credit for having &ldquo;turned towards the outraged Church.&rdquo;
+In matters of evidence, pseudonymous statements are, however,
+objectionable, and I therefore identify our witness as Jules Doinel, who
+was chiefly concerned in the restoration of the Gnosis and the
+establishment of a &ldquo;Gnostic church&rdquo; in Paris about the year 1890, and is
+moreover not unknown as a Masonic orator, and in the world of
+belles-lettres. M. Papus, with the generosity of a mystic, can only
+speak well of the pious enthusiast who has betrayed his cause and
+scandalised the school he represents; he explains that Jules Doinel is a
+marvellous poet deficient in the scientific culture which might have
+enabled him to explain in a peaceable fashion the phenomena squandered
+upon him by the world invisible, so that there were only two courses
+open for him&mdash;renunciation of the transcendental path, or madness. &ldquo;Let
+us bless heaven that the patriarch of the Gnosis has selected the
+former.&rdquo; It is possibly showing gratitude for small mercies, because our
+friend<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> has saved his reason, but is blood-guilty in the matter of
+common sense. Meanwhile, the widowed Gnosis illuminates its Ichabod in
+the cryptic <i>quartiers</i> of Paris, Lyons, and so forth.</p>
+
+<p>Every one may agree with M. Papus that Jean Kostka is a very pretty
+writer in a quiet and shallow way, but, with possibly one exception, he
+must have withheld the flower of his phenomena in the order of the
+spirit, for his book is full of sentimental and vapid experiences of the
+school-miss order, while over the light and spongy soil he has now set
+the ponderous paving-stones of his new explanation, and toils forward on
+the road of unreason.</p>
+
+<p>This apart, Jean Kostka, was evidently for many years familiar with the
+centres and workings of all the cross lights of esoteric thought which
+meet and interlace in the night of French common thought. He has dwelt
+among Gnostics, Martinists, Modern Albigenses, and Spiritualists; he
+appears to have been identified with all, and though he does not accuse
+himself of the capital offence of conscious Satanism, he has been quite
+well acquainted with Satanism,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> and, next best to seeing the devil one&rsquo;s
+self, he has known many who have. In those days, he tells us, that
+Lucifer could be visited <i>chez lui</i> in an earthly tabernacle, situated
+in an unfrequented street, from whence the <i>lointain bruissement du
+Paris nocturne</i> might be heard by the pensive traveller if he were not
+too intent on diabolising. Now, he has found out that Lucifer was <i>chez
+lui</i> everywhere. <i>Je vise Satan et ses dogmes.</i> All his psychic
+faculties have concentrated into a transcendental apparatus for scenting
+devildom, and he mournfully comes forward to tell us, with a variation
+of Fludd&rsquo;s utterance; <i>Diabolus, in quam, diabolus ubique repertus est,
+et omnia diabolus et diabolus.</i> &ldquo;Let it suffice to say that the
+demonologists have invented nothing and have exaggerated nothing.&rdquo; To
+the spiritualists Lucifer is John King and Allan Kardec; to the
+Gnostics, he is the Gnosis, Simon Magus, Helen Ennoia, and anything that
+comes handy from the Nile valley in the fourth century; to the
+Martinists, he is the <i>philosophe inconnu</i>; to the Albigenses, if there
+are Parisian Albigenses, he is whatever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> Albigenses invoke, if they
+invoke anything; to Madame X., he is Mary Stuart; to his own adepts,
+within sound of the <i>lointain bruissement</i>, he is a <i>jeune homme blond
+aux yeux bleus</i>, whom I understand to have worn a dalmatic, and to have
+been curiously indebted to the author of <i>Aut Diabolus aut Nihil</i>; for
+the Theosophists, he is that &ldquo;illustrious demoniac,&rdquo; Madame
+Blawatsky&mdash;his innate delicacy leads him to the permutation of the
+Typhon V.; and then Freemasonry&mdash;it goes without saying that the little
+horn of Lucifer has displaced all other horns in all the grades and
+lodges, that the fraternity is his throne and his footstool, and the
+city of the great king.</p>
+
+<p>If we button-hole Jean Kostka, and ask him to tell us confidentially and
+upon honour what it is that has changed his views, making him discover
+the leer of Baal-Zeboub where he once saw the smile of the spiritual
+Eos, he turns Trappist at once, and goes into retreat with M. Huysman;
+there is not a syllable of information in all his <i>beau volume</i> as to
+any intellectual process through which he passed on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> the way, and I
+suspect that his conversion partook of the nature of a &ldquo;penetration,&rdquo; to
+speak his own language, and was not an intellectual operation, but a
+sudden <i>volte face</i>. Jean Kostka has changed his <i>pinces-nez</i>, and that
+is the whole secret:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+&ldquo;The reason why I cannot tell,<br />
+&nbsp;But now I hold it comes from hell.&rdquo;<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Here is the proof positive; he has nothing in the shape of an
+accusation; he gets his Lucifer-interpretation out of everything with
+which he has cut off correspondence by a very simple and civil process
+of instillation. &ldquo;I sense it&rdquo;; <i>je vise Lucifer</i>. Thus, the Order of the
+Knights of Perfect Silence invite their initiates to become architects
+of the Holy City. Jean Kostka, in possession of the latest tip, says,
+&ldquo;read Hell.&rdquo; The Martinists are concerned with the creation of Adam
+Kadmon, the ideal humanity. Jean Kostka tells you that they are
+concerned with nothing of the sort, and that Satan is the only person
+who can really put us up to the secret, which is curious because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> he
+immediately advises us himself that the exercise of the three cardinal
+virtues to the profit of Lucifer is the sum of the whole mystery and the
+real <i>sous-entendu</i> of Martinism. The Masonic grades from Apprentice,
+Companion, Master, through Knight Rose-Cross to Knight Kadosch, and so
+forward, are exploited after the same manner by the baldest of
+processes, that of inverting everything. For example, the sacred word of
+the 33rd degree in the French Rite, namely, Sovereign Grand Inspector
+General, is <i>Deus meumque Jus</i>. That signifies, says Jean Kostka, that
+&ldquo;Lucifer is the sole God and that the material, like the spiritual,
+world of right belongs to him.&rdquo; If you inquire the process of extraction
+by which he gets that result, he answers: &ldquo;I must admit that I have had
+only a general intuition, but I assure you that it is immense,&rdquo; and he
+will immediately cite you a password, invite you to take every letter
+individually, and fit to it just that word which, by another intuition,
+he perceives belongs to it, when you will see for yourself. Thus, the
+Kadosch term <i>Nekam</i>, which signifies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> vengeance, having been duly
+anatomised, will come out as follows:&mdash;N&nbsp;(ex) E&nbsp;(xterminatio) K&nbsp;(risti)
+A&nbsp;(dversarii) M&nbsp;(agni), to wit: &ldquo;Death, Extermination of Christ, the
+Great Enemy.&rdquo; Wicked and wily Jean Kostka to outrage the decencies of
+orthography and against all reason write the name of the Liberator with
+a K, thereby concealing the true meaning, which revealed for the first
+time is as follows:&mdash;N&nbsp;(equaquam) E&nbsp;(ritis) K&nbsp;(ostka) A&nbsp;(rtium) M&nbsp;(agister), which being interpreted still further, signifies that there
+was never such a clumsy device!</p>
+
+<p>Now, it goes without saying that a writer with these methods is not to
+be taken seriously, but it is worth while to appreciate the quality of
+intelligence which is received with acclamation by the Catholic Church
+in France as soon as it comes over from the enemy. &ldquo;Lucifer Unmasked&rdquo;
+appeared originally in the pages of the newspaper <i>La V&eacute;rit&eacute;</i>. It was
+immediately reproduced in Spanish by the <i>Union Catolica</i>; the clerical
+press boomed full-mouthed salvos in its honour, and his Eminence
+Cardinal Parocchi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> has blessed book or author, or both, and believes
+that it will make a great impression, &ldquo;undoubtedly contributing to
+enlighten minds and lead them back to God.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jean Kostka, as already indicated, is a spiritual sentimentalist; he has
+passed by a rapid transition common to such natures from the Gnostic
+transcendental initiate to the pious Catholic devotee, and he will make
+an excellent Lourdes pilgrim. As there will be no need to recur to him
+again, it will be permissible to justify my criticism by some account of
+his personal experiences. M. Papus speaks of him as the founder and
+patriarch of the Gnostic Church. Of this same patriarch and primate Jean
+Kostka also speaks as of another person, recites the facts of his
+conversion, and hopes he will do better work for the Church of God than
+he has done for Lucifer. Which is Dr Jekyll and which Mr Hyde in this
+duadic personality is not of serious consequence, as they have both got
+into a better way of thinking and acting. Now, since his demission from
+these high functions, Jean Kostka has found that the chief piece of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
+Gnostic devilry is in denying that the lost angels are eternally damned.
+On this point he has attained what is rare in him, a touch of personal
+animosity. To supply the antipodes of heaven, let us say, with a lethal
+chamber, as a meaner order than that of theological charity does here,
+in the interests of homeless and snappy dogs, would, in his present
+state of grace, seem a very wicked proposition. Well, in 1890 Jean
+Kostka was invited, as I understand, by the chief of the Gnostic Church,
+that is, by himself, to a chapel in the palace of a lady who figures
+frequently in his pages under the name of Madame X.; the author takes
+great credit for concealing her real titles, but he has failed to
+conceal her identity, and there can be no harm in saying that the
+reference is to Lady Caithness. He was present upon serious business, in
+fact, nothing short of assisting at a s&eacute;ance. A medium had been secured,
+the proceedings began, rappings became audible, an intelligence desired
+to communicate, and, finally, there was a message, with a name given. It
+was Luciabel, &ldquo;whom you know as Lucifer.&rdquo; To this day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> Jean Kostka does
+not seem conscious of any element of idiocy in the variation of the
+old-fashioned name. In the revelation which followed, the intelligence,
+who seemed amiably disposed despite his sinister connections, informed
+the circle that, like Jesus, he was engendered eternally from God, that
+he was exiled from the pleroma, and that he was the Sophia-Achamoth of
+Valentine, the Helena-Ennoia of Simon Magus, the thought of God which
+had become anathema, and that he was now in search of love and
+consolation, both of which might take shape in a Gnostic church, and
+would be highly acceptable. There is, so to speak, a commercial element
+in the overtures which dries up the feeling of pity, or one might be
+exceedingly sorry for this lost chord of eternal thought, hoping
+charitably that we should still somehow hear it in heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Since his conversion the unpretentious marvel of this s&eacute;ance has been a
+dire trouble to Jean Kostka, partly on account of its eschatology, but
+still more because the sitters were conscious at its close of a breath
+passing over their faces,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> while he himself felt the presence of lips
+against his own. Poor Jean Kostka! They were all abased on their knees,
+which happens occasionally, even at s&eacute;ances, to pious people in Paris,
+and he concludes that he was kissed by Helena-Ennoia, <i>alias</i> Lucifer,
+<i>alias</i> Luciabel, who is also described on the charge-sheet of orthodox
+theology by other and more objectionable titles. The shameful memory
+causes him to exclaim fervently:&mdash;&ldquo;May he who purged the lips of Isaiah
+with a burning coal deign to purify mine by the sacred kiss of penitence
+and pardon: <i>in osculo sancto</i>.&rdquo; There is a touch of sublimity in that,
+and the <i>basia</i> of Baal-Zeboub may well enough be more demoralising than
+those of Secundus. At the time, however, he founded the Gnostic Church.</p>
+
+<p>We become acquainted with ghosts after various manners, according to our
+psychic condition. There is the spontaneous and accidental ghost who is
+seldom caught in the act; there is the able-bodied materialised ghost
+whom we catch in the act occasionally, and preserve our mental balance
+by clinging to his watch-chain and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> seals; they may be distinguished as
+the timeless ghost and the ghost who occasionally does time. Over and
+above these two generic specimens there is the ghost that throws, who is
+separable from the ghost that <i>hurls</i>, as our French friends put it. To
+hurl is to utter objectionable and unreasonable yells, preferably in the
+dead of night and in lonely places. This ghost is much sought after by
+specialists. It would be tedious to name all the varieties, but I can
+guarantee the unequipped that all known specimens have been carefully
+labelled, except possibly the odorous ghost, the ghost, that is to say,
+who manifests exclusively to the olfactory organ. This is an exceedingly
+withdrawn inappreciable kind, but it is familiar to Jean Kostka, who is
+a connoisseur in the smell supernatural, and has a trained psychic nose.
+He can distinguish between the spiritual perfume which characterises,
+let us say, St Stanislaus and the <i>odorem suavitatis</i> of Lucifer. He is
+also an authority on conditions, and gives a ravishing description of
+the voluptuous enervation diffused over all his limbs when he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> a
+private memorandum from Isis by means of raps during the reception of a
+master in a blue lodge. On this occasion he tells us that he was
+inspired to pronounce one of his most wicked and dangerous Masonic
+discourses. Dear M. Kostka! Dynamite would lose its destroying power in
+his harmless hands.</p>
+
+<p>At another function&mdash;but this was in a red lodge&mdash;he was overwhelmed by
+the presence of Lucifer, who elected and commissioned him to fight in
+his cause. It was a moment of unwonted intelligence&mdash;these are his own
+words&mdash;and he agreed, so incompetence chose its minister, and Frater
+Diabolus again showed himself a short-sighted rogue, because has not his
+emissary converted and passed over to the makers of pilgrimages? M.
+Kostka also at this time was so wicked as to be guilty of a pact, but he
+reserved two points, &ldquo;the person of Christ and His mother.&rdquo; The
+reservation of these sacraments is not specialised as to its kind, but,
+<i>mon Dieu</i>, how distraught was Lucifer to be so palpably tricked by a
+<i>trente-troisi&egrave;me</i>! Both these matters were, however, personal to the
+seer, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> the lodges, whether red or blue, seem to have been quite
+unconscious that they had been entertaining divinity and demon unawares.
+M. Kostka has, in fact, been distinguished from the common herd of
+Masons by many favours of Lucifer, and he has naturally been ungrateful,
+for which I admire M. Kostka.</p>
+
+<p>In succeeding chapters he details at considerable length a variety of
+hallucinations which he experienced on the subject of Helena-Ennoia, and
+he has also had visions of Jansen, of a false Francis Xavier, a false
+Christ, &amp;c., but his most important experience was that which he terms
+Penetration, commonly experienced in autumn seasons and during the mists
+and mildness of October nights. On these occasions he was conscious of a
+curious extension of personality by which he seemed to enter into all
+Nature, and all Nature took voice and interpreted herself intelligibly
+to him. After music came verbal communications, and then the apparition
+of forms, chiefly of classical mythology. Most people would have termed
+this poetic rapture<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> passing into lucidity, but our friend avers that it
+is the Enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Such have been the experiences and adventures of Jean Kostka in the
+psychic world, and they are of precisely the same calibre as his
+critical method. I may say, in conclusion, that, if spared, he will do
+better in his next book, for he promises another, which is to exhibit in
+a convincing manner how Lucifer has been vanquished by Joan of Arc. In
+the meantime we may part from him with due recognition of his absolute
+good faith and extreme amiability; we may congratulate him on his
+conversion, and still more upon the very pleasant reading he provides;
+he does not appear to have unmasked Lucifer, but he has let us into the
+secret of the best that can be done in that way.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, the point to be marked in connection with the memoirs and
+revelations of Jean Kostka is this, that neither in Paris nor elsewhere,
+neither in Masonry nor in other secret associations, concerning which he
+has had every opportunity to judge, has he come personally into contact
+with a cultus of Satan or Lucifer; that he chooses to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> term certain
+mystical opinions and practices diabolical, because they are condemned
+by the Latin Church, is a matter which is perfectly indifferent and
+exhibits only the forlorn position of a case which resorts to the
+expedient. But it is highly significant that a man who has mixed among
+mystics of all grades for probably thirty years, who is affiliated to
+innumerable orders, and in his present mood would be glad to expose
+everything, has nothing to tell us of the Palladium, though he dwelt at
+its gates, and the circles he frequented were at a stone&rsquo;s cast from the
+alleged Mother-Lodge Lotus of Paris.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenumpadded'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="padded"><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>THE VENDETTA OF SIGNOR MARGIOTTA</h3>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">To</span> Signor Domenico Margiotta we owe the most explicit account of the
+great compact between Mazzini and Albert Pike which produced the New and
+Reformed Palladium. With this institution he does not attempt to connect
+the anterior order founded in 1730; for him the possession of the
+Templar Baphomet explains the name which it received, and the passage of
+that idol from its original custodians he leaves in the same uncertainty
+as Dr Bataille. This difficulty apart, in Signor Margiotta the question
+of Lucifer has received a most important witness; he is the most recent,
+the most illustrious, and Masonically the most decorated of all. If I
+add that he is in one respect to be included among the most virulent, I
+do not necessarily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> detract from his value. So far as one can possibly
+be aware, he is a man of unimpeachable integrity, who gives us every
+opportunity to identify him, heraldically by his arms and emblazonments,
+historically by an account of his family, personally by extracts from
+the <i>Dizionario Biografico</i>, Masonically by a full enumeration of all
+his dignities, including photographs of his most brilliant diplomas and
+printed correspondence from Grand Masters and other exalted potentates
+of the great Fraternity. It would be difficult, however, in the last
+respect, to discover many more exalted than himself, for before his
+demission he was Secretary of the Lodge Savonarola of Florence;
+Venerable of the Lodge Giordano Bruno of Palmi; Sovereign Grand
+Inspector General, 33rd degree, of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite;
+Sovereign Prince of the Order (33rd .&middot;., 90th .&middot;., 95th .&middot;.,) of the
+Rite of Memphis and Misra&iuml;m; Acting Member of the Sovereign Sanctuary of
+the Oriental Order of Memphis and Misra&iuml;m of Naples; Inspector of the
+Misra&iuml;m Lodges of the Calabrias and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> of Sicily; Honorary Member of the
+National Grand Orient of Haiti; Acting Member of the Supreme Federal
+Council of Naples; Inspector-General of all the Masonic Lodges of the
+three Calabrias; Grand Master, <i>ad vitam</i>, of the Oriental Masonic Order
+of Misra&iuml;m or Egypt (90th degree) of Paris; Commander of the Order of
+Knights-Defenders of Universal Masonry; Honorary Member, <i>ad vitam</i>, of
+the Supreme General Council of the Italian Federation of Palermo;
+Permanent Inspector and Sovereign Delegate of the Grand Central
+Directory of Naples for Europe (Universal High-grade Masonry), and,
+according to his latest portrait, Member of the New Reformed Palladium.
+That such a luminary could withdraw from the firmament of the Fraternity
+and not take after him the third part of the stars of heaven, above all
+that the Italian Grand Master could have the effrontery to affirm that
+he had never heard of him and had only discovered who he was after some
+investigation, are matters for astonishment to the simple.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Margiotta returned to the church<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> of his childhood in the
+autumn of 1894, and the news of his conversion is said to have so
+overwhelmed the head-quarters of Italian Freemasonry at Rome that the
+annual rejoicings upon the 20th of September, when Rome became the
+Capital of United Italy and when Universal Freemasonry was instituted in
+1870, were incontinently suspended. My readers will not attach a high
+degree of accuracy to this statement, for there does not appear in
+reality to have been any convulsion of the Order; there was indeed more
+rejoicing in Jerusalem than lamentation in the tents of Kedron. Signor
+Margiotta was the recipient of flattering congratulations from eminent
+prelates; the bishop of Grenoble salutes him as &ldquo;my dear friend&rdquo;; the
+patriarch of Jerusalem invites him to take courage, for he is doing high
+service to humanity, labouring under the scourge of the Masonic plague;
+the bishop of Montauban expresses his lively sentiment and entire
+devotion; the archbishop of Aix regards the revelations as of great
+importance to the Church; the bishop of Limoges praises and blesses the
+books of M. Margiotta; the bishop of Mende<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> does likewise, his
+enthusiasm taking shape in superlatives; the Cardinal-Archbishop of
+Bordeaux applauds the intention and the effort; the bishops of
+Tarentaise, of Oran, of Pamiers, of Annecy, take up the chant in turn,
+and his Holiness the Pope himself sends his Apostolic Benediction over
+the seal of Peter.</p>
+
+<p>Why did Signor Margiotta abandon Palladism and Masonry? It was not
+because these institutions were devoted to the cultus of Lucifer, for I
+do not gather that he was scandalised by that fact at the time when it
+appears to have become known to him. It was not because sacrilege and
+public indecency characterised the rituals of initiation in the case of
+the Palladian Order, for he does not zealously press this charge. It was
+not, so far as can be traced, because he trembled for the safety of his
+soul; he does not provide us with a sickly and suspicious narrative of
+the sentiments which led to his conversion or the interior raptures
+which followed it; he does not mention that he was the recipient of a
+special grace or a sudden illustration; he ceased to believe in Lucifer
+as the good God because that being had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> permitted his favoured
+Freemasonry to pass under the &ldquo;supreme direction of a despised personage
+who is the last of rogues.&rdquo; In other words, Signor Domenico Margiotta
+has a strong loathing for Signor Adriano Lemmi; he has long and
+earnestly desired that Freemasonry should &ldquo;vomit him&rdquo; from her breast,
+but as this has not come to pass, Signor Margiotta decided to vomit
+himself. Now, when a man embraces religion, he is supposed to forgive
+his enemies, to do good to them that hate him, to avoid the propagation
+of scandals, and when he cannot speak well to say nothing; but this is
+not the special quality of grace which attaches to the second
+<i>trente-troisi&egrave;me</i>, who has come out of Freemasonry to expose and revile
+the order.</p>
+
+<p>The two narratives which comprise the exposure in question are
+respectively entitled, &ldquo;Adriano Lemmi: Supreme Chief of Freemasonry,&rdquo;
+and &ldquo;Palladism, the Cultus of Satan-Lucifer.&rdquo; Both these books contain a
+violent impeachment of the Italian Grand Master, which, if it concerned
+us, would not convince us. Its main points go to show that in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> days
+of his boyhood, Lemmi was guilty of an embezzlement at Marseilles, for
+which he is said to have suffered at the hands of justice; that he led
+the life of a Guzman d&rsquo;Alfarache, in itself sufficiently romantic to
+condone an offence which should have been effaced with its penalty,
+supposing the allegation to be true; that he subsequently found himself
+at Constantinople, where he was thrown among Jews, and is there charged
+by his accuser with the commission of a still more terrible crime; he,
+in fact, became a proselyte of the gate, and suffered the rite of
+circumcision. Later on he is depicted as a political conspirator, an
+agent and friend of Mazzini, Kossuth, and the patriots of the
+Revolution, in connection with whom he is made responsible for
+innumerable villainies which connect him with the apostleship of
+dynamite. We may pass lightly over these matters, nor need we delay to
+inquire after what manner Adriano Lemmi may have amassed the wealth
+which he possesses, nor what questions on the subject of a monopoly in
+tobacco may have been raised<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> or dropped in the Italian Parliament. All
+these points, including Signor Lemmi himself, are as little known as
+they are of little moment in England, and they are wholly outside our
+subject, except in so far as they exhibit the methods of his accuser,
+which, indeed, are so objectionable in their nature as to go far towards
+exonerating their object. Signor Margiotta, at any rate, puts himself so
+clearly in the wrong, and is altogether so virulent, as to place the
+inference of personal animosity almost in the region of certitude; one
+is therefore tempted to accept the explanation offered by the victim,
+that the Marseilles scandal turns upon a mistaken identity, and his
+explicit denial that he ever underwent the rite of Jewish initiation.
+Furthermore, I believe that I shall represent the opinion of tolerant
+Englishmen when I say that to insult and abuse a man for adopting
+another faith, however opposed to our own, and even ridiculous in
+itself, is an odious method in controversy, and for myself I see little
+to choose between a proselyte of the gate, a renegade Mason, and a
+demitted Roman Catholic.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>The true secret of the Margiotta-cum-Lemmi embroilment does not, I
+think, transpire in the narratives with which we are concerned; I mean
+to say that there is an eluding element which must, however, be assumed,
+if we are to account reasonably for the display of such extreme rancour.
+An honourable man may object to the jurisdiction of a person whom he
+regards as a convicted thief, but he does not usually pursue him with
+the violence of personal hatred. Now, in 1888 Signor Margiotta became a
+candidate for the Italian Parliament, and he attributes his failure to
+the hostility of Lemmi, who, prompted by Gallophobe tendencies, brought
+his influence to bear against a person who was friendly to the French
+nation. I submit that this assists us to understand the animus of the
+converted Mason and the lengths to which it has taken him. In all other
+respects Signor Margiotta displays the most perfect frankness, and does
+his best upon every occasion to substantiate his statements by
+formidable documentary evidence. I repeat therefore, that, much as we
+may regret his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> acrimony, he remains a most important witness to the
+existence of Universal Masonry, the existence of the Reformed Palladium,
+the transfer of the Masonic Supremacy at the death of Albert Pike to the
+Italian Grand Master, and the split in the camp which followed. He
+claims also that he is personally acquainted with Miss Diana Vaughan; he
+extols her innumerable virtues in pages of eloquent writing; he even
+goes so far as to photograph the envelope of a registered letter which
+he posted at Palmi, in Calabria, addressed to that lady in London. He
+indirectly substantiates the narrative of Carbuccia by a long account of
+his personal dealings with Giambattista Pessina, descending into the
+most curious particulars; he publishes the secret alphabet of the
+Palladium, specimens of litanies addressed to the good god Lucifer, and
+hymns of equivocal tendency attributed to Albert Pike. Finally, he fully
+admits the Satanic character of perfect Masonic initiation, and
+contributes a long chapter to swell our recent knowledge upon the
+subject of &ldquo;Apparitions of Satan.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>As regards Universal Masonry, when announcing his demission and
+conversion to an officer of the Lodge, Giordano Bruno, at Palmi, Signor
+Margiotta reveals to him that he and his brethren are ruled, without
+knowing it, by a supreme rite, and that he, Margiotta himself, Venerable
+of the Lodge referred to, being a true elect and perfect initiate,
+constituted the link of connection between the ordinary Masonry of Palmi
+and this central and unsuspected power. On the same occasion he
+addressed a long communication to Miss Vaughan, in which he claims that
+he has ever acted as an honest Mason, faithful to the orthodoxy thereof,
+and having the cause of Charleston at heart. Now, the circumstances
+which occasioned these statements, and the good faith which seems to
+characterise them, are presumptive testimony to their truth; in the
+absence of any evidence, and merely on <i>&agrave; priori</i> considerations, it
+would be intolerable to suggest that their author, while advertising his
+changed views upon a solemn subject, was guilty of wilful deception.</p>
+
+<p>The centralisation of Universal Masonry in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> an order known as the New
+and Reformed Palladium, with Albert Pike at its head, is supported by
+the citation of a document dated the 12th of September 1874, and being
+an authority from Charleston for the constitution of a secret federation
+of Jewish Freemasons, with a centre at Hamburg, under the title of
+Sovereign Patriarchal Council. It is not the only document emanating
+from the &ldquo;Dogmatic Directory&rdquo; which is printed by Signor Margiotta, but
+the others are not entirely new, having some of them previously appeared
+in the memoirs of Dr Bataille. The Luciferian opinions of Albert Pike
+are exhibited plainly in a letter addressed by him to Signor Rapisardi,
+famous in all Italy for his poem of &ldquo;Lucifer,&rdquo; which Signor Margiotta
+affirms to have been written at the suggestion of the American Grand
+Master.</p>
+
+<p>But possibly the strongest evidence is less of a documentary kind; the
+minute account of the warfare waged by Signor Margiotta and other
+Italian Masons, in which they were helped by Miss Vaughan, to prevent
+the accession of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> Lemmi to the sovereign pontificate upon the death of
+Albert Pike and the transfer of the centre to Rome, seems to bear upon
+its surface every reasonable sign that it cannot be an invented
+narrative. Indeed, the first impulse upon reading the testimony of this
+witness leaps irresistibly to conclude that the denial of the main
+allegations is no longer possible. A searching analysis does, however,
+reveal sufficient grounds to warrant a different judgment. In the first
+place, whereas Signor Margiotta proclaims the supreme power of the
+Reformed Palladium, the documents which he cites in his support are, for
+the most part, documents of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, about
+the immense jurisdiction of which there is no question. In the second
+place, the authority of Albert Pike, as it is seen in most of the
+documents, is in virtue, not of the Palladium, but of his position as
+Supreme Chief of the Supreme Mother-Council of the Ancient and Accepted
+Scotch Rite. What Signor Margiotta terms Universal Freemasonry is not
+the Palladium at all, but simply the Scotch Rite; one of his own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
+diplomas, reproduced at page 120 of &ldquo;Adriano Lemmi,&rdquo; is proof positive
+of this; and in view of the universal diffusion of this rite, no one
+would deny it the name. In the third place, the documents of Signor
+Margiotta as regards the Palladium are not to be trusted, because in one
+instance a gross imposition has been practised provably upon him, and he
+may have been deceived in others. Hence, although he may be a member of
+a society termed the New and Reformed Palladium, it may not possess the
+jurisdiction or the history to which it pretends. In the fourth place I
+deny that the Grand Central Directories of which I have given
+particulars, derived from Signor Margiotta, in my second chapter, are in
+any sense Palladian directories. That of Naples for Europe is said to
+have twenty-seven triangular provinces, one of which is Manchester, and
+Mr John Yarker is said to be Provincial Grand Master. Now, I have Mr
+Yarker&rsquo;s own written testimony that he never heard of the Palladium
+until the report of it came over from France. Mr Yarker is a member of
+the 33rd degree of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, and he is also
+the Grand Master of the only legitimate body of the Supreme Oriental
+Rite of Memphis and Misra&iuml;m in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Moreover,
+in most Masonic countries of the world he is either Honorary Grand
+Master, or Honorary Member in the 95&deg; of Memphis, 90&deg; of Misra&iuml;m, and
+33&deg; Scottish Rite, the last honorary membership including bodies under
+the Pike <i>r&eacute;gime</i> as well as its opponents. He is perfectly well
+acquainted with the claim of the Charleston Supreme Council to supreme
+power in Masonry, and that it is a usurpation founded on a forgery. In a
+letter which he had occasion to address some time since to a Catholic
+priest on this very subject, he remarks:&mdash;&ldquo;The late Albert Pike of
+Charleston, as an able Mason, was undoubtedly a Masonic Pope, who kept
+in leading strings all the Supreme Grand Councils of the world,
+including the Supreme Grand Councils of England, Ireland, and Scotland,
+the first of which includes the Prince of Wales, Lord Lathom, and other
+peers, who were in alliance with him, and in actual submission. Its
+introduction into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> America arose from a temporary schism in France in
+1762, when Lacorne, a disreputable panderer to the Prince of Clermont,
+issued a patent to a Jew named Stephen Morin. Some time after 1802, a
+pretended Constitution was forged and attributed to Frederick the Great
+of Prussia. This constitution gives power to members of the 33rd degree
+to <i>elect themselves</i> to rule all Masonry, and this custom is
+followed.... The good feeling of Masonry has been perpetually destroyed
+in every country where the Ancient and Accepted Rite exists, and it must
+be so in the very nature of its claims and its laws.&rdquo; Mr Yarker has no
+connection with a supreme dogmatic directorate in any other form than
+this disputed but perfectly well-known assumption of the Charleston
+Supreme Council. The term &ldquo;Supreme Dogmatic Directorate&rdquo; was not used by
+Pike, and the confidence enjoyed by the American was never extended to
+Lemmi, though he may have desired it. Instead, therefore, of all Masonry
+being ruled by a central authority unknown to the majority of Masons, we
+have simply a bogus claim which has no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> effect outside the Scottish
+Rite, and of which all Masons may know if they will be at the pains to
+ascertain. When Signor Margiotta informed the officer of the Giordano
+Bruno Lodge that he secretly represented a central and unknown
+authority, it is in this sense that we must understand him&mdash;that is to
+say, he represented the interests of the Charleston Supreme Council.
+Hence the revelations concerning &ldquo;Universal Masonry&rdquo; are an exaggeration
+founded upon a fact, and the Palladian Order, of which Signor Margiotta
+tells us that he is a member, is at any rate not what it pretends. It
+has doubtless imposed on him by means of forged documents, as also upon
+Leo Taxil, and M. Adolphe Ricoux. The writings which it fathers upon
+Albert Pike, and quoted by Signor Margiotta, as in other cases, are
+stolen from &Eacute;liphas L&eacute;vi, the so-called alphabet of the Palladium
+included. The documentary <i>pi&egrave;ce de r&eacute;sistance</i> upon which our author
+relies as evidence for the existence of an international Masonic
+organisation is a certain <i>vo&ucirc;te de Protestation</i>, on the part of a
+so-called Mother-Lodge Lotus of England, secret Temple<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> of Oxford
+Street, against the transfer of the Dogmatic Directory from Charleston
+to Rome, the &ldquo;Standing Committee of Protestation&rdquo; being Alexander
+Graveson, Provincial Delegate of Philadelphia, U.S.A., V. F. Palacios,
+Provincial Delegate of Mexico, and Diana Vaughan, Provincial Delegate of
+New York and Brooklyn. Signor Domenico Margiotta has been grossly
+deceived over this document. What he prints as the English original in
+guarantee of good faith, side by side with a French translation, is a
+clumsy and ridiculous specimen of &ldquo;English as she is wrote,&rdquo; and the
+French is really the original. I append some choice specimens:&mdash;&ldquo;To the
+Most Illustrious, Most Puissant, Most <i>Lightened</i> Brothers ...
+composing, by right of <i>Ancient and Members for life</i>, the Most Serene
+Grand College of <i>Emerited Masons</i>.&rdquo; Here the underlined passages are a
+Frenchman&rsquo;s method of interpreting into English <i>Tr&egrave;s Eclair&eacute;s Fr&egrave;res, &agrave;
+titre d&rsquo;Anciens et de membres &agrave; vie</i>, and <i>Ma&ccedil;ons Em&eacute;rites</i>. Again: &ldquo;The
+protesters numbered six-and-twenty, including twenty-five <i>sovereing</i>
+delegates present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> at the deed, and one sovereign delegate, who could
+not <i>stand by</i> (<i>ne peut &ecirc;tre pr&eacute;sent</i>), but the substitute of <i>which</i>
+wisely and prudently abstained from the vote <i>at the first turn</i> (<i>au
+premier scrutin</i>) and threw a blank ticket at the second, <i>expound</i>
+(verb governed by <i>protesters</i>) the <i>acts and situation thence
+disastrously resulting</i> for our holy cause.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Once more: &ldquo;The present protesting vault <i>aims at the two ballots</i>
+(<i>vise les deux scrutins</i>), and <i>requests to be proceeded</i> urgently to
+their annulment.&rdquo; Again: &ldquo;<i>The Charleston&rsquo;s Brothers</i> ... have not acted
+in such a manner as to forfeit <i>the whole Masonry&rsquo;s esteem</i>.... The
+direction ... has <i>not discontinued to prove foresight</i>.... It was
+<i>injust</i> to transfer,&rdquo; &amp;c., and so on for sixteen printed pages which
+certainly deserve to rank among the curiosities of literature. This is
+the precious document which appears over the signatures of Alexander
+Graveson and Diana Vaughan, after which I submit to my readers that
+Signor Domenico Margiotta may be dismissed with all his file of papers,
+not as himself deceiving, but as singularly liable to deception,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> of
+which he has otherwise given us several signal instances. For example he
+believes himself to have enjoyed the high privilege of beholding the
+Prince of Darkness upon two separate occasions. The first was in 1885 at
+Castelnuovo-Garfagnana in a beautiful old walled garden, belonging to a
+high-grade Mason named Orestes Cecchi, a fast friend of Margiotta. The
+time was the forenoon, and the two Masons were smoking under the shade
+of green trees surrounded by floral delights. Margiotta was a
+spiritualist and a follower of Allan Kardec; Cecchi had a turn for the
+Vedas and the occultism of the Eastern world; they were chatting upon
+the possibility of transmigration; the one doubted, the other affirmed;
+Cecchi, to convince his companion, informed him that he possessed a
+familiar who invariably appeared to him under the form of a goat, but he
+had a look in his eye which proved positively that he was the Grand
+Architect of the Universe! That there might be no doubt about the matter
+Cecchi called his familiar, who appeared suddenly, and joyfully caressed
+his master, at whose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> command he subsequently licked the hand of the
+overwhelmed Signor Margiotta, and it became red and painful. Cecchi
+playfully chided the apparition for not assuming human form, and hinted
+at the propriety of doing so, but the animal knowingly nodded and
+incontinently scurried away. Now, I put it to my readers, that Cecchi
+was exploiting his friend, that a domesticated animal appeared at the
+summons of his owner in a wooded garden, and that Signor Margiotta is
+fooling when he pretends to believe that it was the devil.</p>
+
+<p>The second experience was at Naples under the roof of Pessina, about
+half-past ten in the evening, after a Lodge meeting of the Misra&iuml;m rite.
+Then and there, as a matter of cordial good fellowship, the
+accommodating Imperial Grand Master evoked a devil to give evidence of
+his actuality to Margiotta, who, in spite of the episode of the goat,
+still posed as a doubting Thomas. It was managed by means of a
+whisky-bottle, out of which, after certain invocations and magical
+ceremonies, a vapour rose mysteriously, and resolved itself into a
+human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> figure, wearing a golden crown, with a brilliant star in the
+middle. According to the picture which accompanies this delicious
+narrative, the apparition had the wings of a bat and a tail of the
+bovine class. It was Beffabuc, the familiar of the magician, who begged
+him to enlighten the sceptic, but the latter, according to the
+apparition, was protected by a higher power and would never be persuaded
+to believe in him. Signor Margiotta gives the names of all who were
+present at the evocation&mdash;twelve members of the 33rd degree, to say
+nothing of Misra&iuml;m dignities. I submit, however, that the episode of the
+bottle would split the rock of Peter, that the absence of Signor Pessina
+for twenty minutes previous to the performance, eked out with a little
+ventriloquism, and some Pepper accessories would explain much, and that
+there is also another hypothesis which I will leave to the discernment
+of my readers, and to which I lean personally.</p>
+
+<p>Our witness, in any case, would not be a <i>persona grata</i> to the Society
+for Psychical Research. As he is violent in his enmities, so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> is he
+gullible in marvels. His impeachment of Adriano Lemmi must be ruled
+completely out of court; his thaumaturgic experiences are paltry
+trickeries; his account of Albert Pike is largely borrowed matter; the
+magical practices which he attributes to Pessina are derived from the
+Little Albert and other well known grimoires; the most that follows from
+his narrative is that certain Italian Masons, probably atheists at
+heart, pose as partisans of Satan simply to accentuate their derisions
+of all religious ideas, much after the manner of Voltaire in some of his
+cynical correspondence. It is a continental form of pleasantry, and an
+artistic experiment in blasphemy which is taken seriously by the unwise.</p>
+
+<p>I need hardly add that the story of <i>Aut Diabolus aut Nihil</i>, which is
+accepted literally by Doctor Bataille, is also the subject of
+reverential belief on the part of Signor Margiotta, and as an
+illustration of his classifying talent, he terms Adriano Lemmi a Mormon
+because, having obtained a divorce, he, in the course of time,
+contracted another marriage. Furthermore, the very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> strong testimony
+which Signor Margiotta gives to Dr Bataille, directly by eulogium and
+indirectly by citation, as also the intimate relations which he
+maintained with Diana Vaughan, make his value as a witness of Lucifer
+dependent, to a large extent, upon the credibility of these persons,
+with consequences which will shortly appear. Lastly, his own personal
+credibility seems seriously at stake when he talks of &ldquo;triangular
+provinces.&rdquo; He, and those connected with him, can alone explain what
+that means; they have never existed in Masonry. Mr Yarker, who, he says,
+is Grand Master of such a province, has never heard the expression. Mr
+R. S. Brown, Grand Secretary of the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of
+Scotland, also denies all knowledge of the one which, according to
+Signor Margiotta, is located at Edinburgh.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenumpadded'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="padded"><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>FEMALE FREEMASONRY</h3>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Last</span> on the list of our recent witnesses who have had a hand in creating
+the Question of Lucifer&mdash;not actually last in the order of time but the
+least in importance to our purpose&mdash;is M. A. C. de la Rive, author of
+&ldquo;Child and Woman in Universal Freemasonry.&rdquo; He very fairly fulfils the
+presumption which is warranted by his name; he does not pretend to have
+come forth from the turbid torrent of Satanism and Masonry which is
+carrying multitudes into the abyss and effacing temples and thrones in
+its furious course. He has been content, like a sensible person, to
+stand on bank or brink and watch the rage and flow. He does not tell us
+anywhere in his narrative that he is himself a Mason; he has no personal
+acquaintance with Satan; he has not been guilty of magic, nor has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> he
+assisted at a Black Mass. He belongs to a wholly different order of
+witnesses, and he has produced what is in its way a genuine book, which
+does not pretend to be more than a careful compilation from rare but
+published sources, while we can all of us defer to the erudition of a
+Frenchman who has actually spent on collecting his materials the almost
+unheard-of space of twelve months. The result is correctly described as
+&ldquo;grand in octavo, 746 pages,&rdquo; and is really an inflated piece of Masonic
+chronology, exceedingly ill-balanced, but, at the same time, undeniably
+useful. Beginning with the year 1730 it is brought down to 1894, and it
+is designed to demonstrate the existence at the present day of &ldquo;adoptive
+lodges&rdquo; wherein French gallantry once provided an inexpensive substitute
+for Masonry in which ladies had the privilege of participating. One of
+the most learned and illustrious of French Masonic writers, Jean-Marie
+Ragon, describes such androgyne or female lodges as &ldquo;amiable
+institutions&rdquo; invented by an unknown person some time previously to the
+year 1730, under the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> name of &ldquo;mysterious amusements,&rdquo; which appears to
+describe them exactly, and one cannot be otherwise than astonished at
+the extraordinary gravity of nervous and well-intentioned persons who
+ascribe them such tremendous importance. Whereas they are the fringe of
+Freemasonry, writers like M. de la Rive persist in regarding them as its
+heart and centre, while it is also in such institutions that he and
+others of his calibre expect to discover Satanism. A celibate religion
+ever suspects the serpent in the neighbourhood of the woman. He
+discovers Satanism accordingly by reading it into handy passages and
+bracketing interpretations of his own when the text cannot otherwise be
+worked. Thus he gets oracles everywhere, and to compel Satan he finds
+the parenthesis quite as useful as the circle of black magic; it is a
+juggler&rsquo;s method, but among French anti-Masons it passes with high
+credit. The question of Female Freemasonry, apart from the Palladian
+Order, is quite outside our subject; its existence in Spain is a matter
+of public knowledge, and I have Mr Yarker&rsquo;s authority for stating that
+in certain countries,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> one of which is South America, the Rite of
+Memphis and Misra&iuml;m and the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite have both
+initiated women, the latter up to and including the 33rd degree. No
+adoptive lodges exist or would be tolerated in England within the
+jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge, and if it can be shown that the
+Palladian order initiates English women into Masonic secrets, that is
+performed surreptitiously and in defiance of our Masonic constitutions.
+As to the schismatic Grand Orient of France, whatever may be done in
+secret or devised in public upon this point, is of no importance here,
+but I should add that little credit, and deservedly, is attached in
+England to any of the so-called revelations which from time to time come
+over from Paris.</p>
+
+<p>As regards M. de la Rive, apart from this subject, we are unable to
+extract from his pages anything that is fresh or informing on the
+subject of our inquiry. Despite the sensational picture which emblazons
+the title-page, where a full-length Baphomet is directing a <i>d&eacute;collet&eacute;e</i>
+Templar-Mistress through the pillars Jakin and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> Bohaz, there is not a
+single page in the whole vast compilation which shows any connection
+between Satanism and Masonry until towards the close, when an adroit tax
+is levied on the still vaster storehouse of Doctor Bataille. The author
+tells us clearly enough how adoptive Masonry arose, what rites were
+instituted, what rituals published, what is contained in these, and it
+is all solid and instructive. His facts, as already indicated, are
+borrowed facts, but they come from a variety of sources, and original
+research was scarcely to be expected from a writer against whom the
+avenues of knowledge are sealed by his lack of initiation. He concludes,
+however, that Adoptive Masonry is Satanic by intention, and that even
+the orphanages of the Fraternity are part of a profound and infamous
+design to ruin the children of humanity and to perfect proselytes for
+perdition.</p>
+
+<p>The appearance of &ldquo;Child and Woman in Universal Freemasonry&rdquo; was hailed
+with acclamation in the columns of the <i>Revue Mensuelle</i>; it reviewed it
+by dreary instalments,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> and when reviewing was no longer possible, had
+recourse to tremendous citations; as a last effort, it supplied an
+exhaustive index to the whole work&mdash;a charitable and necessary action,
+for the twelve months&rsquo; toil of the author had expired without the
+accomplishment of this serviceable means of reference. And still, as
+occasion offers, it gives it bold advertisement.</p>
+
+<p>The quaint methods of previous witnesses are amplified by M. de la Rive.
+Like Dr Bataille, he tells us that the Order of Oddfellows, though quite
+distinct from Palladism, is &ldquo;essentially Luciferian,&rdquo; but he does not
+say why or how&mdash;instance of demonstrative method. He regards the Jews
+with holy hatred as chief ministers of Anti Christ, and characterises
+them as that nation of which Judas was &ldquo;one of the most celebrated
+personages&rdquo;&mdash;specimen recipe for the production of cheap odium in large
+quantities; but what about Jesus the Christ, whom men called King of the
+Jews? Fie, M. de la Rive! He informs us that Miss Alice Booth, daughter
+of General Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> is one of the
+foremost Palladists of England&mdash;instance of absurd slander which refutes
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>M. de la Rive must therefore on all counts of his evidence be ruled out
+of court as a witness. No one denies the existence of Adoptive Lodges in
+a few countries and under special circumstances, and no sensible person
+attributes them any importance. Freemasonry as an institution is not
+suited to women any more than is cricket as a sport, but they have
+occasionally wished to play at it as they have wished to play at
+cricket; the opportunity has been offered them, but, except as the vogue
+of a moment, it has come to nothing. It is, moreover, of no importance
+to our inquiry if it can be proved that the true head of the Grand Lodge
+in England is the Princess of Wales and not her royal husband; while
+concerning the existence of Devil-Worship M. de la Rive has nothing new
+to tell us, and nothing at first-hand. I therefore ask leave to dismiss
+him, hoping that he will devote another laborious year to the reissue of
+Masonic rituals, authentic or not, at the extremely moderate price which
+he asks for his first volume;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> originals are scarce and costly, and
+invention is a pleasant faculty. The interpretation which he chooses to
+put on them is an interpretation of no consequence, and can never have
+misled any one who is in any sense worth misleading.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenumpadded'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="padded"><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PASSING OF DOCTOR BATAILLE</h3>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> most obvious line of criticism in connection with the memoirs
+entitled <i>Le Diable au XIX<sup>e</sup> Si&egrave;cle</i> would be the preposterous and
+impossible nature of its supernatural narratives. To attribute a
+historical veracity to the adventures of Baron Munchausen might scarcely
+appear more unserious than to accept this <i>r&eacute;cit d&rsquo;un t&eacute;moin</i> as
+evidence for transcendental phenomena. I need scarcely say that I regard
+this reasoning as so altogether sound and applicable that it is almost
+unnecessary to develop it. The personal adventures of Doctor Bataille as
+regards their supernatural element are so transparently fabulous that it
+would be intolerable to regard them from any other point of view. That
+an ape should speak Tamil is beyond the bounds of possibility; it is
+impossible also that a female<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> fakir or pythoness, aged 152 years,
+should allow herself to be consumed in a leisurely manner by fire; it is
+impossible that any ascetics could have maintained life in their
+organisms under the loathsome conditions prevailing within the alleged
+temple at Pondicherry; it is impossible that any person could have
+survived the ordeal which Dr Bataille pretends to have suffered at
+Calcutta,&mdash;to have relished and even prolonged; it is impossible that
+tables and organs should be found suspended from a ceiling at the close
+of a spiritual s&eacute;ance; it is impossible that the serpent of Sophia
+Walder should have been elongated in the manner described. When I say
+that these things are impossible I am speaking with due regard to the
+claims of transcendental phenomena, and it is from the transcendental
+standpoint that I judge them. Genuine transcendental phenomena may
+extend the accepted limits of probability, but when alleged
+transcendental phenomena do violence to all probability, that is the
+unfailing test of hallucination or untruth on the part of those who
+depose to them. These things could not have occurred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> as they are
+narrated, and Dr Bataille is exploiting the ignorance of that class of
+readers to whom his mode of publication appealed. As products of
+imagination his marvels are crude and illiterate; in other words, they
+belong to precisely that type which is characteristic of romances
+published in penny numbers, and when he pledges his rectitude regarding
+them he does not enlist our confidence but indicates the slight value
+which he sets on his stake.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time, two reasons debar me from laying further stress upon
+this line of argument. In the first place we must remember that his
+unlettered readers have been taught by their religious instructors to
+believe in the unlimited power of the devil, and they have probably
+found in the outrageous nature of the narratives a real incentive to
+accept them. In the second place my own position as a transcendentalist
+connects me less or more with the acknowledgment of transcendental
+phenomena, and to distinguish the limits of possibility in these matters
+would involve a technical discussion for which there is no opportunity
+here. It is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> understood, however, that in the interests of
+transcendental science I reject the miraculous element in Dr Bataille&rsquo;s
+memoirs.</p>
+
+<p>Another line of criticism also open and leading to convincing results
+would dwell upon the glaring improbability of the entire story outside
+that miraculous element. There is no colourable pretence of likelihood,
+for example, in the connection instituted between fakirs and Freemasons,
+or between secret societies in China and a sect of Luciferians in
+Charleston. But the partisans of Dr Bataille are prepared to believe
+anything of Masonry, and to dismiss likelihood as they would dismiss
+impossibility. Some arguments are unassailable on account of their
+stupidity, and of such shelter I intend to deprive my witness. I shall
+therefore merely register my recognition that this criticism does obtain
+completely. For much the same reason I shall only refer in passing to
+another matter which in itself is sufficient to remove these memoirs
+from the region of actuality; they bristle with the kind of coincidences
+which are the common convenience of bad novelists to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> create or escape
+situations, and are rejected even by legitimate fiction, because they
+are untrue to life. At the present time the device of coincidence is
+left to its true monopolists, the Society for Psychical Research and the
+manufacturers of the penny dreadful. Unreasonable demands are, however,
+made upon it by Dr Bataille; never in an awkward predicament does the
+coincidence fail to help him; wheresoever he goes it times his arrival
+rightly to witness some occasional and rare event, and it places him at
+once in communication with the indispensable person whose presence was
+antecedently unlikely. The very existence of his memoirs would have been
+jeopardised had the Anadyr reached Point-de-Galle immediately before
+instead of immediately after the catastrophe which converted Carbuccia.
+At the beginning of his mission against Masonry, coincidence arranged
+the last illness of the Cingalese pythoness to the exigencies of his
+date of arrival; it brought John Campbell to Pondicherry and Phileas
+Walder to Calcutta; at Singapore it fixed a Palladic institution in the
+grade of Templar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>-Mistress to correspond with his flying visit on the
+road to Shanghai. Now, all these coincidences are of the class which
+come off in fiction and miss in the combinations of real life, but to
+insist on this point would not disillusionise the believers in Dr
+Bataille, who will say that he was assisted by Providence. We must show
+that he has deceived them in matters which admit of verification, over
+certain points of ordinary fact, which can be placed beyond the region
+of dispute, and by which the truth of his narrative may be held to stand
+or fall. I shall confine myself for this purpose to what he states at
+first hand in his capacity as an eyewitness, and to two salient cases
+which may be taken to represent the whole. Among the rest some are in
+course of investigation, and so far as they have gone are promising
+similar results; the locality of others has been so chosen as to baffle
+inquiry; and in one or two instances I have failed to obtain results. It
+is obviously impossible to prove that there is not a native hut in &ldquo;a
+thick and impassable forest&rdquo; at an unindicated distance from
+Point-de-Galle, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> that this hut does not possess a vast subterranean
+chamber. When we cannot check our witness we must regard what he tells
+us in the light of those instances which it is possible to fix firmly.
+Among negative results I may mention an inquiry into the alleged death
+of a person named George Shekleton in a Masonic lodge at Calcutta. Sir
+John Lambert, K.C.S.I.E., the commissioner of police at that place, very
+courteously made investigations at my suggestion, first at the coroner&rsquo;s
+court, but the records for the year 1880 are not now in existence, and,
+secondly, among the oldest police officers, but also without result. I
+applied thereupon to Mr Robert William Shekleton, Q.C., J.P., inquiring
+whether any relative of his family had died under curious circumstances
+at Calcutta about the year 1880. His answer is this:&mdash;&ldquo;I never heard
+anything about the death of a George Shekleton in Calcutta. My elder and
+younger brother were both living in Calcutta, and if any person of the
+same name had been living there I should have heard it from them. My
+younger brother Alexander Shekleton died<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> at Madras on his way home with
+his wife and children of confluent small-pox; my eldest brother Joseph
+is still alive.&rdquo; The presumption, therefore, is that Carbuccia&rsquo;s story
+of the strange fatality which occurred in his presence at a Masonic
+lodge is without any foundation in fact, but I regard the result as
+negative because it falls short of demonstration. I am now setting other
+channels in operation, but as it is not a test case, and not an event
+which Dr Bataille claims to have witnessed himself, it is unnecessary to
+await the issue.</p>
+
+<p>If the reader will now glance at the several sections of the sixth
+chapter, he will find that one of the most important is that entitled
+&ldquo;The Seven Temples and a Sabbath in Sheol,&rdquo; where Dr Bataille tells us
+that he witnessed unheard of operations in black magic on the part of
+Palladian Masons and diabolising fakirs. The locality was a plain called
+Dappah, two hours drive from Calcutta. The particulars which are given
+concerning the edifices on the mountain of granite, but more especially
+concerning an open charnel where the dead bodies of innumerable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> human
+beings, mixed indiscriminately with those of animals and with the town
+refuse, are left to rot under the eye of heaven, will not impress any
+one, however unacquainted with India, and with the vicinity of the
+English capital and seat of government, as wearing many of the features
+of probability. The facts are as follows:&mdash;A place called Dhappamanpour,
+and for brevity Dhappa, does exist in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, and
+thereto the town refuse is actually carried by a special line of
+railway; there is no granite mountain and there are no temples, while so
+far from it being a charnel into which human bodies are flung, or a
+place where the adepts of the Palladium could celebrate a black Sabbath
+and form a magic chain with putrid corpses, it is a great lake covering
+an area of thirty square miles, and is known by Anglo-Indians as the
+Saltwater Lake. In the year 1886 it was in course of reclamation, but
+all that Dr Bataille tells us is specifically untrue, and he could never
+have witnessed there the things which he describes as taking place in
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> year 1880. The <i>r&eacute;cit d&rsquo;un t&eacute;moin</i> is in this matter an invented
+history.</p>
+
+<p>As a consequence of this bogus experience in Calcutta, Dr Bataille
+pretends to have been admitted within the charmed circle of the New and
+Reformed Palladium, and was therefore qualified to be present at the
+initiation of a Templar-Mistress which took place not long after at
+Singapore. His account of this initiation turns upon two or three points
+which do not appear in the synopsis of the sixth chapter. One of these
+is the existence of a Kadosch Areopagite of the Ancient and Accepted
+Scotch Rite. But at least, at the period in question, there was no such
+Areopagite, and the Scotch Rite did not exist at Singapore. The sole
+Masonic institution was a District Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and
+Accepted Masons of England in the Eastern Archipelago, working under the
+warrant of the English Grand Lodge, holding half-yearly communications,
+and special meetings when the District Grand Master deemed necessary.
+Its patent dates from March 3, 1878, and the District Grand Master at
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> time was the Hon. William H. Macleod Read. Three lodges worked
+under its jurisdiction, two of which were at Singapore and one at
+Penang, and to one of the former a Royal Arch Chapter was attached. It
+is needless to say that our author&rsquo;s Misra&iuml;m diploma would have obtained
+his admission to none, and there is no person here in England who would
+have the effrontery to affirm that he might have fared better by reason
+of his Palladian degree. It is sufficient, however, to state that there
+was no Lodge of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite in Singapore at the
+time of his visit. But the imposition does not end here; Dr Bataille
+does not merely describe what took place at a lodge which was not in
+existence&mdash;he gives particulars of an address delivered by a certain Dr
+Murray at a meeting attended by himself. Now, at the date in question,
+there was no such person either in the town, in its vicinity, or in
+Penang. There is fortunately an institution among us which is termed the
+British Museum, and it enables us to verify questions of this kind.
+Furthermore, when describing the Palladian meeting at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> Presbyterian
+chapel&mdash;there was such a chapel by the way&mdash;he tells us that the Grand
+Master was named Spencer, and that he was a <i>n&eacute;gociant</i> of Singapore,
+but there was again no such person in the town or its vicinity at the
+time, and so his entire narrative, with its ritual reproduced from Leo
+Taxil, is demolished completely. I submit that these two instances are
+sufficient to indicate the kind of man with whom we are dealing. It may
+be a matter of astonishment to my readers that a work even of imposition
+should be performed so clumsily as to betray itself at once to a little
+easy research, but it must be remembered that the class of French
+readers to whom Dr Bataille made appeal are so ignorant of all which
+concerns the English that skill is not required to exploit them; it is
+enough that the English are abused. Of our author&rsquo;s qualifications in
+this respect I have already given some specimens, but they convey no
+idea of his actual resources in the matter of abuse and calumny. A
+direct quotation will not be beside the purpose in this
+place:&mdash;&ldquo;Wheresoever religious influence can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> make itself felt, there
+the wife and maid are the purest, the most ingenuous expression of the
+creation and the divinely touching idea synthetised by the immaculate
+Mother of Christ, the Virgin Mary; but, on the contrary, in England, and
+still more especially in the English colonies, under the pernicious
+influence of the Protestant heresy engendered by revolts of truly
+diabolical inspiration, the wife and maid are in some sort the
+opprobrium of humanity. The example, moreover, comes from an exalted
+place, as is known. The whole world is acquainted with that which John
+Bull does not himself confess, namely, the private history of her whom
+Indians term &lsquo;the old lady of London,&rsquo; given over to vice and
+drunkenness from her youth&mdash;Her Majesty Wisky the 1st.&rdquo; I have made this
+quotation, because it gives the opportunity to dispense with the
+civility of discussion which is exercised by one gentleman towards
+another, but would be out of place on the part of a gentleman who is
+giving a deserved castigation to a disgusting and foul-mouthed rascal.
+This is the nameless refuse which flings itself to bespatter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> Masonry.
+Down, unclean dog, and back, scavenger, to your offal! The scullion in
+the Queen&rsquo;s kitchen would, I think, disdain to whip you.</p>
+
+<p>Setting aside these scandalous slanders, and returning to the subject in
+hand, it is clear that when a writer who comes forward with a budget of
+surprising revelations is shown to have invented his materials in
+certain signal instances, it becomes superfluous to subject his entire
+testimony to a laborious sifting, and there is really no excuse to delay
+much longer over the memoirs of Dr Bataille. It will be needless to
+state that my researches have failed to discover any such dismantled
+temple as that described at Pondicherry, and affirmed to be on the
+English soil adjacent to the French town. It is equally unnecessary to
+say that the story of the caves of Gibraltar is a gross and absurd
+imposture, for, in fact, it betrays itself. Parisian literature of the
+by-ways has its own methods, and its purveyors are shrewd enough to know
+what will be tolerated and what enjoyed by their peculiar class of
+patrons; transcendental toxicology and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> an industry in idols worked by
+criminals intercommunicating by means of Volapuk may be left to them.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it needful to do more than touch lightly upon a pleasant process
+in piracy by which Dr Bataille lightens the toils of authorship. He has
+done better than any other among the witnesses of Lucifer in his
+gleanings from &Eacute;liphas L&eacute;vi. On p. 32 of his first volume there is a
+brazen theft concerning the chemistry of black magic, and there is
+another, little less daring, on p. 67, being a description of a
+Baphometic idol. It goes without saying that the Conjuration of the Four
+is imported, as others have imported it, from the <i>Rituel de la Haute
+Magie</i>. The vesture of the master of ceremonies who officiated in the
+Sanctuary of the Ph&#339;nix, one of the mythical temples of Dhappa, is a
+property derived from the same quarter. So in like manner is part of a
+magical adjuration in the account of a Sabbath in Sheol. Finally, a
+method of divination described in a later place (vol. i., pp. 343, 344)
+will be found in Christian&rsquo;s <i>Histoire de la Magie</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>The artist who has illustrated the memoirs has acted after the same
+manner. The two Baphometic figures (vol. i., pp. 9 and 89), are
+reproductions from L&eacute;vi&rsquo;s plates. The Sabbatic figure (<i>Ib.</i>, p. 153) is
+a modification from Christian. The original idea of the shadow-demon on
+p. 201 will be found in L&eacute;vi&rsquo;s sacerdotal hand making the sign of
+esotericism. The four figures of the Palladian urn on p. 313 are
+plagiarised in a similar way. The illustration on p. 337, which purports
+to be a gnostic symbol of the dual divinity, is actually the
+frontispiece to L&eacute;vi&rsquo;s <i>Dogme de la Haute Magie</i>. The magical urn on p.
+409 is the facsimile of a similar object in another of L&eacute;vi&rsquo;s drawings;
+and if it were worth while to continue, the material for a further
+enumeration is not wanting. But these matters, after all, are of
+inferior moment, and to complete the exposure of this witness, I pass to
+the final points of my criticism.</p>
+
+<p>Dr Bataille publishes an alleged Table of High-grade Masonry as it
+existed on March 1, 1891, and this document, which is similar in many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>
+respects to another of a slightly anterior date, produced by Signor
+Margiotta, is said to have been prepared by Albert Pike himself; it
+includes a long list of the persons then in correspondence with the
+Supreme Dogmatic Directory as Inspectors General &ldquo;in permanent mission.&rdquo;
+It is a bizarre medley which includes the Orders of the Druids, Mopses,
+Oddfellows, and Mormon Moabites in the same connection as the Ancient
+and Accepted Scotch Rite, the Rites of Memphis and Misra&iuml;m, and the
+San-Ho-Hei. As such, it would be, in any case, a large tax upon the
+gullibility of readers outside the back streets of Paris. But I
+determined to make some inquiries among the English names mentioned. For
+example, Mr R. W. Shekleton, to whom I have already referred, is said,
+at the period in question, to have been in official correspondence with
+the Dogmatic Directory, representing the special relations of Ireland,
+and, having drawn his attention to the point, he has furnished me with
+the following contradiction:&mdash;&ldquo;The statement in your letter, taken from
+the book you refer to, that I was in the year &lsquo;91 in direct<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>
+correspondence with the Supreme Dogmatic Directory of Charleston is
+utterly false. I never even heard of any such Body as the Supreme
+Directory, or of what is called the New and Reformed Palladium. The only
+communication I ever had with General Albert Pike (whom I had never
+seen) was in reference to a question of Masonic procedure in America. So
+far as I am aware the existence of either of the Bodies you refer to is
+unknown to any of the Masonic Body in Ireland, and I can, with almost
+certainty, make the same statement in reference to the English and
+Scotch Masons. Having been for nearly twenty-seven years the Acting Head
+of the Order in Ireland, I can speak with authority, and you are at
+liberty in my name to give the most emphatic contradiction to the
+statements quoted from the book. So far as I am aware, General Pike was
+never anything more than Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme
+Council of the 33rd Southern Jurisdiction of America.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The case of Mr John Yarker, Grand Master of the Memphis Rite in England,
+I have already<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> had occasion to mention, and have cited his explicit
+denial of any acquaintance with the New and Reformed Palladium, but he
+is included by Dr Bataille in his wonderful enumeration. Upon the
+general question, Mr Yarker observes: (<i>a</i>) that the Scottish or Ancient
+and Accepted Rite has nothing occult about it, but the Memphis and
+Misra&iuml;m Rites are wholly occultism. (<i>b</i>) That Pike has, however, in his
+lectures added occult matters from these occult Rites. (<i>c</i>) That Pike,
+as a very able man, ruled the whole of the Supreme Grand Councils of the
+33&deg; (Ancient and Accepted), which almost all originated from Charleston.
+(<i>d</i>) That this is the only form in which there can be said to have been
+a Dogmatic Directorate.</p>
+
+<p>In like manner, Mr William Officer of Edinburgh, an initiate of the
+Scotch Rite, Inspector-General of the Supreme Council of the French
+Grand Orient, and Hon. Member of its Grand College of Rites, denies his
+alleged connection with any Central Directory, and has heard nothing of
+such an institution.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>I do not conceive that there is any call to fill space by the
+multiplication of these denials, and I need therefore only add that I
+have others equally explicit in my possession. The obvious conclusion is
+that the alleged Table of High-Grade Masonry is a bogus document founded
+on some official lists of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, there are certain statements made by Dr Bataille which warrant
+the presumption that he could have had little, if any, active
+acquaintance with the Memphis Rite. That he may have purchased a diploma
+from Pessina is probable enough; what I learn of the Grand Master of the
+Neapolitan Sovereign Sanctuary, through sources not tainted like those
+of the witnesses of Lucifer, does not place him wholly above financial
+considerations, but Pessina was, and is, totally unrecognised by any
+Masonic power in the world of Craft Masonry. So far, therefore, from
+such a diploma acting as an <i>Open Sesame</i>, it would have sealed all
+doors against its owner, and this statement is true not only for
+ordinary Craft Masonry, but for the great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> majority of lodges under the
+Misra&iuml;m obedience. Dr Bataille would not, therefore, have much
+opportunity for participating in that Rite to which he had purchased
+entrance, and, as a fact, he is wholly ignorant concerning it. For
+example, he seems to represent the Memphis and Misra&iuml;m Rites as enjoying
+recognition from the Scotch Rite, and the latter as consciously
+subordinate and inferior, whereas the position is this. Memphis
+recognises the 33&deg; of the Ancient and Accepted as its first steps, and
+places 62 degrees upon them, which are not recognised in return. Misra&iuml;m
+also includes the 33&deg; of the Scotch Rite, but in a more irregular
+arrangement, other degrees being interspersed among them. Pessina&rsquo;s
+Misra&iuml;m Rite has been reduced by him from 90&deg; to 33&deg;, which are
+virtually those of the Ancient and Accepted Rite approximated to Misra&iuml;m
+teaching. So also he states that General Garibaldi was in 1860, and had
+been so for many previous years, the Grand Master and Grand Hierophant
+of the Rite of Memphis for all countries of the globe. This is
+completely untrue, for, as a matter of fact,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> Garibaldi succeeded
+Jacques Etienne Marconis of Paris, becoming president of a confederation
+of the Rites which was brought about by Mr John Yarker in the year 1881.
+Before this period he was simply an Hon. Grand Master of Pessina&rsquo;s body.
+The articles of this treaty, with a true copy of all the signatures
+attached to it, and with the seals of the Sovereign Sanctuaries against
+them, is before me as I write. I may state, in conclusion, that Dr
+Bataille also falsely represents himself to have met with Mr Yarker, who
+told him that he had personally aspired to the succession at the death
+of Garibaldi, which Mr Yarker characterises as &ldquo;an infamous concoction.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I am in possession of ample materials for illustrating more fully the
+marvellous inventions produced by this witness of Lucifer, but the
+instalment here given is sufficient for the present purpose.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenumpadded'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="padded"><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>DIANA UNVEILED</h3>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> discovery of Leo Taxil and of M. Ricoux has one remaining witness in
+the person of Miss Diana Vaughan. She also, as we have seen, is a writer
+of memoirs, and in giving some account of her narrative I have already
+indicated in substance certain lines of criticism which might be applied
+with success thereto. We must obviously know more about this lady, and
+have some opportunity of verifying the particulars of her past life
+before we can accept her statement that she has written while fresh from
+&ldquo;conversion,&rdquo; and is speaking for the first time the language of a
+Christian and a Catholic. The supernatural element of her memoirs it is
+not worth while to discuss. Were she otherwise worthy of credit, we
+might exonerate her personal veracity by assuming that she was tricked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>
+over the apparition and hallucinated in the vision that followed it, but
+I propose submitting to my readers sufficient evidence to justify a
+conclusion that she does not deserve our credit, and though out of
+deference to her sex it is desirable, so far as may be possible, to
+speak with moderation, I must establish most firmly that the motive she
+betrays in her memoirs is not in many respects preferable to that of the
+previous witness.</p>
+
+<p>It will be advisable, however, to distinguish that part of the narrative
+for which Miss Vaughan is admittedly and personally responsible from
+that which she claims to be derived from her family history. I must
+distinguish between them, not that I am prepared to admit as a
+legitimate consequence of her statement that there is any real
+difference or that I unquestionably regard Miss Vaughan as having
+created a strong presumption that she is in possession of the documents
+which she claims to have. I am simply recognising the classification
+which she may herself be held to make. If in this respect it can be
+shown that I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> mistaken the actual position, I will make such
+reparation as may be due from a man of letters, whose reasonable
+indignation in the midst of much imposture will, in such case, have
+misled him. But there is only one course which is open to Miss Vaughan
+in the matter, and that is to produce the original documents on which
+she has based her narrative for the opinion of competent English
+investigators, in which case Miss Vaughan may be held to have
+established not the truth of her family history, which is essentially
+beyond establishment, but her <i>bona fides</i> in connection with its
+relation. After this the portion for which she is personally
+responsible, and from which there is no escape, will still fasten the
+charge of falsehood ineffaceably upon her narrative.</p>
+
+<p>In addition, then, to her personal history, Miss Vaughan&rsquo;s memoirs
+contain:&mdash;I. A mendacious biography of the English mystic, Thomas
+Vaughan. II. A secret history of the English Rosicrucian Fraternity, and
+of its connection with Masonry, which is also an impudent fraud. The two
+constitute one of the most curious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> literary forgeries which are to be
+met with in the whole range of Hermetic literature; and Hermetic
+literature, it is known, has been enriched by many triumphs of
+invention. I shall deal with the narratives plainly on the provisional
+assumption that Miss Vaughan has been herself deceived in regard to
+them. They are based upon family papers said to be now in possession of
+the Charleston Dogmatic Directory. The central facts which are sought to
+be established by means of these papers have been mentioned already in
+my eighth chapter, namely, that Miss Vaughan is one of the two last
+descendants of the alchemist Thomas Vaughan; that this personage made a
+compact with Satan in the year 1645, that under the name of Eiren&aelig;us
+Philalethes, he wrote the well-known alchemical work entitled &ldquo;An Open
+Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King,&rdquo; and that he consummated a
+mystical marriage with Venus-Astarte, of which the Palladian
+Templar-Mistress is the last development. For the purposes of these
+narratives the birth of Thomas Vaughan is placed in the year 1612, and
+his death, or rather translation, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span> the year 1678. At the age of
+twenty-four years, that is to say, in 1636, he proceeded to London, and
+there connected himself with the mystic Robert Fludd, by whom he was
+initiated into a lower grade of the Rosicrucian Fraternity, and received
+a letter of introduction to the Grand Master, Johann Valentin Andre&aelig;,
+which he took over to Stuttgart and presented. In 1637, having returned
+to London, he was present at the death of Robert Fludd, which occurred
+in that year. In 1638 he made his first voyage to America, where he was
+hospitably entertained by a Protestant minister, named John Cotton, but
+his visit was not characterised by any remarkable occurrence. At this
+period the alchemist is represented by his descendant as a Puritan
+impregnated with the secret doctrine of Robert Fludd. In 1639 Vaughan
+returned to England, but was immediately attracted to Denmark by the
+discovery of a golden horn adorned with mysterious figures, which he and
+his colleagues in alchemy supposed to typify the search for the
+philosophical stone. At the age of twenty-eight,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> Vaughan made further
+progress in the Rosicrucian Fraternity, being advanced to the grade of
+<i>Adeptus Minor</i> by Amos Komenski, in which year also Elias Ashmole
+entered the order. Accompanied by Komenski, Vaughan proceeded to
+Hamburg, thence by himself to Sweden, and subsequently to the Hague,
+where he initiated Martin de Vri&egrave;s. A year later he visited Italy, and
+made acquaintance with Berigard de Pisa. This was a pious pilgrimage
+which testified his devotion to Faustus Socinus, for Miss Vaughan, on
+the authority of her documents, regards the Italian heretic, not only as
+a conscious Satanist, but as the founder of the Rosicrucian Society, and
+the initiator of Johann Valentin Andre&aelig;, whom he also won over to
+Lucifer. On his return Thomas Vaughan tarried a short time in France,
+where he conceived the project of organising Freemasonry as it exists at
+the present day, and there also it occurred to him that the guilds of
+the Compagnage might serve him for raw material. When, however, he
+returned to England, he concluded that the honorary or Accepted Masons,
+received by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> Masonic guilds of England, were better suited to his
+purpose. Some of these were already Rosicrucians, and among them he set
+to work. In the year 1644 he presided over a Rosicrucian assembly at
+which Ashmole was present. At this time also Oliver Cromwell is said to
+have been an accepted Mason, and it was by his intervention that, a year
+later, Thomas Vaughan was substituted for the headsman at the execution
+of Archbishop Laud, for the object already described. It was after his
+compact with Lucifer that the alchemist wrote the &ldquo;Open Entrance.&rdquo; His
+activity in the Rosicrucian cause then became prodigious, and the
+followers of Socinus, apparently all implicated in the Satanism of their
+master, began to swell the ranks of the Accepted Masons. At this time
+also he began his collaborations with Ashmole for the composition of the
+Apprentice, Companion, and Master grades, that is to say, for the
+institution of symbolical Masonry. In 1646 he again visited America, and
+consummated his mystic marriage, as narrated in the eighth chapter. In
+1648 he returned to England, and one year later com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>pleted the Master
+grade, that of Companion having been produced during his absence, but
+following the indications he had given, by Elias Ashmole. In 1650 he
+began to issue his Rosicrucian and alchemical writings, namely,
+<i>Anthroposophia Theomagica</i> and <i>Anima Magica Abscondita</i>, followed by
+<i>Lumen de Lumine</i> and <i>Aula Lucis</i> in 1651. The Rosicrucian Grand Master
+Andre&aelig; died in 1654, and was succeeded by Thomas Vaughan, whose next
+step was the publication of his work, entitled &ldquo;Euphrates, or the Waters
+of the East.&rdquo; In 1656 he is said to have published the complete works of
+Socinus, two folio volumes in the collection, entitled <i>Bibliotheca
+Fratrum Polonorum</i>. Three years later appeared his &ldquo;Fraternity of R.C.,&rdquo;
+and in 1664 the <i>Medulla Alchymi&aelig;</i>. In 1667 he decided to publish the
+&ldquo;Open Entrance,&rdquo; the MS. of which was returned to him by the editor
+Langius after printing, and was subsequently annotated in the way I have
+previously mentioned. During the early days of the same year Vaughan
+converted Helvetius, the celebrated physician of the Hague, who in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>
+turn became Grand Master of the Rosicrucian Fraternity. In 1668 he
+published his &ldquo;Experiments with Sophic Mercury&rdquo; and <i>Tractatus Tres</i>,
+while ten years later, or in 1678, the year of his infernal translation,
+he produced his edition of &ldquo;Ripley Revived&rdquo; and the <i>Enarratio Trium
+Gebri</i>.</p>
+
+<p>From beginning to end, generally and particularly, the narrative I have
+summarised above is a gross and planned imposture, nor would any
+epithets be so severe as to be undeserved by the person who has
+concocted it, because it does outrage to the sacred dead, in particular
+to the greatest of the English spiritual mystics, Thomas Vaughan, and to
+the greatest of the English physical mystics, Eiren&aelig;us Philalethes. For
+the mendacious history confuses two entirely distinct persons&mdash;Eugenius
+and Eiren&aelig;us Philalethes. It is true that this confusion has been made
+frequently, and it is true also that at the beginning of my researches
+into the arch&aelig;ology of Hermetic literature I was one of its victims, for
+which I was sharply brought to book by those who knew better. But a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>
+young and unassisted investigator, imperfectly equipped, has an excuse
+which will exonerate him at least from a malicious intention. It is
+otherwise with a pretended family history. When documents of this kind
+reproduce blunders which are pardonable to ignorance alone, and upon a
+subject about which two opinions are no longer possible, it is certain
+that such documents are not what they claim; in other words, they have
+been fabricated, and the fabrication of historical papers is essentially
+a work of malice. Furthermore, when such forgeries impeach persons long
+since passed to their account, on the score of unheard of crimes, they
+are the work of diabolical malice, and this is a moderately worded
+judgment on the case now in hand. Thomas Vaughan, otherwise Eugenius
+Philalethes, was born in the year 1621 at Newton, in Brecknockshire. The
+accepted and perfectly correct authority for this statement is the
+<i>Athen&aelig; Oxonienses</i> of Anthony Wood, but he is not the only authority,
+and if he be not good enough for Miss Vaughan, she can take in his place
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> exhaustive researches of the Rev. A. B. Grosart, whose edition of
+the works of the Silurist Henry Vaughan have probably been neither seen
+nor heard of by this unwise woman, in the same way that she is ignorant
+of most essential elements in the matters which she presumes to treat.
+The authority of a laborious scholar like Dr Grosart will probably be of
+greater weight than the foul narrative of a Palladian memoir-maker, who
+has not produced her documents. From this date it follows that in the
+year 1636 Thomas Vaughan was still in the schoolboy period, not even of
+sufficient age to begin a college career. He could not, as alleged, have
+visited Fludd, the illustrious Kentish mystic, in London, nor would he
+have been ripe for initiation, supposing that Fludd could have dispensed
+it. In like manner, Andre&aelig;, assuming that he was Grand Master of the
+Rosicrucians, would not have welcomed a youngster of fifteen years,
+supposing that in those days he was likely to travel from London to
+Stuttgart, but would have recommended him to return to his
+lesson-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>books. The first voyage to America and all the earlier incidents
+of the narrative are untrue for the same reason. In place of wandering
+through Denmark, the Hague, and Sweden, initiating and being initiated,
+he was drumming through a course at Oxford; in place of pious
+pilgrimages to the shrine of Socinus, he was preparing to take orders in
+the English Church, and the narrative which is untrue to his early is
+untrue also to his later life. After receiving Holy Orders he returned
+to his native village and took over the care of its souls. He was never
+a Puritan; he was never a friend of Cromwell; he was a high-churchman
+and a Royalist, and he was ejected from his living because he was
+accused by political enemies of carrying arms for the king. He never
+travelled; on the contrary, he married, at what period is unknown, but
+his tender devotion to his wife is commemorated on the reverse pages of
+an autograph alchemical MS. now in the British Museum, which belies
+furthermore, in every line and word, the Luciferian imposture of the
+Paris-cum-Yankee documents, by its passionate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> religious aspiration and
+its adoring love of Christ.</p>
+
+<p>When Vaughan came up to London, it was as a man who was somewhat out of
+joint with English, in spite of his Oxford career, because he was a
+Welsh speaking man, and when he took to writing books, he apologises for
+his awkward diction. He accentuates also his youth, which would be
+warrantable at the age of twenty-eight, but would be absurd in a writer
+approaching forty years. This point may be verified by any one who will
+refer to my edition of Vaughan&rsquo;s <i>Anthroposophia Theomagica</i>. The works
+of Thomas Vaughan, besides <i>Anthroposophia Theomagica</i>, are <i>Anima
+Magica Abscondita</i>, published in 1650; <i>Magia Adamica</i> 1650, apparently
+forgotten by the &ldquo;authentic documents&rdquo; of Miss Vaughan, as are also &ldquo;The
+Man-Mouse&rdquo; and &ldquo;The Second Wash, or the Moore scoured once
+More&rdquo;&mdash;satires on Henry More, written in reply to that Platonist, who
+had attacked the previous books. These belong to the year 1651, as also
+does <i>Lumen de Lumine</i>; &ldquo;The Fame and Confession of the Fraternity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>
+R.C.&rdquo; appeared in 1652, not 1659, as the &ldquo;family history&rdquo; affirms; <i>Aula
+Lucis</i>, 1652 (not 1651); and &ldquo;Euphrates,&rdquo; 1655. What is obvious
+everywhere in these priceless little books is the devotion of a true
+mystic to Jesus Christ, and to gift them with the sordid interpretation
+of a French-born cultus of Lucifer is about as possible as to attribute
+a Christian intention to the calumnies of Miss Vaughan&rsquo;s documents.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1665, at the house of the rector of Albury, a chemical
+experiment with mercury cost the Welsh alchemist his life, and he was
+buried in the churchyard of that village in Oxfordshire.</p>
+
+<p>It is clear, therefore, that the wonderful archives in the possession of
+Miss Vaughan give a bogus history of Eugenius Philalethes, but they are
+also untrue of Eiren&aelig;us. It is untrue that this mysterious adept, whose
+identity has never been disclosed, was born in 1612; he was born some
+ten years later.</p>
+
+<p>The source of both dates is &ldquo;The Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of
+the King&rdquo;;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> but that which Miss Vaughan champions is based upon a
+corrupt reading in a bad version, and she has evidently never seen the
+original and best of the Latin impressions, that of Langius, though she
+has the presumption to cite it. That edition establishes that he wrote
+the treatise in the year 1645, he being then in the twenty-third year of
+his age&mdash;whence it follows that the date of his birth was most probably
+1622, and the history with which he is invested by Miss Vaughan is again
+a misfit; it is putting man&rsquo;s garments on a boy. Furthermore, there is
+not one item in her statements concerning the &ldquo;Open Entrance&rdquo; which is
+not directly and provably false. It was not printed, as she indicates,
+under the supervision of the author; it was not printed from the
+original MS., nor was that MS. returned to Philalethes after it had
+passed through the press. It is shameful for any person, male or female,
+however little they may consider their own fair fame, to so far violate
+the canons of literary honour as to make dogmatic statements concerning
+a work which they cannot have seen. The preface prefixed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> this
+edition by Langius completely refutes Miss Vaughan. Here is a passage in
+point:&mdash;&ldquo;Truly who or what kind of person was author of this sweet,
+must-like work, I know no more than he who is most ignorant, nor, since
+he himself would conceal his name, do I think fit to enquire so far,
+lest I get his displeasure.&rdquo; Again&mdash;&ldquo;To pick out the roses from the most
+thorny bushes of writings, and to make the elixir of philosophers by his
+own industry, without any tutor, and at twenty-three years of age, this
+perchance hath been granted to none, or to most few hitherto.&rdquo; Langius,
+moreover, laments explicitly the fact that he did not print from an
+original MS. He printed from a Latin translation, the work of an unknown
+hand, which had come into his possession, as he tells us, from a man who
+was learned in such matters. Miss Vaughan&rsquo;s pretended autograph, with
+its despicable marginal readings, is obviously a Latin copy, whatever be
+its history otherwise. The original was in English, and when Langius was
+regretting its loss, &ldquo;a transcript, probably written from the author&rsquo;s
+copy, or very little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> corrupted,&rdquo; was in possession of the bookseller
+William Cooper, of Little Saint Bartholomews, near Little Britain, in
+the city of London, who published it in the year 1669, to correct the
+imperfections in the edition of Amsterdam. This transcript also
+establishes that the &ldquo;Open Entrance&rdquo; was penned when the author was in
+his twenty-third year.</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, Philalethes does not appear to have superintended
+the publication of any of his writings, and here Miss Vaughan again
+exhibits her unpardonable ignorance concerning the works with which she
+is dealing. To prove that her reputed ancestor was alive after the
+accepted date of Thomas Vaughan&rsquo;s death, she triumphantly observes that
+in the year 1668 he published his experiments on the preparation of
+Sophic Mercury and <i>Tractatus Tres</i>. But the latter volume was a piracy,
+for in his preface to &ldquo;Ripley Revived&rdquo; the author expressly laments that
+two of its three treatises had passed out of his hands, and he feared
+lest they should get into print, because they were imperfect works
+preceding the period of solid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> knowledge which produced the &ldquo;Open
+Entrance.&rdquo; Again, so little was he consulted over the appearance of the
+&ldquo;Sophic Mercury&rdquo; that the printer represents it as the work of an
+American philosopher, whence it has been fathered upon George Starkey.</p>
+
+<p>Eiren&aelig;us Philalethes was undoubtedly a great traveller and he visited
+America, but there is no ground for supposing that he was ever in Italy,
+and that either he or Thomas Vaughan edited the works of Socinus is an
+ignorant fiction, for which even Miss Vaughan can find no better warrant
+than the evasive place of publication which figures on the title-page of
+the <i>Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum</i>, namely, Eiren&aelig;opolis. In like
+manner she erroneously credits him with the authorship of the <i>Medulla
+Alchemi&aelig;</i>, which is the work of Eiren&aelig;us Philoponos Philalethes,
+otherwise George Starkey.</p>
+
+<p>These facts fully establish the fraudulent nature of Miss Vaughan&rsquo;s
+family history, by whomsoever it has been devised, and seeing that where
+it is possible to check it, it breaks down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> at every point, we need have
+no hesitation in rejecting the information which it provides in those
+cases where it cannot be brought to book. The connection of Faustus
+Socinus with the Rosicrucian Fraternity, as founder, is one instance;
+this is merely an extension of the imposture of Abb&eacute; Lefranc in his
+&ldquo;Veil Raised for the Curious,&rdquo; and it rests, like its original, on no
+evidence which can be traced. Another is the Rosicrucian Imperatorship
+of Andre&aelig;, and yet another the initiation of Robert Fludd. Again, the
+connection of Philalethes with John Frederick Helvetius is based on
+speculation only, and that of Ashmole with the institution of symbolical
+Masonry has never been more than hypothesis, and not very deserving at
+that. I regret to add that, on the authority of her bogus documents,
+Miss Vaughan has given currency to a rumour that the founder of the
+Ashmolean Museum poisoned his first wife. She deserves the most severe
+reprobation for having failed to test her materials before she made
+public this foul slander. Furthermore, in that portion of her materials
+which is concerned with her family<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> history, she is not above tampering
+with the sense of printed books. The worshippers of Lucifer are
+represented as invariably terming their divinity the &ldquo;good God&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Dieu
+bon</i>,&mdash;or our God&mdash;<i>notre Dieu</i>&mdash;to distinguish him from the God of the
+Adona&iuml;tes, and the references made to the Deity by Philalethes in the
+&ldquo;Open Entrance&rdquo; she falsely translates by these Luciferian equivalents,
+thus creating an impression in the minds of the ignorant that he is not
+speaking of the true Divinity. After this it will hardly surprise my
+readers that a pretended translation from a MS. of Gillermet de
+Beauregard, which she states to be preserved in the archives of the
+Sovereign Patriarchal Council of Hamburg, is simply stolen from an
+<i>Instruction &agrave; la France sur la v&eacute;rit&eacute; de l&rsquo;Histoire des Fr&egrave;res de la
+Roze-Croix</i>, by Gabriel Naud&eacute;, who ridiculed and reviled the Order. I
+submit in conclusion that, in view of the facts already elicited, it is
+not worth while to inquire into the value of the episode concerned with
+the judicial murder of Archbishop Laud, and to elaborately argue that
+Oliver Cromwell was the last person<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> in England to be implicated in such
+a transaction, he, at the period in question, being briskly employed in
+checkmating his King, who was at Oxford in winter quarters, and having
+neither the power nor opportunity to meddle with the details of an
+execution. The incident, in a word, is worth as much and as little as
+the abominable story of the subsequent pact with Lucifer or the foolery
+of the mystic marriage.</p>
+
+<p>The critical investigation of Miss Vaughan&rsquo;s alleged documents having
+led to these results, it remains to be seen how far the other portions
+of her narrative will bear analysis. So long as she confined the more
+responsible part of her memoirs to personal experiences in the science
+of conversion and to the relation of her Eucharistic raptures, the
+lovers of ardent reading in this order of sensation were the only
+persons who could lay a complaint against her if she failed to fulfil
+their requirements. So long also as she fixed the scene of her history
+in a comparatively remote place, and among men now dead, she was
+partially protected from exposure, but when she transfers her
+revelations to Eng<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>land she is treading on dangerous ground, and she has
+in fact fallen into the pit. She has had the temerity to meddle with the
+modern history of Rosicrucian societies, and has undertaken to inform
+her readers after what manner she has come into possession of the
+rituals of the revived Rosicrucian Order, and her account is
+specifically untrue. She is undoubtedly acquainted with the grades of
+the order, but she could have obtained these from more than one
+published source&mdash;as, for example, the late Kenneth McKenzie&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Cyclop&aelig;dia of Freemasonry,&rdquo; or from my own &ldquo;Real History of the
+Rosicrucians.&rdquo; But even if she possess the rituals, she has not come by
+them in the manner she describes. Her account is as follows:&mdash;&ldquo;The
+Fraternity of the Rose-Cross comprises nine degrees of initiation&mdash;1.
+Zelator; 2. Theoricus; 3. Practicus (Miss Vaughan writes <i>Praticus</i>,
+which would be the error of a French person who does not read Latin and
+not the error of an English or American person as she claims to be); 4.
+Philosophus; 5. Adeptus Minor, according to the variants of Valentin
+Andre&aelig;, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> Adeptus Junior, according to the variants of Nick Stone
+(those were the variants of Nick Stone which were ostensibly burned in
+1720 by the Grand Master Theophilus Desaguliers, but were not in reality
+destroyed; transmitted to trusty English brethren, after the death of
+Desaguliers, they passed from reliable hands to others also reliable,
+until the reconstitution of the Rose-Cross; for the reconstituted
+association exists actually in England, Scotland, the United States, and
+Canada, and those variants of the grades which were made by Nick Stone,
+are at the present day deposited with Doctor W. W. W., living at Cambden
+(<i>sic</i>) Road, London, Supreme Magus of the Rose-Cross for England, AT
+WHOSE HOUSE I HAVE TRANSCRIBED THEM); 6. Adeptus Major; 7. Adeptus
+Exemptus; 8. Magister Templi; 9. Magus.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Vaughan&rsquo;s literary methods are not exactly captivating, and the
+enormous parenthesis is hers, but the capitals which close it are mine.
+The English doctor mentioned is well known to transcendentalists, and he
+is actually a high-grade Mason; he is also personally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span> well-known to
+myself. To the best of his recollection he has never at any time met any
+person terming herself Diana Vaughan. More especially, no such
+individual has ever called at his house, much less copied any rituals of
+which he may be in possession. There is therefore only one term by which
+it is possible to qualify Miss Vaughan in her account of this matter,
+and if I refrain from applying it, it is more out of literary grace than
+from considerations of gallantry, for when persons of the opposite sex
+elect to make themselves odious by gross imposition, they cannot expect
+to escape the legitimate consequences at the hands of criticism any more
+than another class of female malefactors will escape on the plea of
+their sex at the hand of justice.</p>
+
+<p>The subject of Luciferian Freemasonry has been under discussion in the
+columns of <i>Light</i> long before the appearance of this volume, and a
+number of transcendentalists, including one of great eminence&mdash;Mr
+Charles Carleton Massey&mdash;a few high-grade Masons, and myself, have
+exposed the pretensions of the French conspiracy. In most cases, and by
+more than one person,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> copies of the various issues were sent to Miss
+Vaughan through her publisher, and if she be not, as I hinted in that
+journal, the Mrs Harris of Freemasonry, there is little doubt that they
+reached her like other friendly offerings which she acknowledges in odd
+corners of her memoirs. It is probably in consequence of the exposures
+made in <i>Light</i> in connection with others said to have been made
+recently in Canada that in the eighth number of her memoirs she
+threatens to turn somewhat desperately on her critics. I understand that
+the Australian boomerang is a weapon that comes back to its caster, and
+the vindictive feeling which has prompted Miss Vaughan to a fresh burst
+of revelation has returned upon herself in a very overwhelming manner.
+&ldquo;I am driven, and I will do it,&rdquo; is her position. &ldquo;I will reveal the
+English Palladists such as they actually and personally are.&rdquo; And she
+does so to her own destruction as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The actual chief of the English Luciferians is Doctor William Wynn
+Westcott, living at 396 Cambden Road, London, whom on a previous
+occasion I mentioned only by his initials.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> It is he who is the actual
+custodian of the diabolical rituals of Nick Stone; it is he who is the
+Supreme Magus of the Socinian Rose-Cross for England.&rdquo; She proceeds to
+give the names of the Senior and Junior Sub-Magi, the members of the
+Grand Council, the chiefs of what she terms the Third Luciferian Order,
+and the Masters of the Temple, otherwise the Metropolitan College.
+Similar particulars follow concerning the York College, the College of
+Newcastle-on-Tyne, and that of Edinburgh.</p>
+
+<p>Now, Dr Wynn Westcott is a high-grade Mason, as I have said, and he
+occupies a professional position of influence and importance; it is
+clear that a gratuitous attempt to fasten upon him charges of an odious
+character is an exceedingly evil proceeding and places the person who
+does so outside all limits of tender consideration. When Miss Vaughan
+states that Dr Westcott is a Palladist, a diabolist, a worshipper of
+Lucifer, or however she may elect to distinguish it, I reply that she is
+guilty of a gross libel, which is at the same time an abominable and
+cruel falsehood. When she says that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> she has been received at his house,
+I reply that she has not been received there, and that Dr Westcott is
+likely to require better credentials from female visitors than are
+supplied by the infamous inventions in the &ldquo;Memoirs of an Ex-Palladist.&rdquo;
+When Miss Vaughan affirms that she has transcribed Dr Westcott&rsquo;s rituals
+at the house of Dr Westcott, I reply that this would be an untrue
+statement if the lady who made it were an intimate friend, and it is
+doubly untrue when affirmed by a perfect stranger. When Miss Vaughan
+states that Dr Westcott is the head of a Society which worships Lucifer,
+I reply that she is speaking falsely of a body concerning which she is
+in complete ignorance, and when an ignorant person thus attributes evil
+she or he does not only act foolishly but with exceeding malice. Miss
+Vaughan is henceforth upon all accounts outside that category of
+literary honour which makes it possible for criticism to be concerned
+with her and still preserve its dignity. Lastly, Miss Vaughan alleges
+that the official appointments made by Dr Westcott as Supreme Magus of
+the Society in question for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> the year 1896 were submitted to Adriano
+Lemmi and approved by him. This allegation is false <i>in toto</i>. Neither
+in a general nor a special sense is Dr Westcott responsible to Lemmi or
+to any Italian Freemason; what is more, no personal or written
+communication has at any time passed between them, and save as a past
+Grand Master Dr Westcott has never heard of the person to whose commands
+he is thus supposed to be subject. It will be seen that the baseless
+nature of this absurd statement involves all others of its kind, and
+there is no reason to attach the slightest credibility to anything which
+has been advanced concerning the supreme position of Adriano Lemmi, who,
+further, himself denies it, and, whatever his past history, is as much
+entitled to belief as accusers who betray their true character in this
+unenviable manner.</p>
+
+<p>The Society which has thus been attacked in the person of its Supreme
+Magus is of singularly unpretending nature, simple as regards its
+history, and making no claim either to Masonic or Mystical importance.
+It does not claim or possess a connection with the original Rosicrucian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>
+Fraternity. It does not attribute antiquity to the rituals which it
+uses. It was founded by Robert Wentworth Little, who died in 1878, and
+has been in existence somewhat less than forty years. Its sole
+connection with Masonry is that it only initiates Masons. It neither
+enjoys nor expects recognition from the Grand Lodge of England. It is
+literary and antiquarian in its object, and came into existence chiefly
+for the study of the history of Freemasonry and of other secret
+societies. Its members are required to believe in the fundamental
+principles of Christian doctrine. The Metropolitan College has only four
+convocations and one banquet annually; the number of Fratres upon the
+Roll of Subscribers is fifty-four. It has attracted Masons interested in
+the antiquities of their craft and has no other sphere of influence. It
+publishes occasional transactions, the dimensions of which are regulated
+by an exceedingly modest income. I mention many of these particulars
+merely to place a check upon exaggerated notions. Some of the provincial
+Colleges have a larger membership, but they are of precisely the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span>
+character. It is not a society of occultists, though, like innumerable
+other bodies, it counts occultists among its brethren. Finally, no
+religious cultus of any kind is performed at its meetings, and no woman
+has ever passed its threshold.</p>
+
+<p>The Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia is Rosicrucian only in its name, as
+it is Masonic only in its name, and its members are not Miss Vaughan&rsquo;s
+<i>ex-Fr&egrave;res d&rsquo;Angleterre</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is certainly and in all respects necessary that something effectual
+should be done to curb a slanderous and evil tongue which has the
+audacity to impress the most sacred feelings of religion into the
+service of wilful lying. Dr Westcott is not the only English Mason who
+has suffered the undeserved indignity of gross aspersion from this
+unclean pen. Another victim is Mr Robert S. Brown, Grand Secretary of
+the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland, who is also a member
+of the Ancient and Accepted Rite, and of nearly all Masonic Orders, the
+Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia included. This honourable gentleman is
+especially recommended by Miss Vaughan to the attention of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> Catholics in
+Edinburgh, being the city in which he resides. She describes him as a
+dangerous sectarian, a veritable sorcerer, and the evil genius of one of
+her own relatives. She states further that he is an Elect Magus of the
+Palladium, that he protects Sophia Walder when she visits Scotland, and
+that he was a great admirer of Phileas Walder, at whose instance he
+consecrated himself to the demon anti-Christ. In each and all these
+statements this malicious woman has lied foully. I communicated with Mr
+Brown on the subject, and hold his written denials, which are at the
+service of any person who desires to see them. Mr Brown says:&mdash;&ldquo;I am not
+an Elect Magus of the Palladium. I never to my knowledge saw Miss
+Walder, and never knew Miss Vaughan, or anyone of the name, man, woman,
+or child. I never heard Miss Walder named till I received your letter,
+and never knew of the existence of the Palladian Order, if it does
+exist, till I saw it mentioned in articles in &lsquo;Light&rsquo; and the
+&lsquo;Freemason&rsquo;s Chronicle&rsquo; (London).... With reference to the particular
+statements in this copy of the <i>M&eacute;moires</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> no doubt the writer has
+succeeded in getting hold of the facts in most cases as to the official
+positions of the parties named, which of course are easily obtained; the
+little details regarding some of us would indicate the presence of an
+agent in our midst or near at hand. The &lsquo;inventions&rsquo; and most slanderous
+statements regarding most of us are, however, outrageously false and
+wicked. My house has never had the honour(!!!) of entertaining Miss
+Walder or any other lady of like character; it is not a chemical
+laboratory, and I have never exercised myself in these <i>mysterious
+experiences</i> either there or elsewhere. I am a humble member of the
+Episcopal Church of Scotland, and, I trust, a sincere follower of the
+Master.... I count nearly all the gentlemen named in this vile
+proclamation among my friends, they are all good men and true, and I
+hope to associate with them for many years to come. I most emphatically
+deny the vile aspersions cast on their characters and my own, and you
+have my full authority to do so as far as the same may serve your
+purpose.&rdquo; My readers will agree that the clear and temperate statement<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>
+of Mr R. S. Brown brands Diana Vaughan with indelible disgrace in the
+eyes of the civilised world.</p>
+
+<p>There is a limit to the necessity of exposure, but should Miss Vaughan
+manifest any desire to have further instances of her mis-statements I
+will undertake to supply them. I will only add here in conclusion my
+personal opinion that Miss Vaughan has not been for any length of time a
+resident in an English-speaking country, much less can she have
+received, as it is alleged by some of her friends, an American
+education. The proof is that she makes characteristic French blunders
+over English names. Thus, we have <i>Cambden</i> on each occasion for Camden,
+<i>Wescott</i> for Westcott; we have <i>baronnet</i> for baronet, <i>Cantorb&eacute;ry</i> for
+Canterbury, <i>Kirkud-Bright</i> for Kirkcudbright; we have hybrid
+combinations like <i>Georges</i> Dickson, impossibilities like <i>Tiers-Ordre
+Luciferien d&rsquo;Honoris Causa</i>, and numerous similar instances.</p>
+
+<p>To behold &ldquo;Diana unveiled&rdquo; was equivalent in alchemical terminology to
+attaining the <i>magnum opus</i>. The reputed author of the &ldquo;New<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> Light of
+Alchemy&rdquo; testifies that some persons had in his own day and to his
+certain knowledge attained this supreme privilege. It is not of my own
+seeking if in another sense I have made public the same spectacle, and
+thus broken with the traditions of secret science. It would have been
+preferable from one point of view to have discovered Lucifer behind the
+mask of Masonry than to have found the conspiracy against it another
+<i>Tableau des Inconstances des D&eacute;mons</i> in which the <i>infidelit&eacute; et
+m&eacute;creance</i> connected with the old false witness, abound after a manner
+undreamed of by Bodin and Wierus, for it is distinctly disconcerting to
+think that a great church is so little honoured by her combatants and
+converts.</p>
+
+<p>It only remains to state, and I do so with extreme reluctance, that the
+evidence of Signor Domenico Margiotta, which seems so strong in itself,
+can only be accepted, as we have seen, in connection with the
+credibility of Miss Vaughan, and as this has completely broken down, we
+cannot do otherwise than regard that part of his evidence which is
+concerned with Palladism as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> the narrative of a person who has been very
+seriously misled. And I think he has otherwise shown us that he is not a
+judicious critic of the materials which have come into his hands. He
+should never, for example, have printed his list of Palladian Lotus
+Lodges&mdash;so far as regards Great Britain, it is undeniably a false list.
+Take that of Edinburgh as a typical instance. Mr Brown, who has every
+opportunity of knowing, tells me there is absolutely no truth in the
+statement that there is in Edinburgh a Mother, or any, Lodge of the
+Palladian Order. &ldquo;Neither is there a Triangular Province&mdash;whatever that
+may mean&mdash;such as is described. All is absolutely false.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenumpadded'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="padded"><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE RADIX OF MODERN DIABOLISM</h3>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have finished with the witnesses of Lucifer, and I think that the
+search-light of a drastic criticism has left them in considerable
+disarray. We approach the limit of the present inquiry, but before
+summing up and presenting such a general statement or conclusion as may
+be warranted by the facts, there is one point, left over hereunto, and
+designed for final consideration, because it appeals more exclusively to
+professed transcendentalists, which it will be necessary to treat
+briefly. I have already indicated that sporadic revivals of black magic
+have occasionally been heard of by mystics here in England, and from
+time to time we have also heard vaguely of obscure assemblies of
+Luciferians. Quite recently an interview with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> Papus, the French
+occultist, published in <i>Light</i>, mentions a society which was devoted to
+the cultus of Lucifer, star of the morning, quite distinct from Masonry,
+quite unimportant, and since very naturally dead. Now, a large
+proportion of mystics here in England are High-Grade Masons, and if a
+society of the Palladium had extended to anything remotely approaching
+the proportions alleged, they could not have failed to know of it. I
+will go further and affirm that our non-Masonic transcendental
+associations have abundant opportunities to become acquainted with
+institutions similar to their own, and it is preposterous to suppose
+that there could be several Palladian triangles working their degrees in
+this country without our being aware of the fact. But we have not been
+aware of it, and our only informations concerning Palladism have come to
+us from France. We do not accept these informations; we know that the
+persons here in England who are alleged by French false witnesses to be
+connected with the Palladium are not so connected, and are now learning
+of it for the first time. The state<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>ments concerning Mr John Yarker are
+categorically untrue; the gross calumny published by the &ldquo;converted&rdquo;
+Diana Vaughan about Dr Wynn Westcott, who happens to be a High-Grade
+Mason, she will never dare to come forth from her &ldquo;retreat&rdquo; and
+re-affirm within the jurisdiction of these islands, because she knows
+well that a British jury would make a large demand upon her reputed
+American dollars. Let us, however, put aside for the moment the
+mendacities and forgeries which complicate the question of Lucifer, and
+let us approach Palladism from an altogether different side. I believe
+that I may speak with a certain accent of authority upon any question
+which connects with the French magus &Eacute;liphas L&eacute;vi. I am an old student
+of his works, and of the aspects of occult science and magical history
+which arise out of them; in the year 1886 I published a digest of his
+writings which has been the only attempt to present them to English
+readers until the present year when I have undertaken a translation <i>in
+extenso</i> of the <i>Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie</i>, which is actually
+in the hands of the printer. Now,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> it has not been alleged in so many
+words that the radix of Modern Diabolism and the Masonic cultus of
+Lucifer is to be found in &Eacute;liphas L&eacute;vi, but that is the substance of the
+charge. Most, or all, of the witnesses agree in representing him as an
+atrocious Satanist, an invoker of Lucifer, a celebrater of black masses,
+and an adept in the practical blasphemies of Eucharistic sacrilege; all
+of them father either upon the Palladium or upon Pike a variety of
+documents containing gross thefts from L&eacute;vi; some of them, directly and
+upon their own responsibility, cite passages from his works, always with
+conspicuous bad faith. Finally, they agree in connecting him with the
+foundation of the New and Reformed Palladium through his alleged
+disciple Phileas Walder; and one of them goes so far as to say that
+Palladism was a further development or restoration of a Satanic society
+directed by &Eacute;liphas L&eacute;vi and operating his theurgic system, which he in
+turn, if I rightly understand the mixed hypothesis of M. de la Rive, may
+have derived from the Palladic rite of 1730. If we accept for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span>
+moment this origin of the reformed order, it will follow that if the
+occult doctrines of &Eacute;liphas L&eacute;vi have been seriously misunderstood or
+grossly defamed by the witnesses, the diabolical or Luciferian
+connection of Palladism does not wear the complexion which has been
+ascribed to it. It is represented as: (<i>a</i>) outwardly Masonic, and (<i>b</i>)
+actually theurgic. (<i>c</i>) It is Manich&aelig;an in doctrine. (<i>d</i>) It regards
+Lucifer as an eternal principle co-existent, but in a hostile sense,
+with Adona&iuml;. (<i>e</i>) It holds that the beneficent deity is Lucifer, while
+Adona&iuml; is malevolent; (<i>f</i>) Certain sections of Palladists, however,
+recognise that Lucifer is identical with Satan, and is the evil
+principle. (<i>g</i>) This section adores the evil principle as such. Now, in
+each and all these matters the Palladian system conflicts with that of
+L&eacute;vi.</p>
+
+<p>To give a colourable aspect to their hypothesis, the witnesses affirm
+that L&eacute;vi was a high-grade Mason. He was nothing of the kind; he affirms
+most distinctly in his &ldquo;History of Magic,&rdquo; that for any knowledge which
+he possessed about the mysteries of the fraternity,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> he owed his
+initiation only to God and to his individual studies. Secondly, the
+practice of ceremonial magic, which is what the witnesses understand by
+theurgy, is a practice condemned by L&eacute;vi, except as an isolated
+experiment to fortify intellectual conviction as to the truth of magical
+theorems. He attempted it for this purpose in the spring of the year
+1854, and having satisfied himself as to the fact, he did not renew it.
+Thirdly, the philosophy of &Eacute;liphas L&eacute;vi is in direct contrast to
+Manich&aelig;an doctrine; it cannot be explained by dualism, but must be
+explained by its opposite, namely, triplicity in unity. He shows that
+&ldquo;the unintelligent disciples of Zoroaster have divided the duad without
+referring it to unity, thus separating the pillars of the temple, and
+seeking to halve God&rdquo; (<i>Dogme</i>, p. 129, 2nd edition). Is that a
+Manich&aelig;an doctrine? Again: &ldquo;If you conceive the Absolute as two, you
+must immediately conceive it as three to recover the unity principle&rdquo;
+(<i>Ibid.</i>). Once more: &ldquo;Divinity, one in its essence, has two fundamental
+conditions of being&mdash;necessity and liberty&rdquo; (<i>Ibid.</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> p. 127). And yet
+again: &ldquo;If God were one only, He would never be Creator nor Father. If
+He were two, there would be antagonism or division in the infinite, and
+this would be severance or death for every possible existence; He is
+therefore three for the creation by Himself, and in His image of the
+infinite multitude of beings and numbers. Thus He is really one in
+Himself and triple in our conception, by which we also behold Him triple
+in Himself and one in our intelligence and in our love. This is a
+mystery for the faithful and a logical necessity for the initiate of the
+absolute and true sciences&rdquo; (<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 138). And the witnesses of
+Lucifer have the effrontery to represent L&eacute;vi as a dualist! I will not
+discredit their understanding by supposing that they could misread so
+plain a principle, nor dissemble my full conviction that they acted with
+intentional bad faith. Fourthly, &Eacute;liphas L&eacute;vi regarded Lucifer as a
+conception of transcendental mythology, and the devil as an impossible
+fiction, or an inverted and blasphemous conception of God&mdash;divinity <i>&agrave;
+rebours</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> He describes the Ophite heresy which offered adoration to the
+serpent and the Ca&iuml;nite heresy which justified the revolt of the first
+angel and the first murderer as errors fit for classification with the
+monstrous idols of the anarchic symbolism of India (<i>Rituel</i>, pp. 13,
+14). Is that diabolism? Is that the cultus of Lucifer? True, L&eacute;vi did
+not believe in the personal existence of a father of lies, and if it be
+Satanism not to do so, let us be content to diabolise with L&eacute;vi while
+the false witnesses illustrate the methods of their father.</p>
+
+<p>It is unnecessary to multiply quotations, but here is one more: &ldquo;The
+author of this book is a Christian like you; his faith is that of a
+Catholic deeply and strongly convinced; therefore his mission is not to
+deny dogmas, but to combat impiety under one of its most dangerous
+forms, that of erroneous belief and superstition.... Away with the idol
+which hides our Saviour! Down with the tyrant of falsehood! Down with
+the black god of the Manich&aelig;ans! Down with the Ahriman of the old
+idolaters! Live God alone and His incar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span>nate Logos, Jesus the Christ,
+Saviour of the world, who beheld Satan precipitated from heaven!&rdquo; Go to,
+M. le Docteur Bataille! <i>&Agrave; bas</i>, Signor Margiotta! Phi, diabolus and Leo
+Taxil!</p>
+
+<p>Seeing then that &Eacute;liphas L&eacute;vi has been calumniously represented, and
+that he was not a Satanist, he could not have founded a Satanic society,
+nor could a Manich&aelig;an order have been developed out of his doctrines.
+Hence if a Palladian Society do exist at Charleston, it either owes
+nothing to L&eacute;vi, or its cultus has been falsely described. In other
+words, from whatever point we approach the witnesses of Lucifer, they
+are subjected to a rough unveiling. In the words of the motto on my
+title, the first in this plot was Lucifer&mdash;<i>videlicet</i>, the Father of
+Lies!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenumpadded'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="padded"><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>CONCLUSION</h3>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> remains for us now to appreciate the exact position in which the
+existence of the Palladian Order is left after all suspicious
+information has been subtracted. We have examined in succession the
+testimony of every witness to the discovery of Leo Taxil and M. Adolphe
+Ricoux, and it has been made entirely evident that they are of a most
+unsatisfactory kind. I make no pretence to pass a precise judgment upon
+Leo Taxil, for I am not in a position to prove that the Palladian
+rituals which appear in &ldquo;Are there Women in Freemasonry?&rdquo; can be
+characterised as invented matter. Granting his personal good faith,
+there are still many obvious questions, one of which is the connection
+between the Palladians and Masonry. As regards the so-called Paris
+triangle, from which the information was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> obtained, as regards the
+ritual itself, there is obviously no such connection, except the
+fantastic and arbitrary rule that initiation is imparted exclusively to
+persons possessed of Masonic degrees. It is patent that such an
+institution is not Masonic, though it possesses some secrets of Masonry.
+The Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, as we have seen, is an association
+based upon precisely the same regulation, but it has no official
+position. Should a circle of Catholic priests conspire for the formation
+of a society dedicated to black magic and the celebration of the Satanic
+mass, that would not be the Church diabolising. No institution, and no
+society, is responsible for the unauthorised acts of individual members.
+At the same time, if it should be advanced by hostile criticism that the
+invention of rituals is easy, and that the literary antecedents of Leo
+Taxil are not precisely of that kind which would lead any cautious
+person to place blind confidence in his unchecked statements, I am
+compelled to say that I should find considerable difficulty in
+challenging such a position.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span>Mgr. Meurin, the next witness, deserves, by his position and ability,
+our very sincere respect; compared with the octogenarian sentimentalism
+of Jean Kostka, the violence of Signor Margiotta, and the paste-pot of
+M. de la Rive, one breathes <i>&agrave; pleine poitrine</i> in the altitudes of
+ecclesiastical erudition, artificial as their eminence turns out; the
+art sacerdotal does not concern itself with preposterous narratives, so
+that it disputes nothing with the art of Bataille; it has never stood in
+need of conversion, and hence is exempt from the hysterical ardours and
+languors of Diana Vaughan. But the archbishop&rsquo;s interpretation of
+Masonry is based upon another interpretation of Kabbalistic literature,
+which can be accepted by no person who is acquainted therewith, and
+would have scarcely been attempted by himself if he had known it at
+first hand. In the matter of Palladian Masonry, he can tell us only what
+he has learned from Ricoux.</p>
+
+<p>It is agreed upon all sides that we dismiss Dr Bataille. He does not
+disclose the name and nation which he adopted during his Masonic career,
+and hence the persons whom he states<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> that he met are, with one
+exception, not in a position to contradict him, because they are not in
+a position to identify him. The personality of the one exception is not
+particularised, but may be guessed without the exercise of much skill in
+divination, and here I must leave the point, not because I am
+disinclined to speak plainly and thus risk the possibility of being
+mistaken, but because Dr Bataille informs us that this one confidant is
+in his power, and that he could procure for him or her a term of penal
+servitude. Lastly, he is not in a position to exhibit his Palladian
+diplomas, which were demanded by the dispensing authorities when he
+first fell under their suspicion and have not been returned to him.
+While we are therefore prevented from checking his affirmations in what
+most concerns our inquiry, we see that at all points where it is
+possible to control him he has completely broken down; the miraculous
+element of his narrative transcends credit, and his statements upon a
+multitude of ordinary matters of fact are beneath it. When we connect
+these points with the mode of publication he has seen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span> fit to adopt, and
+remember the kind of motive which usually attaches to that mode, we have
+no other course but to set him entirely outside consideration. His book
+is evidentially valuable only to close the question. He may have visited
+Charleston; he may have made the personal acquaintance of Albert Pike,
+Gallatin Mackey, Phileas Walder, and his daughter Sophia; three of these
+persons are dead and cannot testify; the fourth acknowledges that he
+attended her medically at Naples; she protests against his betrayal, but
+she does not betray in return his Masonic identity, though I need
+scarcely add that she does not substantiate his statements. On these
+points my readers may be reasonably left to form their own judgments.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Diana Vaughan is a lady who, in spite of much notoriety, is not in
+evidence; with one exception no credible person has ever said that he
+has seen her; that exception is Signor Margiotta. It would not, however,
+be the strongest line of criticism to dispute her existence; we may
+accept very gladly all that her Italian friend is good enough to say in
+regard to her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> personal characteristics, but we know that she has tried
+to deceive us, with conspicuous ill-success it is true, yet in a gross
+and most wicked manner. As to Signor Margiotta himself, with all his
+imperfections, he is the strongest witness to the discovery of Leo
+Taxil. I have admitted the great apparent force which belongs to his
+enormous array of documentary evidence, and I have established the
+nature of the complications which make that evidence extremely difficult
+to accept.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, Jean Kostka and M. A. C. de la Rive, though they came within the
+scope of our inquiry, are not Palladian witnesses. It would appear,
+therefore, that Leo Taxil and M. Adolphe Ricoux are, for the most part,
+neither honoured in their witnesses nor in a position to stand alone.
+The evidence which has grown out of their discovery is in an exceedingly
+corrupt state, and in summing the Question of Lucifer, as an impartial
+critic, I shall therefore simply propose to my readers the following
+general statement:&mdash;In the year 1891, Leo Taxil and M. Adolphe Ricoux
+state that they have discovered certain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span> documents which show the
+existence of a Palladian Society, claimed to be at the head of Masonry,
+and in the year 1895 Signor Domenico Margiotta states that he belonged
+to that society and gives further particulars concerning it. A number of
+other witnesses have also come forward whose evidence must, for various
+reasons, be completely rejected. It is in all respects much to be
+deplored that Signor Margiotta has largely and approvingly cited the
+testimony of two of these witnesses who are most open to condemnation,
+and that he has himself exercised an imperfect and uncritical censorship
+over papers which have come into his hands. From first to last all
+documents are open to strong suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the slender residue which results from this sifting of Lucifer;
+if I have made my final statement thus indeterminate in its character,
+it is because I wish my readers to form their own conclusions as to Leo
+Taxil and Domenico Margiotta, and because I believe that, before long,
+further evidence will be forthcoming. I have little personal doubt as to
+the ultimate nature of the verdict, but at the present stage of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> the
+inquiry, with all the exposures which I have had the satisfaction of
+making fresh and clear in my mind, I would dissuade any one from saying
+that there is &ldquo;nothing in&rdquo; the Question of Lucifer; it is at least
+obvious that there is no end to its impostures, in which respect I do
+not claim to have done more than trim the fringes of the question. It is
+not therefore closed, and, if I may so venture to affirm, it assumes a
+fresh interest with the appearance of this book. It deserves to rank
+among the most extraordinary literary swindles of the present, perhaps
+of any, century. The field which it covers is enormous, and there is
+room, and more than room, for a score of other investigators who will
+none fail of their reward. Within the limits of a moderate volume, it is
+impossible to take into account the whole of the issues involved, while
+the importance which is to be attributed to the subject should not be
+lightly regarded, seeing that in France, at the time of writing, it
+provides an apparently remunerative circulation to two monthly reviews,
+and that its literature is otherwise still growing. At the present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span>
+moment, and for the purposes of this criticism, a few concluding
+statements alone remain to be made; they concern the position of Italy
+in connection with the so-called Universal Masonry, some aspects of the
+history of the Scotch Rite in connection with the recent revelations,
+and the interference of the Catholic Church, wisely or not, in the
+question.</p>
+
+<p>The one Mason whose rank corresponds in Italy to that of Albert Pike in
+America is not Adriano Lemmi, but Signor Timoteo Riboli, Sovereign Grand
+Commander of the 33rd and last degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch
+Rite. Adriano Lemmi is, or was, Grand Master of the Craft Section of
+Italy and Deputy Grand Commander only of the Supreme Council of Italy of
+the 33&deg;. The pretended Grand Central Directory of Naples, which governs
+all Europe in the interests of Charleston, with Giovanni Bovio for
+Sovereign Director, is a Masonic myth&mdash;<i>pace</i> Signor Margiotta. Signor
+Bovio is a Member of the Grand Master&rsquo;s Council and a 33&deg; at Rome. There
+is a Neapolitan Section of the Ancient and Accepted Rite,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> but it has
+powers only up to the 30&deg;, and as such has no authority in general
+government, nor does Bovio appear to be a member of the Neapolitan
+section, though as a member of Lemmi&rsquo;s Council, and a 33&deg;, he no doubt
+has his share in the government of the Neapolitans.</p>
+
+<p>The history of the Ancient and Accepted Rite as given by Signor
+Margiotta and sketched in my second chapter is an incorrect history. The
+facts are as follows:&mdash;A person named Isaac Long was engaged in
+propagating the French Rite of Perfection of 25&deg; in America before 1796;
+in that year he gave the degrees to one de Grasse and also to de la
+Hogue, who established a Consistory of the 25&deg; at Charleston. In 1802
+this Consistory had blossomed into a Supreme Grand Council, 33&deg;, and at
+a little later period they forged the name of Voltaire&rsquo;s friend,
+Frederick the Great of Prussia, to what Mr Yarker terms &ldquo;one of the most
+stupidly concocted documents ever palmed upon an ignorant public.&rdquo;
+However this may be, Long does not seem to have been at any time a
+member of this body. This is how the &ldquo;Mother<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span> Council of the World&rdquo; is
+said to have come into existence, and Charleston has established Supreme
+Councils 33&deg;, between 1811 and 1846, in France, Ireland, Scotland,
+England, and elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>There is no foundation for the legend of the Charleston Templar relics,
+namely, the skull of Jacques de Molay and the Baphomet, beyond the fact
+that one of the grades, the 23&deg; of the old Rite of Perfection and the
+30&deg; of the modern Rite, uses a representation of the Papal tiara in its
+ceremonies and also of the crown of France, in allusion to Pope Clement
+V. and Philip le Bel.</p>
+
+<p>I can find no Mason, of what grade or rite soever, who has ever heard of
+Pike&rsquo;s Sepher d&rsquo;Hebarim, his book called Apadno, or lectures in which he
+imparted extracts unacknowledged from &Eacute;liphas L&eacute;vi; they may rank with
+triangular provinces, Lucifer <i>chez lui</i>, the skull of Molay, and the
+Palladium; in other words, they are lying myths. Nothing which Pike has
+or is known to have written has any Luciferian complexion. He has
+collected into his lectures a mass of mystical material from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span> rites like
+Memphis and Misra&iuml;m, but it is alchemical, theosophical, or dealing with
+ancient symbolism, the mysteries, pre-christian theology, &amp;c. As to Pike
+himself, a Mason of high authority observes in a private letter:&mdash;&ldquo;He
+was one of the greatest men who ever adorned our Order. He was a giant
+among men, his learning was most profound, his eloquence great, and his
+wisdom comprehensive; he was a scholar in many languages, and a most
+voluminous writer. He was an ornament to the profession to which he
+belonged, namely, Law; he fought the cause of the red man against the
+American government many years ago, and prevailed in a large degree. I
+believe he was a true and humble servant of the One True and Living God,
+and a lover of humanity.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Having regard to all these facts, it is much to be regretted that the
+Catholic Church should have warmly approved and welcomed the extremely
+unsatisfactory testimony which connects Masonry with Diabolism. When the
+report of Diabolism first reached the ears of English mystics, and it
+was understood that the Church had concerned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span> herself very seriously in
+the matter, I must confess that a hidden motive was immediately
+suspected. A recrudescence of medi&aelig;val Black Magic was in no sense
+likely to attain such proportions as to warrant the august interference;
+it seemed much as if Her Majesty&rsquo;s government should think it worth
+while to suppress the League of the White Rose. But when it transpired
+that the Question of Lucifer was a new aspect of the old question of
+Catholic hostility to Masonry, the astonishment evaporated; it was at
+once seen that Modern Diabolism had acquired an extrinsic importance
+because it was alleged to be connected with that Fraternity which the
+Church has long regarded as her implacable enemy. I must be permitted to
+register clearly the general conviction that if black magic, sorcery,
+and the Sabbath up to date had been merely revived demonomania, had been
+merely concerned with the black paternoster, the black mass, or even
+with transcendental sensualism and the ordeal of the pastos, the Roman
+hierarchy would not have taken action as it has, nor would the witnesses
+concerning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span> these things have been welcomed with open arms; as a fact,
+no interest whatsoever is manifested in the doings of diabolists who
+operate apart from Masonry. Now, the hostility of Continental Masons
+towards Catholicism, in so far as it provably exists, has been largely
+or exclusively created by the hostility of the Church, and we know that
+he hates most who hates the first. In so far, therefore, as the Church
+has concerned herself by encouragement, which has something of the
+aspect of incitement, in the recent revelations, we shall have to bear
+in mind her attitude, while the history of forged decretals and bogus
+apostolic epistles will reveal to us that she does not invariably
+exercise a searching criticism upon documents which serve her purpose.</p>
+
+<p>The sorcery of the nineteenth century is under no circumstances likely
+to justify the faggots of the fifteenth; it might be easier to justify
+the sorcery. As much by mystics as by the Church Catholic, modern black
+magic may be left to perish of its own corruption. But an attempt on the
+part of the Church to fasten the charge of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span> diabolism on the Masonic
+Fraternity has credibly another motive than that of political hostility,
+which seems held to justify almost any weapon that comes to hand. At the
+bottom of her hatred of Masonry there is also her dread of the mystic.
+Transcendental science claims to have the key of her doctrines, and
+there is evidence that she fears that claim. Black magic, which, by the
+hypothesis, is the use of the most evil forces for the most evil
+purposes, she does not fear, for it wears its condemnation on its
+forehead; but mysticism, which accepts her own dogmas and interprets
+them in a sense which is not her own, which claims a certitude in
+matters of religion that transcends the certitude of faith, seems to
+hint that at one point it is possible to undermine her foundations.
+Hence she has ever suspected the mystic, and a part of her suspicion of
+Masonry has been by reason of its connection with the mystic; she has
+intuitively divined that connection, which by Masons themselves, for the
+most part, is not dreamed at this day, and when suggested is generally
+somewhat lightly cast aside. It would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span> be quite out of place at the
+close of the present inquiry, which, from a wholly independent
+standpoint, has sought to justify a great fraternity from a singularly
+foul aspersion, to attempt enforcing upon Masons a special view of their
+institution, but it is desirable, at the same time, to be just towards
+the Catholic Church, and to affirm that we, as mystics, are on this
+point substantially in agreement with her. The connection in question
+was for a time visible, and remains in historical remembrance; from the
+beginning of its public appearance till the close of the eighteenth
+century, the history of Masonry is part of transcendental history. That
+connection has now ceased to manifest, but there is another which is
+integral and permanent, and is a matter of common principles and common
+objects. Let it be remembered, however, that connection is not identity;
+it is not intended to say that the threshold of Masonry is a gate of
+Mysticism, but that there is a community of purpose, of symbolism, of
+history, and indirectly of origin, between the two systems.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span>All true religion, all true morality, all true mysticism have but one
+object, and that is to act on humanity, collective and individual, in
+such a manner that it shall correspond efficiently with the great law of
+development, and co-operate consciously therewith to achieve the end of
+development. Under all the mysteries of its symbolism, behind the
+impressive parables of its ritual, and as equally, but if possible more
+effectually concealed, beneath the commonplace insistences of its moral
+maxims, this end is also proposed by the occult initiations of Masonry;
+and if it be defined more explicitly as the perfection of man both here
+and hereafter, and his union with what is highest in the universe, we
+shall see more clearly not only that it is the sole fundamental
+principle of all religion, its very essence, divested of creed and
+dogma, but also inherent in the nature of symbolical Masonry, and
+&ldquo;inwrought in the whole system of Masonic ceremonies.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>As mystics, however, we consider that the ethical standard of Masonry
+will produce good citizens to society and good brethren to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>
+Fraternity, but it will not produce saints to Christ. There is an
+excellence which is other than the moral, and stands to morality in
+precisely the same relation that genius bears to talent. The moral
+virtues are not the <i>summum bonum</i>, nor the totality of all forces at
+work in the development of man, nor actually the perfect way, though
+they are the gate of the way of perfection. Now, the mystic claims to be
+in possession of the higher law which transcends the ethical, from which
+the ethical derives, and to which it must be referred for its reason.
+That the lost secret of Freemasonry is concerned with special
+applications of this higher law which connect with mysticism, we, as
+mystics, do hold and can make evident in its proper time and place.
+Here, and personally, I am concerned only with a comprehensive
+statement. In addition to its body of moral law, which is founded in the
+general conscience, or in the light of nature, Masonry has a body of
+symbolism, of which the source is not generally known, and by which it
+is identified with movements and modes of thought, and with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>
+evolutionary processes, having reference to regions already described as
+transcending the ethical world and concerned with the spiritual man.
+From every Masonic candidate, ignoring the schismatic and excommunicated
+sections, there is required a distinct attitude of mind towards the
+world without and the world within. He is required to believe in the
+existence of a Supreme Intelligence, with which his essential nature
+corresponds in the possession of an indestructible principle of
+conscious or understanding life. Beyond these doctrines, Masonry is
+wholly unsectarian; it recognises no other dogmas; it accredits no form
+of faith. Now, Mysticism is a body of spiritual methods and processes,
+based, like the Masonic body of ethical methods and processes, on these
+same doctrines. Every man who believes in God and immortality is the raw
+material of a mystic; every man who believes that there is a
+discoverable way to God is on the path of conscious mysticism. As this
+path has been pursued in all ages and nations by persons of widely
+divergent creeds, it is clear that however much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span> mysticism has been
+identified with special spheres of religious thought and activity, it is
+independent of all.</p>
+
+<p>But while Masonry would appear to regard the evolution of our physical,
+intellectual, and moral nature as the best preparation for that larger
+existence which is included in its central doctrine, and would thus work
+inward from without, mysticism deems that the evolution of the spiritual
+man and the production of a human spirit at one with the divine,
+constitute the missing condition requisite for the reconstruction of
+humanity, and would thus work outward from within. Neither Mason nor
+Mystic, however, can ignore either method. The one supplements the
+other; and seeing that the processes of mysticism are distinct from what
+is still a subject of derision under the name of transcendental
+phenomena, as they are wholly philosophical and interior, not to be
+appreciated by the senses, a secret experience within the depths and
+heights of our spiritual being, an institution which believes in God and
+immortality, and by the fact of immortality in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span> the subsistence of an
+intimate relation between the spirit and God, will not look suspiciously
+on mysticism when it comes to understand it better.</p>
+
+<p>I have spoken of Masonic symbolism, and the method of instruction in
+Masonry is identical with that of mysticism; both systems are &ldquo;veiled in
+allegory and illustrated by symbolism.&rdquo; The significance of this
+correspondence would not be measurably weakened were there no similarity
+in the typology, no trace of mystic influence in Masonic rite and
+legend. But there is a resemblance, and the types are often identical,
+though the accredited interpretation varies. Masonry, as a fact,
+interprets the types which belong to our own science according to the
+criterion of ethics, and thus provides a prolegomena to Mysticism, as
+ethics are a necessary introduction to the inner science of the soul.
+There is naturally a minor body of conventional typology which is
+tolerably exclusive to the craft, but the grand and universal emblems,
+characteristic of symbolical Masonry as distinct from the operative
+art&mdash;these are our own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span> emblems. The All-Seeing Eye, the Burning Star,
+the Rough and Perfect Ashlar, the Point within a Circle, the Pentalpha,
+the Seal of Solomon, the Cubic Stone&mdash;all these belong to the most lofty
+and arcane order of occult symbolism, but in mystic science they
+illumine more exalted zones of the heaven of mind. The rites, legends,
+and mysteries of the great Fraternity are also full of mystical
+allusions, and admit of mystical interpretation in the same manner, but
+their evidential force is weaker, because ceremonial and legend in the
+hands of a skilful commentator can be made to take any shape and any
+complexion; it is otherwise with the symbols of the Brotherhood which
+were possessed by us before the historical appearance of Masonry. So
+also the Masonic reverence for certain numbers which are apparently
+arbitrary in themselves is in reality connected with a most recondite
+and curious system of mystic methodical philosophy, while in the high
+titles of Masonic dignity there is frequently a direct reference to
+Mysticism.</p>
+
+<p>If we turn from these considerations and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span> approach the historical
+connection through those still undetermined problems which concern the
+origin of Masonry, we shall discern not unfortunately a way clear to
+their solution, but a significant characteristic pervading every Masonic
+hypothesis almost without exception&mdash;namely, an instinctive desire to
+refer Masonry in its original form to sources that are provably mystic.
+In the fanciful and extravagant period, when arch&aelig;ology and comparative
+mythology were as yet in their childhood, this tendency was not less
+strong because it was mostly quite unconscious. To pass in review before
+us the chief institutions of antiquity with which Masonry was then said
+to be connected, would be to sweep the whole field of transcendental
+history, and when we come to a more sober period which recognised the
+better claim of the building guilds to explain the beginnings of the
+Fraternity, the link with Mysticism was not even then abandoned, and a
+splendid variant of the Dionysian dream took back the medi&aelig;val
+architects to the portals of Eleusis and of Thebes.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span>When the history of Freemasonry becomes possible by the possession of
+materials, its chief philosophical interest centres in one country of
+Europe; there is no doubt that it exercised an immense influence upon
+France during that century of quakings and quickenings which gave birth
+to the great revolution, transformed civilisation in the West, and
+inaugurated the modern era. Without being a political society, it was an
+instrument eminently adaptable to the sub-surface determination of
+political movements. At a later date it may have contributed to the
+formation of Germany, as it did certainly to the creation of Italy, but
+the point and centre of Masonic history is France in the eighteenth
+century. To that country also is mainly confined the historical
+connection between Masonry and mystic science, for the revival of
+Mysticism which originated in Germany at the close of the eighteenth
+century, and thence passed over to England, found its final field in
+France at the period in question. There Rosicrucianism reappeared, there
+Anton Mesmer recovered the initial process of trans<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span>cendental practice,
+there the Marquis de Puys&eacute;gur discovered clairvoyance, there Martines de
+Pasqually instructed his disciples in the mysteries of ceremonial magic;
+there the illustrious Saint-Martin, <i>le philosophe inconnu</i>, developed a
+special system of spiritual reconstruction; there alchemy flourished;
+there spiritual and political princes betook themselves to extravagant
+researches after an elixir of life; there also, as a consequence, rose
+up a line of magnificent impostors who posed as initiates of the occult
+sciences, as possessors of the grand secret and the grand mastery;
+there, finally, under the influences of transcendental philosophy,
+emblematic Freemasonry took root and grew and flourished, developing ten
+thousand splendours of symbolic grades, of romantic legends, of sonorous
+names and titles. In a word, the Mysticism of Europe concentrated its
+forces at Paris and Lyons, and all French Mysticism gathered under the
+shadow of the square and compass. To that, as to a centre, the whole
+movement gravitated, and thence it worked. There is nothing to show that
+it endeavoured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span> to revolutionise Masonry in its own interest. The
+Fraternity naturally attracted all Mystics to its ranks, and the
+development of the mystic degrees took place as the result of that
+attraction.</p>
+
+<p>By the year 1825 a variety of circumstances had combined to suspend
+transcendental activity, and the connection with Masonry ended, but the
+present revival of mystic thought is rapidly picking up the links of the
+broken chain; secretly or unobtrusively the spirit of transcendentalism
+is working within the Fraternity, and the bogus question of Lucifer is
+simply a hostile and unscrupulous method of recognising that fact. If
+Masonry and Mysticism could be shown in the historical world to be
+separated by the great sea, the consanguinity of their intention would
+remain, which is more important than external affinity, and they are
+sisters by that bond. But they have not been so separated, and on either
+side there is no need to be ashamed of the connection. With all brethren
+of the Fraternity, &ldquo;we also do believe in the resurrection of Hiram,&rdquo;
+and we regard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span> the Temple as &ldquo;an edifice immediately realisable, for we
+rebuild it in our hearts.&rdquo; We also adore the Grand Architect, and offer
+our intellectual homage to the divine cipher which is in the centre of
+the symbolic star; and we believe that some day the Mason will recognise
+the Mystic. He is the heir of the great names of antiquity, the
+philosophers and hierarchs, and the spiritual kings of old; he is of the
+line of Orpheus and Hermes, of the Essenes and the Magi. And all those
+illustrious systems and all those splendid names with which Masonry has
+ever claimed kindred belong absolutely to the history of Mysticism.</p>
+
+<p class="centerpadded">THE END</p>
+
+
+<div class="ad">
+
+<p class="undercenter"><i>Demy 8vo, about 450 pages, cloth</i></p>
+
+<h3>THE DOCTRINE AND RITUAL OF<br />
+TRANSCENDENT MAGIC</h3>
+
+<p class="center">BY</p>
+
+<p class="center">ELIPHAS LEVI</p>
+
+<p class="center">A COMPLETE TRANSLATION OF &ldquo;DOGME ET RITUEL DE LA HAUTE<br />
+MAGIE&rdquo;<br />
+<br />
+BY<br />
+<br />
+ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE<br />
+<br />
+<i>With all the original engravings and a portrait of the Author.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="ad" />
+
+<p class="center">GEORGE REDWAY<br />
+9 HART STREET, BLOOMSBURY<br />
+LONDON</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="smallcenter">TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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+</body>
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@@ -0,0 +1,5985 @@
+Project Gutenberg's Devil-Worship in France, by Arthur Edward Waite
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Devil-Worship in France
+       or The Question of Lucifer
+
+Author: Arthur Edward Waite
+
+Release Date: April 30, 2007 [EBook #21258]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEVIL-WORSHIP IN FRANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Tamise Totterdell, Brian
+Janes and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+DEVIL-WORSHIP IN FRANCE
+
+
+
+
+    _Demy 8vo, about 450 pages, cloth_
+
+    THE DOCTRINE AND RITUAL OF
+    TRANSCENDENT MAGIC
+
+    BY
+
+    ELIPHAS LEVI
+
+    A COMPLETE TRANSLATION OF "DOGME ET RITUEL DE LA HAUTE
+    MAGIE"
+
+    BY
+
+    ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE
+
+    _With all the original engravings and a portrait of the Author._
+
+    GEORGE REDWAY
+    9 HART STREET, BLOOMSBURY
+    LONDON
+
+
+
+
+DEVIL-WORSHIP IN FRANCE
+
+OR
+
+THE QUESTION OF LUCIFER
+
+_A RECORD OF THINGS SEEN AND HEARD IN THE
+SECRET SOCIETIES ACCORDING TO THE
+EVIDENCE OF INITIATES_
+
+BY
+
+ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE
+
+"The first in this plot was Lucifer."--THOMAS VAUGHAN
+
+LONDON
+GEORGE REDWAY
+1896
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The term Modern Satanism is not intended to signify the development of
+some new aspect of old doctrine concerning demonology, or some new
+argument for the personification of the evil principle in universal
+nature. It is intended to signify the alleged revival, or, at least, the
+reappearance to some extent in public, of a _cultus diabolicus_, or
+formal religion of the devil, the existence of which, in the middle
+ages, is registered by the known facts of the Black Sabbath, a
+department, however, of historical research, to which full justice yet
+remains to be done. By the hypothesis, such a religion may assume one of
+two forms; it may be a worship of the evil principle as such, namely, a
+conscious attempt on the part of human minds to identify themselves with
+that principle, or it may be the worship of a power which is regarded as
+evil by other religions, from which view the worshippers in question
+dissent. The necessity for this distinction I shall make apparent in the
+first chapter of this book. A religion of the darkness, subsisting under
+each of these distinctive forms, is said to be in practice at the
+present moment, and to be characterised, as it was in the past, by the
+strong evidence of miracles,--in other words, by transcendental
+phenomena of a very extraordinary kind, connecting in a direct manner
+with what is generically termed Black Magic. Now, Black Magic in the
+past may have been imposture reinforced by delusion, and to state that
+it is recurring at the present day does not commit anyone to an opinion
+upon its veridical origin. To say, also, that the existence of modern
+diabolism has passed from the region of rumour into that of exhaustive
+and detailed statement, is to record a matter of fact, and I must add
+that the evidence in hand, whatever its ultimate value, can be regarded
+lightly by those only who are unacquainted with its extent and
+character. This evidence is, broadly, of three kinds:--(a) The testimony
+of independent men of letters, who would seem to have come in contact
+therewith; (b) the testimony volunteered by former initiates of such
+secret associations as are dedicated to a _cultus diabolicus_; (c) the
+testimony of certain writers, claiming special sources of information,
+and defending some affected interests of the Roman Catholic Church.
+
+My purpose in this book is to distinguish, so far as may be possible,
+what is true from what is false in the evidence, and I have undertaken
+the task, firstly, because modern mystics are accused, _en masse_, of
+being concerned in this cultus; secondly, because the existence of
+modern Satanism has given opportunity to a conspiracy of falsehood which
+is wide in its ramifications, and serious on account of its source;
+thirdly, because the question itself has awakened considerable interest
+both within and without transcendental circles, and it is desirable to
+replace hazy and exaggerated notions by a clear and formal statement.
+
+I have connected the new diabolism with France in my title, because the
+evidence in each of its kinds has been filed by French writers, and we
+have no other source of information. So far as that evidence is sound,
+we have to thank France for producing it; but, on the other hand, should
+it prove that a whole city of invention has been constructed, "with all
+its spires and gateways," upon a meagre basis of fact, it is just that
+French imagination should have full credit for the decorative art which
+has adorned this Question of Lucifer.
+
+The plan of my work had been sketched, and a number of chapters written,
+when I found myself to some extent preceded by a writer well known to
+occultists under the pseudonym of Papus, who has quite recently
+published a small brochure, entitled _Le Diable et L'Occultisme_, which
+is a brief defence of transcendentalists against the accusations in
+connection with Satanism. I gladly yield to M. Papus the priority in
+time, which was possible to a well-informed gentleman, at the centre of
+the conspiracy. His little work, however, does not claim to be either a
+review or a criticism, and does not therefore, in any sense, cover the
+ground which I have travelled. It is an exposition and exoneration of
+his own school of mystic thought, which is that of the Martinists, and I
+have mentioned it in this connection in its proper place.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                 PAGE
+
+PREFACE                                             v
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+SATANISM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY                  1
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE MASK OF MASONRY                                22
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE FIRST WITNESSES OF LUCIFER                     42
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+EX ORE LEONIS                                      53
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF M. RICOUX                         74
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ART SACERDOTAL                                     82
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE DEVIL AND THE DOCTOR                           97
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+DEALINGS WITH DIANA                               162
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+HOW LUCIFER IS UNMASKED                           182
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE VENDETTA OF SIGNOR MARGIOTTA                  201
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+FEMALE FREEMASONRY                                225
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE PASSING OF DOCTOR BATAILLE                    233
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+DIANA UNVEILED                                    255
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE RADIX OF MODERN DIABOLISM                     290
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CONCLUSION                                        299
+
+
+
+
+DEVIL-WORSHIP IN FRANCE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+SATANISM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
+
+
+If a short time ago that ultimate and universal source of reference, the
+person of average intelligence, had been asked concerning Modern
+Diabolism, or the Question of Lucifer,--What it is? Who are its
+disciples? Where is it practised? And why?--he would have replied,
+possibly with some asperity:--"The question of Lucifer! There is no
+question of Lucifer. Modern Diabolism! There is no modern Diabolism."
+And all the advanced people and all the strong minds would have extolled
+the average intelligence, whereupon the matter would have been closed
+hermetically, without disquieting and unwelcome investigations like the
+present.
+
+The Great Teacher of Christianity beheld Lucifer fall from heaven like
+lightning, and, in a different sense, the modern world has witnessed a
+similar spectacle. Assuredly the demon of Milton has been cast down from
+the sky of theology, and, except in a few centres of extreme doctrinal
+concentration, there is no place found for him. The apostles of material
+philosophy have in a manner searched the universe, and have
+produced--well, the material philosophy, and therein is no question of
+Lucifer. At the opposite pole of thought there is, let us say, the
+spiritualist, in possession of many instruments superior, at least by
+the hypothesis, to the search-lights of science, through which he
+receives the messages of the spheres and establishes a partial
+acquaintance with an order which is not of this world; but in that order
+also there appears to be no question of Lucifer, though vexed questions
+there are without number concerning "unprogressed spirits," to say
+nothing of the elementary. Between these poles there is the flux and
+reflux of multitudinous opinions; but, except at the centres mentioned,
+there is still no question of Lucifer; it has been shelved or dropped.
+
+The revival of mystical philosophy, and, moreover, of transcendental
+experiment, which is prosecuted in secret to a far greater extent than
+the public can possibly be aware, has, however, set many old oracles
+chattering, and they are more voluble at the present moment than the
+great Dodonian grove. As might be expected, they whisper occasionally of
+deeds done in the darkness which look weird when exposed to the day. The
+terms Satanism, Luciferianism, Diabolism, and their equivalents, have
+been buzzed frequently, though with some indistinctness, of late, and in
+accents that indicate the existence of a living terror--people do not
+quite know of what kind--rather than an exploded superstition. To be
+plain, the Question of Lucifer has reappeared, and in a manner which
+must be eminently disconcerting to the average intelligence and the
+advanced and strong in mind. It has reappeared not as a speculative
+inquiry into the possibility of a personal embodiment of evil operating
+mysteriously, but after a wholly spiritual manner, for the propagation
+of the second death; we are asked to acknowledge that there is a visible
+and tangible manifestation of the descending hierarchy taking place at
+the close of a century which has denied that there is any prince of
+darkness.
+
+Now there are some subjects which impress one at first sight as
+unserious, but we come to regard them differently when we find that they
+are being taken seriously. We have been accustomed, with some show of
+reason, to connect the idea of devil-worship with barbarous rites
+obtaining among savage nations, to regard it, in fact, as a suitable
+complement of the fetish. It seems hypothetically quite impossible that
+there can be any person, much less any society or class of persons, who,
+at this day, and in London, Paris, or New York, adore the evil
+principle. Hence, to say that there is Black Magic actively in function
+at the present moment; that there is a living cultus of Lucifer; that
+Black Masses are celebrated, and involve revolting profanations of the
+Catholic Eucharist; that the devil appears personally; that he possesses
+his church, his ritual, his sacraments; that men, women, and children
+dedicate themselves to his service, or are so devoted by their sponsors;
+that there are people, assumed to be sane, who would die in the peace of
+Lucifer; that there are those also who regard his region of eternal
+fire--a variety unknown to the late Mr Charles Marvin--as the true abode
+of beatitude--to say all this will not enhance the credibility or
+establish the intelligence of the speaker.
+
+But this improbable development of Satanism is just what is being
+earnestly asserted, and the affirmations made are being taken in some
+quarters _au grand serieux_. They are not a growth of to-day or
+precisely of yesterday; they have been more or less heard for some
+years, but their prominence at the moment is due to increasing
+insistence, pretension to scrupulous exactitude, abundant detail, and
+demonstrative evidence. Reports, furthermore, have quite recently come
+to hand from two exceedingly circumstantial and exhaustive witnesses,
+and these have created distinctly a fresh departure. Books have
+multiplied, periodicals have been founded, the Church is taking action,
+even a legal process has been instituted. The centre of this literature
+is at Paris, but the report of it has crossed the Channel, and has
+passed into the English press. As it is affirmed, therefore, that a
+cultus of Lucifer exists, and that the men and women who are engaged in
+it are neither ignorant nor especially mad, nor yet belonging to the
+lowest strata of society, it is worth while to investigate the matter,
+and some profit is possible, whatever the issue.
+
+If the devil be actually among us, then for the sake of much which has
+seemed crass in orthodox religion, thus completely exonerated; for the
+sake of the fantastic in fiction and the lurid in legend, thus
+unexpectedly actualised; and, further, as it may be, for the sake of our
+own souls, we shall do well to know of it. If Abaddon, Apollyon, and the
+Lord of Flies are to be understood literally; above all, if they are
+liable to confront us _in propria persona_ between Free Mason's Hall and
+Duke Street, or between Duke Street and Avenue Road, then the sooner we
+can arrange our reconciliation with the one Church which has
+consistently and invariably taught the one full-grown, virile doctrine
+of devils, and has the _bona-fide_ recipes for knowing, avoiding, and at
+need of exorcising them, why the better will it be, more especially if
+we have had previously any leanings towards the conception of an
+universal order not pivoting on perdition.
+
+If, on the other hand, what is said be of the category of Ananias, as
+distinguished from what alchemists call the Code of Truth, it will be
+well also to know that some portions of the old orthodoxies still wait
+for their deliverance from the bonds of scepticism, that the actual is
+to be discriminated from the fantastic by the old test, namely, its
+comparative stupidity, and that we may still create our universe about
+any pivot that may please us.
+
+I am writing ostensibly for transcendentalists, of whom I am one; it is
+as a student of transcendentalism that I have been led to examine this
+modern mystery, equipped as it is with such portentous phenomena.
+Diabolism is, of course, a transcendental question, and black magic is
+connected with white by the same antinomy that connects light and
+darkness. Moreover, we mystics are all to some extent accused by the
+accusations which are preferred in the matter of modern diabolism, and
+this is another reason for investigating and making known the result. At
+the same time, the general question has many aspects of interest for
+that large class which would demur to be termed transcendental, but
+confesses to being curious.
+
+The earliest rumour which I have been able to recall in England
+concerning existing occult practices to which a questionable purpose
+might be attributed, appeared in a well-known psychological journal some
+few years since, and was derived from a continental source, being an
+account of a certain society then existing in Paris, which was devoted
+to magical practices and in possession of a secret ritual for the
+evocation of planetary angels; it was an association of well-placed
+persons, denying any connection with spiritualism, and pretending to an
+acquaintance with more effectual thaumaturgic processes than those
+which obtain at seances. The account passed unchallenged, for in the
+absence of more explicit information, it seemed scarcely worth while to
+draw attention to the true character of the claim. The secret ritual in
+question could not have been unknown to specialists in magical
+literature, and was certainly to myself among these; as a fact, it was
+one of those numerous clavicles of the goetic art which used to
+circulate surreptitiously in manuscript some two centuries ago. There is
+no doubt that the planetary spirits with which the document was
+concerned were devils in the intention of its author, and must have been
+evoked as such, supposing that the process was practised. The French
+association was not therefore in possession of a secret source of
+knowledge, but as impositions of this kind are to be _a priori_ expected
+in such cases by transcendentalists of any experience, I for one
+refrained from entering any protest at the time.
+
+Much about the same period it became evident that a marked change had
+passed over certain aspects of thought in "the most enlightened city of
+the world," and that among the _jeunesse doree_, in particular, there
+was a strong revulsion against paramount material philosophy; an epoch
+of transcendental and mystic feeling was, in fact, beginning. Old
+associations, having transcendental objects, were in course of revival,
+or were coming into renewed prominence. Martinists, Gnostics,
+Kabbalists, and a score of orders or fraternities of which we vaguely
+hear about the period of the French Revolution, began to manifest great
+activity; periodicals of a mystical tendency--not spiritualistic, not
+neo-theosophical, but Hermetic, Kabbalistic, and theurgic--were
+established, and met with success; books which had grievously weighted
+the shelves of their publishers for something like a quarter of a
+century were suddenly in demand, and students of distinction on this
+side of the channel were attracted towards the new centre. The interest
+was intelligible to professed mystics; the doctrine of transcendentalism
+has never had but one adversary, which is the density of the
+intellectual subject, and wherever the subject clarifies, there is
+idealism in philosophy and mysticism in religion. Moreover, on the part
+of mystics, especially here in England, the way of that revival had been
+prepared carefully, and there could be no astonishment that it came, and
+none, too, that it was accompanied, as it is accompanied almost
+invariably, by much that does not belong to it in the way of
+transcendental phenomena. When, therefore, the rumours of Black Magic,
+diabolism, and the abuse of occult forces began to circulate, there was
+little difficulty in attributing some foundation to the report.
+
+A distinguished man of letters, M. Huysman, who has passed out of
+Zolaism in the direction of transcendental religion, is, in a certain
+sense, the discoverer of modern Satanism. Under the thinnest disguise of
+fiction, he gives in his romance of _La Bas_, an incredible and
+untranslatable picture of sorcery, sacrilege, black magic, and nameless
+abominations, secretly practised in Paris. Possessing a brilliant
+reputation, commanding a wide audience, and with a psychological
+interest attaching to his own personality, which more than literary
+excellence infuses a contagious element into private views and
+impressions, he has given currency to the Question of Lucifer, has
+promoted it from obscurity into prominence, and has made it the vogue of
+the moment. It is true that, by his vocation of novelist, he is
+suspected of inventing his facts, and Dr "Papus," president of the
+influential Martinist group in French occultism, states quite plainly
+that the doors of the mystic fraternities have been closed in his face,
+so that he can know nothing, and his opinions are consequently
+indifferent. I have weighed these points carefully, but unless the
+mystic fraternities are connected with diabolism, which Papus would most
+rightly deny, the exclusion does not remove the opportunity of
+first-hand knowledge concerning the practice of Satanism, and,
+"brilliant imagination" apart, M. Huysman has proved quite recently that
+he is in mortal earnest by his preface to a historical treatise on
+"Satanism and Magic," the work of a literary disciple, Jules Bois. In a
+criticism, which for general soberness and lucidity does not leave much
+to be desired, he there affirms that a number of persons, not specially
+distinguished from the rest of the world by the mark of the beast in
+their foreheads, are "devoted in secret to the operations of Black
+Magic, communicate or seek to communicate with Spirits of Darkness, for
+the attainment of ambition, the accomplishment of revenge, the
+satisfaction of their passions, or some other form of ill-doing." He
+affirms also that there are facts which cannot be concealed and from
+which only one deduction can be made, namely, that the existence of
+Satanism is undeniable.
+
+To understand the first of these facts I must explain that the attempt
+to form a partnership with the lost angels of orthodox theology, which
+attempt constitutes Black Magic, has, in Europe at least, been
+invariably connected with sacrilege. By the hypothesis of demonology,
+Satan is the enemy of Christ, and to please Satan the sorcerer must
+outrage Christ, especially in his sacraments. The facts are as
+follow:--(a) continuous, systematic, and wholesale robberies of
+consecrated hosts from Catholic Churches, and this not as a consequence
+of importing the vessels of the sanctuary, which are often of trifling
+value and often left behind. The intention of the robbery is therefore
+to possess the hosts, and their future profanation is the only possible
+object. Now, before it can be worth while to profane the Eucharist, one
+must believe in the Real Presence, and this is acknowledged by only two
+classes, the many who love Christ and some few who hate Him. But He is
+not profaned, at least not intentionally, by His lovers; hence the
+sacrilege is committed by His enemies in chief, namely, practisers of
+Black Magic. It is difficult, I think, to escape from that position; and
+I should add that sacramental outrages of this astonishing kind, however
+deeply they may be deplored by the Church, are concealed rather than
+paraded, and as it is difficult to get at the facts, it may be inferred
+that they are not exaggerated, at least by the Church; (b) The
+occasional perpetration of certain outrageous crimes, including murder
+and other abominations, in which an element of Black Magic has been
+elicited by legal tribunals. But these are too isolated in place and
+too infrequent in time to be evidence for Satanic associations or
+indications of a prevalent practice. They may therefore be released from
+the custody of the present inquiry to come up for judgment when called
+on; (c) The existence of a society of Palladists, or professors of
+certain doctrines termed Palladism, as demonstrated, _inter alia_, by
+the publication of a periodical review in its interests.
+
+M. Huysman's facts, therefore, resolve into acts of sacrilege,
+indicating associations existing for the purpose of sacrilege, which
+purpose must, however, be regarded as a means and not an end, and the
+end in question is to enter into communication with devils.
+Independently of M. Huysman, I believe there is no doubt about the
+sacrilege. It is a matter of notoriety that in 1894 two ciboria,
+containing one hundred consecrated hosts, were carried off by an old
+woman from the cathedral of Notre Dame under circumstances which
+indicate that the vessels were not the objects of the larceny. Similar
+depredations are said to have increased in an extraordinary manner
+during recent years, and have occurred in all parts of France. No less
+than thirteen churches belonging to the one diocese of Orleans were
+despoiled in the space of twelve months, and in the diocese of Lyons the
+archbishop recommended his clergy to transform the tabernacles into
+strong boxes. The departments of Aude, Isere, Tarn, Gard, Nievre,
+Loiret, Yonne, Haute-Garonne, Somme, Le Nord, and the Dauphiny have been
+in turn the scene of outrage. Nor are the abominations in question
+confined to France: Rome, Liguria, Salerno have also suffered, while so
+far off as the Island of Mauritius a peculiarly revolting instance
+occurred in 1895.
+
+I am not able to say that the personal researches of the French novelist
+have proceeded beyond the statistics of sacrilege, which, however, he
+has collected carefully, and these in themselves constitute a strong
+presumption. M. Huysman is exhaustive in fiction and reticent in
+essay-writing, yet he gives us to understand explicitly that the
+infamous Canon Docre of _La Bas_ is actually living in Belgium, that he
+is the leader of a "demoniac clan," and, like the Count de St Germain,
+is in frequent terror of the possibilities of the life to come. An
+interviewer has represented M. Huysman as stating that his information
+was derived from a person who was himself a Satanist, but the
+revelations disturbed the sect, and the communication ceased, though the
+author had originally been welcomed "as one of their own." But it is
+clear to my own mind that for his descriptions of the orgies which take
+place at the assemblies of modern black magicians, M. Huysman is mainly
+indebted to documents which have been placed in his hands by existing
+disciples of the illumine Eugene Vintras, and the "Dr Johannes" of _La
+Bas_. Vintras was the founder of a singular thaumaturgic sect,
+incorporating the aspirations of the Saviours of Louis XVII.; he
+obtained some notoriety about the year 1860, and an account of his
+claims and miracles will be found in Eliphas Levi's _Histoire de la
+Magie_, in the same writer's _Clef des Grands Mysteres_, and in Jules
+Bois' _Petites Religions de Paris_. He left a number of manuscripts
+behind him, recounting his life-long combats with the priests of black
+magic--a series of fervid narratives which savour strongly of
+hallucination, but highly picturesque, and in some quarters accepted
+quite seriously.
+
+In like manner, concerning the existence of Satanic associations, and
+especially the Palladium, M. Huysman admittedly derives his knowledge
+from published sources. We may take it, therefore, that he speaks from
+an accidental and extrinsic acquaintance, and he is therefore
+insufficient in himself to create a question of Satanism; he indicates
+rather than establishes that there is a question, and to learn its scope
+and nature we must have recourse to the witnesses who claim to have seen
+for themselves. These are of two kinds, namely, the spy and the
+seceder--the witness who claims to have investigated the subject at
+first hand with a view to its exposure, and those who have come forward
+to say that they once were worshippers of Lucifer, worshippers of Satan,
+operators of Black Magic, or were at least connected with associations
+which exist for these purposes, who have now, however, suspended
+communication, and are stating what they know. In the first class we
+find only Doctor Bataille; in the second, Diana Vaughan, Jean Kostka,
+Domenico Margiotta, and Leo Taxil.
+
+Finally, we have, as stated in the preface, some testimony from writers
+representing the interests of the Latin Church, in a special manner, and
+speaking with the authority of that Church. The most important of these
+is the late Archbishop Meurin. At the same time, M. Huysman apart--who
+occupies much the same quasi-religious position as that which attached a
+fleeting interest to the personality of Mr W. H. Mallock--all writers
+and all witnesses are, or assume to be, at the present time, convinced
+and zealous Roman Catholics.
+
+I have already stated that the purpose of Black Magic is simply and
+obviously to communicate with devils, and if we interrogate our sources
+of knowledge as to the object of such communication, it must be admitted
+that the response is vague. Perhaps the object will best be defined as
+the reinforcement of human ability by diabolical power and intelligence
+for the operation of evil along the lines of individual desire and
+ambition. For the fulfilment of what is good man aspires towards God,
+and to fulfil evil he attempts to conspire with Satan.
+
+It must, however, be observed that modern devil-worship, as exposed by
+its French experts, has two aspects, corresponding to the distinction
+already laid down in my preface. There is (a) devil-worship pure and
+simple, being an attempt to communicate with evil spirits, admitting
+that they are evil; (b) the cultus of Lucifer, star of the morning, as
+distinguished from Satan, on the hypothesis that he is a good spirit. It
+will be seen very readily that the essence of diabolism is wanting in
+the second division, namely, the Satanic intention, so that it belongs
+really to another category, though the classification may be accepted
+for the moment to prevent dispute at the beginning of a somewhat complex
+inquiry. The first division is, in any case, Satanism proper, and its
+adepts are termed Satanists; those of the second division are, on the
+other hand, Luciferians, Palladists, &c. The two orders are further
+distinguished as unorganised and as organised diabolism. The cultus of
+Satan is supposed to be mainly practised by isolated persons or small
+and obscure groups; that of Lucifer is centralised in at least one great
+and widespread institution--in other words, the first is rare and
+sporadic, the second a prevalent practice. We accordingly hear little of
+the one, while the testimonies which have been collected are concerned
+exclusively with the other. It is possible, in fact, to dismiss Satanism
+of the primary division in a few words, because materials are wanting
+for its history. It is founded on orthodox Christianity; it acknowledges
+that the devil is a lost angel, but it affirms that the God of the
+Christians has deceived His believers, has betrayed the cause of
+humanity, has exacted the suppression of the nature with which He
+Himself has endowed it; they have therefore abandoned a cruel and
+tyrannical Master, and have gone over in despair to His enemy.
+
+Satanism of the second division, its principles and its origin, will be
+described in the second chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE MASK OF MASONRY
+
+
+The identification of the cultus of Lucifer with devil-worship pure and
+simple is not, as we have seen, at first sight an entirely just
+proceeding, but at the same time it is inevitable. As already observed,
+the source of all our knowledge concerning Modern Diabolism exists
+within the pale of the Catholic Church; the entire literature is written
+from the standpoint of that church, and has been created solely in its
+interests. Some of that literature has been put forth with the special
+marks of high ecclesiastical approbation, and to some this guarantee is
+wanting, but the same spirit informs the whole. To insist on this point
+is important for many reasons which will become apparent at the close of
+our enquiry, and for one which concerns us now. It is impossible for
+the Catholic Church to do otherwise than brand the cultus of Lucifer as
+identical with that of Satan, because, according to her unswerving
+instruction, the name Lucifer is an equivalent of Satan, and, moreover,
+the Luciferian cultus is so admittedly anti-Christian that no form of
+Christianity could do otherwise than regard it as a worship of darkness
+and evil. While, therefore, the adoration of a good principle under this
+discredited name may in one of its aspects be merely an error of
+judgment, and not the worship of a devil, apart from other facts which
+destroy this consideration, we must all agree that from the standpoint
+of Christian and Latin orthodoxy the Luciferian is a diabolist, though
+not in the sense of the Satanist.
+
+The doctrine of Lucifer has been tersely described by Huysman as a kind
+of reversed Christianity--a Catholicism _a rebours_. It is, in fact, the
+revival of an old heresy founded on what we have most of us been
+accustomed to regard as a philosophical blunder; in a word, it is a
+Manichaean system having a special anti-Christian application, for while
+affirming the existence of two equal first principles, Adonai and
+Lucifer, it regards the latter as the god of light and goodness, while
+the Christian Adonai is the prince of darkness and the veritable Satan.
+It is inferred from the condition of the world at the present time that
+the mastery of the moment resides with the evil principle, and that the
+beneficent Deity is at a disadvantage. Adonai reigns surely, as the
+Christian believes, but he is the author of human misery, and Jesus is
+the Christ of Adonai, but he is the messenger of misfortune, suffering,
+and false renunciation, leading ultimately to destruction when the _Deus
+maledictus_ shall cease to triumph. The worshippers of Lucifer have
+taken sides in the cause of humanity, and in their own cause, with the
+baffled principle of goodness; they co-operate with him in order to
+insure his triumph, and he communicates with them to encourage and
+strengthen them; they work to prepare his kingdom, and he promises to
+raise up a Saviour among them, who is Antichrist, their leader and king
+to come.
+
+Such is the doctrine of Lucifer according to the testimony of witnesses
+who have come out from his cultus; it is not an instruction which _a
+priori_ would seem likely to commend itself to a numerically powerful
+following, but the society which is concerned with its propagation is
+affirmed to have spread over the whole world, and to be represented in
+all its chief cities. It is that which we have already found mentioned
+by M. Huysman as possessing a demonstrated existence and being a proof
+positive of modern Satanism, namely, the Palladian Order. Having broadly
+ascertained its principles, our next course is to discover its alleged
+history, and here it is necessary to admit that it is a matter of some
+difficulty to place the position in such an aspect that it will be a
+tolerable subject for inquiry among readers in England. The mystery of
+modern Diabolism and the Cultus of Lucifer is a part of the mystery of
+Masonry as interpreted by an Anti-Masonic movement now at work in
+France. The black magic, of which we hear so much, involves a new aspect
+of the old Catholic Crusade against the Fraternity of the Square and
+Compass, and by the question of Lucifer is signified an alleged
+discovery that Masons diabolise.
+
+Now, we are all well acquainted with the historical fact that the Latin
+Church has long been hostile to Masonry, that popes have condemned the
+order, and have excommunicated its initiates. Having regard to the
+position of the brotherhood here in England, most of us have been
+content to infer in this respect that the ripe old age of the Church is
+passing into a second childhood; some, however, have concluded that
+there may be more in Continental Freemasonry than meets the English eye,
+and here the Church herself comes forward to assure them that the
+fraternity abroad is a hotbed of political propaganda, and is
+responsible for the most disastrous revolutions which have perplexed the
+modern world; that it is actually, as the exploded Robison described it,
+a conspiracy against crowned heads; and that it is at the present time
+the most potent, most secret enemy which checkmates and hinders herself.
+
+It is now further affirmed that behind the Masonry of to-day--here in
+England posing as a benefit society, and political or not upon the
+Continent, but everywhere disclaiming any connection with a religious
+propaganda--there is affirmed to be another Masonry, of which the
+ordinary Mason knows nothing, secretly directing the order, and devoted
+to the cultus of Lucifer. This organisation, which has sprung up within
+recent years, is largely, though not exclusively, recruited from
+Masonry; it works through the powerful Masonic apparatus, and, according
+to the evidence which has been put in, it has obtained a substantial and
+masterful control over the entire Fraternity. It has focussed the raw
+material of Masonic hostility towards the Catholic Church; as it is
+anti-Christian in religion, so is it revolutionary in politics; and once
+more, it is called the Palladian Order.
+
+This exceedingly grave and important accusation, together with its side
+issues, has perhaps all the more claim on our consideration because,
+apart from actual diabolism, which is in itself so paralysing as almost
+to arrest discussion, it conflicts with all that we know or believe
+concerning the Masonic constitution. Let me briefly collect the points.
+(a) Masonry possesses a secret directing centre--which has been
+strenuously denied by the Fraternity. (b) It has a religious mission and
+a doctrinal propaganda--which has also been invariably denied. (c) It is
+concerned with political objects--which, for the most part, is denied.
+(d) It has a transcendental teaching--which is generally denied, and (e)
+is concerned largely with transcendental practices and phenomena--which
+would be denied absolutely, had the question been seriously raised till
+this day. (f) It initiates women--which, except in a very secondary,
+occasional, and insignificant manner, is _in toto_ and at all times
+denied. The last point is brought within the scope of our inquiry
+because the Palladium is an androgyne order.
+
+Now, it will be fairly well known to many who are not within the ranks
+of the fraternity that the Grand Lodges of every country are supposed to
+be autonomous, and that there has been no previous impeachment of this
+fact; that, ostensibly at least, there is no central institution to
+which they are answerable in Masonry. Individual lodges derive from a
+single Grand Lodge and are responsible thereto, but Grand Lodges
+themselves are supreme and irresponsible. It will be known also that the
+Masonic system in England differs from that of France, that the French
+rite has always occupied a somewhat heterodox position, and that since
+the Grand Orient expunged the Grand Architect of the Universe, so to
+speak, from its symbolism, official communication has been suspended by
+the Grand Lodge of England. It will be known further that outside
+recognised Masonic systems many rites have arisen which are only Masonic
+to the extent that their point of departure is from the Master-grade. As
+a special instance may be cited the Supreme Oriental Rite of Memphis and
+Misraim. In England the Lodge meetings of these rites are never suffered
+to take place in the great central institution of Freemasons Hall; in
+France, the Grand Orient has consistently forbidden its members to
+participate in the Memphis system. To hold Masonry responsible for
+irregularities or abuses which from time to time may obtain in these
+fantastic developments from the parent institution, would be about as
+just and reasonable as to impeach the Latin Church on the score of
+corruptions now existing in the heresies which have separated from her.
+
+Having established these points in view of the result of our inquiry,
+let us now trace the manner in which a supreme authority, frequently
+termed by the accusers Universal Masonry, is alleged to have grown up.
+Upon this subject not only the most complete information but the only
+formal narratives are provided by the later witnesses, so that the
+following account, while in no sense translation, is based exclusively
+upon the works of Domenico Margiotta and Dr Bataille.
+
+On the 20th of May, 1737, there was constituted in France the Order of
+the Palladium, or Sovereign Council of Wisdom, which, after the manner
+of the androgyne lodges then springing into existence, initiated women
+under the title of Companions of Penelope. The ritual of this order was
+published by the Masonic archaeologist Ragon, so that there can be no
+doubt of its existence. At the same time, so far as I am aware, there
+are few materials forthcoming for its history. In some way which
+remains wholly untraceable this order is inferred to have been connected
+by more than its name with the legendary Palladium of the Knights
+Templars, well known under the title of Baphomet. In any case it failed
+to spread, and it is uncertain whether the New and Reformed Palladium,
+also an androgyne order, with which we shall presently be concerned, is
+a metamorphosis or reconstruction of the original institution, but a
+connection of some kind is affirmed. For a period exceeding sixty years
+we hear little of the legendary Palladium; but in 1801 the Israelite
+Isaac Long is said to have carried the original Baphomet and the skull
+of the Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay from Paris to Charleston in
+the United States, and was afterwards concerned in the reconstruction of
+the Scotch Rite of Perfection and of Herodom under the name of the
+Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, which subsequently became widely
+diffused, and it is stated that the lodge of the thirty-third degree of
+the Supreme Council of Charleston has been the parent of all others, and
+is therefore, in this rite, the first supreme council of the entire
+globe.
+
+Eight years later, on the 29th of December 1809, a man of great
+importance to the history of Freemasonry was born in the city of Boston.
+Albert Pike came of parents in a humble position, who, however,
+struggled with their difficulties and sent him to Harvard College, where
+he duly graduated, taking his degree as M.A. in the year 1829. He began
+his career as a schoolmaster, but subsequently led a romantic and
+wandering life, his love of untrodden ground leading him to explore the
+Rocky Mountains, then very imperfectly known. In 1833 he settled in
+Arkansas, and, drifting into journalism, founded the _Arkansas
+Advocate_, wherein his contributions, both prose and verse, but the
+latter especially, obtained him a reputation in literature. The
+admission of Arkansas into the confederation of the United States was in
+part his work, and from this period he began to figure in politics,
+becoming also the recorder of the Supreme Court in that state. One year
+after the civil war, in which he took active part, Pike removed to
+Memphis in Tennessee, where he again followed law and literature,
+establishing the _Memphis Appeal_, which he sold in 1868, and migrated
+to Washington. His subsequent history is exclusively concerned with
+unwearying Masonic labours.
+
+Now, it was at Little Rock in Arkansas that Albert Pike was first
+initiated, and ten years later, that is, in 1859, he was elected
+Sovereign Commander Grand Master of the Supreme Council of Charleston.
+Having extraordinary powers of organisation, he became a person of wide
+influence in the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, and a high authority
+also on the ritual, antiquities, history, and literature of Masonry.
+Under his guidance, the Scotch Rite extended and became dominant. Hence,
+when the Italian patriot Mazzini is said to have projected the
+centralization of high grade Masonry, he could find no person in the
+whole fraternity more suited by his position and influence to
+collaborate with him. Out of this secret partnership there was begotten
+on September 20, 1870--that is to say, on the very day when the Italian
+troops entered the Eternal City--a Supreme Rite and Central Organisation
+of Universal High Grade Masonry, the act of creation being signed by the
+American Grand Master and the Italian liberator, the two founders also
+sharing the power between them. A Supreme Dogmatic Directory was created
+at Charleston, with Pike at its head, under the title of Sovereign
+Pontiff of Universal Freemasonry. Mazzini took over the Supreme
+Executive, having Rome as its centre, under the title of Sovereign Chief
+of Political Action.
+
+If we now recur to the statements that the genuine Templar Baphomet and
+the skull of Jacques de Molay had been deposited at Charleston for the
+space of seventy years, and that Albert Pike was Grand Master of the
+Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite in that city, we
+shall understand why it was that the new institution was termed the New
+Reformed Palladian Rite, or the Reformed Palladium. Subsequently, five
+Central Grand Directories were established--at Washington for North
+America, Monte Video for South America, Naples for Europe, Calcutta for
+the Eastern World, and Port Louis in Mauritius for Africa. A Sovereign
+Universal Administrative Directory was fixed at Berlin subsequently to
+the death of Mazzini. As a result of this astute organisation, Albert
+Pike is said to have held all Masonry in the hollow of his hand, by
+means of a twofold apparatus--the Palladium and the Scotch Rite. During
+all his remaining days, and he lived to a great age, he laboured
+indefatigably in both causes, and the world at the present moment is
+filled with the organisation that he administered.
+
+Four persons are cited as having been coadjutors in his own country--his
+old friend Gallatin Mackey, in honourable memory among Masons; a
+Scotchman named Longfellow, whom some French writers have ludicrously
+confused with the poet; one Holbrook, about whom there are few
+particulars; and, finally, Phileas Walder, a native of Switzerland,
+originally a Lutheran Minister, afterwards said to have been a Mormon,
+but, in any case, at the period in question, a well-known spiritualist,
+an earnest student of occultism, as were also Holbrook and Longfellow,
+and, what is more to the purpose, a personal friend and disciple of the
+great French magus Eliphas Levi. Albert Pike was himself an occultist,
+whether upon his independent initiative, or through the influence of
+these friends I am unable to say. Miss Diana Vaughan, who is one of the
+seceding witnesses, affirms that it was an early and absorbing passion.
+However this may be, the New Reformed Palladium was kept most rigidly
+separate from all other Masonry, the Scotch Rite included; that is to
+say, no initiate of even the highest grade had, as such, the right or
+opportunity of entrance into the occult order, which, at the same time,
+was chiefly recruited, as already stated, from the higher ordinary
+grades, but the recipients of the new light became silent from the
+moment that it was imparted. Now, it was exclusively in the Palladian
+order that Albert Pike and his confidants propagated transcendental
+religion, as it is said to have been understood by them. In other words,
+while the Scotch Rite continued to speculate, the Palladium betook
+itself to magic and succeeded so well that there was a perpetuity of
+communication between Charleston and the unseen world. It does not
+appear from the evidence either when or why Albert Pike and his
+collaborators transferred their allegiance from the God of the sages to
+Lucifer. The Catholic Church regards all magic as diabolism, and makes
+or tolerates no mystic distinction between the black and white
+departments of transcendental practice, but the specific character of
+the Palladian cultus is so clearly defined in the depositions that it
+cannot pass as a presentation of magical doctrine distorted by
+prejudice. It is almost stripped of correspondence with any existing
+school of occult teaching, and it is either the true statement of a
+system founded by Pike, or the deliberate invention of malice. The
+thaumaturgic phenomena tabulated in connection therewith are of an
+extremely advanced kind, including the real and bodily presence of
+Lucifer at frequent and regular intervals.
+
+When Mazzini died he indicated to Albert Pike a possible successor in
+Adriano Lemmi, who became in due course the chief of the Executive
+Department, and when in the fulness of years the pontiff of Luciferian
+Freemasonry himself passed on to the higher life of fire, which is the
+Palladian notion of beatitude, and in the peace and joy of Lucifer, the
+sovereign pontificate itself, after resting for a short period upon
+incompetent shoulders in the person of Albert George Mackey, was
+transferred to the Italian; the seat of the Dogmatic Directory was
+removed to Rome; a split in the camp ensued, inspired by a lady
+initiate, since famous under the name of Diana Vaughan, and to this we
+owe most of the revelations. Furthermore, with the death of Albert Pike
+the cultus of Lucifer is said to have undergone a significant
+transfiguration. For him the conception of Satan was a blasphemous
+fiction, devised by Adonaite priestcraft to obscure the veridic lustre
+which inheres in the angel of the morning-star; but this view
+represented, as it is said, rather the private opinion of the Masonic
+pontiff, impressed by his strong personality on the lodges he
+controlled, and propagated by the instruction of his rituals. The more
+discerning among his disciples regarded it as the besetting weakness of
+their grand old man, and surreptitiously during his life-time the cultus
+of Satan pure and simple, that is, of devil-worship, the adoration of
+the evil principle as evil, was practised at numerous Palladian centres.
+After his death, it is said to have unmasked altogether, and Adriano
+Lemmi himself is depicted as an avowed Satanist.
+
+Now, I believe it will fairly interpret the feeling of all readers to
+admit that when the authority of a great church has been brought into
+operation to crush a great institution by charges which most seriously
+discredit it--which represent it as diametrically and in all respects
+opposite in its internal nature to its ostensible appearance--we must by
+no means make light of the impeachment; we must remember the high
+position and the many opportunities of knowledge which are possessed by
+such an accuser; we must extend to that accuser at least the common
+justice of an impartial and full hearing; _a priori_ considerations of
+probability and inferences from our previous knowledge, much less from
+opinions obtained at second-hand, must not be permitted to prejudge a
+case of so great importance; we must be prepared, if necessary, to admit
+that we have been egregiously deceived; and if the existence of
+Palladian Masonry can be proved an undoubted fact, we must assuredly do
+full honour to the demonstration, and must acknowledge with gratitude
+that the Church has performed a service to humanity by unveiling the
+true character of an institution which is imposing on a vast number of
+well-intentioned persons within its own ranks, who are admittedly
+unaware of the evil to which they are lending countenance and support.
+On the other hand, the same spirit of liberality and justice will
+require that the demonstration in question shall be complete; in support
+of such terrible accusations, only the first quality of evidence can
+obviously be admitted.
+
+In the chapters which follow immediately, I shall produce in succession
+the evidence of every witness who has anything to tell us about
+Palladism, including those whose experience is of a personal kind and
+those whose knowledge is derived. Where possible, the testimony of each
+witness will be weighed as we proceed; what is unconvincing or
+irrelevant will be dismissed, while that which is important will be
+carried over to the final summary. In two cases only will it be found
+necessary to reserve examination for special and separate treatment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE FIRST WITNESSES OF LUCIFER
+
+
+That the witnesses of Lucifer are in all cases attached to the Latin
+Church, whether as priests or laymen, is no matter for astonishment when
+it is once realised that outside this Church there is no hostility to
+Masonry. For example, Robison's "Proofs of a Conspiracy" is almost the
+only work possessing, deservedly or not, any aspect of importance, which
+has ever been penned by a Protestant or independent writer in direct
+hostility to the Fraternity. Moreover, Catholic hostility varies in a
+vanishing direction with distance from the ecclesiastical centre. Thus,
+in England, it exists chiefly in a latent condition, finding little or
+no expression unless pressure is exercised from the centre, while in
+America the enforced promulgation of the _Humanum Genus_ encyclical has
+been one of the serious blunders of the present pontificate as regards
+that country. The bibliography of Catholic Anti-Masonic literature is
+now, however, very large, nor is it confined to one land, or to a
+special epoch; it has an antiquity of nearly 150 years, and represents
+most of the European continent. That of France, which is nearest to our
+own doors, is naturally most familiar to us; it is also one of the most
+productive, and may be assumed to represent the whole. We are concerned
+with it in this place only during the period which is subsequent to the
+alleged foundation of the New and Reformed Palladium. During this period
+it falls obviously into two groups, that which preceded any knowledge of
+the institution in question and that which is posterior to the first
+promulgation of such knowledge. In the first we find mainly the old
+accusations which have long ceased to exert any conspicuous influence,
+namely, Atheism, Materialism, and revolutionary plotting. Without
+disappearing entirely, these have been largely replaced in the second
+group by charges of magic and diabolism, concerning which the
+denunciations have been loud and fierce. One supplementary impeachment
+may be said in a certain sense to connect both, because it is common to
+both; it is that of unbridled licence fostered by the asserted existence
+of adoptive lodges. We shall find during the first period that Masonry
+was freely described as a diabolical and Satanic institution, and it is
+necessary to insist on this point because it is liable to confuse the
+issues. Before the year 1891 the diabolism identified with Masonry was
+almost exclusively intellectual. That is to say, its alleged atheism,
+from the standpoint of the Catholic Church, was a diabolical opinion in
+matters of religion; its alleged materialism was a diabolical philosophy
+in matters of science; its alleged revolutionary plottings, being
+especially directed against the Catholic Church, constituted diabolical
+politics. Such descriptions will seem arbitrary enough to most persons
+who do not look forth upon the world from the windows of the Vatican,
+but they are undeniably consistent at Rome.
+
+Of actual diabolism prior to the date I have named, there is, I believe,
+only the solitary accusation made by Mgr. de Segur, and having
+reference to a long anterior period. He states that in the year 1848
+there was a Masonic lodge at Rome, where the mass of the devil was
+celebrated in the presence of men and women. A ciborium was placed on an
+altar between six black candles; each person, after spitting and
+trampling on a crucifix, deposited in this ciborium a consecrated host
+which had been purchased or received in church. The sacred elements were
+stabbed by the whole assembly, the candles were extinguished at the
+termination of the mass, and an orgie followed, similar, says Mgr. de
+Segur, to those of "Pagan mysteries and Manichaean re-unions." Such
+abominations were, however, admittedly rare, and the story just recited
+rests on nothing that can be called evidence.
+
+During the years intervening between 1870 and 1891 we may search the
+literature of French Anti-Masonry in vain for any hint of the Palladium.
+In 1884 the collaboration of Louis D'Estampes and Claudio Jannet
+produced a work entitled "Freemasonry and the Revolution," which
+affirms that the immense majority of Masons, including those who have
+received the highest grades, do not enjoy the confidence of the true
+secrets, but the establishment of atheism in religion and socialism in
+politics as designs of the Fraternity are the only secrets intended.
+
+The New and Reformed Palladium connects with the Order of the Temple by
+its supposed possession of the original Baphomet idol, but in 1882 this
+was entirely unknown to Mgr. Fava, who denies all the reputed connection
+between Templars and Masons, and traces the latter to Faustus Socinus as
+founder, following Abbe Lefranc in his "Veil raised for the Curious." A
+mystic and diabolic aspect of the Fraternity is so remote from his mind
+that in his "Secret of Freemasonry" the Bishop of Grenoble affirms that
+its sole project is to replace Christianity by rationalism.
+
+The third and concluding volume of Pere Deschamps' great compilation on
+"Society and the Secret Societies," supports, on the contrary, the
+hypothesis rejected by Fava. It recites much old knowledge concerning
+adoptive lodges, the Illumines, the Orders of Philalethes, of Martinez
+Pasquales, and of Saint-Martin, on which subjects few writers indeed can
+say anything that is new; but while specially devoted to the political
+activity of the Fraternity all over Europe, Deschamps tells us nothing
+of the conspiracy which produced the New Palladium, though the alleged
+collaboration of Mazzini gave it a strong political complexion; of Pike
+nothing; of Diabolism still nothing. I may add that his work claims to
+be verified at all points.
+
+In the year 1886 another ecclesiastic, Dom. Benoit, published two
+formidable volumes on "Freemasonry and the Secret Societies," forming
+part of a vaster work, entitled "The City of anti-Christ in the
+Nineteenth Century." Like D'Estampes and Jannet, he distinguishes
+between a small number of initiates and a vast crowd of dupes who swell
+the ranks of the Fraternity. "Many Masons ascend the ladder of the
+grades without receiving the revelation of the mysteries." The highest
+functions of most lodges are said to be given to the dupes, while the
+ruling chiefs are concealed behind humble titles. It is further
+represented that in certain countries there are secret rites above the
+ordinary rites, and these are imparted only to the true initiates, which
+sounds like a vague and formless hint concerning a directing centre; but
+so far from supposing that such an institution may exist in Masonry, the
+author affirms that unity is impossible therein:--"Image of hell and
+hell anticipated, Masonry is the realm of hatred, and consequently of
+division. The leaders mutually despise and detest one another, and
+universally endeavour to deceive and supplant each other. A common
+hatred of the Church and her regular institutions alone unites them, and
+scarcely have they scored a victory than they fall out and destroy each
+other." The first seeds of the Manichaean accusation are found in the
+second volume, but the term is not used in the sense of Albert Pike's
+Luciferian transcendentalism, but merely as an equivalent of
+Protestantism coloured by the idea of its connection with the Socinian
+heresy. In conformity with this view, Dom Benoit attaches himself to
+the Templar hypothesis, saying that the Albigenses and the Knights of
+the Temple are the immediate ancestors of Masonry. But the point which
+is of most interest in connection with our inquiry is where Dom Benoit
+asserts that Satan is the god of Freemasonry, citing an obscure grade in
+which the ritual is connected with serpent-worship, and another in which
+the recipient is adjured "in the sacred name of Lucifer," to "uproot
+obscurantism." It is, however, only a loose and general accusation, for
+he says also that the Masonic deity is "the creature," that is,
+humanity, the mind of man, human reason; it is also "the infamous
+Venus," or the flesh; finally, "all divinities of Rome, Greece, Persia,
+India, and every pagan people, are the gods of Masonry." This is merely
+indiscriminate defamation which is without force or application, and the
+writer evidently knows nothing of a defined cultus of Lucifer existing
+in the Lodges of the Fraternity. So also when he elsewhere states that
+sexual excesses are sometimes accompanied in Masonry by Eucharistic
+profanations, he has only Mgr. de Segur's out-of-date narrative to
+support him, and when he hints at magical practices, it is only in a
+general way, and apparently referring to acts of individual Masons. In
+one more significant passage he records, as a matter of report, that
+apparitions of the demon have occurred "recently" in Masonic assemblies,
+"where he is said even to have presided under a human form." While there
+is no mention of Palladism and none of Pike in his treatise, we may
+regard Dom Benoit as a herald of the coming accusation, speaking vaguely
+of things half heard.
+
+Some time previous to 1888, Paul Rosen, a Sovereign Grand
+Inspector-General of the 33rd and last degree of the French rite, had
+come to the conclusion that the mysteries of Freemasonry are abominable,
+and in that year he published a work, entitled "Satan and Co.,"
+suggesting that in this case a witness to the desired point had at last
+come forward, and, as a matter of fact, the writer does take us a few
+paces beyond the point reached by Benoit. So far as I am aware, he is
+the first French anti-Mason who mentions Albert Pike, with one
+exception, to be considered separately in the next chapter. He describes
+him as the Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Mother Council of
+every Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, and he
+tells the story of the foundation of that Rite, but he knows nothing of
+Isaac Long, the Palladium, or the skull. He cites also certain works
+which Pike wrote for the exclusive use of initiates, apparently of the
+higher grades of these rites, namely, "The Sephar H'Debarim," "Ethics
+and Dogmas of Freemasonry," and "Legenda Magistralia." But so far from
+accrediting the order with a supernatural aspect, he affirms that its
+war-cry is annihilation and anathema thereto. The end of Freemasonry is,
+in fact, social anarchy, the overthrowal of monarchical government, and
+the destruction of the Catholic religion. The Satanism imputed to
+Freemasonry by Paul Rosen is therefore of an arbitrary and fantastic
+order, having no real connection with this inquiry. Two years later the
+same author published a smaller volume, "The Social Enemy," which
+contains no material of importance to our purpose, but is preceded by a
+Pontifical Brief, conveying the benediction of Leo XIII. to the writer
+of "Satan and Co."
+
+We pass now to the year of revelation 1891.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+EX ORE LEONIS
+
+
+For over ten years past Leo Taxil, that is to say, M. Gabriel
+Jogand-Pages, has been the great accuser of Masonry, and he possesses an
+indistinct reputation in England as a man whose hostility is formidable,
+having strong points in his brief. During the entire period of his
+impeachment, which is represented by many volumes, he has uniformly
+sought to identify the Fraternity with the general purposes of Lucifer,
+but until the year 1891, it was merely along the broad and general lines
+mentioned in the last chapter. Now, in presence of such attributions as,
+for example, the Satanic character of tolerance in matters of religion,
+I, for one, would unconditionally lay down my pen, as there is no common
+ground upon which a discussion could take place.
+
+From the vague imputation Leo Taxil passed, however, to an exceedingly
+definite charge--and it is beyond all dispute that by his work entitled
+"Are there Women in Freemasonry?"--he has created the Question of
+Lucifer in its connection with the Palladian Order. He is the original
+source of information as to the existence of that association; no one
+had heard of it previously, and it is therefore of the first importance
+that we should know something of the discoverer himself, and everything
+as to the particulars of his discovery, including the date thereof.
+
+Previously to the year 1891 Leo Taxil knew nothing of the Reformed
+Palladium. He is the one Anti-Masonic writer named in the last chapter
+as preceding Paul Rosen with information about Albert Pike. This was in
+the year 1885, and in a work entitled, "The Brethren of the Three
+Points," which began the "complete revelations concerning Freemasonry"
+undertaken by this witness. Like Paul Rosen, he represents Pike merely
+as a high dignitary of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, but he does
+so under the incorrect title of Sovereign Commander Grand Master of the
+Supreme Council of the United States. He states further that the Grand
+Orient of France, as also the Supreme Council of the Scotch Rite of
+France, "send their correspondence" to the Grand Master of Washington. I
+conceive that no importance, as indeed no definite meaning, can be
+attached to this statement beyond the general and not very significant
+fact that there was some kind of communication between the three
+centres. In the year 1888 Pike was so little in harmonious relation with
+the French Grand Orient that by the depositions of later witnesses he
+placed it under the ban of his formal excommunication in virtue of his
+sovereign pontificate. For the rest, the "Brethren of the Three Points"
+contains no information concerning the New and Reformed Palladium, and
+this is proof positive that it was unknown at the time to the writer,
+for it would have been valuable in view of his purpose. The same
+observation applies to a second work published shortly after, "The
+Cultus of the Grand Architect." Had Leo Taxil been acquainted with a
+worship of Lucifer subsisting in Palladian Masonry he could not have
+failed to make use of it in a volume so entitled. The work in question
+is concerned, however, with the solemnities which obtain in Masonic
+temples, with the names and addresses of all French lodges, so that it
+is a directory as much as a revelation, with the political organisation
+of the Carbonari, with the Judge-Philosophers, and with certain official
+documents of Masonry.
+
+But it may occur to those of my readers who are acquainted at first hand
+with the revelations of Leo Taxil that his knowledge was held over in
+view of his plan of publication, and that the Palladium would be
+disclosed in due course when he came to treat of androgyne or adoptive
+Masonry. Let us pass, therefore, to his next work, entitled, "Sister
+Masons, or Ladies' Freemasonry," which appeared in 1888, and in which we
+certainly meet with diabolism and also with Palladism, but not in
+connection with Albert Pike or the Charleston Central Directory. The
+reference in the first case is to practices which are alleged to obtain
+in the Egyptian Rite of Adoption, called the Rite of Cagliostro, and in
+the second to the Order of the Palladium as it was originally instituted
+in the year 1730. At the same time the information given is of serious
+importance, because it enables us to gauge the writer's method and
+credibility in the one case, and his knowledge at the period in the
+other. Once more, in the year 1886, Leo Taxil did not know of the
+Palladium as a reformed or revived institution; had he known he could
+not have failed to tell us.
+
+I have not been able to trace all the sources of his information
+concerning the older Palladian Rite, but it comes chiefly from Ragon; he
+divides it into two systems:--(a) The Order of the Seven Sages, which
+was for men only, and appears as a banal invention with a ritual mainly
+derived from the "Travels of Anacharsis"; (b) The Order of the
+Palladium, composed of two masculine grades and one feminine grade,
+respectively, Adelphos and Companion of Ulysses for men, and Companion
+of Penelope for women. It pretends to have been founded by Fenelon, but
+at the same time claims an antiquity previous to the birth of the great
+Archbishop of Cambrai. Leo Taxil accuses it of gallantry, but the
+flirtations described in the ritual impress an impartial reader as a
+species of childish theatricals, a criticism practically exhausting the
+entire motive of the order, which, as I have already stated, lapsed into
+obscurity, and, so far as can be traced, into desuetude, though our
+witness uniformly refers to it in the present tense, and as if it were
+in active operation. However this may be, the description and summary of
+the ritual given by Leo Taxil place it outside the possibility of a
+connection with Templar Masonry, and also with the Baphomet Palladium in
+spite of what is alleged to the contrary. Accepting the worst
+construction which is placed on its intention, it could have offered no
+point of contact with the alleged project of Albert Pike. So far,
+therefore, the information contained in _Les Soeurs Maconnes_ conflicts
+with the history of the New and Reformed Palladium as given in my second
+chapter.
+
+It has been said, however, that Leo Taxil charges another Masonic order
+of the androgyne type with satanic practices. He divides the Egyptian
+Rite of Adoption into three grades; in that of apprentice, the discourse
+represents Adonai as the Genius of Pride, and the serpent-tempter of
+Genesis as the eternal principle of goodness; in that of Companion, the
+symbolism of the ritual enforces the necessity of rehabilitating the
+character of the mystic serpent; in that of Egyptian Mistress, there is
+a pretended evocation of planetary spirits by means of a clairvoyante,
+and Leo Taxil affirms on his own authority that the Supreme Being
+referred to in the discourse at initiation is Satan. "According to the
+doctrine of the sect, the divinity is formed of two opposite principles,
+the genius of Being, who is Lucifer, and the genius of Destruction, who
+is Adonai." This is so obviously the doctrine of the Luciferian
+Palladians that it is difficult to understand why the institution of
+Charleston is not connected, as to purpose, if not as to origin, with
+the Egyptian Adoptive Rite of Misraimite Masonry.
+
+At this point, however, it becomes my duty to state that there are some
+very curious facts in connection with the "Catechism of the Officiating
+Mistress," which is the source of information for the alleged Manichaean
+character of the third degree. The more considerable and essential
+portion of that document, so far from being referable to the supposed
+founder of the Rite, namely, Count Cagliostro, is a series of mutilated
+passages taken from Eliphas Levi's _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie_,
+and pieced clumsily together. That is to say, Leo Taxil, while claiming
+to make public for the first time an instruction forming an essential
+part of a rite belonging to the last century, presents to us in that
+instruction the original philosophical reflections of a writer in the
+year 1856, and, moreover, he distorts palpably the fundamental principle
+of that writer, who, so far from establishing dualism and antagonism in
+God, exhibits most clearly the essential oneness in connection with a
+threefold manifestation of the divine principle. I conceive that there
+is only one construction to be placed upon this fact, and although it is
+severe upon the documents it cannot be said that it is unjust. When,
+therefore, Leo Taxil terminates his study of the Egyptian Rite by
+"divulging some essentially diabolical practices of the Misraim Lodges,"
+namely, evocations of the elementary spirits, we shall not be surprised
+to find that the ritual of the proceedings is taken bodily from the same
+author who has been previously taxed for contributions. The reader need
+only compare _Les Soeurs Maconnes_, pp. 323 to 330, with the
+"Conjuration of the Four" in the fourth chapter of the _Rituel de la
+Haute Magie_. It will be objected that this conjuration is derived by
+Levi himself from a source which he does not name, and as a fact part of
+it is found in the _Comte de Gabalis_. Quite so, but my point is, that
+it has come to the Taxil documents through Eliphas Levi. The proof is
+that part of the exorcisms are given in Latin and part in French, by the
+author of the _Rituel_, for arbitrary and unassignable reasons, and that
+_Les Soeurs Maconnes_ reproduces them in the same way. It is evident,
+therefore, that we must receive Leo Taxil's "divulgations" with severe
+caution. I may add that the proceedings of the Holy Inquisition in the
+trial of Count Cagliostro were published at Rome by order of the
+Apostolic Chamber, and they include some particulars concerning the
+Egyptian Rite, of which Cagliostro was the author. These particulars in
+part correspond with the documents of the "Sister-Masons," but offer
+also significant variations even along the lines of correspondence.
+
+Having established, in any case, that Leo Taxil knew nothing of the
+Reformed Palladium in the year 1886, we may pass over his next work,
+which reproduces a considerable though selected proportion of some of
+his previous volumes, because precisely the same observation applies to
+"The Mysteries of Freemasonry," and we may come at once to the year
+1891. Some time subsequently to the third of August, our witness
+published a volume entitled "Are there Women in Freemasonry?" which, so
+far as one can see, bears the marks of hurried production. It is, in
+fact, "The Sister Masons" almost _in extenso_--that work being still in
+circulation--with the addition of important fresh material. The bulk of
+the new matter is concerned with the rituals of the New and Reformed
+Palladium, consisting of five degrees, conformable, as regards the first
+three, with the somewhat banal but innocent grades of the Modern Rite of
+Adoption, and passing, as regards the two final, into pure Luciferian
+doctrine. How did Leo Taxil become possessed of these rituals? He
+informs us quite frankly that by means of arguments _sonnants et
+trebuchants_, that is to say, by a bribe, he persuaded an officer of a
+certain Palladian Grand Council located at Paris to forget his pledges
+for the time required in transcribing them. That was not a very
+creditable proceeding, but in exposing Freemasonry ordinary ethical
+considerations seem to be ruled out of court, and it is idle to examine
+methods when we are in need of documents. By these documents, and by the
+editorial matter which introduces and follows them, Leo Taxil, as
+already observed, created the Question of Lucifer. Premising that a dual
+object governed the institution of androgyne lodges, namely, the
+opportunity for forbidden enjoyments, and the creation of powerful
+unsuspected auxiliaries for political purposes, he states that the
+latter part of this programme was specially surrendered to the old
+Palladian Masonry. Now it is clear that the rituals of the order which
+he published in 1886 bear no such construction as he here, and for the
+first time, imputes; they connect with part one of the programme, and he
+was content at the time with their impeachment on the ground of sexual
+disorder. Why has he changed the impeachment? No assignable reason
+appears from his subsequent remarks, but he goes on to allege that,
+under the auspices of Albert Pike and his group, the original order
+developed the New and Reformed Palladian Rite, in which the political
+purpose was itself subordinated to "Satanism pure and simple."
+Originating in the United States, it has invaded Europe, where it
+propagates with truly unheard of rapidity, so that in Paris alone there
+are three active lodges--that of the Lotus, founded in 1881, and
+situated in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, which has in turn created the
+lodges of St James, 1884, and of St Julian, 1889. The Lotus itself was
+preceded "by the organisation of some Areopagites of the Kadosch Grade
+of the French Rite and of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite," who
+practised theurgy under the direction of Ragon and Eliphas Levi, both of
+whom are represented as given over, body and soul, to all the practices
+of lawless diabolism, the latter being apparently the leader, after
+whose death the association met only infrequently, until it was revived
+by Phileas Walder, the friend, as we have already seen, of Albert Pike.
+It was he who imported the New and Reformed Palladium from America into
+France, and, assembling the disciples of Levi, founded the Mother-Lodge
+of the Lotus.
+
+The ritual obtained by Leo Taxil was printed in Latin and English, with
+an interleaved French version in manuscript. As presented by its
+discoverer, there is no doubt that it is an execrable production,
+involving the practice in open lodge of obscenity, diabolism, and
+sacrilege. Passing over the first three grades, and beginning "at the
+point of bifurcation," we find it stated in the ritual of the fourth
+degree of Elect that the New and Reformed Palladium has been instituted
+"to impart a new force to the traditions of high-grade Masonry," that
+the Palladium which gives its name to the order was presented to the
+fathers of the order by Eblis himself, that it is now at Charleston, and
+that Charleston is the first supreme Council of the globe. Thus it will
+be seen that the Palladian ritual confuses the Palladium Order with the
+Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite. For the rest, the legend of the fourth
+degree is the first part of what is termed a blasphemous life of Jesus,
+representing Baal-Zeboub as his ancestor, Joseph as his father,
+according to physical generation, and Mirzam as his mother, who is
+highly honoured as the parent of many other children. Adonai is the
+principle of evil, and Eblis, otherwise Lucifer, the good God. But the
+ritual of the fourth grade is innocent in its character when compared
+with the abominations of the fifth degree of Templar-Mistress. The
+central point of the ceremonial is the resurrection of Lazarus, which is
+symbolically accomplished by the postulant suffering what is termed the
+ordeal of the Pastos, that is to say, by means of public fornication.
+The purpose of this ordeal is to show that the sacred act of physical
+generation is the key to the mystery of being. The life of Jesus begun
+in the previous grade is completed in the present, and it will be
+sufficient for my purpose to indicate that it represents the Saviour of
+Christianity, who originally "began well," passing over from the service
+of the good god Lucifer, and making a pact with the evil Adonai, in sign
+of which he ceased indiscriminate commerce with the women who followed
+him and pledged himself to live in chastity, for which he was abandoned
+by Baal-Zeboub, and is cursed by Palladists. "The duty of a
+Templar-Mistress is to execrate Jesus, anathematise Adonai, and adore
+Lucifer." The rite concludes by the recipient spitting on a consecrated
+host and the whole assembly piercing it in turn with stilettos.
+
+So far the sole testimony to the actual operation, as indeed to the
+existence, of these infamous ceremonies, is Leo Taxil, and it is once
+more my duty to state that the documents are in no sense above the
+suspicion of having been fraudulently produced by some one. It seems
+scarcely credible, but the instruction of the Elect Grade incorporates
+Masonic references _literatim_ from the scandalous memoirs of Cassanova.
+That is a fact which sets open a wide door to scepticism. Again, the
+instruction of the fifth degree contains more plagiarisms from Levi, and
+in a section entitled "Evocations," Leo Taxil again reproduces the
+"Conjuration of the Four" which he has previously fathered on the Rite
+of Memphis and Misraim, and now states to be in use among Palladists.
+Once more, he prints a long list of the spirits of light which
+Palladians recommend for evocation, and this list is a haphazard
+gleaning among the eighty-four genii of the twelve hours given in Levi's
+interpretation of the "Nuctemeron according to Apollonius." But these
+latter points are not arguments which necessarily reflect upon Leo
+Taxil, for, seeing that the New and Reformed Palladium was constituted
+in 1870, it is obvious that the author of the rituals may have drawn
+from the French magus, and Leo Taxil does connect the Palladium, as
+others have connected it, with Alphonse Louis Constant, partly through
+Phileas Walder his disciple, and partly by representing Constant as the
+leader of an occult association of Knights Kadosch. But when he
+represents Constant as himself a Mason we have to remember that Eliphas
+Levi explicitly denied his initiation in his _Histoire de la Magie_.
+
+I should add that Leo Taxil in one of the illustrations represents a
+lodge of the Templar-Mistress Rite, wherein the altar is over-shadowed
+by a Baphomet which is a reduction in facsimile of the frontispiece to
+Levi's _Rituel_, and all reasonable limits seem to be transgressed when
+he quotes from Albert Pike's "Collection of Secret Instructions," an
+extended passage which swarms with thefts from the same source, everyone
+of which I can identify when required, showing them page by page in the
+originals. Leo Taxil tells us that the "Collection" was communicated to
+him, but by whom he does not say. We are evidently dealing with an
+exceedingly complex question, and many points must be made clear before
+we can definitely accept evidenced which is so mixed and uncertain in
+character.
+
+If we ask the author of these disclosures what opportunities he has had
+to become personally acquainted with Masonry, we shall find that they
+are exceedingly few, for he was expelled from the order after receiving
+only the first degree. I do not say that this expulsion reflects in any
+sense discreditably upon him as a man of honour, but it closed his
+Masonic career almost as soon as it had begun, so that his title to
+speak rests only on his literary researches and other forms of derived
+knowledge, good enough, no doubt, in their way, but not so exhaustive as
+could be wished in view of the position he has assumed. It was shortly
+after this episode that Leo Taxil returned to the Catholic Church and
+attached himself to the interests of the clerical party. Previously to
+this his literary history must be for him a painful memory. He was a
+writer of anti-clerical romances and the editor of an anti-clerical
+newspaper--legitimate occupations in one sense, but in this instance too
+frequently connected with literary methods of a gravely discreditable
+kind. A catalogue of the defunct _Libraire Anti-Clericale_ is added to
+one of the romances, and advertises, among other productions from the
+same pen, the following contributions made by Leo Taxil to the
+literature of sacrilege and scandal:--1st, a Life of Jesus, being an
+instructive and satirical parody of the Gospels, with 500 comic designs;
+2nd, The Comic Bible (_Bible Amusante_); 3rd, The Debaucheries of a
+Confessor, a romance founded on the affair of the Jesuit Girarde and
+Catherine Cadiere; 4th, a Female Pope, being the adventures and crimes
+of Pope Joan, written in collaboration with F. Laffont; 5th, The Pope's
+Mistress, a "grand historical romance," written in collaboration with
+Karl Milo; 6th, Pius the Ninth before history, his life political and
+pontifical, his debaucheries, follies, and crimes, 3 vols.; 7th, The
+Poisoner Leo Thirteenth, an account of thefts and poisoning committed
+with the complicity of the present pontiff; 8th, Contemporary
+Prostitution, a collection of revolting statistics upon, _inter alia_,
+the methods, habits, and physical peculiarities of persons who practice
+paederasty.
+
+It will be seen that since his conversion our author has changed his
+objects without altering his methods. As in the past he unveiled the
+supposed ill-doings of popes and priests, as he exposed the corrupt
+practices of the Parisian police in the matter of crying social evils,
+so now he divulges the infamies of Masonic gatherings in the present. He
+claimed then to be actuated by a high motive and he claims it now. We
+must not deny the motive, but we certainly abhor the proceeding. In some
+very curious memoirs which have obtained wide circulation Leo Taxil
+acknowledges that he was gravely mistaken then, and he may be mistaken
+now. It must also be respectfully stated in conclusion that few persons
+who have contributed to lubricity in literature have ever failed to
+speak otherwise than from an exalted standpoint. When a short time ago
+M. Huysman went in search of a type to which he could refer Luciferian
+"blasphemies" and outrages, he could find nothing more suitable to his
+purpose than Leo Taxil's "Bouffe Jesus." We do not refuse to accept him
+as a witness against Masonry because of these facts, but we must ask
+him as an honourable gentleman not to insist that we should do so on
+trust, and at the present moment the only opportunities which he has
+given us to check his statements do not wholly encourage us to accept
+them. It will be seen therefore that the knowledge of Palladian Masonry
+was first brought to light under circumstances of a debatable kind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF M. RICOUX
+
+
+By the year 1891 Masonic revelations in Paris had become too numerous
+for one more or less to fix the volatile quality of public interest
+unless a new horror were attached to it. Passwords and signs and
+catechisms, all the purposes and the better half of the
+secrets--everyone outside the Fraternity who concerned themselves with
+Masonry and cared for theoretical initiation knew these, or was
+satisfied by the belief that he did. The literature of Anti-Masonry
+became a drug in the market, failing some novelty in revelation. The
+last work of Leo Taxil was eminently a contribution towards this missing
+quantity. He was already in a certain sense the discoverer of "Female
+Freemasonry," that is to say, he was the only equipped person who
+seriously maintained that the exploded androgyne system was worked in
+modern France, and when he added the development of the Palladium as the
+climax to the mystery of iniquity, it is small wonder that his book
+achieved notoriety to the extent of five thousand copies. He was
+assailed as a venal pamphleteer and his past achievements in literature
+were freely disinterred for his own benefit and for public instruction,
+but he was more than compensated by the approbation of Mgr. Fava, bishop
+of Grenoble, with whose opinions upon Satanism in Masonry we have
+previously made acquaintance. The Church indeed had all round agreed to
+overlook Leo Taxil's early enormities; she forgot that she had attempted
+to prosecute him and to fine him a round sum of 60,000 francs; the
+supreme pontiff forgave him the accusation of poisoning, and transmitted
+his apostolical benediction; he was complimented by the cardinal-vicar
+of Rome; and he is in the proud position of a man who has received
+felicitations and high approval from eighteen ecclesiastical
+dignitaries, whether cardinals, archbishops, or bishops. With his back
+against the _turris fortitudinis_, he faced his accusers stoutly and
+returned them blow for blow. Nor did he lack his lay defenders, one of
+whom, by the mode which he adopted, became himself, somewhat
+unexpectedly, a witness of Lucifer.
+
+To those who disbelieve in the existence of Female Freemasonry, Leo
+Taxil had offered two pieces of wise advice: Go to the Bibliotheque
+Nationale, search the files of the Masonic organ _La Chaine d'Union_,
+and you will find proof positive of your mistake. Next proceed to the
+Maison T----, there is no need to reproduce the address, but it is given
+by Leo Taxil in full, and obtain their current price-list of lodge
+furniture, insignia, and other accessories, and you will find
+particulars of aprons for sisters, diplomas for sisters, garters for
+sisters, jewels for sisters. Except upon the signs of initiation, the
+catalogue is not surrendered, but in view of the literature of
+revelation the signs are no longer secret, &c.
+
+All this is clearly outside the subject of Satanism, but it leads up,
+notwithstanding, to the discovery of M. Ricoux. As to this gentleman
+himself there are no particulars forthcoming; he has promised an account
+of his adventures during four years as an emigrant in Chili; and he has
+promised a patriotic epic in twelve cantos, but so far as my information
+goes they remain in the womb of time. But he has a claim on our
+consideration because it occurred to him that he would put in practice
+the advice of Leo Taxil, which he did accordingly in the autumn of 1891,
+and demonstrated to his own satisfaction that "Are there Women in
+Freemasonry?" is a book of true disclosure, and a question that must be
+answered in the affirmative. He performed thereupon a very creditable
+action; he wrote a pamphlet entitled "The Existence of Lodges for Women:
+Researches on this subject," &c., in which he stated the result of his
+investigation, collected the controversy on the subject which had been
+scattered through the press of the period, and defended Leo Taxil with
+the warmth of an _alter Ego_. But he had not limited his researches to
+the directions indicated in his author. Encouraged by the success which
+had attended his initial efforts, he determined upon an independent
+experiment in bribery, and after the same manner that Leo Taxil procured
+the "Ritual of the New and Reformed Palladium," so he succeeded in
+obtaining the "Collection of Secret Instructions to Supreme Councils,
+Grand Lodges, and Grand Orients," printed at Charleston in the year
+1891. "This collection," he tells us, "is certainly a document of the
+first order; for it emanates from General Albert Pike, that is to say,
+from the 'Pope of the Freemasons.'" On this document he bases the
+following statements:--(a) Universal Freemasonry possesses a Supreme
+Directory as the apex of its international organisation, and it is
+located at Berlin. (b) Four subsidiary Central Directories exist at
+Naples, Calcutta, Washington, and Monte Video. (c) Furthermore, a Chief
+of Political Action resides at Rome, commissioned to watch over the
+Vatican and to precipitate events against the Papacy. (d) A Grand
+Depositary of Sacred Traditions, under the title of Sovereign Pontiff of
+Universal Freemasonry, is located at Charleston, and at the time of the
+discovery was Albert Pike.
+
+Some of these statements, it will be observed, require rectification, in
+the light of fuller disclosures made by Palladian initiates, from whom
+the material of my second chapter has been chiefly derived, but it will
+be seen that it is substantially correct. M. Ricoux further states that
+"Albert Pike reformed the ancient Palladian Rite, and imparted thereto
+the Luciferian character in all its brutality. Palladism, for him, is a
+selection; he surrenders to the ordinary lodges the adepts who confine
+themselves to materialism, or invoke the Grand Architect without daring
+to apply to him his true name, and under the title of Knights Templars
+and Mistress Templars, he groups the fanatics who do not shrink from the
+direct patronage of Lucifer."
+
+The most serious mistake which has been made in the use of the material
+is an unconscious attempt to read into the "encyclicals" of Albert Pike
+a proportion of Leo Taxil's material, for which the long citations given
+by M. Ricoux do not afford a warrant. What he really appears to have
+obtained is the instructions of Pike as Supreme Commander Grand Master
+of the Supreme Council of the Mother-Lodge of the Ancient and Accepted
+Scotch Rite of Charleston to the Twenty-three Supreme Confederated
+Councils of the Globe. And the Scotch Rite is, by the hypothesis, apart
+from the Palladium. In other respects, the information comes to much the
+same thing. The long document which the pamphlet prints _in extenso_
+exhibits Albert Pike preaching Palladism in the full foulness of its
+doctrine and practice--the "resolution of the problem of the flesh" by
+indiscriminate satisfaction of the passions; the multiplication of
+androgyne lodges for this purpose; the dual nature of the Divine
+Principle; and the cultus of Lucifer as the good God. The most curious
+feature of the performance is that here again it is from end to end a
+travesty of Eliphas Levi, slice after slice from his chief writings,
+combined with interlineal additions, which give them a sense
+diametrically opposed to that of the great magus. Now, it is impossible
+that two persons, working independently for the production of bogus
+documents, should both borrow from the same source; hence Leo Taxil and
+M. Ricoux, if they have been guilty of imposition, must certainly have
+collaborated. It is unreasonable, however, to advance such an accusation
+in the absence of any evidence, and if we accept the contribution of M.
+Ricoux as made in perfect good faith, we must acknowledge that it
+exonerates Leo Taxil from the possible suspicion of himself adapting
+Levi; and then the existence of a theurgic society, based on Manichaean
+principles, instituted by Albert Pike, and possessing a magical ritual
+taken in part from Levi, wears a more serious aspect than when it rested
+on the unsupported assurance of one witness. The discovery of M. Ricoux
+is obviously of the first importance, and it is certainly to be
+regretted that he has not substantiated it by depositing the "Collection
+of Instructions" in the National Library, supposing it to be in his
+possession, or by photographing instead of transcribing, supposing he
+was pledged to its return.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ART SACERDOTAL
+
+
+Some few months after the first testimonies to Palladism appeared, under
+the signatures of the witnesses whom we have already examined, a fresh
+contribution was made to the literature of Diabolism in its connection
+with Masonry, by a work entitled "Freemasonry, the Synagogue of Satan."
+The exalted ecclesiastical position of the author, Mgr. Leon Meurin,
+S.J., Archbishop of Port Louis in Mauritius, gave new impetus and an
+aspect of increased importance to accusations preferred at the
+beginning, as we have seen, by comparatively obscure or directly
+suspected writers. The performance, moreover, was apparently so learned,
+in some respects so unlooked for, and withal so methodical, that it
+became subsequently a source of universal reference in anti-Masonic
+literature. To this day M. Huysman remains dazzled, and to those in
+search of reliable information on the subject, he says:--"If you would
+be saved from the excesses of unseated reason, and from narratives of
+Dunciad dulness, try Mgr. Meurin; read the Archbishop on Palladism."
+Within certain limits the advice is well-grounded; the art sacerdotal in
+its application to Anti-Masonry may leave much to be desired, but as a
+specimen of the superior criticism obtaining upon this subject in higher
+circles, it offers a strong contrast to the general tone and touch among
+the rank and file of the accusers. We are, in fact, warranted upon every
+consideration, in expecting a valuable contribution to our knowledge;
+but, I may say at once, that this expectation is unfortunately not
+realised. With a keen philosophical anticipation one turns the pages of
+"Freemasonry, the Synagogue of Satan," admires their beautiful
+typography, lingers with delight over the elaborate appendix of
+allegorical engravings, and experiences a brief sense of intellectual
+inferiority in the presence of such formidable sections, and so
+portentous a table of contents. It should be impossible to speak of the
+Archbishop without a mental genuflexion, but it remains true that our
+expectation is not realised. It will become us, at the same time, to
+speak as tenderly as possible of a pious and learned prelate who has now
+passed where Masons cease from Satanising and the thirty-three degrees
+are at rest. But it must be said plainly that the contents of his very
+large volume offer little to our purpose.
+
+By the nature of his episcopal charge Mgr. Meurin had special facilities
+for ascertaining how men diabolise; the island of Mauritius has enjoyed
+many privileges of Infernus. There we lose sight of the Rosicrucians on
+the road to India; there the Comte de Chazal initiated Dr Bacstrom, and
+all this, of course, is diabolical from the standpoint of Anti-Masonry.
+Moreover, it must not be forgotten that Mgr. Meurin, in a series of
+wonderful conferences, has exhibited the superstitions of Mauritius,
+and, accepting the test of M. Huysman, the existence of Black Magic in
+this French colony is proved to hilt and handle by wholesale
+Eucharistic depredations, the sacrifice of cats at midnight upon the
+altars of rifled churches, and the discovery of the blood of the victims
+in the chalices used for the elements. The Church does not stir in the
+matter; it deplores and prays, which seems, in some respects, an
+ineffectual method of protecting the _latens Deitas_. If the Eucharist
+be liable to profanation, why reserve the Eucharist? Surely the
+negligence which makes such profanations possible is the offer of
+opportunity to Deicide, and great carelessness is cousin to condonation.
+However this may be, Mgr. Meurin seems to have been quite the authority
+to whom one would naturally refer for specific information upon
+devil-worship as it obtains within his own diocese, even if apart from
+Masonry. But he is too erudite to concern himself with individual facts,
+and he so far transcends diocesan limitations as to forget Mauritius
+completely. Another witness, who perhaps never visited Port Louis,
+affirms that the Central Directory of the Palladium for Africa is
+established in that place, but the prelate of Port Louis, from whom the
+information would have been precious, seems acquainted with nothing of
+the kind. The weapon of the mitred warrior is, at the same time, a
+sufficiently portentous thesis, as follows:--that Freemasonry is
+connected with Satanism by the fact that it has the Jews for its true
+authors, and the Jewish Kabbalah for the key of its mysteries; that the
+Kabbalah is magical, idolatrous, and essentially diabolical; that
+Freemasonry, considered as a religion, is therefore a judaized
+devil-worship, and considered as a political institution, it is an
+engine designed for the attainment of universal empire, which has been
+the dream of the Jews for centuries.
+
+My readers will be inclined to consider that such a hypothesis, though
+it may square with the Satanism of Adriano Lemmi, who, as we shall see,
+is accused of circumcision, can hardly be brought into harmony with the
+universal Masonry of Albert Pike, as the latter was neither Jew nor
+Judaiser. But common hatred of the Catholic Church is, in the opinion of
+Mgr. Meurin, a sufficient bond to identify the interests of both
+parties. Let us start, therefore, with the archbishop's own hypothesis,
+which he compresses into a single sentence: "To encircle the brow of the
+Jew with the royal diadem, and to place the kingdom of the world at his
+feet--such is the true end of Freemasonry." And again: "The Jewish
+Kabbalah is the philosophical basis and Key of Freemasonry." Once more:
+"The end of Freemasonry is universal dominion, and Freemasonry is a
+Jewish institution."
+
+Accepting these statements as points that admit of being argued with
+deference to the rules of right reason, let us establish in turn two
+positions which do not admit of being argued because they are evident in
+themselves: (a) Where the significance of symbols is uncertain, it is
+easy to interpret falsely; (b) When a subject is obscure and difficult,
+no person is qualified to speak positively if his knowledge be obtained
+at second-hand. Now, have we good reason to suppose that Mgr. Meurin is
+possessed of first-hand knowledge, and is consequently in a position to
+interpret truly upon the difficult subject he has undertaken, namely,
+the esoteric doctrines of the Kabbalah? If not, we are entitled to
+dismiss him without further examination. As a fact, in this preliminary
+and essential matter the archbishop can stand no test. The antiquity of
+the Kabbalah is necessary to work his hypothesis, and he assumes it as
+if unaware that its antiquity had ever been impugned. There may be much
+to be said upon both sides of this hotly-debated question, but there is
+nothing to be said for a writer who seems ignorant that there is a
+question. And hence my readers will in no way be astonished to learn
+that his information is obtained at second-hand, or that his one
+authority is Franck. This fact is the key to his entire work, and the
+sole credit that is due to him is the skilful appearance of erudition
+which he has given to a shallow performance, and the natural mental
+elegance which has prevented him from being noisy and violent.
+
+Our inquiry into modern devil-worship does not warrant us in discussing
+the position of writers who choose to assume that the Kabbalah,
+Gnosticism, and other systems are _a priori_ diabolical, because
+assumptions of this kind are unreasonable. There are writers at this
+moment in France who argue that the English word God is the equivalent
+of Lucifer, but one does not dispute with these. For the satisfaction of
+my readers, it may, however, be as well to state that the voluminous
+treatise of Mgr. Meurin has come into existence because he has
+discovered, as one might say, accidentally, that the number 33, which is
+that of the degrees in French Freemasonry, is the number of the
+divinities in the Vedas, thus creating a presumption that the mysteries
+of Freemasonry connect with those of antiquity. Of course they connect
+with antiquity, for the simple reason that there is a solidarity between
+all symbolisms, and, moreover, it is perfectly clear that Masonry has
+either inherited from the past by a perpetuated tradition, or has
+borrowed therefrom. Mgr. Meurin had therefore as little reason to be
+astonished at the correctness of his presumption when he came to work it
+out as he had to be delighted with the inference which prevails
+throughout his inquiry, namely, that the mysteries of pagan antiquity
+were delusions of the devil, and that modern mysteries which connect
+with those are also diabolical delusions. Indeed he is so continually
+making discoveries which are fresh to himself, and to no one acquainted
+with the subject, that one would be pleasantly diverted by his
+simplicity if it were not for the bad faith which underlies his
+assumptions. For example, every one who knows anything of Goetic
+literature is aware that the rituals of black magic incorporate
+heterogeneous elements from Kabbalistic sources, but to Mgr. Meurin this
+fact comes with the force of a surprise.
+
+His Masonic erudition is about as great and as little as his proficiency
+in Kabbalah; he quotes Carlyle as "an authority," applies the term
+orthodox to French Freemasonry exclusively, whereas the developments of
+the Fraternity in France have always had a heterodox complexion, while
+his tripartite classification of the 33 degrees of that rite and of the
+Ancient Accepted Scotch Rite is made in an arbitrary manner to suit a
+preconceived theory, and entirely effaces the importance inherent in
+the first three grades, which are themselves the sum of Masonry.
+Moreover, the classification in question is presented as a most secret
+instruction imparted in some fastness of Masonry outside the 33 degrees,
+but no authority is named.
+
+Such being the qualifications and such the methods of the archbishop, I
+do not propose to accompany him through the long course of his
+interpretations, but will supply instead, for the economy of labour on
+the part of those who may wish to follow in his footsteps, a skeleton
+plan of procedure by which they will be able to prove learnedly anything
+they please in Freemasonry.
+
+It is well known that the Fraternity makes use of mystic numbers and
+other symbols. Take, therefore, any mystic number, or combination of
+numbers, as _e.g._, 3 x 3 = 9. You will probably be unacquainted with
+the meaning which attaches to the figure of the product, but it will
+occur to you that the 9 of spades is regarded as the disappointment in
+cartomancy. Begin, therefore, by confidently expecting something bad.
+Reflect upon the fact that cards have been occasionally denominated the
+Devil's Books. Conclude thence that Freemasonry is the Devil's
+Institution. Do not be misled by the objection that there is no
+traceable connection between cards and Masonry; anticipate an occult
+connection or secret _liaison_. The term last used has probably occurred
+to you by the will of God; do not forget that it describes a
+questionable sexual relationship. Be sure, therefore, that Freemasonry
+is a veil of the worst species of moral licence. You have now reached an
+important stage in the unmasking of Masonry, and you can sum it as
+follows:--Freemasonry is the cultus of the Phallus. If you know anything
+of ecclesiastical Latin, the words _noctium phantasmata_ may perhaps
+occur to you, and the whole field of demonology in connection with the
+Fraternity will open before you. But if you would confine yourself to
+the region of lubricity, recollect that our first parents went naked
+till the serpent tempted them, and then they wore aprons. Hence the
+apron, which is a Masonic emblem, has from time immemorial been the
+covering of shame. Should it occur to you--vide _Genesis_--that God made
+the aprons, dismiss it as a temptation of the devil, who would, if
+possible, prevent you from unveiling him. By this time it will be well
+to recur to the number 9; your chain of reasoning has established that
+it possesses a horrible significance. Now take the number and follow it
+through the history of religions by means of some theological
+ready-reckoner, such as a cheap dictionary by Migne. You will be sure to
+find something to your purpose--_i.e._, something sufficiently bad.
+Place that significance against the use of that number in Masonry.
+Repeat this process, picking up anything serviceable by the way, and
+continue so doing till your volume has attained its required dimensions.
+You will never want for materials, and this is how Masonry is unveiled.
+
+There is no exaggeration in this sketch; Mgr. Meurin is indeed by far
+more fatuous. On the 26th of May 1876 the Supreme Council of Sovereign
+Grand Inspectors General of the 33rd Degree of the Ancient and Accepted
+Scotch Rite are said to have issued a circular, dated from 33 Golden
+Square, London. Will my readers believe their own eyes or my sincerity
+when I say that the most illustrious of the French Anti-Masonic
+interpreters, member of the Society of Jesus, and Archbishop of Port
+Louis, solemnly enjoins us to "remark the No. 33 and the square of gold,
+which signify the supreme place in the world assigned to the liberty of
+gold"? By thus commenting on a significant number attaching to a real
+address, situated, as everyone knows, in the most central district of
+this city, Archbishop Meurin believes that he is not descending from
+pleasant comedy into screaming farce of interpretation, but that he is
+acting seriously and judiciously, has a right to look wise, and to
+believe that he has hit hard!
+
+No person who is acquainted with the Kabbalah, even in its historical
+aspects, much less the ripe scholar, M. A. Franck, from whom the
+materials are derived, will tolerate for a moment the theory that this
+mystical literature of the Jewish nation is capable of a diabolical
+interpretation. In particular it lends itself to the crude Manichaean
+system attributed to Albert Pike about as much and as little as it does
+to atheistic materialism. The reading of Mgr. Meurin may be compared
+with that of Mirandola, who discovered, not dualism, but the Christian
+mystery of the Trinity contained indubitably therein, who regarded it
+with more reason as the bridge by which the Jew might ultimately pass
+over to Christ, who infected a pontiff with his enthusiasm, and it will
+be seen that the Catholic Archbishop looks ridiculous in the lustre of
+his derived erudition. To insist further on this point is, however,
+scarcely to our purpose. The Kabbalah does not possess that integral
+connection with Masonry which is argued by Mgr. Meurin, and if it did,
+does not bear the interpretation which he assigns it, while his
+anti-Semitic thesis is demolished with the other hypothesis. But these
+things are largely outside the question which concerns us most directly.
+Over and above these points, does the witness whom we are examining
+contribute anything to our knowledge on the subject of the New and
+Reformed Palladium, otherwise Universal Masonry? The reply is perfectly
+clear. His one source of knowledge is Adolphe Ricoux; by some oversight
+he has not even the advantage of the rituals published by Leo Taxil. He
+may, therefore, be dismissed out of hand. The Satanism which he exhibits
+in Masonry is an imputed Satanism, and as to any actual Devil-Worship he
+reproduces as true the clever story of _Aut Diabolus aut Nihil_, which
+appeared originally in "Blackwood's Magazine," and has since been
+reprinted by its author, who states, what most people know already, that
+it is entirely fictitious.
+
+In parting with the writer of "Freemasonry, the Synagogue of Satan," as
+with a witness whose evidence has broken down, it must be repeated that
+he has, by his exalted position, elegance of method, and show of
+learning, been a chief pillar of the Satanic hypothesis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE DEVIL AND THE DOCTOR
+
+
+Sec. 1. _Le Diable au XIX^e Siecle_
+
+Although the New and Reformed Palladium is said to have been founded so
+far back as the year 1870, it will be seen that at the close of the year
+1891 very little had become public concerning it. It is difficult to
+conceive that an institution diffused so widely should have remained so
+profound a secret, when the many enemies of the Fraternity, who in their
+way are sleepless, would have seized eagerly upon the slightest hint of
+a directing centre of Masonry. Moreover, an association which initiates
+ladies is perhaps the last which one would expect to be unknown, for
+while the essential matter of a secret is undeniably safe with women, it
+is on condition that they are known to possess it. When the first hint
+was provided in 1891, Leo Taxil certainly lost no time, and Mgr. Meurin
+must have written his large treatise almost at fever speed. On the 20th
+of November in the same year, another witness came forward in the person
+of Dr Bataille, who speedily made it apparent that he was in a position
+to reveal everything about Universal Masonry and diabolism in connection
+therewith, because, unlike those who had preceded him, he possessed
+first-hand knowledge. If he had not himself beheld Lucifer in all his
+lurid glory, he had at least seen his messengers; he was an initiate of
+most secret societies which remotely or approximately are supposed to
+connect with Masonry; he had visited Charleston; he had examined the
+genuine Baphomet and the skull of Jacques de Molay; he was personally
+acquainted with Albert Pike, Phileas Walder, and Gallatin Mackey; he
+was, moreover, an initiate of the Palladium. He was evidently the
+missing witness who could unveil the whole mystery, and it would be
+difficult to escape from his conclusions. Finally, he was not a person
+who had come out of Masonry by a suspicious and sudden conversion;
+believing it to be evil, he had entered it with the intention of
+exposing it, had spent ten years in his researches, and now stepped
+forward with his results. The office of a spy is not usually clean or
+wholesome, but occasionally such services are valuable, and in some
+cases there may be certain ends which justify the use of means which
+would in other cases be questionable, so that until we can prove the
+contrary, it will be reasonable to accept the solemn declaration of this
+witness that he acted with a good intention, and that what he did was in
+the interests of the church and the world.
+
+But, unfortunately, Dr Bataille has seen fit to publish his testimony in
+precisely that form which was most calculated to challenge the motive;
+it is a perfervid narrative issued in penny numbers with absurd
+illustrations of a highly sensational type; in a word, _Le Diable au
+XIX^e Siecle_, which is the title given to his memoirs by the present
+witness, connects in manner and appearance with that class of literature
+which is known as the "penny dreadful." Some years ago the slums of
+London and Paris were inundated with romances published in this fashion
+and continued so long as they maintained a remunerative circulation; in
+many cases, they ended abruptly, in others they extended, like _Le
+Diable au XIX^e Siecle_ to hundreds of issues; they possess special
+characteristics which are known to experts in the by-ways of periodical
+literature, and all these are to be found in the narrative of Dr
+Bataille. No one in England would dream of publishing in this form a
+work which was to be taken seriously, nor am I acquainted with any
+precedent for it abroad. It is therefore a discreditable and unfortunate
+choice, but seeing that a section of the clerical press in France has
+agreed to pass over this point, and to accept Dr Bataille as a credible
+witness, and seeing also that he has been followed by other writers who
+must be taken into account and stand or fall with him, we must not
+regard his method as an excuse for refusing to hear him. Apart from him
+and his adherents there is indeed no first-hand evidence for Palladian
+Masonry. The present chapter will therefore contain a summary of what
+was seen and heard by Dr Bataille in the course of his researches.
+
+
+Sec. 2. _Why Signor Carbuccia was Damned._
+
+In the year 1880, Dr Hacks, who makes, I believe, no attempt to conceal
+himself under the vesture of Dr Bataille, was a ship's surgeon on board
+the steam-boat _Anadyr_, belonging to the _Compagnie des Messageries
+Maritimes_, and then returning from China with passengers and
+merchandise. On a certain day in the June of the year mentioned, he was
+to the fore at his post of duty--that is to say, he was extended idly
+over the extreme length of a comfortable deck-chair, and the _hotel
+flottant_ was anchored at Point-de-Galle, a port at the southern
+extremity of Ceylon, and one of the reputed regions of the terrestrial
+paradise. While the doctor, like a good Catholic, put a polish on the
+tropical moment by a little gloss of speculation over the mystery of
+Eden, some passengers presently came on board for the homeward voyage,
+and among them was Gaetano Carbuccia, an Italian, who was originally a
+silk-merchant, but owing to Japanese competition, had been forced to
+change his _metier_, and was now a dealer in curiosities. His numerous
+commercial voyages had made them well acquainted with each other, but on
+the present occasion Carbuccia presented an appearance which alarmed his
+friend; a _gaillard grand et solide_ had been metamorphosed suddenly
+into an emaciated and feeble old man. There was a mystery somewhere, and
+the ship's doctor was destined to diagnose its character. After wearing
+for a certain period the aspect of a man who has something to tell, and
+cannot summons courage to tell it--a position which is common in
+novels--the Italian at length unbosomed himself, beginning dramatically
+enough by a burst of tears, and the terrific information that he was
+damned. But the Carbuccia of old was a riotous, joyful, foul-tongued,
+pleasure-loving atheist, a typical commercial traveller, with a strain
+of Alsatia and the mountain-brigand. How came this red-tied scoffer so
+far on the road of religion as to be damned? Some foolish fancy had made
+the ribald Gaetano turn a Mason. When one of his boon companions had
+suggested the evil course, he had refused blankly, apparently because he
+was asked, rather than because it was evil; but he had scarcely regained
+his home in Naples than he became irreparably initiated. The ceremony
+was accomplished in a street of that city by a certain Giambattista
+Pessina, who was a Most Illustrious Sovereign Grand Commander, Past
+Grand Master, and Grand Hierophant of the Antique and Oriental Rite of
+Memphis and Misraim, who, for some reason which escapes analysis,
+recognised Carbuccia as a person who deserved to be acquainted with the
+whole physiology and anatomy of Masonry. It would cost 200 francs to
+enter the 33rd grade of the sublime mystery. Carbuccia closed with this
+offer, and was initiated there and then across the table, becoming a
+Grand Commander of the Temple, and was affiliated, for a further
+subscription of 15 francs annually, to the Areopagite of Naples,
+receiving the passwords regularly.
+
+Impelled by an enthusiasm for which he himself was unable to account, he
+now lent a ready ear to all dispensers of degrees; Memphis initiates of
+Manchester allured him into Kabbalistic rites; he fell among occult
+Masons like the Samaritan among thieves; he became a Sublime Hermetic
+Philosopher; overwhelmed with solicitations, he fraternised with the
+Brethren of the New Reformed Palladium, and optimated with the Society
+of Re-Theurgists, from whom he ultimately received the veritable
+initiation of the Magi. Everywhere lodges opened to him, everywhere
+mysteries unveiled; everywhere in the higher grades he found spiritism,
+magic, evocation; his atheism became impossible, and his conscience
+troubled.
+
+Ultimately his business led him to revisit Calcutta, where his last
+unheard-of experience had overwhelmed his whole being, just eight days
+previously to his encounter with Doctor Bataille. He had found the
+Palladists of that city in a flutter of feverish excitement because they
+had succeeded in obtaining from China the skulls of three martyred
+missionaries. These treasures were indispensable to the successful
+operation of a new magical rite composed by the Supreme Pontiff of
+Universal Freemasonry and Vicegerent of Lucifer, General Albert Pike. A
+seance was about to be held; Brother George Shekleton of immortal
+memory, the hero who had obtained the skulls, was present with those
+trophies; and the petrified quondam atheist took part, not because he
+wished to remain, but because he did not dare to go. The proceedings
+began, the skulls were placed on the tables; Adonai and his Christ were
+cursed impressively, Lucifer as solemnly blessed and invoked at the
+altar of Baphomet. Nothing could be possibly more successful--result,
+shocks of earthquake, threatened immediate demolishment of the whole
+place, confident expectation of being entombed alive, terrific burst of
+thunder, a brilliant light, an impressive silence of some seconds, and
+then the sudden manifestation of a being in human form seated in the
+chair of the Grand Master. It was an instantaneous apparition of
+absolute bodily substance, which carried its own warrant of complete
+_bona fides_. Everyone fell on their knees; everyone was invited to
+rise; everyone rose accordingly; and Carbuccia found that he had to do
+with a male personage not exceeding eight and thirty years, naked as a
+drawn sword, with a faint flush of Infernus suffusing his skin, a
+species of light inherent which illuminated the darkness of the
+salon--in a word, a beardless Apollo, tall, distinguished, infinitely
+melancholy, and yet with a nervous smile playing at the corners of his
+mouth, the apparition of _Aut Diabolus aut Nihil_ divested of evening
+dress. This Unashamed Nakedness, who was accepted as the manifestation
+of Lucifer, discoursed pleasantly to his children, electing to use
+excellent English, and foretold his ultimate victory over his eternal
+enemy; he assured them of continued protection, alluded in passing to
+the innumerable hosts which surrounded him in his eternal domain, and
+incited his hearers to work without ceasing for the emancipation of
+humanity from superstition.
+
+The discourse ended, he quitted the dais, approached the Grand Master,
+and eye to eye fixed him in deep silence. After a pause he passed on,
+without committing himself to any definite observation; yet there seems
+to have been a meaning in the ceremony, for he successively repeated it
+in the case of every dignitary congregated at the eastern side, and
+finally of the ordinary members. When it came to the turn of Carbuccia,
+he would have given ten years of his life to have been at the Galleys
+rather than Calcutta, but he contrived to pull through, without,
+however, creating a favourable impression, for _adversarius noster
+diabolus_ passed on with contracted brow, and when the disconcerting
+inquiry was over, returned to the centre of the circle, gave a final
+glance around, approached Shekleton, and civilly requested him to shake
+hands. The importer of missionary skulls complied with a horrible yell;
+there was an electric shock, sudden darkness, and general
+_coup-de-theatre_. When the torches were rekindled, the apparition had
+vanished, Shekleton was discovered to be dead, and the initiates
+crowding round him, sang: "Glory immortal to Shekleton! He has been
+chosen by our omnipotent God." It was too much for the galliard
+merchant, and he swooned.
+
+Now, this is why Signor Carbuccia concluded that he was damned, which
+appears to have been precipitate. He has contrived, by the good offices
+of his lay confessor, to square matters with the hierarchy of Adonai,
+who belongs to the Latin persuasion; he has changed his name, adopted a
+third profession, and is so safe in retreat that his friends are as
+unlikely to find him as are the enemies who thirst for his blood.
+
+Doctor Bataille, faithful to his role of good Catholic, perceived at
+once that the Merchant's Story of these new Arabian Nights was
+characterised by extreme frankness, was devoid of a sinister motive, and
+was not the narrative of a maniac. A physician, he adds sententiously,
+is not to be deceived. He determined thereupon that he himself would
+descend into the abyss, taking with him a mental reservation in all he
+said and did as a kind of discharge in full. The Church and humanity
+required it. Behold him then presently at Naples, making acquaintance
+with Signor Pessina, and outdoing Carbuccia by expending 500 francs in
+the purchase of the 90th Misraim grade, thus becoming a Sovereign Grand
+Master for life! "I will be the exploiter and not the accomplice of
+modern Satanism," said the pious Doctor Bataille.
+
+
+Sec. 3. _A Priestess of Lucifer._
+
+Fortified with the purchase of his Memphis sovereignty, and the
+possession of various signs and passwords communicated by Carbuccia,
+which, by some interposition of Providence, must be assumed to have
+remained unchanged in the intervening period, Dr Bataille entered on his
+adventurous mission, bedewed with many tears, and sanctified by many
+blessings of an old spiritual adviser, who, needless to say, was at
+first hostile to the enterprise, and was afterwards as inevitably
+disarmed by the eloquence and enthusiasm of his disciple. Having regard
+to the fact that Masonry and Diabolism abound everywhere, according to
+the hypothesis, it obviously mattered little at what point he began the
+prosecution of his design; all roads lead to Rome, and the statement is
+equally true of the Rome of Masonry and the Vatican of Lucifer. As a
+fact, he started where Carbuccia may be said to have left off, namely,
+at Point-de-Galle in Southern Ceylon. There he determined to acquaint
+himself with Cingalese Kabbalism, a department of transcendental
+philosophy, about as likely to be met with in that reputed region of the
+Terrestrial Paradise as a cultus from the great south sea in the back
+parts of Notting Hill. Signor Pessina, however, had provided him with
+the address of a society which operated something that the doctor agrees
+to term Kabbalah, after the same manner that he misnames most subjects.
+But he was not destined to Kabbalize.
+
+Repairing to the principal hotel, he there witnessed, through one of
+those fortuitous occurrences which are sometimes the mask of fate, a
+sufficiently indifferent performance by native jugglers, the chief of
+whom was exceedingly lean and so dirty as to suggest that he was remote
+from godliness. During the course of the conjuring this personage held
+the doctor by a certain meaning glance of his glittering eye, and when
+all was over the latter had a private information that Sata desired to
+speak with him. The naive mind of the doctor regarded the name as
+significant in view of his mission; Sata was assuredly a Satanist. He
+consented incontinently, and was greeted by the juggler with certain
+mysterious signs which showed that he was a Luciferian of the sect of
+Carbuccia, though, by what device of the devil he divined the doctor's
+adeptship, the devil and not the doctor could alone explain at the
+moment.
+
+A miscellaneous language is apparently spoken by the Cingalese
+jugglers--Tamil, including a little bad French, not less convenient than
+needful in the present case. It was made clear by some brief
+explanations that the medical services of Dr Bataille were solicited at
+the death-bed of a personage named Mahmah, for which purpose the two
+entered a hired conveyance, while the rank and file of the jugglers
+followed at a brisk trot. In this manner they traversed a frightful
+desert, plunged into a forest of brushwood, finally forded a stream, and
+after two hours arrived at an open clearing, in the centre of which was
+a hut. An ape occupied the threshold, a vampire bat hung from a
+convenient beam, a cobra was curled underneath, and a black cat welcomed
+them with arched back. The ape spoke Tamil freely and then marched off,
+reflecting upon which circumstance, the doctor thought that it was quite
+the strangest thing in the world.
+
+The hut was the covering of a species of well, down which, with some
+quakings for the safety of limbs and body, our adventurer was persuaded
+to follow his guides, and they reached, at the end of a long flight of
+steps, an immense mortuary chamber. There, on a bed of cocoa-nut fibre,
+he found his patient, from whose mummified and hideous appearance he at
+once concluded that she was entirely given over to Satan and had long
+been a lost soul. As spiritually, so also physically, she was past all
+human aid; indeed she seemed dead already, and he gave his medical
+opinion to that effect. The countenance of this opinion was apparently
+the warrant required for the proceedings which immediately followed, and
+it is difficult to understand why fakirs in league with Satan--for such
+we are told they were--and possessed, no doubt, both of ordinary native
+and occult methods of diagnosis, could not have discovered this for
+themselves, more especially as the lady, who seems to have been a
+pythoness by profession, and commerced with a familiar spirit, had
+already reached the ripe age of 152 years.
+
+To shorten a long and peculiarly noisome story, the astounded doctor
+ultimately beheld the dying woman revive suddenly, and crawl to the end
+of the chamber, where there was an elaborate altar surmounted by a
+figure of Baphomet; the fakirs crowded round her; the ape, the bat, the
+snake, the cat, all appeared on the scene; a brilliant illumination was
+produced by means of eleven lamps suspended from the ceiling; the woman
+drew herself into an erect position; the fakirs piled resinous branches
+round her; amidst invocations, mysterious chants, and yells, she
+permitted herself to be burned to death, her body slowly blackening, her
+face turning scarlet in the flames, her eyes starting from her head,
+and so she passed into ashes.
+
+Why was the doctor privileged to be present at these proceedings?
+Because an agent of the fakirs had previously investigated his
+portmanteau on the hotel premises, and had discovered his Memphis
+insignia, which they returned to him in the mortuary chamber. As to the
+Baphomet, it is very fully described, and is identified with similar
+images of Masonic lodges in America, India, Paris, Rome, Shanghai, and
+Monte Video. The doctor says that it is the god of the occultists. The
+venerable Sata quoted Latin as intelligently as the ape spoke Tamil; he
+overwhelmed his benefactor with acknowledgments, and instead of a fee
+presented him with a winged lingam, by means of which he would be
+received among all worshippers of Lucifer in India, China,--in fact, as
+Sata said, _partout, partout_.
+
+So did Dr Bataille make his first acquaintance with practical occultism,
+and these things being done, he returned to his hotel and departed
+thankfully to bed.
+
+
+Sec. 4. _A House of Rottenness._
+
+Who would possess a lingam which was an _Open Sesame_ to devildom and
+not make use thereof? By effecting an exchange with another ship's
+doctor, the exploiter of Lucifer found himself presently at Pondicherry,
+with three months of comparative freedom before him to explore the
+mysteries of the oriental peninsula. Need I say that he had scarcely
+landed at the French seaboard town when he at once made acquaintance
+with the very person who of all others was most suitable to his scheme?
+This was Ramassamiponnotamly-pale-dobachi--quite a short name, he
+assures us, for the natives of this part. All Pondicherry more or less
+abounded in lingams and Lucifer, but as he carried his right hand
+clenched, the doctor at once suspected the half-naked Ramassam to be
+more than commonly devoted to the persuasion of perdition; nor was he
+mistaken, for the latter promptly inquired: "What is your age?" "Eleven
+years," said the doctor. "Whence do you come?" "From the eternal flame."
+"Whither do you go?" "To the flame eternal." And to their mutual
+satisfaction they agreed the sacred name of Baal-Zeboub, the doctor
+producing his winged lingam, at which the other fell down in the open
+streets and adored him. The exhibition of the patent of a Sovereign
+Grand Master _ad Vitam_ of the Rite of Memphis inspired further respect;
+it was evidently a document with which Ramassam had long been familiar;
+and he began to talk glibly of tyling. Like the horrors of Udolpho, the
+explanation was of course very simple: Mr John Campbell, an American,
+had instituted a lodge of the York Rite at Pondicherry which, in the
+most natural manner, admitted the Luciferian Fakirs as visitors, the
+Luciferian Fakirs admitted the members of the York Rite to their
+conventions, and they all bedevilled one another.
+
+It would be idle to suppose that F... Campbell was not at Pondicherry on
+business when the doctor chanced to arrive, and in the course of the
+afternoon the latter was taken by Ramassam to a house of ordinary
+appearance, into which they were admitted by another Indian, who, of
+course, like the guide, spoke good French. Through the greenery of a
+garden, the gloom of a well, and the entanglement of certain stairways,
+they entered a great dismantled temple devoted to the service of Brahma,
+under the unimpressive diminutive of Lucif. The infernal sanctuary had a
+statue of Baphomet, identical with that in Ceylon, and the
+ill-ventilated place reeked with horrible putrescence. Its noisome
+condition was mainly owing to the presence of various fakirs, who,
+though still alive, were in advanced stages of putrefaction. Most people
+are supposed to go easily and pleasantly to the devil, but these elected
+to do so by way of a charnel-house asceticism, and an elaborate system
+of self-torture. Some were suspended from the ceiling by a rope tied to
+their arms, some embedded in plaster, some stiffened in a circle, some
+permanently distorted into the shape of the letter S; some were head
+downwards, some in a cruciform position. It was really quite monstrous,
+says the doctor, but a native grand master explained, that they had
+postured for years in this manner, and one of them for a quarter of a
+century.
+
+Fr... John Campbell proceeded to harangue the assembly in ourdou-zaban,
+but the doctor comprehended completely, and reports the substance of his
+speech, which was violently anti-Catholic in its nature, and especially
+directed against missionaries. This finished, they proceeded to the
+evocation of Baal-Zeboub, at first by the Conjuration of the Four, but
+no fiend appeared. The operation was repeated ineffectually a second
+time, and John Campbell determined upon the Grand Rite, which began by
+each person spinning on his own axis, and in this manner
+circumambulating the temple in procession. Whenever they passed an
+embedded fakir, they obtained an incantation from his lips, but still
+Baal-Zeboub failed. Thereupon the native Grand Master suggested that the
+evocation should be performed by the holiest of all the fakirs, who was
+produced from a cupboard more fetid than the temple itself, and proved
+to be in the following condition:--(a) Face eaten by rats; (b) one
+bleeding eye hanging down by his mouth; (c) legs covered with gangrene,
+ulcers, and rottenness; (d) expression peaceful and happy.
+
+Entreated to call on Baal-Zeboub, each time he opened his mouth his eye
+fell into it; however, he continued the invocation, but no Baal-Zeboub
+manifested. A tripod of burning coals was next obtained, and a woman,
+summoned for this purpose, plunged her arm into the flames, inhaling
+with great delight the odour of her roasting flesh. Result, _nil_. Then
+a white goat was produced, placed upon the altar of Baphomet, set
+alight, hideously tortured, cut open, and its entrails torn out by the
+native Grand Master, who spread them on the steps, uttering abominable
+blasphemies against Adonai. This having also failed, great stones were
+raised from the floor, a nameless stench ascended, and a large
+consignment of living fakirs, eaten to the bone by worms and falling to
+pieces in every direction, were dragged out from among a number of
+skeletons, while serpents, giant spiders, and toads swarmed from all
+parts. The Grand Master seized one of the fakirs and cut his throat upon
+the altar, chanting the satanic liturgy amidst imprecations, curses, a
+chaos of voices, and the last agonies of the goat. The blood spirted
+forth upon the assistants, and the Grand Master sprinkled the Baphomet.
+A final howl of invocation resulted in complete failure, whereupon it
+was decided that Baal-Zeboub had business elsewhere. The doctor departed
+from the ceremony, fraternising with Campbell, and kept his bed for
+eight-and-forty hours.
+
+
+Sec. 5. _The seven Temples and a Sabbath in Sheol._
+
+It was in the month of October 1880 that, in the course of his
+enterprise, Doctor Bataille reached Calcutta. Freemasonry, he informs
+us, invariably affects the horrible, and as he invests Calcutta with the
+sombre hues of living death and universal putrefaction, it naturally
+follows that the Indian city is one of the four great directing centres
+of Universal Freemasonry. Everywhere the pious Doctor discovered the
+hand of Lucifer; everywhere he beheld the consequences of superstition
+and Satanism; cataclysms, floods, tornados, typhoons, plagues, cholera,
+representing the normal state of health and habit, and the consequences
+of universal persuasion in favour of the fiend. A corpse, he testifies,
+is met with at every step, the smoke of burning widows ascends to
+heaven, and the plain of Dappah, in immediate contiguity to the city, is
+a vast charnel-house where innumerable multitudes of dead bodies are
+flung naked to the vultures. The English Mason will at once recognise
+that of all places in the world Calcutta is most suited to be a Mecca of
+the Fraternity and the capital of English India. The Kadosch of the
+Scotch Rite, the Sublime Chosen Master of the Royal Arch, the Commander
+of the White and Black Eagle of the rite of Herodom, the perfectly
+initiated Grand Inspector of the Scotch Philosophical Rite, the Elect
+Brother of the Johannite Rite of Zinnendorf, and the Brother of the Red
+Cross of Swedenborg, a thousand other dignitaries of a thousand
+illuminations, gather in the Grand Masonic Temple, and, as the Doctor
+gravely tells us, are employed in cursing Catholicity. By a special
+conjunction of the planets, the Doctor, on reaching head-quarters, had
+immediate intelligence that the great Phileas Walder had himself
+recently arrived on a secret mission from Charleston. There also he made
+acquaintance with another luminary of devildom, by name Hobbs, who
+presided at the important proceedings which resulted in the damnation of
+Carbuccia. Brother Hobbs, possessed of much experience in Lucifer, gave
+many assurances concerning the incessant apparitions of The Master of
+Evil to all worthy persons. Now the Doctor, by virtue of his Misraim
+patent, was as much a priest for ever according to the Melchisedeck of
+Masonry, as if he had been born without father or mother, but at the
+moment he had not received the perfect initiation of the Palladium;
+technically, therefore, he had no right to participate in the Supreme
+Mysteries. However, it is needless to say that he had arrived in the
+nick of time to be present at a ceremony which takes place only once in
+ten years, provided that he was willing to undergo the trifle of a
+preliminary ordeal.
+
+On the same evening a select company of initiates proceeded in hired
+carriages through the desolation of Dappah, under the convoy of
+initiated coachmen, for the operation of a great satanic solemnity. At
+an easy distance from the city is the Sheol of the native Indians, and
+hard by the latter place there is a mountain 500 feet high and 2000
+long, on the summit of which seven temples are erected, communicating
+one with another by subterranean passages in the rock. The total absence
+of pagodas make it evident that these temples are devoted to the worship
+of Satan; they form a gigantic triangle superposed on the vast plateau,
+at the base of which the party descended from their conveyances, and
+were met by a native with an accommodating knowledge of French. Upon
+exchanging the Sign of Lucifer he conducted them to a hole in the rock,
+which gave upon a narrow passage guarded by a line of Sikhs with drawn
+swords, prepared to massacre anybody, and leading to the vestibule of
+the first temple, which was filled with a miscellaneous concourse of
+Adepts, from officers and tea-merchants even to tanners and dentists. In
+the first temple, which was provided with the inevitable statue of
+Baphomet, but was withal bare and meagrely illuminated, the doctor was
+destined to pass through his promised ordeal, for which he was stripped
+to the skin, placed in the centre of the assembly, and at a given signal
+one thousand odd venomous cobra de capellos were produced from holes in
+the wall and encouraged to fold him in their embraces, while the music
+of flute-playing fakirs alone intervened to prevent his instant death.
+He passed through this trying encounter with a valour which amazed
+himself, persisted in prolonging the ceremony, and otherwise proved
+himself a man of such extraordinary metal that he earned universal
+respect and received the most flattering testimonials even from Phileas
+Walder. That the serpents were undoubtedly venomous was afterwards
+proved upon the person of one of the natives present, who, delivered to
+their fury, fell, covered with apparently mortal bites, but was
+subsequently treated by native remedies and carried before the altar of
+Baphomet to be cured by the special intervention of the good God
+Lucifer. This ceremony was accomplished by the intervention of a lovely
+Indian Vestal, by the prayers of the Grand Master, a silk-mercer by
+commercial persuasion, and by the mock baptism of a serpent, after which
+the sufferer rose to his feet and the inconvenient venom spurted of
+itself out of his wounds. From the Sanctuary of the Serpents the company
+then proceeded, with becoming recollection, into the second temple or
+Sanctuary of the Phoenix.
+
+The second temple was brilliantly illuminated and ablaze with millions
+of precious stones wrested by the wicked English from innumerable
+conquered Rajahs; it had garlands of diamonds, festoons of rubies, vast
+images of solid silver, and a gigantic Phoenix in red gold more solid
+than the silver. There was an altar beneath the Phoenix, and a male and
+female ape were composed at the altar steps, while the Grand Master
+proceeded to the celebration of a black mass, which was followed by an
+amazing marriage of the two engaging animals, and the sacrifice of a
+lamb brought alive into the temple, bleating piteously, with nails
+driven through its feet. This was intended to symbolize an illuminated
+reprobation of celibacy and an approval of the married state, or its
+less expensive substitutes.
+
+The third temple was consecrated to the Mother of fallen women, who, in
+memory of the adventure of the apple, has a place in the calendar of
+Lucifer; the proceedings consisted of a dialogue between the Grand
+Master and the Vestal which the becoming modesty of the doctor prevents
+him from describing even in the Latin tongue.
+
+The fourth temple was a Rosicrucian Sanctuary, having an open sepulchre,
+from which blue flames continually emanated; there was a platform in the
+midst of the temple designed for the accommodation of more Indian
+Vestals, one of whom it was proposed should evaporate into thin air,
+after which a Fakir would be transformed before the whole company into a
+living mummy and be interred for a space of three years. These were
+among the events of the evening, and were accomplished with great
+success without much disturbing the mental equilibrium of the doctor,
+though he confessed to a certain impression when the Fakir introduced
+his performance by suspension in mid-air.
+
+The fifth temple was consecrated to the Pelican and was used by an
+English officer to deliver a short discourse on Masonic charity, which
+the doctor regarded as vulnerable from a moral point of view and
+suggestive of easy virtue.
+
+The sixth temple was that of the Future and was devoted to divinations,
+the oracles being given by a Vestal in a hypnotic condition, seated over
+a burning brazier. The doctor was accommodated with a test, but another
+inquirer who had the temerity to be curious as to what was being done in
+the Vatican received a severe rebuff; in vain did the spirit of the
+Clairvoyante strive to penetrate the "draughty and malarious" palace of
+the Roman Pontiff, and Phileas Walder, mortified and maddened, began to
+curse and to swear like the first Pope. The experiment disillusionized
+the assembly and they thoughtfully repaired to the seventh temple,
+which, being sacred to Fire, was equipped with a vast central furnace
+surmounted by a chimney and containing a gigantic figure of Baphomet;
+in spite of the intolerable heat pervading the entire chamber this idol
+contrived to preserve its outlines and to glow without pulverising. A
+ceremony of an impressive nature occurred in this apartment; a wild cat,
+which strayed in through an open window, was regarded as the appearance
+of a soul in transmigration, and, in spite of its piteous protests, was
+passed through the fire to Baal.
+
+And now the crowning function, the Magnum Opus of the mystery, must take
+place in the Sheol of Dappah; a long procession filed from the mountain
+temples to the charnel-house of the open plain; the night was dark, the
+moon had vanished in dismay, black clouds scudded across the heavens, a
+feverish rain fell slowly at intervals, and the ground was dimly lighted
+by the phosphorescence of the general putrefaction. The Adepts went
+stumbling over dead bodies, disturbing Rats and Vultures, and proceeded
+to the formation of the magic chain, which consisted in high-grade
+Masons, provided with silk hats, sitting down in a vast circle, every
+Adept embracing his particular corpse. The ceremony included the
+recitation of certain passages borrowed from popular grimoires, the
+object in view being the wholesale liberation of Spirits wandering in
+the immediate neighbourhood of their bodies. This closed the proceedings
+and the doctor confesses that the distractions of the evening occasioned
+him a disturbed sleep accompanied by nightmares.
+
+
+Sec. 6. _A Palladian Initiation._
+
+Before leaving Calcutta our adventurer purchased from Phileas Walder,
+for the sum of two hundred francs, the serviceable dignity of a
+Palladian Hierarch, "fortified with which he would be enabled to
+penetrate everywhere." Regarding all English possessions as peculiarly
+productive in the Dead Sea fruit of diabolism, Singapore was the next
+scene of his curious researches. The English as a nation are criminal,
+but Singapore is the yeast-house of British wickedness, where vice
+ferments continually; there man masonifies naturally and most Masons
+palladise. The doctor states plainly that one thing only has preserved
+the place from the doom of the cities of the plain, and that is the
+presence of certain good Christians, otherwise Catholics, in what he
+terms the accursed city. For himself he tarried only to witness the
+initiation of a Mistress-Templar according to the Palladian rite, which
+took place in a Presbyterian Chapel, the Presbyterian persuasion, as he
+tells us, being one of the broad roads leading to avowed Satanism. The
+password was appropriately the name of the first murderer, and the
+doctor was greeted to his great astonishment by an old acquaintance, an
+English pastor, whom he had frequently seen upon his own magnificent
+steam-boat, who also rejoiced in the nick-name of the Reverend Alcohol,
+being, like the majority of Englishmen, almost invariably drunk. The
+ceremony of initiation, which is described at great length in the
+narrative, is a variation from that of Leo Taxil; the doctor, in mercy
+to his readers, suppressing a part of the performance. Speaking
+generally, it was concerned, as we have previously seen, with an
+anti-Christian version of Gospel history and some commonplace outrages
+of the Eucharistic elements, during which proceedings our witness
+perspired freely. So, as he tells us, did one more Protestant pass over
+to the worship of Lucifer.
+
+The operations of the ritual were followed by a "divine solemnity,"
+which had something of the character of an ordinary spiritual seance,
+supposing it to have been held in a mad-house. I need only say that when
+the lights were turned up at the end, every article of furniture,
+including a large organ, was discovered hanging from the ceiling. As a
+final phenomenon, the Master of the Ceremonies detached his shadow from
+his substance, arranged it against the wall in the shape of a demon, and
+it responded to various questions by signs. There was a burst of loud
+applause, the proceedings terminated, and the Masonic Temple became once
+more a Presbyterian Chapel.
+
+
+Sec. 7. _The San-Ho-Hei._
+
+The doctor informs us that China is the gate of Hell, and that all its
+inhabitants are born damned; child-like and bland in appearance, the
+Chinaman is invariably by disposition a Satanist, having tastes wholly
+diabolical. As to the religion of Buddha, it is simply Satanism _a
+outrance_. Chinese occultism is centralised in the San-Ho-Hei, an
+association "parallel to high grade Masonry," having its head-quarters
+at Pekin, and welcoming all Freemasons who are affiliated to the
+Palladium. It does not, however, admit women, and has only one degree.
+Its chief occupation is to murder Catholic missionaries. When a
+Palladian Mason seeks admission for the first time to one of its
+assemblies, he betakes himself to the nearest opium den, carrying on his
+person the documents which prove his initiation; he places his umbrella
+head downwards on his left side, and stupefies himself with the divine
+drug. He is then quite sure that he will be transported in a comatose
+condition to the occult reunion. When the doctor reached Shanghai, he
+experienced some hesitation before he attempted an adventure so
+uncertain in its issue. He remembered, however, that he was possessed of
+a miraculous medal of St. Benedict, which he regarded as his trump
+card, a species of passport or return ticket, available at any date and
+by any line of Devildom. He determined to get drunk accordingly; but
+even as he entered Masonry with a becoming reservation of conscience, so
+he entered the drug-shop with a reservation as to the degree of his
+drunkenness, in spite of which he fell, however, into a deep sleep, and
+awoke in the assembly of The Secret Avengers, one of whom, to facilitate
+proceedings, had a good knowledge of English, and a perfect familiarity
+with all Charleston passwords. The Baphomet, of course, presided, but it
+appears that the Chinese have certain conscientious scruples on the
+subject of Goats, and hence a Dragon's head was substituted for that of
+the ordinary image. The doctor was not the only European present at the
+proceedings of the celestial assembly; but while he was the sole
+representative of his own nation, it goes without saying that there was
+a fair sprinkling of the abominable British.
+
+So complete is the unanimity which obtains between the initiates of
+China and Charleston that the bulk of the proceedings takes place in
+the English language; but for this disposition of Providence, the doctor
+would have been at a serious disadvantage. The first object of the
+company was to encompass the destruction of missionaries, and for this
+purpose a coffin was presently brought in, containing the skeleton of a
+deceased brother, who had so far diverged from duty that he had entered
+in league with the Jesuits, and had dared to act as a spy upon the
+august proceedings of the Sublime Society of Avengers. The first act may
+be regarded as somewhat bizarre in character; it consisted in evoking an
+evil spirit to animate the skeleton, and to answer certain questions.
+This was accomplished with absolute success. The bones of the departed
+brother had, however, been so consecrated by his Jesuitical proclivities
+that, even when animated by a devil, they discovered extreme reluctance
+in disclosing the number and quality of certain Franciscan zealots who
+had just started from Paris to convert the Empire. Ultimately, however,
+it was admitted that they were now on the high seas, which information
+given, the bony oracle could no longer contain its rage, but pursued an
+English Mason of the 33rd degree from end to end of the assembly, and
+succeeded in inflicting some furious bites and blows. The second act
+commenced by uncovering a species of exaggerated baptismal font, filled
+to the brim with water, and representing the great ocean over which the
+missionaries were passing. The assembly crowded round it, and by means
+of magic rods and other devices, succeeded in evoking a minute figure of
+a steam-ship containing the adventurers. Their magic also raised up a
+perfect tempest of wind in the closed apartment, but by no device could
+they effect the slightest disturbance upon the placid bosom of the
+water. The ceremony had, in fact, to be abandoned as a failure in its
+desired intention. Too well did the Spirit Yesu protect His
+missionaries. The assembly accordingly repaired into a second apartment.
+There the officiating dignitaries assumed the vestments of Catholic
+priests. They produced a wax figure, designed to represent a missionary,
+amused themselves with a mock trial, inflicted imaginary tortures, and
+returned the dummy to a cupboard, after which they proceeded to the
+crucifixion of a living pig. The third act was an agonising experience
+for the doctor, being nothing less than the sacrifice of one of the
+brethren, the selection being determined by lot. The doctor, in his
+quality of visitor, was, it is true, spared the chance of being himself
+the victim, but he nearly became executioner. One of the Chinese adepts
+having been chosen, to his intense satisfaction, and approved by some
+mechanical movements on the part of the dragon-headed Baphomet,
+permitted his limbs to be removed, and then earnestly invoked the
+assistance of the "Charleston brother" for the purpose of severing his
+head. It was an honour invariably accorded to the visitor of the highest
+grade. The doctor, who could not bring himself to the point, was saved
+at the last moment by the miraculous levitation of Phileas Walder from
+an immense distance, this occult personage having become transcendently
+cognisant of what was going forward in China, and being anxious to
+interrogate the severed head as to the possible recovery of his
+daughter, who was then seriously ill. In virtue of his superior dignity,
+he claimed the privilege of the execution, and the doctor modestly
+retired.
+
+Such were the adventures of our witness in the assembly of Holy
+Avengers. He enumerates at great length the evidence against
+hallucination as a result of his excess in opium, but I suggest to
+observing readers that there is a more obvious line of criticism.
+
+
+Sec. 8. _The Great City of Lucifer._
+
+It was in March of the year 1881 that Doctor Bataille proceeded for the
+first time to Charleston, to make acquaintance at head-quarters with the
+universal Masonry of Lucifer and its Pontiff Albert Pike. Charleston is
+the Venice of America, the Rome of Satan, and the great City of Lucifer.
+Always enormously prolix, and adoring the details which swell the flimsy
+issues of cheap periodical narratives, our witness describes at great
+length the city and its Masonic temple, with the temple which is within
+the temple and is consecrated to the good God. My second chapter has
+already provided the reader with sufficient information upon the persons
+alleged to be concerned in the foundation of Universal Freemasonry and
+in the elaboration of its cultus. Nor need I dwell at any length upon
+the personal communication which passed between Doctor Bataille, Albert
+Pike, Gallatin Mackey, Sophia Walder, Chambers, Webber, and the rest of
+the Charleston luminaries. Miss Walder explained to him the great hope
+of the Order concerning the speedy advent of anti-Christ, the abolition
+of the papacy, and the destruction of the Christian religion. She also
+related many of her private experiences with the infernal monarchy,
+being acquainted with the exact number of demons in the descending
+hierarchy, and with all their classes and legions. She confidently
+expected to be the great grandmother of anti-Christ, and in the meantime
+possessed the transcendental faculty of becoming fluidic at will. Mr
+Gallatin Mackey exhibited his _Arcula Mystica_, one of seven similar
+instruments existing at Charleston, Rome, Berlin, Washington, Monte
+Video, Naples, and Calcutta. To all appearance it resembled a
+liqueur-stand, but it was really a diabolical telephone worked like the
+Urimm and Thummimm, and enabling those who possessed it to communicate
+with each other, whatever the intervening distance. The Doctor, in his
+quality of initiate, was, of course, taken over the entire premises; he
+examined the head of the great templar Molay, deciding by his
+anthropological knowledge that the relic was not genuine, and that it
+was not the skull of a European. As to the templar Baphomet, situated in
+the Sanctum Regnum, and before which Lucifer is supposed to appear, it
+is sufficient to say that Doctor Bataille, who invariably treads
+cautiously where it is easy for other steps to follow him, has no
+personal testimony to furnish upon the subject of the apparition, and
+the relations of other persons do not concern us at the moment.
+
+
+Sec. 9. _Transcendental Toxicology._
+
+The memorials of Charleston are not entirely favourable to the true
+strength of our witness; it was requisite to "lie low" in America, but
+the Doctor bristles in Gibraltar; he is once more upon British soil.
+Does not the Englishman, consciously or otherwise, put a curse on
+everything he touches? Doctor Bataille affirms it; indeed this quality
+of malediction has been specially dispensed to the nation of heretics by
+God himself; so says Doctor Bataille. Since the British braggart began
+to embattle Gibraltar, having thieved it from Catholic Spain, a wind of
+desolation breathes over the whole country. An inscrutable providence,
+of which our witness is the mouthpiece, has elected to set apart this
+rock in order that the devil and the English, who, he says, are a pair,
+may continue their work of protestantising and filling the world with
+malefice. To sum the whole matter, the Britisher is an odious usurper
+"who has always got one eye open." Now, having regard to the fact that
+out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation a proportion to be
+numbered by millions is given over to devil-worship and Masonry, and
+that consequently there is an enormous demand for Baphomets and other
+idols, for innumerable instruments of black Magic, and for poisons to
+exterminate enemies, it is obviously needful that there should be a
+secret central department for the working of woods and metals and for
+Transcendental Toxicology. To Charleston the dogmatic directory, to
+Gibraltar the universal factory. But so colossal an output focussed at a
+single point could scarcely proceed unknown to Government at a given
+place, and any nation save England might object to this class of
+exports. The cause of Masonry and the devil being, however, dear to the
+English heart, it would, of course, pass unchallenged at Gibraltar, and
+at this point an anglo-phobe with a remnant of reason would have
+remained satisfied. Not so our French physician, who affirms that the
+exports in question do not merely escape inquisition at the hands of
+civil authority but are in fact a government industry.
+
+    "Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;
+     In the dimmest north-east distance dawned Gibraltar, grand and gray--
+     Here and here did England help me, how can I help England, say?"
+
+These are the words of Browning, and his question has well been
+answered by the institution of the secret workshops and the secret
+laboratory; as in most other cases England has helped herself, unless,
+indeed, it should occur to the doctor that the poet was a Satanist, like
+Pike, who himself was a poet, and had a chief finger in the pie.
+
+Now the great historic rock is tunnelled by innumerable caverns, which,
+our deponent witnesses, have never been explored by the tourist, and in
+the most impracticable portions of the great subterranean maze,
+whosoever has the audacity to penetrate will discover for himself the
+existence of the industrial department of diabolism, but he must not
+expect to come back unless he be a Sovereign Grand Master _ad vitam_,
+and an initiate of Lucifer. The doctor has explored these caverns, has
+seen the factory in full working order, has exhaustively described the
+way in, has returned from the gulf like Dante, and has given away the
+whole mystery. Possessed of his key to the labyrinth the wayfaring man
+shall not err therein, and it will, no doubt, be a new curiosity for the
+more daring among Cook's tourists. The workshops are supplied with
+mechanics by a simple expedient; hopeless specimens of English
+malefactors, condemned to penal servitude for the term of their natural
+life, are relegated to this region, a kind of grim humour characterising
+the selection. The most hideous convicts are chosen, and those most
+corresponding in outward appearance to the favourite devils of the
+hierarchy, under whose names they pass in the workshops, where they
+commonly communicate with each other in the language of Volapuk. The
+reason given is that this language has been adopted by the Spoeleic
+Rite, which I confess that I had not heard of previously, but I venture
+to think that the doctor has concealed the true reason, and that Volapuk
+has been thus chosen because it is a diabolical invention; a universal
+language prevailed previously to the confusion of Babel, and the new
+language is an irreligious attempt to produce _ordo ab chao_ by a return
+to unity of speech.
+
+The Toxicological Department is worked by a higher class of criminals,
+as for example, absconding trustees, who are there comfortably settled
+in life, enjoying many modern conveniences. It produces poisons which
+usually cause death by cerebral hemorrhage; but each has its special
+antidote, possessed of which the initiated poisoner can eat and drink
+with his victim; on this subject the doctor pursues, however, a policy
+of masterly reticence. But such, in brief, is the deep mystery of
+Gibraltar, such is the Toxicological department of universal
+Freemasonry.
+
+
+Sec. 10. _The Doctor and Diana._
+
+It would be impossible to follow the doctor through the entire course of
+his memoirs, not that they are wholly biographical, exclusively
+concerned with modern diabolism, or with the great conspiracy of Masons
+against God, Man, and the universe; one of his subsidiary and yet most
+important objects is to fill space, in which respect he has almost
+eclipsed the great classics of the penny dreadful in England. I must
+pass with a mere reference over his dealings in spiritualism; it is
+needless to say that in this branch of transcendental investigation he
+witnessed more astounding phenomena than falls commonly to the lot of
+even veteran students. His star prevailed everywhere, and the world
+unseen deployed its strongest forces. At Monte Video, for example,
+falling casually into a circle of spiritualists, he was seated,
+surrounded by a family of these unconscious and amateur diabolists,
+before an open window at night time; across the broad mouth of the river
+a great shaft of soft light from the lamp of the lighthouse opposite
+shone in mid-air, over the bosom of the water, and as it fell upon their
+faces he discerned, floating within the beam itself, the solid figure of
+a man. It was not the first time that the apparition, under similar
+circumstances, had been seen by the rest of the household, but for him
+it bore a message of deeper mystery than for these uninitiated
+spiritualists; although in man's clothes, his observant eye recognised
+the face of the spirit; terrible and suggestive truth, it was the face
+of the vestal Virgin, who, far off in Calcutta, had fluidified in the
+third temple, and he uttered a great cry! He has now decided to void
+the virginity of the vestal, and to assume that she was in reality a
+demon, and not a being of earth. At the same time, my readers must
+thoroughly understand that the doctor, when he meddles in spiritualism,
+is a man who is governed in his narratives by an intelligent faculty of
+criticism which borders on the purely sceptic; he delights in the
+display of instances where an element of trickery may be detected; no
+one better than himself can distinguish between bogus and bogey, and he
+takes pleasure in directing special attention to his extraordinary good
+judgment and sound common-sense in each and all these matters. Hence no
+one will be surprised to hear that at the house of a lady in London, an
+ordinary table, after a preliminary performance in tilting, transformed
+suddenly into a full-grown crocodile, and played touchingly on the
+piano, after which it again changed into a table, but the gin, the
+whisky, the pale ale, and the other intoxicants which are indispensable
+at seances in England, had been entirely consumed by the transcendental
+reptile to fortify him on his return journey to the mud-banks of the
+Nile. Nor has the spontaneous apparition been wanting to complete the
+experiences of Dr Bataille. He was seated in his cabin at midnight
+pondering over the theories formulated in natural history by Cuvier and
+Darwin, who diabolised the entire creation, when he was touched lightly
+on the shoulder, and discovered standing over him, in his picturesque
+Oriental costume, like another Mohini, the Arabian poisoner-in-chief of
+the Gibraltar Toxicological Department, who, after some honourable
+assurances that the Bible was not true, departed transcendentally as he
+came. This personage subsequently proved to be the demon Hermes. Even
+when he merely masonified, the doctor had unheard-of experiences in
+magic. For example, at Golden Square, in the west central district of
+this wicked city, an address which we have heard of before, at the
+conclusion of an ordinary Lodge meeting, there was an evocation of the
+demon Zaren, who appeared under the form of a monstrous three-headed
+dragon completely cased in steel, and, endeavouring to devour his
+evoker, was restrained by the magical pentagram, ultimately vanishing
+with the peculiar odour of Infernus.
+
+In connection with various marvels the doctor has much to tell us
+concerning two sisters in Lucifer who have long been at daggers drawn,
+and considering their supernatural attributes, it is incomprehensible in
+a high degree that they have not destroyed one another like the Magician
+and the Princess of a more credible narrative of wonders in the "Arabian
+Nights." Diana Vaughan, much heard and little seen, has since become
+famous by her conversion to the Catholic faith. Honoured with her
+acquaintance for a considerable period, the doctor invariably testifies
+the utmost respect for this wealthy, beautiful, and high-placed
+Palladian lady, so long protected by a demon, of the superior hierarchy,
+and enjoying what he somewhat obscurely terms an obsessional
+guardianship. On the 28th of February, 1884, at a theurgic seance of
+Templar Mistresses and Elect Magi of Louisville, the ceiling of the
+temple was riven suddenly, and Asmodeus, genius of Fire, descended to
+slow music, having in one hand a sword, and in the other the long tail
+of a lion. He informed the company that there had just been a great
+battle between the leaders of Lucifer and Adonai, and that it had been
+his personal felicity to lop the Lion's tail of St Mark; he directed the
+members of the eleven plus seven triangle to preserve the trophy
+carefully, and, that it might not be a lifeless relic, he had
+thoughtfully informed it with one of his minor devils until such time as
+he himself should intervene to mark his omnipotent favour towards a
+certain predestined virgin. The vestal in question was Diana of the
+Charlestonians, elect sister in Asmodeus, who at that time was not
+affiliated to Palladism. When the doctor subsequently drew her on the
+subject of this history, she replied, after the manner of the walrus,
+"Do you admire the view?" For himself, the good doctor dislikes the
+narrative, not because it does violence to possibility, but because it
+did violence to St Mark; there is evidently an incomplete dignity about
+a tailless evangelist. As to the tail itself, he has no personal doubt
+that it was the property of an ordinary lion, and that it has since
+become possessed of a devil.
+
+At the risk of offending Miss Vaughan, the doctor expatiates on her
+case, and learnedly demonstrates that her possession is of so
+uninterrupted a kind that it has become a second nature, and belongs to
+the 5th degree; however this may be, he establishes at great length one
+important point in her favour, which has occasioned all French Catholics
+to earnestly desire her conversion. I have stated already that the grade
+of Templar-Mistress is concerned partly with profanations of the
+Eucharist. For example, the aspirant to this initiation is required to
+drive a stiletto into the consecrated Host with a becoming expression of
+fury. When Miss Vaughan visited Paris in the year 1885, where Miss
+Walder had sometime previously established herself, she was invited to
+enter this grade, and accepted the offer. A seance for initiation was
+held accordingly, but Miss Vaughan would have none of profanation, and
+refused blankly to stultify her liberal intelligence by the stabbing of
+a wheaten wafer. She did not believe in the Real Presence, and she did
+not wish to be childish. A great sensation followed; her initiation was
+postponed; appeal was made to Charleston; and the formality was
+dispensed with in her case by the intervention, as it was supposed at
+the moment, of Albert Pike's authority, even as her Father's
+intervention had excused her beforehand from another ordeal which could
+not be suffered with propriety. This episode implanted in the breast of
+Sophia Walder an extreme form of Palladian hatred for the Diana of
+Philalethes. Now, Sophia was in high favour with all the hosts of
+perdition, yet her rancorous relations with her sister Adept did not
+make Diana less a _persona grata_ to the peculiar intelligence which
+governs the descending hierarchy. In the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky the
+Palladian Magi and the Mistress Templars decided one day to have a
+little experiment with the Undines, so they shouldered their magical
+instruments; but the eager elementaries, habiting the dark abysses, did
+not wait to be evoked; the water bubbled in the Lake, the roof was
+constellated with stars, and who should appear but Asmodeus, on the bank
+opposite, in all his infernal glory! With open arms he loudly called on
+Diana, and that lady, suddenly transfigured, walked calmly over the
+water, and kissed the feet of her demon, who incontinently vanished.
+Inspired by a sense of deficiency, the doctor says that the visit to the
+Mammoth Cave terminated without any further incident. He was not an
+ocular witness of what he relates in this instance, but he received it
+from the lips of Diana, and the lips of Diana, in the opinion of all
+honourable men, would be preferable to the eyes of the doctor.
+
+But the doctor had the testimony of his eyes upon another occasion; it
+is known that Miss Vaughan's celebrity began with her hostility to the
+Italian Grand Master, Adriano Lemmi. When the seat of the Sovereign
+Pontificate, as deponents testify, was removed from Charleston, the
+great city of Lucifer, even unto the Eternal City, and many adepts
+demissioned, there was a doubt in the rebel camp as to the continued
+protection of Lucifer. If Diabolus had gone over to Lemmi, they were
+indeed bereft. Miss Vaughan, however, remained calm and sanguine:--"I am
+certain of the celestial protection of the Genii of Light," said Diana,
+and, producing her talisman, she bent her right knee to the ground,
+turned a complete somersault without falling, flung her tambourine into
+the air, which descended gently and remained suspended a yard from the
+ground, while she herself, passing into a condition of ecstasy, also
+rose into the air in a recumbent posture. She remained in this state for
+the space of fifteen minutes, the silence being only broken by the
+distant rumbling of thunder. Many of the spectators could not believe
+their eyes. At length very gently her body assumed a vertical position,
+head downwards, but as a concession to polite feeling the remaining laws
+of gravity were suspended, like herself, and her skirts were not
+correspondingly inverted. Slowly the ecstatic lady continued to
+circulate, the assembly stood at gaze "like Joshua's moon in Ajalon,"
+and presently she was in the vertical position of a swimmer, the
+phenomenon concluding by her restoration to _terra firma_. This wonder
+was accomplished by the magic power of a diabolical Rose which the lady
+carried in her bodice.
+
+On yet another occasion the doctor witnessed the prodigy of the
+bilocation of Diana by the assistance of a simple magical process, when
+to his most certain knowledge she was hundreds of leagues away; but the
+recitations of Doctor Bataille have reduced bilocation to a banality,
+and a mere reference will suffice.
+
+A monograph of Miss Vaughan's miracles would, however, be incomplete if
+it failed to exhibit her in her capacity as a breaker of spells;
+whatsoever has been bound by devildom can be loosed by Diana. At the
+height of the commotion occasioned by her persistent refusal to
+participate in sham sacrilege, there was one member of the Paris
+Triangle who manifested peculiar acrimony in demanding the expulsion of
+a delinquent who had dared to impeach the ritual. As a punishment for
+his own presumption, and in the presence of the assembled adepts, his
+head was suddenly reversed by an unseen power, and for the space of one
+and twenty days he was obliged to review the situation face backwards.
+This severe judgment dismayed all present; Miss Walder had recourse to
+an evocation and discovered that it had been inflicted by Asmodeus, the
+protector of her rival, who furthermore would not scruple to visit with
+violent disaster any person who discovered an evil design against so
+elect a sister as Diana. If the present culprit desired to be set free
+from his grotesque position, he must humbly have recourse to her. Miss
+Vaughan was in America at the moment, but she generously came to his
+rescue as soon as steam could carry her, and restored him his lost front
+view by a jocose imposition of hands. I should add that on the very day
+when this misadventure took place at Paris, Miss Vaughan was defending
+her standpoint in person before the Triangle of Louisville; opinion was
+divided about her, and the result appeared uncertain, when the demoniac
+tail of St Mark, evacuating the minor devil, who had hired it on a
+repairing lease, accepted Asmodeus as a tenant, and violently
+circumambulating the apartment belaboured all those whose voices had
+been raised against his Vestal. Finally the tassel of the tail turned
+into the head of the demon and vowed his devotion to Diana so long as
+she remained unmarried; did she dare, however, to desert him for an
+earthly consort, he was commander of fourteen legions, and he would
+strangle the man of clay.
+
+It would be unkind to Miss Sophia Walder if I let it be supposed for a
+moment that the palm of prestige is borne away by her rival. I have
+already noted that this lady occasionally fluidifies to the satisfaction
+of a select audience, but, like the materialising medium, she finds it a
+depleting performance which usually confines her to her room, and her
+price, therefore, is five thousand francs. She is first Sovereign in
+Bitru, and is defined by the doctor to be in a state of latent
+possession, having a semi-diabolical nature and the gift of
+substitution. It was possibly at Milan that he witnessed the most
+persuasive test of her occult powers. She took him confidentially apart
+and explained to him that she had been in a condition of "penetration"
+for about three hours. "At dinner the food of which I partake becomes
+volatile in my mouth; wine evaporates invisibly the moment it makes
+contact with my lips; I eat and drink in appearance, but my teeth
+masticate the air." Now this was due, not to the voracity of Bitru, but
+to the keen appetite of Baal-Zeboub; the magnetic lady did not, however,
+explain this point after the common method of speech; she fixed her
+blazing orbs upon the doctor, and he saw flames everywhere; a moment
+more and her feet were free from earth; she stretched out her left hand,
+and on the open palm he beheld the successive apparitions in characters
+of flame of the ten letters which constitute the great name. With a
+touch of internal collapse he commended himself to the Virgin Mary, the
+ecstatic paroxysm passed, and they wandered down another lane, for they
+were in the midst of leafy umbrage. Presently a tree gracefully arranged
+a portion of its branches in the form of a fan, and bowed with profound
+reverence. Still more fantastic, a paralysed branch produced a living
+human hand, which in the accompanying engraving is ornamented with an
+immaculate cuff, and that hand presented a bouquet to Sophia. By reason
+of these matters the doctor became pensive.
+
+A Palladian seance followed. The litany of Lucifer was chanted, and the
+prodigy of "substitution" was effected. The ceremony took place in a
+grotto with a stalactite roof; Miss Walder produced from a basket the
+serpent which was an inseparable companion of all her travels; it
+immediately genuflected in front of her, swarmed the wall, and assumed a
+pendant position attached to one of the stalactites. It was a reptile of
+no ordinary kind, for it began to develop an interminable length of
+coils till it had spread itself circlewise over the entire ceiling, and
+its head was joined to its tail. The doctor says that he was now
+prepared for anything. The serpent gave forth seven horrible hisses, and
+in the dim light, for the torches which illuminated the place were
+successively giving out of themselves, each person became conscious of
+an unseen entity blowing with burning breath in their faces. When at
+length there was complete darkness, Sophia herself became radiant, and
+brilliantly illuminated the grotto with an intense white light; five
+enormous hands could then be seen floating in space, also intensely
+luminous, but emitting a green lustre; each hand went wandering in
+search of its prey, ultimately seizing a brother, whom it drew
+irresistibly forward in the direction of Sophia. Moved by a mysterious
+influence, two of them grasped her arms, two clutched her by the
+shoulders, one placed his hand on her head. The serpent again hissed
+seven significant times, and in place of the solid Sophia the third
+Alexander of Macedon was substituted in phantom guise. When he faded
+Sophia reappeared and continued going and coming with a phantom between
+each of her appearances, so that she was in turn replaced by Luther,
+Cleopatra, Robespierre, and others, concluding with the Italian patriot
+Garibaldi, who eclipsed all the others, for his bust was converted into
+a bronze urn from which red flames burst forth. The flames took a human
+form, and gave back Sophia to the assembly.
+
+Such is the gift of substitution, which follows penetration, and such is
+the substance of the memoirs of M. Bataille, ship's doctor, who, in the
+year 1880, undertook to exploit Freemasonry and has come forth unsinged
+from Diabolism. There is one maxim of the Psalmist which the experience
+of most transcendentalists has taught them to lay to heart, and to
+repeat without the qualifications of David when certain aspects of
+supernatural narrative are introduced--_Omnis homo mendax!_ But lest I
+should appear to be discourteous, I should like to add a brief dictum
+from the Magus Eliphas Levi. "The wise man cannot lie," because nature
+accommodates herself to his statement. In a polite investigation like
+the present, there is, therefore, no question whether Doctor Bataille is
+defined by the term _mendax_, which is forbidden to literary elegance;
+it is simply a question whether he is a wise man, or whether nature
+blundered and did not conform to his statement.
+
+The credibility, in whole or in part, of Dr Bataille's narrative will
+involve some extended criticism, and I purpose to postpone it till the
+remaining witnesses have been examined. We shall then be in a position
+to appreciate how far later revelations support his statements. Setting
+aside the miraculous element, which is tolerably separate from what
+most concerns our inquiry, namely, the existence of Palladian Masonry
+attached to the cultus of Lucifer, it may be stated that the most sober
+part of Dr Bataille's memoirs is the account of his visit to Charleston;
+here the miraculous element is entirely absent. He confirms by alleged
+personal investigations the existence of the New and Reformed Palladium;
+he is the first witness who distinguishes clearly between the Luciferian
+Order and the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite of
+Charleston. That distinction is made, however, at one expense; it
+assumes that the Supreme Council preserved the Baphomet idol as well as
+the reputed skull of Molay for nearly seventy years, and then
+surrendered it to another order with which it had no official
+acquaintance. Under what circumstances and why did it do that? The
+Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite is connected by its legend with the
+Templars, and for the Charleston Supreme Council to part with the
+trophies of the tradition seems no less unlikely than for a regiment to
+surrender its colours.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+DEALINGS WITH DIANA
+
+
+The philosophy of Horatius is supposed to represent incompletely the
+content of heaven and earth, but neither earth nor heaven, as at present
+constituted, would be capable of enclosing the entire content of Dr
+Bataille's memoirs. Miss Diana Vaughan, with whose history we are next
+concerned, comes before us under a different aspect. I have failed to
+ascertain under what circumstances she first became known in France. _Le
+Diable au XIX^e Siecle_ may have constituted her earliest introduction;
+she was certainly unknown to Leo Taxil when he published the Palladian
+rituals, or she would not have escaped mention in the account he there
+gives of Miss Sophia Walder. However this may be, we have made her
+acquaintance in the course of the previous chapter, but I am constrained
+to state that she has, up to the present, shown herself exceedingly
+circumspect in substantiating the evidence of her precursor.
+
+The whole world is aware, and I need not again repeat, that Miss Diana
+Vaughan was converted to the Catholic Church some time after Dr Bataille
+completed his astounding narrative. A Palladist of perfect initiation,
+comprehending the mysteries of the number 77, and doing reverence to the
+higher mystery of 666, Grand Mistress of the Temple, Grand Inspectress
+of the Palladium, and according to him who, in a sense, has prepared her
+way and made straight her paths, a sorceress and thaumaturge before
+whose daily performances the Black Sabbath turns white, Miss Vaughan
+quarrelled, as we have seen, with a sister initiate, Sophia Walder, and
+conceived for the Italian Grand Master, Adriano Lemmi, the charity of
+the evil angels, which is hatred. When the Supreme Dogmatic Directory of
+Universal Freemasonry was removed from Charleston to Rome and the
+pontificate passed over to Lemmi, as the revelations allege, Miss
+Vaughan closed her connection with the Triangles, carrying her colours
+to a vessel equipped by herself, and founded a new society under the
+title of the Free and Regenerated Palladium, incorporating the
+Anti-Lemmist groups, and soon after began a public propaganda by the
+issue of a monthly review, devoted to the elucidation of the doctrines
+of the Lucifer cultus and to the exposure of the Italian Grand Master.
+To hoist the black flag of diabolism, as Miss Vaughan would now term it,
+thus in the open day, naturally elicited a strong protestation from the
+Palladist Federation, so that she was in embroilment not only with Lemmi
+but also with the source of the initiation which she still appeared to
+prize. At the same time she exhibited no indications of going over to
+the cause of the Adonaites. Becoming known to the Anti-Masonic centres
+of the Roman Catholic Church only through her hostility to Lemmi, she
+was always a _persona grata_ whose conversion was ardently desired, but
+on several public occasions she advised them that their cause and hers
+were in radical opposition, and that, in fact, she would have none of
+them, being outside any need of their support, sympathy, or interest.
+She would cleave to the good God Lucifer, and she aspired to be the
+bride of Asmodeus. At length the long-suffering editor of the _Revue
+Mensuelle_, weary of his refractory protege, would also have none of
+her, though he surrendered her with evident regret to be dealt with by
+the prayers of the faithful. One month after, M. Leo Taxil, through the
+medium of the same organ, announced the conversion of Miss Vaughan, and
+in less than another month, namely, in July, 1895, she began the
+publication of her "Memoirs of an ex-Palladist," which are still in
+progress, so that, limitations of space apart, my account of this lady
+will be unavoidably incomplete.
+
+Her memoirs are, unfortunately, not a literary performance; and their
+method, if such it can be called, is not chronological. Beginning with
+an account of her first introduction to Lucifer, _vis-a-vis_ in the
+_Sanctum Regnum_ of Charleston, on April 8th 1889, they leap, in the
+second chapter, over all the years intervening to a minute analysis of
+the sentiments which led to her conversion, and of the raptures which
+followed it, above all on the occasion of her first communion. It is not
+till the third chapter that we get an account of her Luciferian
+education, or, more correctly, an introduction thereto, for the better
+part of five monthly numbers has not brought us nearer to her
+personality than the history of an ancestor in the seventeenth century.
+As the publisher is still soliciting annual subscriptions to the
+enterprise, and offering a variety of advantages after methods not
+unknown in England among the by-ways of periodical literature, the
+completion of the work is probably a distant satisfaction for those who
+take interest therein.
+
+Now, having regard to the narrative of Dr Bataille, and having regard to
+the statements set forth in my second chapter, it is obvious that Miss
+Vaughan is a witness of the first importance as to whether there is a
+Masonry behind Masonry, which, more or less, manages, or attempts to
+manage, the entire society, unknown to the rank and file of its
+initiates, however high in grade; as to whether its seat is at
+Charleston, with Albert Pike for its founder, and as to whether its
+doctrine is anti-Christian, and its cultus that of Lucifer, supported by
+magical wonders, concerned with sacrilegious observances, and either a
+disguised Satanism, or drifting in that direction. As already hinted,
+the mythical and miraculous element,--in a word, that portion of Doctor
+Bataille's narrative which does violence to sense and reason,--Miss
+Vaughan has not at present imperilled her position by substantiating,
+but as to the points I have enumerated, she has most distinctly come
+forth out of Palladism to tell us that these things are so, and to
+reinforce what was previously stated by unveiling her private life.
+
+It is therefore my duty and desire to do her full justice, and with this
+purpose in view, I propose to recite briefly the chief heads of her
+memoir, so far as it has been published up to date. I must, however,
+premise at the beginning that she does not come before us with one trace
+of the uncertainty of accent which might have been expected to
+characterise the newly-acquired language, not merely of Christian
+faith, but of its Roman dialect. We find her speaking at once, and to
+the manner born. Could anything, by possibility, be narrower than
+certain perished sections of evangelical religion in England, it would
+be certain sections of ultramontane religion in France; but Miss Vaughan
+has acquired all the terminology of the latter, all the intellectual
+bitterness, all the fatuities, as one might say, in the space of five
+minutes. When she has wearied of her memoirs at the moment, or has
+reached, after the manner of the novelist, some crucial point in her
+narrative, she breaks off abruptly, brackets _a suivre_, and proceeds to
+an account of the latest wonder-working image, or a diatribe against
+spirit manifestations in the typical manner of the French clerical
+press. To be brief, Miss Vaughan has adopted, body and soul, precisely
+those abuses which Catholics of intelligence earnestly desire to see
+expunged from their great religion. She has probably never heard of the
+Forged Decretals, but she would defend their authenticity if she had;
+she has probably never heard of the corrupted, or any version of the
+Epistles of St Ignatius, but she would accept the corruptions bodily
+upon the smallest hint that they savoured better with the hierarchy, and
+she would do all this apparently in good faith on the authority of a
+purblind party within the Church, which exists to keep open its wounds.
+Now, I submit that a _volte face_ is possible, especially in religious
+opinions, but that a pronounced habit of religious thought cannot be
+acquired in a day, so that, in the history of Miss Vaughan's conversion,
+there is more than can be discerned on the surface. The precise nature
+of the element which eludes must be left to the judgment of my readers,
+but, personally, I reserve my own, out of fairness to an unfinished
+deposition.
+
+There is a generic difference between Doctor Bataille and Miss Vaughan.
+He is an ordinary human being, and if we may trust the many pictures
+which represent him in his narrative, exceedingly unpretending at that.
+We have also some portraits of Miss Vaughan, who is aggressive and good
+to look at; but this is not the generic distinction. Doctor Bataille,
+poor man, is the scion of an ordinary ancestry within the narrow limits
+of flesh and blood. Miss Vaughan, on the contrary--I hope my readers
+will bear with me--has been taught from her childhood to believe that
+she was of the blood royal of the descending hierarchy, and I cannot
+gather from her vague mode of expression whether she has altogether
+rejected the legend of her descent, which is otherwise sufficiently
+startling.
+
+The position of authority and influence occupied by Miss Vaughan in what
+she terms high Masonry is to be explained, as she modestly informs us,
+not by her personal qualities, but by a traditional secret concerning
+her family, which is known only to the Elect Magi. Miss Vaughan and her
+paternal uncle are the last descendants of the alchemist Thomas Vaughan,
+whom she terms a Rosicrucian, and identifies with Eirenaeus Philalethes,
+author of "The Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King." On the
+25th of March 1645, she tells us, on the authority of her family
+history, Thomas Vaughan, having previously obtained from Cromwell the
+privilege of beheading the "noble martyr" Laud, Archbishop of
+Canterbury--the title to nobility, in her opinion, seems to rest in the
+probability of his secret connection with Rome--steeped a linen cloth in
+his blood, burnt the said cloth in sacrifice to Satan, who appeared in
+response to an evocation, and with whom he concluded a pact, receiving
+the philosophical stone, and a guaranteed period of life extending over
+thirty-three years from that date, after which he was to be transported
+without dying into the eternal kingdom of Lucifer, to live with a
+glorified body in the pure flames of the heaven of fire.
+
+After this compact, he wrote the "Open Entrance," the original MS. of
+which, together with its autograph Luciferian interpretation on the
+broad margins, is a precious heirloom in the family. Some two years
+later, in the course of his travels, he reached New England, where he
+dwelt for a month among the Lenni-Lennaps, and there in an open desert,
+on a clear night of summer, while the moon was shining in splendour, he
+was wandering in solitary meditation when the luminary in question,
+which was in the crescent phase, came down out of heaven, and proved to
+be an arched bed, very luminous and wonderful, containing a vision of
+sleeping female beauty. This was the nuptial couch of Thomas Vaughan and
+its occupant was Venus-Astarte, surrounded by a host of flower-bearing
+child-spirits, who conveniently provided a tent, and provided also
+delicious meals during a period of eleven days. Several curious
+particulars differentiated these Hermetic nuptials, undreamed of by
+Christian Rosencreutz, from those which govern more ordinary proceedings
+below the latitude of the Lenni-Lennaps. In the first place, goddess
+succubus, Astarte provided the ring, which was of red gold enriched with
+a diamond, and placed it on the finger of her lover; in the second
+place, transcendental gestation, celestial or otherwise, fulfils the
+mystery of generation with exceeding despatch, for Astarte was delivered
+of an infant on the eleventh day independently of medical assistance,
+whereupon she demanded the return of the nuptial ring, and vanished with
+tent and sprites astride of the crescent couch. The fruit of their union
+was left in the arms of Thomas, who was directed to trample on all
+sentiments of paternal affection, and to deliver the child into the
+charge of a tribe of fire-worshipping Indians. He does not appear to
+have sued for the restitution of conjugal rights, and cheerfully
+surrendered the human hybrid to a family of Lenni-Lennaps, together with
+his medallion portrait drawn by an artist from devildom, so that the
+daughter might recognise her father after the method which obtains among
+novelists. Thomas Vaughan placed the broad ocean between himself and the
+scene of his marriage, and he never re-visited his daughter, who, in
+spite of her miraculous origin, does not appear to have distinguished
+herself in any way, at least up to the point at present reached by the
+history.
+
+Miss Vaughan says that all the Elect Magi do not accept this legend of
+the blood royal, and she admits her own doubts subsequent to her
+conversion. As an article of intellectual faith I should prefer the
+birth-story of Gargantua, but it satisfied Miss Vaughan till the age of
+thirty years, and her father and grandfather before her, even supposing
+that it was _fabriquee par mon bisaieul James, de Boston_, as hazarded
+by elect Magi whom a remnant of reason hinders.
+
+The "Memoirs of an Ex-Palladist" have not at present proceeded further
+than the translation of Thomas Vaughan into the paradise of Lucifer, but
+from the "Free and Regenerated Palladium" and from other sources the
+chief incidents of Miss Vaughan's early life may be collected and
+summarised briefly. We learn that she is the daughter of an American
+Protestant of Kentucky and of a French lady, also of that persuasion.
+She was born in Paris, and a part of her education seems to have been
+received in that city; her mother died in Kentucky when Diana was in her
+fourteenth year, and I infer that subsequently to this event she must
+have lived with her father, who had considerable property in the
+immediate vicinity of Louisville. When the Sovereign Rite of Palladism
+was created by Albert Pike, Vaughan became affiliated therewith, and was
+one of the founders of the Louisville triangle 11 + 7; he presided at
+the initiation of his daughter as apprentice, according to the Rite of
+Adoption, in 1883. She was raised to the grade of Companion, and
+subsequently to that of Mistress, and at the age of 20 years, says Dr
+Bataille, she crossed the threshold of the Triangles, as the Palladian
+lodges are termed.
+
+Three issues were published of "The Free and Regenerated Palladium," but
+since the conversion of Miss Vaughan, they have been withdrawn from
+circulation, except among ecclesiastics of the Roman Church, and up to
+the present I have failed to obtain copies. For the autobiographical
+portions of this organ, I am indebted to the notices which have appeared
+in the _Revue Mensuelle_. They contain an account of two apparitions on
+the part of the demon Asmodeus, accompanied by phenomena of levitation
+and fortified by arguments against the theory of hallucination. These
+early experiences are, however, of minor importance, nor need I again
+refer to the sensational incidents which accompanied her initiation as
+Templar-Mistress at the Paris Triangle of Saint-Jacques; but it appears
+from her memoirs that the intervention of Albert Pike was not in virtue
+of the supremacy of his personal authority, and that the ordeal of
+sacrilege was spared her by the clemency of Lucifer himself, who is
+supposed to appear in person at the Sanctum Regnum of Charleston and to
+instruct his chiefs, _Deo volente_ or otherwise, every Friday, the
+supreme dogmatic director, who had made his home in Washington, having
+the gift of "instantaneous transportation," whensoever he thought fit to
+be present in the "divine" board-room.
+
+On the 5th of April 1889, the "good God" assembled his Ancients and
+Emerites for a friendly conversation upon the "case" of Diana Vaughan,
+and ended by requesting an introduction in three days' time. After the
+best manner of the grimoires, Miss Vaughan began her preparations by a
+triduum, taking one meal daily of black bread, fritters of high-spiced
+blood, a salad of milky herbs, and the drink of rare old Rabelais. The
+preparations in detail are scarcely worth recording as they merely vary
+the directions in the popular chap-books of magic which abound in
+foolish France. At the appointed time she passed through the iron doors
+of the Sanctum Regnum. "Fear not!" said Albert Pike, and she advanced
+_remplie d'une ardente allegresse_, was greeted by the eleven prime
+chiefs, who presently retired, possibly for prayer or refreshments,
+possibly for operations in wire-pulling. Diana Vaughan remained alone,
+in the presence of the Palladium, namely, our poor old friend Baphomet,
+whom his admirers persist in representing with a goat's head, whereas he
+is the archetype of the ass.
+
+The Sanctum Regnum is described as triangular in shape; there was no
+torch, no lamp, no fire; the floor and the ceiling were therefore not
+unnaturally dark, but an inexplicable veil of strange phosphorescent
+light was diffused over the three walls, the source of which proved on
+examination to be innumerable particles of greenish flames each no
+larger than a pin's head. Seated in front of the Baphomet, Miss Vaughan
+apostrophised Lucifer sympathetically on the subject of the unpleasing
+form in which he was represented by his worshippers, and as she did so
+the little flames intensified, while floor and ceiling caught fire after
+the same ghostly incandescent fashion; a great dry heat filled the vast
+apartment, and, still spreading, the flames covered her chair, her
+garments, her entire person. At this point the inevitable thunder began
+to roll; three and one and two great thunders, after which came five
+breathings upon her face, and after those breathings five radiant
+spirits appeared, the first act closing impressively with a final salvo
+of artillery.
+
+The unhappy Baphomet, dismayed by these extreme proceedings, vanished
+entirely, and, no expense being spared through the whole of the costly
+tableaux, Lucifer manifested on a throne of diamonds, but whether the
+gems were furnished from the treasury of Avernus or from the pockets of
+bamboozled Freemasons through the wide world, _les renseignements_ do
+not state. Need I say that Miss Vaughan's first impulse was to fall in
+worship at his feet? But the sordid apparition, instead of accepting the
+homage with the grace which is native to empire, had recourse to the
+method of the novelist, and stayed her intention by a gesture. Even at
+this late date, and with the millstone of her conversion placed in the
+opposite scale, Miss Vaughan's description of her quondam deity would
+tempt sentimental young women to forgive all his devildom to a being so
+"superb" in "masculine beauty." I will refrain from spoiling the picture
+by much of her own minuteness, or by the exclamatory parentheses of her
+fury against the magnificent gentleman who deceived her. I should like
+also to omit all reference to the conversation which ensued between
+them, but for the sake of true art I am constrained to state that
+Lucifer descended to commonplace. M. Renan tells us that since he left
+Saint Sulpice he did nothing but degenerate, and the inference is
+obvious, that he ought to have gone back to Saint Sulpice, despite the
+literary splendours of the _Vie de Jesus_. Since he last broke a lance
+with Michael, the devil has debilitated mentally, and the substance of
+his _causerie_ with Diana reminds one of Robert Montgomery and even
+worse exemplars. In the unexplored regions of penny periodical romance I
+have met with many better specimens of supernatural dialogue. As to the
+sum of his observations, it goes without saying that Diana was chosen
+out of thousands, and this is what justifies my opinion that his
+proceedings on this occasion were more fatuous than any of his
+undertakings since he tried conclusions with divinity.
+
+Very silently during the course of this interview the eleven prime
+chiefs had returned like conspirators as they were, of course in the
+nick of time, to hear that Miss Vaughan was appointed as the
+grand-priestess of Lucifer, at which moment there was a fresh burst of
+circumambient flame and the young lady was transported by her divinity
+to take part in a grand spectacular drama, divided into two acts.--I.
+Appearance of Asmodeus with fourteen legions. Exchange of endearing
+expressions between this personage and Diana. Manifestation of the
+signature of Baal-Zeboub, generalissimo of the armies of Lucifer,
+written in fire upon the void. Spiritualisation of the sweetheart of
+Asmodeus. Diana hungers for the fray. Great pitched battle between the
+genii of Lucifer and the genii of Adonai, termed Maleakhs, without the
+gates of Eden. The Terrestrial Paradise carried by storm after severe
+fighting. Grand panorama of Paradise. Explanatory dialogue between Diana
+and her future husband. Appearance of a snow white gigantic eagle on
+which Diana is to be transported to Oolis, "a solar world unknown to the
+profane, wherein Lucifer reigns and is adored." II. Miss Vaughan having
+been transported on another occasion to this mystic planet in the arms
+of Lucifer himself, the episodes of the second act are held over. She
+was, however, ultimately returned, safe and sound, to the Sanctum Regnum
+at Charleston, on the back of the white eagle.
+
+Such is Miss Vaughan's statement, and once more she proceeds to give
+reasons why she could not have been hypnotised or hallucinated. As in
+the case of Doctor Bataille I propose to postpone criticism until other
+witnesses have filed their depositions. At the moment it is sufficient
+to recognise that, apart from the supernatural element which admits of a
+simple explanation, if Miss Vaughan be a credible witness, then the
+central fact of the New and Reformed Palladium must be admitted with all
+it involves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+HOW LUCIFER IS UNMASKED.
+
+
+M. le Docteur Bataille is a mighty hunter before the face of the Lord in
+the land of Masonry, and through the whole country of Hiram; great also
+is Diana of the Palladians. After their monumental revelations and
+confessions, those of all other seceders and penitents who have come out
+of the mystery of iniquity, "are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as
+water unto wine." My readers in the two previous chapters have drunk raw
+spirit, and must now qualify it after the Scotch fashion. The aqueous
+intellectuality and quiet stream of unpretending deposition peculiar to
+M. Jean Kostka, will be well adapted to modify undue exaltations and
+restore order to a universe which has been intoxicated by sorcerers. He
+will show us how Lucifer is unmasked in an undemonstrative and
+gentlemanly fashion by a late Gnostic and initiate of the 33rd degree.
+He writes, as he frankly tells us, in a spirit of reparation and
+gratitude, having commerced freely with devils during a long series of
+unholy years. "Blessed be the omnipotent Lord, and blessed the loving
+kindness which drew me out of the abyss.... To glorify these I unmask
+the fallen angel." The delicacy of the motive and its setting of
+chivalrous sentiment will be appreciated even by the victim, and the
+tenderness of the treatment will prompt Lucifer to pardon his reviler,
+who has been already pardoned by M. Papus for betraying the order of the
+Martinists. And to do justice towards an amiable writer, who has
+scarcely the requisite qualities for seriously damaging or advancing any
+cause, it may be kind to add that he has considerably exaggerated his
+own case. After a careful examination of his statement, which is
+exceedingly naive, I am tempted to conclude that he has never been near
+an abyss; he is innocent of either height or depth, and so far from
+having ever plunged into the infernal void, he has scarcely so much as
+paddled in a purgatorial puddle. His guilty transcendental experiences
+are in reality the most infantile afternoon occultism, and his
+drawing-room diablerie might be appropriately symbolised by the paper
+speaking-tube of our old friend John King; there is nothing in it when
+the voice is not speaking, and there is nothing in it when it is.
+
+Since his conversion, M. Jean Kostka has exhibited much harmless
+devotion towards Joan of Arc, an enthusiasm which originated among
+occultists, and he has pious memories of St Stanislaus Kostka, for which
+dispositions I trust that all my readers will have the complaisance to
+commend him. He writes, furthermore, "in the decline of maturity, on the
+threshold of age, in the late autumn of life," which is his dropsical
+method of saying that he is past sixty, and he veils a "futile name"
+under the patronymic of his favourite saint. Jean Kostka is not Jean
+Kostka, but it is without intent to deceive that he evades any possible
+responsibility in connection with his concealed identity; it is a kind
+of pious self-effacement, I hope everyone will believe what he says,
+and give him all credit for having "turned towards the outraged Church."
+In matters of evidence, pseudonymous statements are, however,
+objectionable, and I therefore identify our witness as Jules Doinel, who
+was chiefly concerned in the restoration of the Gnosis and the
+establishment of a "Gnostic church" in Paris about the year 1890, and is
+moreover not unknown as a Masonic orator, and in the world of
+belles-lettres. M. Papus, with the generosity of a mystic, can only
+speak well of the pious enthusiast who has betrayed his cause and
+scandalised the school he represents; he explains that Jules Doinel is a
+marvellous poet deficient in the scientific culture which might have
+enabled him to explain in a peaceable fashion the phenomena squandered
+upon him by the world invisible, so that there were only two courses
+open for him--renunciation of the transcendental path, or madness. "Let
+us bless heaven that the patriarch of the Gnosis has selected the
+former." It is possibly showing gratitude for small mercies, because our
+friend has saved his reason, but is blood-guilty in the matter of
+common sense. Meanwhile, the widowed Gnosis illuminates its Ichabod in
+the cryptic _quartiers_ of Paris, Lyons, and so forth.
+
+Every one may agree with M. Papus that Jean Kostka is a very pretty
+writer in a quiet and shallow way, but, with possibly one exception, he
+must have withheld the flower of his phenomena in the order of the
+spirit, for his book is full of sentimental and vapid experiences of the
+school-miss order, while over the light and spongy soil he has now set
+the ponderous paving-stones of his new explanation, and toils forward on
+the road of unreason.
+
+This apart, Jean Kostka, was evidently for many years familiar with the
+centres and workings of all the cross lights of esoteric thought which
+meet and interlace in the night of French common thought. He has dwelt
+among Gnostics, Martinists, Modern Albigenses, and Spiritualists; he
+appears to have been identified with all, and though he does not accuse
+himself of the capital offence of conscious Satanism, he has been quite
+well acquainted with Satanism, and, next best to seeing the devil one's
+self, he has known many who have. In those days, he tells us, that
+Lucifer could be visited _chez lui_ in an earthly tabernacle, situated
+in an unfrequented street, from whence the _lointain bruissement du
+Paris nocturne_ might be heard by the pensive traveller if he were not
+too intent on diabolising. Now, he has found out that Lucifer was _chez
+lui_ everywhere. _Je vise Satan et ses dogmes._ All his psychic
+faculties have concentrated into a transcendental apparatus for scenting
+devildom, and he mournfully comes forward to tell us, with a variation
+of Fludd's utterance; _Diabolus, in quam, diabolus ubique repertus est,
+et omnia diabolus et diabolus._ "Let it suffice to say that the
+demonologists have invented nothing and have exaggerated nothing." To
+the spiritualists Lucifer is John King and Allan Kardec; to the
+Gnostics, he is the Gnosis, Simon Magus, Helen Ennoia, and anything that
+comes handy from the Nile valley in the fourth century; to the
+Martinists, he is the _philosophe inconnu_; to the Albigenses, if there
+are Parisian Albigenses, he is whatever Albigenses invoke, if they
+invoke anything; to Madame X., he is Mary Stuart; to his own adepts,
+within sound of the _lointain bruissement_, he is a _jeune homme blond
+aux yeux bleus_, whom I understand to have worn a dalmatic, and to have
+been curiously indebted to the author of _Aut Diabolus aut Nihil_; for
+the Theosophists, he is that "illustrious demoniac," Madame
+Blawatsky--his innate delicacy leads him to the permutation of the
+Typhon V.; and then Freemasonry--it goes without saying that the little
+horn of Lucifer has displaced all other horns in all the grades and
+lodges, that the fraternity is his throne and his footstool, and the
+city of the great king.
+
+If we button-hole Jean Kostka, and ask him to tell us confidentially and
+upon honour what it is that has changed his views, making him discover
+the leer of Baal-Zeboub where he once saw the smile of the spiritual
+Eos, he turns Trappist at once, and goes into retreat with M. Huysman;
+there is not a syllable of information in all his _beau volume_ as to
+any intellectual process through which he passed on the way, and I
+suspect that his conversion partook of the nature of a "penetration," to
+speak his own language, and was not an intellectual operation, but a
+sudden _volte face_. Jean Kostka has changed his _pinces-nez_, and that
+is the whole secret:--
+
+    "The reason why I cannot tell,
+     But now I hold it comes from hell."
+
+Here is the proof positive; he has nothing in the shape of an
+accusation; he gets his Lucifer-interpretation out of everything with
+which he has cut off correspondence by a very simple and civil process
+of instillation. "I sense it"; _je vise Lucifer._ Thus, the Order of the
+Knights of Perfect Silence invite their initiates to become architects
+of the Holy City. Jean Kostka, in possession of the latest tip, says,
+"read Hell." The Martinists are concerned with the creation of Adam
+Kadmon, the ideal humanity. Jean Kostka tells you that they are
+concerned with nothing of the sort, and that Satan is the only person
+who can really put us up to the secret, which is curious because he
+immediately advises us himself that the exercise of the three cardinal
+virtues to the profit of Lucifer is the sum of the whole mystery and the
+real _sous-entendu_ of Martinism. The Masonic grades from Apprentice,
+Companion, Master, through Knight Rose-Cross to Knight Kadosch, and so
+forward, are exploited after the same manner by the baldest of
+processes, that of inverting everything. For example, the sacred word of
+the 33rd degree in the French Rite, namely, Sovereign Grand Inspector
+General, is _Deus meumque Jus_. That signifies, says Jean Kostka, that
+"Lucifer is the sole God and that the material, like the spiritual,
+world of right belongs to him." If you inquire the process of extraction
+by which he gets that result, he answers: "I must admit that I have had
+only a general intuition, but I assure you that it is immense," and he
+will immediately cite you a password, invite you to take every letter
+individually, and fit to it just that word which, by another intuition,
+he perceives belongs to it, when you will see for yourself. Thus, the
+Kadosch term _Nekam_, which signifies vengeance, having been duly
+anatomised, will come out as follows:--N (ex) E (xterminatio) K (risti)
+A (dversarii) M (agni), to wit: "Death, Extermination of Christ, the
+Great Enemy." Wicked and wily Jean Kostka to outrage the decencies of
+orthography and against all reason write the name of the Liberator with
+a K, thereby concealing the true meaning, which revealed for the first
+time is as follows:--N (equaquam) E (ritis) K (ostka) A (rtium)
+M (agister), which being interpreted still further, signifies that
+there was never such a clumsy device!
+
+Now, it goes without saying that a writer with these methods is not to
+be taken seriously, but it is worth while to appreciate the quality of
+intelligence which is received with acclamation by the Catholic Church
+in France as soon as it comes over from the enemy. "Lucifer Unmasked"
+appeared originally in the pages of the newspaper _La Verite_. It was
+immediately reproduced in Spanish by the _Union Catolica_; the clerical
+press boomed full-mouthed salvos in its honour, and his Eminence
+Cardinal Parocchi has blessed book or author, or both, and believes that
+it will make a great impression, "undoubtedly contributing to enlighten
+minds and lead them back to God."
+
+Jean Kostka, as already indicated, is a spiritual sentimentalist; he
+has passed by a rapid transition common to such natures from the Gnostic
+transcendental initiate to the pious Catholic devotee, and he will make
+an excellent Lourdes pilgrim. As there will be no need to recur to him
+again, it will be permissible to justify my criticism by some account of
+his personal experiences. M. Papus speaks of him as the founder and
+patriarch of the Gnostic Church. Of this same patriarch and primate Jean
+Kostka also speaks as of another person, recites the facts of his
+conversion, and hopes he will do better work for the Church of God than
+he has done for Lucifer. Which is Dr Jekyll and which Mr Hyde in this
+duadic personality is not of serious consequence, as they have both got
+into a better way of thinking and acting. Now, since his demission from
+these high functions, Jean Kostka has found that the chief piece of
+Gnostic devilry is in denying that the lost angels are eternally damned.
+On this point he has attained what is rare in him, a touch of personal
+animosity. To supply the antipodes of heaven, let us say, with a lethal
+chamber, as a meaner order than that of theological charity does here,
+in the interests of homeless and snappy dogs, would, in his present
+state of grace, seem a very wicked proposition. Well, in 1890 Jean
+Kostka was invited, as I understand, by the chief of the Gnostic Church,
+that is, by himself, to a chapel in the palace of a lady who figures
+frequently in his pages under the name of Madame X.; the author takes
+great credit for concealing her real titles, but he has failed to
+conceal her identity, and there can be no harm in saying that the
+reference is to Lady Caithness. He was present upon serious business, in
+fact, nothing short of assisting at a seance. A medium had been secured,
+the proceedings began, rappings became audible, an intelligence desired
+to communicate, and, finally, there was a message, with a name given. It
+was Luciabel, "whom you know as Lucifer." To this day Jean Kostka does
+not seem conscious of any element of idiocy in the variation of the
+old-fashioned name. In the revelation which followed, the intelligence,
+who seemed amiably disposed despite his sinister connections, informed
+the circle that, like Jesus, he was engendered eternally from God, that
+he was exiled from the pleroma, and that he was the Sophia-Achamoth of
+Valentine, the Helena-Ennoia of Simon Magus, the thought of God which
+had become anathema, and that he was now in search of love and
+consolation, both of which might take shape in a Gnostic church, and
+would be highly acceptable. There is, so to speak, a commercial element
+in the overtures which dries up the feeling of pity, or one might be
+exceedingly sorry for this lost chord of eternal thought, hoping
+charitably that we should still somehow hear it in heaven.
+
+Since his conversion the unpretentious marvel of this seance has been a
+dire trouble to Jean Kostka, partly on account of its eschatology, but
+still more because the sitters were conscious at its close of a breath
+passing over their faces, while he himself felt the presence of lips
+against his own. Poor Jean Kostka! They were all abased on their knees,
+which happens occasionally, even at seances, to pious people in Paris,
+and he concludes that he was kissed by Helena-Ennoia, _alias_ Lucifer,
+_alias_ Luciabel, who is also described on the charge-sheet of orthodox
+theology by other and more objectionable titles. The shameful memory
+causes him to exclaim fervently:--"May he who purged the lips of Isaiah
+with a burning coal deign to purify mine by the sacred kiss of penitence
+and pardon: _in osculo sancto_." There is a touch of sublimity in that,
+and the _basia_ of Baal-Zeboub may well enough be more demoralising than
+those of Secundus. At the time, however, he founded the Gnostic Church.
+
+We become acquainted with ghosts after various manners, according to
+our psychic condition. There is the spontaneous and accidental ghost who
+is seldom caught in the act; there is the able-bodied materialised ghost
+whom we catch in the act occasionally, and preserve our mental balance
+by clinging to his watch-chain and seals; they may be distinguished as
+the timeless ghost and the ghost who occasionally does time. Over and
+above these two generic specimens there is the ghost that throws, who is
+separable from the ghost that _hurls_, as our French friends put it. To
+hurl is to utter objectionable and unreasonable yells, preferably in the
+dead of night and in lonely places. This ghost is much sought after by
+specialists. It would be tedious to name all the varieties, but I can
+guarantee the unequipped that all known specimens have been carefully
+labelled, except possibly the odorous ghost, the ghost, that is to say,
+who manifests exclusively to the olfactory organ. This is an exceedingly
+withdrawn inappreciable kind, but it is familiar to Jean Kostka, who is
+a connoisseur in the smell supernatural, and has a trained psychic nose.
+He can distinguish between the spiritual perfume which characterises,
+let us say, St Stanislaus and the _odorem suavitatis_ of Lucifer. He is
+also an authority on conditions, and gives a ravishing description of
+the voluptuous enervation diffused over all his limbs when he had a
+private memorandum from Isis by means of raps during the reception of a
+master in a blue lodge. On this occasion he tells us that he was
+inspired to pronounce one of his most wicked and dangerous Masonic
+discourses. Dear M. Kostka! Dynamite would lose its destroying power in
+his harmless hands.
+
+At another function--but this was in a red lodge--he was overwhelmed by
+the presence of Lucifer, who elected and commissioned him to fight in
+his cause. It was a moment of unwonted intelligence--these are his own
+words--and he agreed, so incompetence chose its minister, and Frater
+Diabolus again showed himself a short-sighted rogue, because has not his
+emissary converted and passed over to the makers of pilgrimages? M.
+Kostka also at this time was so wicked as to be guilty of a pact, but he
+reserved two points, "the person of Christ and His mother." The
+reservation of these sacraments is not specialised as to its kind, but,
+_mon Dieu_, how distraught was Lucifer to be so palpably tricked by a
+_trente-troisieme_! Both these matters were, however, personal to the
+seer, and the lodges, whether red or blue, seem to have been quite
+unconscious that they had been entertaining divinity and demon unawares.
+M. Kostka has, in fact, been distinguished from the common herd of
+Masons by many favours of Lucifer, and he has naturally been ungrateful,
+for which I admire M. Kostka.
+
+In succeeding chapters he details at considerable length a variety of
+hallucinations which he experienced on the subject of Helena-Ennoia, and
+he has also had visions of Jansen, of a false Francis Xavier, a false
+Christ, &c., but his most important experience was that which he terms
+Penetration, commonly experienced in autumn seasons and during the mists
+and mildness of October nights. On these occasions he was conscious of a
+curious extension of personality by which he seemed to enter into all
+Nature, and all Nature took voice and interpreted herself intelligibly
+to him. After music came verbal communications, and then the apparition
+of forms, chiefly of classical mythology. Most people would have termed
+this poetic rapture passing into lucidity, but our friend avers that it
+is the Enemy.
+
+Such have been the experiences and adventures of Jean Kostka in the
+psychic world, and they are of precisely the same calibre as his
+critical method. I may say, in conclusion, that, if spared, he will do
+better in his next book, for he promises another, which is to exhibit in
+a convincing manner how Lucifer has been vanquished by Joan of Arc. In
+the meantime we may part from him with due recognition of his absolute
+good faith and extreme amiability; we may congratulate him on his
+conversion, and still more upon the very pleasant reading he provides;
+he does not appear to have unmasked Lucifer, but he has let us into the
+secret of the best that can be done in that way.
+
+Lastly, the point to be marked in connection with the memoirs and
+revelations of Jean Kostka is this, that neither in Paris nor elsewhere,
+neither in Masonry nor in other secret associations, concerning which he
+has had every opportunity to judge, has he come personally into contact
+with a cultus of Satan or Lucifer; that he chooses to term certain
+mystical opinions and practices diabolical, because they are condemned
+by the Latin Church, is a matter which is perfectly indifferent and
+exhibits only the forlorn position of a case which resorts to the
+expedient. But it is highly significant that a man who has mixed among
+mystics of all grades for probably thirty years, who is affiliated to
+innumerable orders, and in his present mood would be glad to expose
+everything, has nothing to tell us of the Palladium, though he dwelt at
+its gates, and the circles he frequented were at a stone's cast from the
+alleged Mother-Lodge Lotus of Paris.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE VENDETTA OF SIGNOR MARGIOTTA
+
+
+To Signor Domenico Margiotta we owe the most explicit account of the
+great compact between Mazzini and Albert Pike which produced the New and
+Reformed Palladium. With this institution he does not attempt to connect
+the anterior order founded in 1730; for him the possession of the
+Templar Baphomet explains the name which it received, and the passage of
+that idol from its original custodians he leaves in the same uncertainty
+as Dr Bataille. This difficulty apart, in Signor Margiotta the question
+of Lucifer has received a most important witness; he is the most recent,
+the most illustrious, and Masonically the most decorated of all. If I
+add that he is in one respect to be included among the most virulent, I
+do not necessarily detract from his value. So far as one can possibly
+be aware, he is a man of unimpeachable integrity, who gives us every
+opportunity to identify him, heraldically by his arms and emblazonments,
+historically by an account of his family, personally by extracts from
+the _Dizionario Biografico_, Masonically by a full enumeration of all
+his dignities, including photographs of his most brilliant diplomas and
+printed correspondence from Grand Masters and other exalted potentates
+of the great Fraternity. It would be difficult, however, in the last
+respect, to discover many more exalted than himself, for before his
+demission he was Secretary of the Lodge Savonarola of Florence;
+Venerable of the Lodge Giordano Bruno of Palmi; Sovereign Grand
+Inspector General, 33rd degree, of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite;
+Sovereign Prince of the Order (33rd ..., 90th ..., 95th ...,) of the
+Rite of Memphis and Misraim; Acting Member of the Sovereign Sanctuary of
+the Oriental Order of Memphis and Misraim of Naples; Inspector of the
+Misraim Lodges of the Calabrias and of Sicily; Honorary Member of the
+National Grand Orient of Haiti; Acting Member of the Supreme Federal
+Council of Naples; Inspector-General of all the Masonic Lodges of the
+three Calabrias; Grand Master, _ad vitam_, of the Oriental Masonic Order
+of Misraim or Egypt (90th degree) of Paris; Commander of the Order of
+Knights-Defenders of Universal Masonry; Honorary Member, _ad vitam_, of
+the Supreme General Council of the Italian Federation of Palermo;
+Permanent Inspector and Sovereign Delegate of the Grand Central
+Directory of Naples for Europe (Universal High-grade Masonry), and,
+according to his latest portrait, Member of the New Reformed Palladium.
+That such a luminary could withdraw from the firmament of the Fraternity
+and not take after him the third part of the stars of heaven, above all
+that the Italian Grand Master could have the effrontery to affirm that
+he had never heard of him and had only discovered who he was after some
+investigation, are matters for astonishment to the simple.
+
+Professor Margiotta returned to the church of his childhood in the
+autumn of 1894, and the news of his conversion is said to have so
+overwhelmed the head-quarters of Italian Freemasonry at Rome that the
+annual rejoicings upon the 20th of September, when Rome became the
+Capital of United Italy and when Universal Freemasonry was instituted in
+1870, were incontinently suspended. My readers will not attach a high
+degree of accuracy to this statement, for there does not appear in
+reality to have been any convulsion of the Order; there was indeed more
+rejoicing in Jerusalem than lamentation in the tents of Kedron. Signor
+Margiotta was the recipient of flattering congratulations from eminent
+prelates; the bishop of Grenoble salutes him as "my dear friend"; the
+patriarch of Jerusalem invites him to take courage, for he is doing high
+service to humanity, labouring under the scourge of the Masonic plague;
+the bishop of Montauban expresses his lively sentiment and entire
+devotion; the archbishop of Aix regards the revelations as of great
+importance to the Church; the bishop of Limoges praises and blesses the
+books of M. Margiotta; the bishop of Mende does likewise, his
+enthusiasm taking shape in superlatives; the Cardinal-Archbishop of
+Bordeaux applauds the intention and the effort; the bishops of
+Tarentaise, of Oran, of Pamiers, of Annecy, take up the chant in turn,
+and his Holiness the Pope himself sends his Apostolic Benediction over
+the seal of Peter.
+
+Why did Signor Margiotta abandon Palladism and Masonry? It was not
+because these institutions were devoted to the cultus of Lucifer, for I
+do not gather that he was scandalised by that fact at the time when it
+appears to have become known to him. It was not because sacrilege and
+public indecency characterised the rituals of initiation in the case of
+the Palladian Order, for he does not zealously press this charge. It was
+not, so far as can be traced, because he trembled for the safety of his
+soul; he does not provide us with a sickly and suspicious narrative of
+the sentiments which led to his conversion or the interior raptures
+which followed it; he does not mention that he was the recipient of a
+special grace or a sudden illustration; he ceased to believe in Lucifer
+as the good God because that being had permitted his favoured
+Freemasonry to pass under the "supreme direction of a despised personage
+who is the last of rogues." In other words, Signor Domenico Margiotta
+has a strong loathing for Signor Adriano Lemmi; he has long and
+earnestly desired that Freemasonry should "vomit him" from her breast,
+but as this has not come to pass, Signor Margiotta decided to vomit
+himself. Now, when a man embraces religion, he is supposed to forgive
+his enemies, to do good to them that hate him, to avoid the propagation
+of scandals, and when he cannot speak well to say nothing; but this is
+not the special quality of grace which attaches to the second
+_trente-troisieme_, who has come out of Freemasonry to expose and revile
+the order.
+
+The two narratives which comprise the exposure in question are
+respectively entitled, "Adriano Lemmi: Supreme Chief of Freemasonry,"
+and "Palladism, the Cultus of Satan-Lucifer." Both these books contain a
+violent impeachment of the Italian Grand Master, which, if it concerned
+us, would not convince us. Its main points go to show that in the days
+of his boyhood, Lemmi was guilty of an embezzlement at Marseilles, for
+which he is said to have suffered at the hands of justice; that he led
+the life of a Guzman d'Alfarache, in itself sufficiently romantic to
+condone an offence which should have been effaced with its penalty,
+supposing the allegation to be true; that he subsequently found himself
+at Constantinople, where he was thrown among Jews, and is there charged
+by his accuser with the commission of a still more terrible crime; he,
+in fact, became a proselyte of the gate, and suffered the rite of
+circumcision. Later on he is depicted as a political conspirator, an
+agent and friend of Mazzini, Kossuth, and the patriots of the
+Revolution, in connection with whom he is made responsible for
+innumerable villainies which connect him with the apostleship of
+dynamite. We may pass lightly over these matters, nor need we delay to
+inquire after what manner Adriano Lemmi may have amassed the wealth
+which he possesses, nor what questions on the subject of a monopoly in
+tobacco may have been raised or dropped in the Italian Parliament. All
+these points, including Signor Lemmi himself, are as little known as
+they are of little moment in England, and they are wholly outside our
+subject, except in so far as they exhibit the methods of his accuser,
+which, indeed, are so objectionable in their nature as to go far towards
+exonerating their object. Signor Margiotta, at any rate, puts himself so
+clearly in the wrong, and is altogether so virulent, as to place the
+inference of personal animosity almost in the region of certitude; one
+is therefore tempted to accept the explanation offered by the victim,
+that the Marseilles scandal turns upon a mistaken identity, and his
+explicit denial that he ever underwent the rite of Jewish initiation.
+Furthermore, I believe that I shall represent the opinion of tolerant
+Englishmen when I say that to insult and abuse a man for adopting
+another faith, however opposed to our own, and even ridiculous in
+itself, is an odious method in controversy, and for myself I see little
+to choose between a proselyte of the gate, a renegade Mason, and a
+demitted Roman Catholic.
+
+The true secret of the Margiotta-cum-Lemmi embroilment does not, I
+think, transpire in the narratives with which we are concerned; I mean
+to say that there is an eluding element which must, however, be assumed,
+if we are to account reasonably for the display of such extreme rancour.
+An honourable man may object to the jurisdiction of a person whom he
+regards as a convicted thief, but he does not usually pursue him with
+the violence of personal hatred. Now, in 1888 Signor Margiotta became a
+candidate for the Italian Parliament, and he attributes his failure to
+the hostility of Lemmi, who, prompted by Gallophobe tendencies, brought
+his influence to bear against a person who was friendly to the French
+nation. I submit that this assists us to understand the animus of the
+converted Mason and the lengths to which it has taken him. In all other
+respects Signor Margiotta displays the most perfect frankness, and does
+his best upon every occasion to substantiate his statements by
+formidable documentary evidence. I repeat therefore, that, much as we
+may regret his acrimony, he remains a most important witness to the
+existence of Universal Masonry, the existence of the Reformed Palladium,
+the transfer of the Masonic Supremacy at the death of Albert Pike to the
+Italian Grand Master, and the split in the camp which followed. He
+claims also that he is personally acquainted with Miss Diana Vaughan; he
+extols her innumerable virtues in pages of eloquent writing; he even
+goes so far as to photograph the envelope of a registered letter which
+he posted at Palmi, in Calabria, addressed to that lady in London. He
+indirectly substantiates the narrative of Carbuccia by a long account of
+his personal dealings with Giambattista Pessina, descending into the
+most curious particulars; he publishes the secret alphabet of the
+Palladium, specimens of litanies addressed to the good god Lucifer, and
+hymns of equivocal tendency attributed to Albert Pike. Finally, he fully
+admits the Satanic character of perfect Masonic initiation, and
+contributes a long chapter to swell our recent knowledge upon the
+subject of "Apparitions of Satan."
+
+As regards Universal Masonry, when announcing his demission and
+conversion to an officer of the Lodge, Giordano Bruno, at Palmi, Signor
+Margiotta reveals to him that he and his brethren are ruled, without
+knowing it, by a supreme rite, and that he, Margiotta himself, Venerable
+of the Lodge referred to, being a true elect and perfect initiate,
+constituted the link of connection between the ordinary Masonry of Palmi
+and this central and unsuspected power. On the same occasion he
+addressed a long communication to Miss Vaughan, in which he claims that
+he has ever acted as an honest Mason, faithful to the orthodoxy thereof,
+and having the cause of Charleston at heart. Now, the circumstances
+which occasioned these statements, and the good faith which seems to
+characterise them, are presumptive testimony to their truth; in the
+absence of any evidence, and merely on _a priori_ considerations, it
+would be intolerable to suggest that their author, while advertising his
+changed views upon a solemn subject, was guilty of wilful deception.
+
+The centralisation of Universal Masonry in an order known as the New
+and Reformed Palladium, with Albert Pike at its head, is supported by
+the citation of a document dated the 12th of September 1874, and being
+an authority from Charleston for the constitution of a secret federation
+of Jewish Freemasons, with a centre at Hamburg, under the title of
+Sovereign Patriarchal Council. It is not the only document emanating
+from the "Dogmatic Directory" which is printed by Signor Margiotta, but
+the others are not entirely new, having some of them previously appeared
+in the memoirs of Dr Bataille. The Luciferian opinions of Albert Pike
+are exhibited plainly in a letter addressed by him to Signor Rapisardi,
+famous in all Italy for his poem of "Lucifer," which Signor Margiotta
+affirms to have been written at the suggestion of the American Grand
+Master.
+
+But possibly the strongest evidence is less of a documentary kind; the
+minute account of the warfare waged by Signor Margiotta and other
+Italian Masons, in which they were helped by Miss Vaughan, to prevent
+the accession of Lemmi to the sovereign pontificate upon the death of
+Albert Pike and the transfer of the centre to Rome, seems to bear upon
+its surface every reasonable sign that it cannot be an invented
+narrative. Indeed, the first impulse upon reading the testimony of this
+witness leaps irresistibly to conclude that the denial of the main
+allegations is no longer possible. A searching analysis does, however,
+reveal sufficient grounds to warrant a different judgment. In the first
+place, whereas Signor Margiotta proclaims the supreme power of the
+Reformed Palladium, the documents which he cites in his support are, for
+the most part, documents of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, about
+the immense jurisdiction of which there is no question. In the second
+place, the authority of Albert Pike, as it is seen in most of the
+documents, is in virtue, not of the Palladium, but of his position as
+Supreme Chief of the Supreme Mother-Council of the Ancient and Accepted
+Scotch Rite. What Signor Margiotta terms Universal Freemasonry is not
+the Palladium at all, but simply the Scotch Rite; one of his own
+diplomas, reproduced at page 120 of "Adriano Lemmi," is proof positive
+of this; and in view of the universal diffusion of this rite, no one
+would deny it the name. In the third place, the documents of Signor
+Margiotta as regards the Palladium are not to be trusted, because in one
+instance a gross imposition has been practised provably upon him, and he
+may have been deceived in others. Hence, although he may be a member of
+a society termed the New and Reformed Palladium, it may not possess the
+jurisdiction or the history to which it pretends. In the fourth place I
+deny that the Grand Central Directories of which I have given
+particulars, derived from Signor Margiotta, in my second chapter, are in
+any sense Palladian directories. That of Naples for Europe is said to
+have twenty-seven triangular provinces, one of which is Manchester, and
+Mr John Yarker is said to be Provincial Grand Master. Now, I have Mr
+Yarker's own written testimony that he never heard of the Palladium
+until the report of it came over from France. Mr Yarker is a member of
+the 33rd degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, and he is also
+the Grand Master of the only legitimate body of the Supreme Oriental
+Rite of Memphis and Misraim in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Moreover,
+in most Masonic countries of the world he is either Honorary Grand
+Master, or Honorary Member in the 95 deg. of Memphis, 90 deg. of Misraim, and
+33 deg. Scottish Rite, the last honorary membership including bodies under
+the Pike _regime_ as well as its opponents. He is perfectly well
+acquainted with the claim of the Charleston Supreme Council to supreme
+power in Masonry, and that it is a usurpation founded on a forgery. In a
+letter which he had occasion to address some time since to a Catholic
+priest on this very subject, he remarks:--"The late Albert Pike of
+Charleston, as an able Mason, was undoubtedly a Masonic Pope, who kept
+in leading strings all the Supreme Grand Councils of the world,
+including the Supreme Grand Councils of England, Ireland, and Scotland,
+the first of which includes the Prince of Wales, Lord Lathom, and other
+peers, who were in alliance with him, and in actual submission. Its
+introduction into America arose from a temporary schism in France in
+1762, when Lacorne, a disreputable panderer to the Prince of Clermont,
+issued a patent to a Jew named Stephen Morin. Some time after 1802, a
+pretended Constitution was forged and attributed to Frederick the Great
+of Prussia. This constitution gives power to members of the 33rd degree
+to _elect themselves_ to rule all Masonry, and this custom is
+followed.... The good feeling of Masonry has been perpetually destroyed
+in every country where the Ancient and Accepted Rite exists, and it must
+be so in the very nature of its claims and its laws." Mr Yarker has no
+connection with a supreme dogmatic directorate in any other form than
+this disputed but perfectly well-known assumption of the Charleston
+Supreme Council. The term "Supreme Dogmatic Directorate" was not used by
+Pike, and the confidence enjoyed by the American was never extended to
+Lemmi, though he may have desired it. Instead, therefore, of all Masonry
+being ruled by a central authority unknown to the majority of Masons, we
+have simply a bogus claim which has no effect outside the Scottish
+Rite, and of which all Masons may know if they will be at the pains to
+ascertain. When Signor Margiotta informed the officer of the Giordano
+Bruno Lodge that he secretly represented a central and unknown
+authority, it is in this sense that we must understand him--that is to
+say, he represented the interests of the Charleston Supreme Council.
+Hence the revelations concerning "Universal Masonry" are an exaggeration
+founded upon a fact, and the Palladian Order, of which Signor Margiotta
+tells us that he is a member, is at any rate not what it pretends. It
+has doubtless imposed on him by means of forged documents, as also upon
+Leo Taxil, and M. Adolphe Ricoux. The writings which it fathers upon
+Albert Pike, and quoted by Signor Margiotta, as in other cases, are
+stolen from Eliphas Levi, the so-called alphabet of the Palladium
+included. The documentary _piece de resistance_ upon which our author
+relies as evidence for the existence of an international Masonic
+organisation is a certain _voute de Protestation_, on the part of a
+so-called Mother-Lodge Lotus of England, secret Temple of Oxford
+Street, against the transfer of the Dogmatic Directory from Charleston
+to Rome, the "Standing Committee of Protestation" being Alexander
+Graveson, Provincial Delegate of Philadelphia, U.S.A., V. F. Palacios,
+Provincial Delegate of Mexico, and Diana Vaughan, Provincial Delegate of
+New York and Brooklyn. Signor Domenico Margiotta has been grossly
+deceived over this document. What he prints as the English original in
+guarantee of good faith, side by side with a French translation, is a
+clumsy and ridiculous specimen of "English as she is wrote," and the
+French is really the original. I append some choice specimens:--"To the
+Most Illustrious, Most Puissant, Most _Lightened_ Brothers ...
+composing, by right of _Ancient and Members for life_, the Most Serene
+Grand College of _Emerited Masons_." Here the underlined passages are a
+Frenchman's method of interpreting into English _Tres Eclaires Freres, a
+titre d'Anciens et de membres a vie_, and _Macons Emerites_. Again: "The
+protesters numbered six-and-twenty, including twenty-five _sovereing_
+delegates present at the deed, and one sovereign delegate, who could
+not _stand by_ (_ne peut etre present_), but the substitute of _which_
+wisely and prudently abstained from the vote _at the first turn_ (_au
+premier scrutin_) and threw a blank ticket at the second, _expound_
+(verb governed by _protesters_) the _acts and situation thence
+disastrously resulting_ for our holy cause."
+
+Once more: "The present protesting vault _aims at the two ballots_
+(_vise les deux scrutins_), and _requests to be proceeded_ urgently to
+their annulment." Again: "_The Charleston's Brothers_ ... have not acted
+in such a manner as to forfeit _the whole Masonry's esteem_.... The
+direction ... has _not discontinued to prove foresight_.... It was
+_injust_ to transfer," &c., and so on for sixteen printed pages which
+certainly deserve to rank among the curiosities of literature. This is
+the precious document which appears over the signatures of Alexander
+Graveson and Diana Vaughan, after which I submit to my readers that
+Signor Domenico Margiotta may be dismissed with all his file of papers,
+not as himself deceiving, but as singularly liable to deception, of
+which he has otherwise given us several signal instances. For example he
+believes himself to have enjoyed the high privilege of beholding the
+Prince of Darkness upon two separate occasions. The first was in 1885 at
+Castelnuovo-Garfagnana in a beautiful old walled garden, belonging to a
+high-grade Mason named Orestes Cecchi, a fast friend of Margiotta. The
+time was the forenoon, and the two Masons were smoking under the shade
+of green trees surrounded by floral delights. Margiotta was a
+spiritualist and a follower of Allan Kardec; Cecchi had a turn for the
+Vedas and the occultism of the Eastern world; they were chatting upon
+the possibility of transmigration; the one doubted, the other affirmed;
+Cecchi, to convince his companion, informed him that he possessed a
+familiar who invariably appeared to him under the form of a goat, but he
+had a look in his eye which proved positively that he was the Grand
+Architect of the Universe! That there might be no doubt about the matter
+Cecchi called his familiar, who appeared suddenly, and joyfully caressed
+his master, at whose command he subsequently licked the hand of the
+overwhelmed Signor Margiotta, and it became red and painful. Cecchi
+playfully chided the apparition for not assuming human form, and hinted
+at the propriety of doing so, but the animal knowingly nodded and
+incontinently scurried away. Now, I put it to my readers, that Cecchi
+was exploiting his friend, that a domesticated animal appeared at the
+summons of his owner in a wooded garden, and that Signor Margiotta is
+fooling when he pretends to believe that it was the devil.
+
+The second experience was at Naples under the roof of Pessina, about
+half-past ten in the evening, after a Lodge meeting of the Misraim rite.
+Then and there, as a matter of cordial good fellowship, the
+accommodating Imperial Grand Master evoked a devil to give evidence of
+his actuality to Margiotta, who, in spite of the episode of the goat,
+still posed as a doubting Thomas. It was managed by means of a
+whisky-bottle, out of which, after certain invocations and magical
+ceremonies, a vapour rose mysteriously, and resolved itself into a
+human figure, wearing a golden crown, with a brilliant star in the
+middle. According to the picture which accompanies this delicious
+narrative, the apparition had the wings of a bat and a tail of the
+bovine class. It was Beffabuc, the familiar of the magician, who begged
+him to enlighten the sceptic, but the latter, according to the
+apparition, was protected by a higher power and would never be persuaded
+to believe in him. Signor Margiotta gives the names of all who were
+present at the evocation--twelve members of the 33rd degree, to say
+nothing of Misraim dignities. I submit, however, that the episode of the
+bottle would split the rock of Peter, that the absence of Signor Pessina
+for twenty minutes previous to the performance, eked out with a little
+ventriloquism, and some Pepper accessories would explain much, and that
+there is also another hypothesis which I will leave to the discernment
+of my readers, and to which I lean personally.
+
+Our witness, in any case, would not be a _persona grata_ to the Society
+for Psychical Research. As he is violent in his enmities, so is he
+gullible in marvels. His impeachment of Adriano Lemmi must be ruled
+completely out of court; his thaumaturgic experiences are paltry
+trickeries; his account of Albert Pike is largely borrowed matter; the
+magical practices which he attributes to Pessina are derived from the
+Little Albert and other well known grimoires; the most that follows from
+his narrative is that certain Italian Masons, probably atheists at
+heart, pose as partisans of Satan simply to accentuate their derisions
+of all religious ideas, much after the manner of Voltaire in some of his
+cynical correspondence. It is a continental form of pleasantry, and an
+artistic experiment in blasphemy which is taken seriously by the unwise.
+
+I need hardly add that the story of _Aut Diabolus aut Nihil_, which is
+accepted literally by Doctor Bataille, is also the subject of
+reverential belief on the part of Signor Margiotta, and as an
+illustration of his classifying talent, he terms Adriano Lemmi a Mormon
+because, having obtained a divorce, he, in the course of time,
+contracted another marriage. Furthermore, the very strong testimony
+which Signor Margiotta gives to Dr Bataille, directly by eulogium and
+indirectly by citation, as also the intimate relations which he
+maintained with Diana Vaughan, make his value as a witness of Lucifer
+dependent, to a large extent, upon the credibility of these persons,
+with consequences which will shortly appear. Lastly, his own personal
+credibility seems seriously at stake when he talks of "triangular
+provinces." He, and those connected with him, can alone explain what
+that means; they have never existed in Masonry. Mr Yarker, who, he says,
+is Grand Master of such a province, has never heard the expression. Mr
+R. S. Brown, Grand Secretary of the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of
+Scotland, also denies all knowledge of the one which, according to
+Signor Margiotta, is located at Edinburgh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+FEMALE FREEMASONRY
+
+
+Last on the list of our recent witnesses who have had a hand in creating
+the Question of Lucifer--not actually last in the order of time but the
+least in importance to our purpose--is M. A. C. de la Rive, author of
+"Child and Woman in Universal Freemasonry." He very fairly fulfils the
+presumption which is warranted by his name; he does not pretend to have
+come forth from the turbid torrent of Satanism and Masonry which is
+carrying multitudes into the abyss and effacing temples and thrones in
+its furious course. He has been content, like a sensible person, to
+stand on bank or brink and watch the rage and flow. He does not tell us
+anywhere in his narrative that he is himself a Mason; he has no personal
+acquaintance with Satan; he has not been guilty of magic, nor has he
+assisted at a Black Mass. He belongs to a wholly different order of
+witnesses, and he has produced what is in its way a genuine book, which
+does not pretend to be more than a careful compilation from rare but
+published sources, while we can all of us defer to the erudition of a
+Frenchman who has actually spent on collecting his materials the almost
+unheard-of space of twelve months. The result is correctly described as
+"grand in octavo, 746 pages," and is really an inflated piece of Masonic
+chronology, exceedingly ill-balanced, but, at the same time, undeniably
+useful. Beginning with the year 1730 it is brought down to 1894, and it
+is designed to demonstrate the existence at the present day of "adoptive
+lodges" wherein French gallantry once provided an inexpensive substitute
+for Masonry in which ladies had the privilege of participating. One of
+the most learned and illustrious of French Masonic writers, Jean-Marie
+Ragon, describes such androgyne or female lodges as "amiable
+institutions" invented by an unknown person some time previously to the
+year 1730, under the name of "mysterious amusements," which appears to
+describe them exactly, and one cannot be otherwise than astonished at
+the extraordinary gravity of nervous and well-intentioned persons who
+ascribe them such tremendous importance. Whereas they are the fringe of
+Freemasonry, writers like M. de la Rive persist in regarding them as its
+heart and centre, while it is also in such institutions that he and
+others of his calibre expect to discover Satanism. A celibate religion
+ever suspects the serpent in the neighbourhood of the woman. He
+discovers Satanism accordingly by reading it into handy passages and
+bracketing interpretations of his own when the text cannot otherwise be
+worked. Thus he gets oracles everywhere, and to compel Satan he finds
+the parenthesis quite as useful as the circle of black magic; it is a
+juggler's method, but among French anti-Masons it passes with high
+credit. The question of Female Freemasonry, apart from the Palladian
+Order, is quite outside our subject; its existence in Spain is a matter
+of public knowledge, and I have Mr Yarker's authority for stating that
+in certain countries, one of which is South America, the Rite of
+Memphis and Misraim and the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite have both
+initiated women, the latter up to and including the 33rd degree. No
+adoptive lodges exist or would be tolerated in England within the
+jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge, and if it can be shown that the
+Palladian order initiates English women into Masonic secrets, that is
+performed surreptitiously and in defiance of our Masonic constitutions.
+As to the schismatic Grand Orient of France, whatever may be done in
+secret or devised in public upon this point, is of no importance here,
+but I should add that little credit, and deservedly, is attached in
+England to any of the so-called revelations which from time to time come
+over from Paris.
+
+As regards M. de la Rive, apart from this subject, we are unable to
+extract from his pages anything that is fresh or informing on the
+subject of our inquiry. Despite the sensational picture which emblazons
+the title-page, where a full-length Baphomet is directing a _decolletee_
+Templar-Mistress through the pillars Jakin and Bohaz, there is not a
+single page in the whole vast compilation which shows any connection
+between Satanism and Masonry until towards the close, when an adroit tax
+is levied on the still vaster storehouse of Doctor Bataille. The author
+tells us clearly enough how adoptive Masonry arose, what rites were
+instituted, what rituals published, what is contained in these, and it
+is all solid and instructive. His facts, as already indicated, are
+borrowed facts, but they come from a variety of sources, and original
+research was scarcely to be expected from a writer against whom the
+avenues of knowledge are sealed by his lack of initiation. He concludes,
+however, that Adoptive Masonry is Satanic by intention, and that even
+the orphanages of the Fraternity are part of a profound and infamous
+design to ruin the children of humanity and to perfect proselytes for
+perdition.
+
+The appearance of "Child and Woman in Universal Freemasonry" was hailed
+with acclamation in the columns of the _Revue Mensuelle_; it reviewed it
+by dreary instalments, and when reviewing was no longer possible, had
+recourse to tremendous citations; as a last effort, it supplied an
+exhaustive index to the whole work--a charitable and necessary action,
+for the twelve months' toil of the author had expired without the
+accomplishment of this serviceable means of reference. And still, as
+occasion offers, it gives it bold advertisement.
+
+The quaint methods of previous witnesses are amplified by M. de la Rive.
+Like Dr Bataille, he tells us that the Order of Oddfellows, though quite
+distinct from Palladism, is "essentially Luciferian," but he does not
+say why or how--instance of demonstrative method. He regards the Jews
+with holy hatred as chief ministers of Anti Christ, and characterises
+them as that nation of which Judas was "one of the most celebrated
+personages"--specimen recipe for the production of cheap odium in large
+quantities; but what about Jesus the Christ, whom men called King of the
+Jews? Fie, M. de la Rive! He informs us that Miss Alice Booth, daughter
+of General Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, is one of the
+foremost Palladists of England--instance of absurd slander which refutes
+itself.
+
+M. de la Rive must therefore on all counts of his evidence be ruled out
+of court as a witness. No one denies the existence of Adoptive Lodges in
+a few countries and under special circumstances, and no sensible person
+attributes them any importance. Freemasonry as an institution is not
+suited to women any more than is cricket as a sport, but they have
+occasionally wished to play at it as they have wished to play at
+cricket; the opportunity has been offered them, but, except as the vogue
+of a moment, it has come to nothing. It is, moreover, of no importance
+to our inquiry if it can be proved that the true head of the Grand Lodge
+in England is the Princess of Wales and not her royal husband; while
+concerning the existence of Devil-Worship M. de la Rive has nothing new
+to tell us, and nothing at first-hand. I therefore ask leave to dismiss
+him, hoping that he will devote another laborious year to the reissue of
+Masonic rituals, authentic or not, at the extremely moderate price which
+he asks for his first volume; originals are scarce and costly, and
+invention is a pleasant faculty. The interpretation which he chooses to
+put on them is an interpretation of no consequence, and can never have
+misled any one who is in any sense worth misleading.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE PASSING OF DOCTOR BATAILLE
+
+
+The most obvious line of criticism in connection with the memoirs
+entitled _Le Diable au XIX^e Siecle_ would be the preposterous and
+impossible nature of its supernatural narratives. To attribute a
+historical veracity to the adventures of Baron Munchausen might scarcely
+appear more unserious than to accept this _recit d'un temoin_ as
+evidence for transcendental phenomena. I need scarcely say that I regard
+this reasoning as so altogether sound and applicable that it is almost
+unnecessary to develop it. The personal adventures of Doctor Bataille as
+regards their supernatural element are so transparently fabulous that it
+would be intolerable to regard them from any other point of view. That
+an ape should speak Tamil is beyond the bounds of possibility; it is
+impossible also that a female fakir or pythoness, aged 152 years,
+should allow herself to be consumed in a leisurely manner by fire; it is
+impossible that any ascetics could have maintained life in their
+organisms under the loathsome conditions prevailing within the alleged
+temple at Pondicherry; it is impossible that any person could have
+survived the ordeal which Dr Bataille pretends to have suffered at
+Calcutta,--to have relished and even prolonged; it is impossible that
+tables and organs should be found suspended from a ceiling at the close
+of a spiritual seance; it is impossible that the serpent of Sophia
+Walder should have been elongated in the manner described. When I say
+that these things are impossible I am speaking with due regard to the
+claims of transcendental phenomena, and it is from the transcendental
+standpoint that I judge them. Genuine transcendental phenomena may
+extend the accepted limits of probability, but when alleged
+transcendental phenomena do violence to all probability, that is the
+unfailing test of hallucination or untruth on the part of those who
+depose to them. These things could not have occurred as they are
+narrated, and Dr Bataille is exploiting the ignorance of that class of
+readers to whom his mode of publication appealed. As products of
+imagination his marvels are crude and illiterate; in other words, they
+belong to precisely that type which is characteristic of romances
+published in penny numbers, and when he pledges his rectitude regarding
+them he does not enlist our confidence but indicates the slight value
+which he sets on his stake.
+
+At the same time, two reasons debar me from laying further stress upon
+this line of argument. In the first place we must remember that his
+unlettered readers have been taught by their religious instructors to
+believe in the unlimited power of the devil, and they have probably
+found in the outrageous nature of the narratives a real incentive to
+accept them. In the second place my own position as a transcendentalist
+connects me less or more with the acknowledgment of transcendental
+phenomena, and to distinguish the limits of possibility in these matters
+would involve a technical discussion for which there is no opportunity
+here. It is understood, however, that in the interests of
+transcendental science I reject the miraculous element in Dr Bataille's
+memoirs.
+
+Another line of criticism also open and leading to convincing results
+would dwell upon the glaring improbability of the entire story outside
+that miraculous element. There is no colourable pretence of likelihood,
+for example, in the connection instituted between fakirs and Freemasons,
+or between secret societies in China and a sect of Luciferians in
+Charleston. But the partisans of Dr Bataille are prepared to believe
+anything of Masonry, and to dismiss likelihood as they would dismiss
+impossibility. Some arguments are unassailable on account of their
+stupidity, and of such shelter I intend to deprive my witness. I shall
+therefore merely register my recognition that this criticism does obtain
+completely. For much the same reason I shall only refer in passing to
+another matter which in itself is sufficient to remove these memoirs
+from the region of actuality; they bristle with the kind of coincidences
+which are the common convenience of bad novelists to create or escape
+situations, and are rejected even by legitimate fiction, because they
+are untrue to life. At the present time the device of coincidence is
+left to its true monopolists, the Society for Psychical Research and the
+manufacturers of the penny dreadful. Unreasonable demands are, however,
+made upon it by Dr Bataille; never in an awkward predicament does the
+coincidence fail to help him; wheresoever he goes it times his arrival
+rightly to witness some occasional and rare event, and it places him at
+once in communication with the indispensable person whose presence was
+antecedently unlikely. The very existence of his memoirs would have been
+jeopardised had the Anadyr reached Point-de-Galle immediately before
+instead of immediately after the catastrophe which converted Carbuccia.
+At the beginning of his mission against Masonry, coincidence arranged
+the last illness of the Cingalese pythoness to the exigencies of his
+date of arrival; it brought John Campbell to Pondicherry and Phileas
+Walder to Calcutta; at Singapore it fixed a Palladic institution in the
+grade of Templar-Mistress to correspond with his flying visit on the
+road to Shanghai. Now, all these coincidences are of the class which
+come off in fiction and miss in the combinations of real life, but to
+insist on this point would not disillusionise the believers in Dr
+Bataille, who will say that he was assisted by Providence. We must show
+that he has deceived them in matters which admit of verification, over
+certain points of ordinary fact, which can be placed beyond the region
+of dispute, and by which the truth of his narrative may be held to stand
+or fall. I shall confine myself for this purpose to what he states at
+first hand in his capacity as an eyewitness, and to two salient cases
+which may be taken to represent the whole. Among the rest some are in
+course of investigation, and so far as they have gone are promising
+similar results; the locality of others has been so chosen as to baffle
+inquiry; and in one or two instances I have failed to obtain results. It
+is obviously impossible to prove that there is not a native hut in "a
+thick and impassable forest" at an unindicated distance from
+Point-de-Galle, or that this hut does not possess a vast subterranean
+chamber. When we cannot check our witness we must regard what he tells
+us in the light of those instances which it is possible to fix firmly.
+Among negative results I may mention an inquiry into the alleged death
+of a person named George Shekleton in a Masonic lodge at Calcutta. Sir
+John Lambert, K.C.S.I.E., the commissioner of police at that place, very
+courteously made investigations at my suggestion, first at the coroner's
+court, but the records for the year 1880 are not now in existence, and,
+secondly, among the oldest police officers, but also without result. I
+applied thereupon to Mr Robert William Shekleton, Q.C., J.P., inquiring
+whether any relative of his family had died under curious circumstances
+at Calcutta about the year 1880. His answer is this:--"I never heard
+anything about the death of a George Shekleton in Calcutta. My elder and
+younger brother were both living in Calcutta, and if any person of the
+same name had been living there I should have heard it from them. My
+younger brother Alexander Shekleton died at Madras on his way home with
+his wife and children of confluent small-pox; my eldest brother Joseph
+is still alive." The presumption, therefore, is that Carbuccia's story
+of the strange fatality which occurred in his presence at a Masonic
+lodge is without any foundation in fact, but I regard the result as
+negative because it falls short of demonstration. I am now setting other
+channels in operation, but as it is not a test case, and not an event
+which Dr Bataille claims to have witnessed himself, it is unnecessary to
+await the issue.
+
+If the reader will now glance at the several sections of the sixth
+chapter, he will find that one of the most important is that entitled
+"The Seven Temples and a Sabbath in Sheol," where Dr Bataille tells us
+that he witnessed unheard of operations in black magic on the part of
+Palladian Masons and diabolising fakirs. The locality was a plain called
+Dappah, two hours drive from Calcutta. The particulars which are given
+concerning the edifices on the mountain of granite, but more especially
+concerning an open charnel where the dead bodies of innumerable human
+beings, mixed indiscriminately with those of animals and with the town
+refuse, are left to rot under the eye of heaven, will not impress any
+one, however unacquainted with India, and with the vicinity of the
+English capital and seat of government, as wearing many of the features
+of probability. The facts are as follows:--A place called Dhappamanpour,
+and for brevity Dhappa, does exist in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, and
+thereto the town refuse is actually carried by a special line of
+railway; there is no granite mountain and there are no temples, while so
+far from it being a charnel into which human bodies are flung, or a
+place where the adepts of the Palladium could celebrate a black Sabbath
+and form a magic chain with putrid corpses, it is a great lake covering
+an area of thirty square miles, and is known by Anglo-Indians as the
+Saltwater Lake. In the year 1886 it was in course of reclamation, but
+all that Dr Bataille tells us is specifically untrue, and he could never
+have witnessed there the things which he describes as taking place in
+the year 1880. The _recit d'un temoin_ is in this matter an invented
+history.
+
+As a consequence of this bogus experience in Calcutta, Dr Bataille
+pretends to have been admitted within the charmed circle of the New and
+Reformed Palladium, and was therefore qualified to be present at the
+initiation of a Templar-Mistress which took place not long after at
+Singapore. His account of this initiation turns upon two or three points
+which do not appear in the synopsis of the sixth chapter. One of these
+is the existence of a Kadosch Areopagite of the Ancient and Accepted
+Scotch Rite. But at least, at the period in question, there was no such
+Areopagite, and the Scotch Rite did not exist at Singapore. The sole
+Masonic institution was a District Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and
+Accepted Masons of England in the Eastern Archipelago, working under the
+warrant of the English Grand Lodge, holding half-yearly communications,
+and special meetings when the District Grand Master deemed necessary.
+Its patent dates from March 3, 1878, and the District Grand Master at
+the time was the Hon. William H. Macleod Read. Three lodges worked
+under its jurisdiction, two of which were at Singapore and one at
+Penang, and to one of the former a Royal Arch Chapter was attached. It
+is needless to say that our author's Misraim diploma would have obtained
+his admission to none, and there is no person here in England who would
+have the effrontery to affirm that he might have fared better by reason
+of his Palladian degree. It is sufficient, however, to state that there
+was no Lodge of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite in Singapore at the
+time of his visit. But the imposition does not end here; Dr Bataille
+does not merely describe what took place at a lodge which was not in
+existence--he gives particulars of an address delivered by a certain Dr
+Murray at a meeting attended by himself. Now, at the date in question,
+there was no such person either in the town, in its vicinity, or in
+Penang. There is fortunately an institution among us which is termed the
+British Museum, and it enables us to verify questions of this kind.
+Furthermore, when describing the Palladian meeting at the Presbyterian
+chapel--there was such a chapel by the way--he tells us that the Grand
+Master was named Spencer, and that he was a _negociant_ of Singapore,
+but there was again no such person in the town or its vicinity at the
+time, and so his entire narrative, with its ritual reproduced from Leo
+Taxil, is demolished completely. I submit that these two instances are
+sufficient to indicate the kind of man with whom we are dealing. It may
+be a matter of astonishment to my readers that a work even of imposition
+should be performed so clumsily as to betray itself at once to a little
+easy research, but it must be remembered that the class of French
+readers to whom Dr Bataille made appeal are so ignorant of all which
+concerns the English that skill is not required to exploit them; it is
+enough that the English are abused. Of our author's qualifications in
+this respect I have already given some specimens, but they convey no
+idea of his actual resources in the matter of abuse and calumny. A
+direct quotation will not be beside the purpose in this
+place:--"Wheresoever religious influence can make itself felt, there
+the wife and maid are the purest, the most ingenuous expression of the
+creation and the divinely touching idea synthetised by the immaculate
+Mother of Christ, the Virgin Mary; but, on the contrary, in England, and
+still more especially in the English colonies, under the pernicious
+influence of the Protestant heresy engendered by revolts of truly
+diabolical inspiration, the wife and maid are in some sort the
+opprobrium of humanity. The example, moreover, comes from an exalted
+place, as is known. The whole world is acquainted with that which John
+Bull does not himself confess, namely, the private history of her whom
+Indians term 'the old lady of London,' given over to vice and
+drunkenness from her youth--Her Majesty Wisky the 1st." I have made this
+quotation, because it gives the opportunity to dispense with the
+civility of discussion which is exercised by one gentleman towards
+another, but would be out of place on the part of a gentleman who is
+giving a deserved castigation to a disgusting and foul-mouthed rascal.
+This is the nameless refuse which flings itself to bespatter Masonry.
+Down, unclean dog, and back, scavenger, to your offal! The scullion in
+the Queen's kitchen would, I think, disdain to whip you.
+
+Setting aside these scandalous slanders, and returning to the subject in
+hand, it is clear that when a writer who comes forward with a budget of
+surprising revelations is shown to have invented his materials in
+certain signal instances, it becomes superfluous to subject his entire
+testimony to a laborious sifting, and there is really no excuse to delay
+much longer over the memoirs of Dr Bataille. It will be needless to
+state that my researches have failed to discover any such dismantled
+temple as that described at Pondicherry, and affirmed to be on the
+English soil adjacent to the French town. It is equally unnecessary to
+say that the story of the caves of Gibraltar is a gross and absurd
+imposture, for, in fact, it betrays itself. Parisian literature of the
+by-ways has its own methods, and its purveyors are shrewd enough to know
+what will be tolerated and what enjoyed by their peculiar class of
+patrons; transcendental toxicology and an industry in idols worked by
+criminals intercommunicating by means of Volapuk may be left to them.
+
+Nor is it needful to do more than touch lightly upon a pleasant process
+in piracy by which Dr Bataille lightens the toils of authorship. He has
+done better than any other among the witnesses of Lucifer in his
+gleanings from Eliphas Levi. On p. 32 of his first volume there is a
+brazen theft concerning the chemistry of black magic, and there is
+another, little less daring, on p. 67, being a description of a
+Baphometic idol. It goes without saying that the Conjuration of the Four
+is imported, as others have imported it, from the _Rituel de la Haute
+Magie_. The vesture of the master of ceremonies who officiated in the
+Sanctuary of the Phoenix, one of the mythical temples of Dhappa, is a
+property derived from the same quarter. So in like manner is part of a
+magical adjuration in the account of a Sabbath in Sheol. Finally, a
+method of divination described in a later place (vol. i., pp. 343, 344)
+will be found in Christian's _Histoire de la Magie_.
+
+The artist who has illustrated the memoirs has acted after the same
+manner. The two Baphometic figures (vol. i., pp. 9 and 89), are
+reproductions from Levi's plates. The Sabbatic figure (_Ib._, p. 153) is
+a modification from Christian. The original idea of the shadow-demon on
+p. 201 will be found in Levi's sacerdotal hand making the sign of
+esotericism. The four figures of the Palladian urn on p. 313 are
+plagiarised in a similar way. The illustration on p. 337, which purports
+to be a gnostic symbol of the dual divinity, is actually the
+frontispiece to Levi's _Dogme de la Haute Magie_. The magical urn on p.
+409 is the facsimile of a similar object in another of Levi's drawings;
+and if it were worth while to continue, the material for a further
+enumeration is not wanting. But these matters, after all, are of
+inferior moment, and to complete the exposure of this witness, I pass to
+the final points of my criticism.
+
+Dr Bataille publishes an alleged Table of High-grade Masonry as it
+existed on March 1, 1891, and this document, which is similar in many
+respects to another of a slightly anterior date, produced by Signor
+Margiotta, is said to have been prepared by Albert Pike himself; it
+includes a long list of the persons then in correspondence with the
+Supreme Dogmatic Directory as Inspectors General "in permanent mission."
+It is a bizarre medley which includes the Orders of the Druids, Mopses,
+Oddfellows, and Mormon Moabites in the same connection as the Ancient
+and Accepted Scotch Rite, the Rites of Memphis and Misraim, and the
+San-Ho-Hei. As such, it would be, in any case, a large tax upon the
+gullibility of readers outside the back streets of Paris. But I
+determined to make some inquiries among the English names mentioned. For
+example, Mr R. W. Shekleton, to whom I have already referred, is said,
+at the period in question, to have been in official correspondence with
+the Dogmatic Directory, representing the special relations of Ireland,
+and, having drawn his attention to the point, he has furnished me with
+the following contradiction:--"The statement in your letter, taken from
+the book you refer to, that I was in the year '91 in direct
+correspondence with the Supreme Dogmatic Directory of Charleston is
+utterly false. I never even heard of any such Body as the Supreme
+Directory, or of what is called the New and Reformed Palladium. The only
+communication I ever had with General Albert Pike (whom I had never
+seen) was in reference to a question of Masonic procedure in America. So
+far as I am aware the existence of either of the Bodies you refer to is
+unknown to any of the Masonic Body in Ireland, and I can, with almost
+certainty, make the same statement in reference to the English and
+Scotch Masons. Having been for nearly twenty-seven years the Acting Head
+of the Order in Ireland, I can speak with authority, and you are at
+liberty in my name to give the most emphatic contradiction to the
+statements quoted from the book. So far as I am aware, General Pike was
+never anything more than Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme
+Council of the 33rd Southern Jurisdiction of America."
+
+The case of Mr John Yarker, Grand Master of the Memphis Rite in England,
+I have already had occasion to mention, and have cited his explicit
+denial of any acquaintance with the New and Reformed Palladium, but he
+is included by Dr Bataille in his wonderful enumeration. Upon the
+general question, Mr Yarker observes: (a) that the Scottish or Ancient
+and Accepted Rite has nothing occult about it, but the Memphis and
+Misraim Rites are wholly occultism. (b) That Pike has, however, in his
+lectures added occult matters from these occult Rites. (c) That Pike, as
+a very able man, ruled the whole of the Supreme Grand Councils of the
+33 deg. (Ancient and Accepted), which almost all originated from Charleston.
+(d) That this is the only form in which there can be said to have been a
+Dogmatic Directorate.
+
+In like manner, Mr William Officer of Edinburgh, an initiate of the
+Scotch Rite, Inspector-General of the Supreme Council of the French
+Grand Orient, and Hon. Member of its Grand College of Rites, denies his
+alleged connection with any Central Directory, and has heard nothing of
+such an institution.
+
+I do not conceive that there is any call to fill space by the
+multiplication of these denials, and I need therefore only add that I
+have others equally explicit in my possession. The obvious conclusion is
+that the alleged Table of High-Grade Masonry is a bogus document founded
+on some official lists of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite.
+
+Lastly, there are certain statements made by Dr Bataille which warrant
+the presumption that he could have had little, if any, active
+acquaintance with the Memphis Rite. That he may have purchased a diploma
+from Pessina is probable enough; what I learn of the Grand Master of the
+Neapolitan Sovereign Sanctuary, through sources not tainted like those
+of the witnesses of Lucifer, does not place him wholly above financial
+considerations, but Pessina was, and is, totally unrecognised by any
+Masonic power in the world of Craft Masonry. So far, therefore, from
+such a diploma acting as an _Open Sesame_, it would have sealed all
+doors against its owner, and this statement is true not only for
+ordinary Craft Masonry, but for the great majority of lodges under the
+Misraim obedience. Dr Bataille would not, therefore, have much
+opportunity for participating in that Rite to which he had purchased
+entrance, and, as a fact, he is wholly ignorant concerning it. For
+example, he seems to represent the Memphis and Misraim Rites as enjoying
+recognition from the Scotch Rite, and the latter as consciously
+subordinate and inferior, whereas the position is this. Memphis
+recognises the 33 deg. of the Ancient and Accepted as its first steps, and
+places 62 degrees upon them, which are not recognised in return. Misraim
+also includes the 33 deg. of the Scotch Rite, but in a more irregular
+arrangement, other degrees being interspersed among them. Pessina's
+Misraim Rite has been reduced by him from 90 deg. to 33 deg., which are
+virtually those of the Ancient and Accepted Rite approximated to Misraim
+teaching. So also he states that General Garibaldi was in 1860, and had
+been so for many previous years, the Grand Master and Grand Hierophant
+of the Rite of Memphis for all countries of the globe. This is
+completely untrue, for, as a matter of fact, Garibaldi succeeded
+Jacques Etienne Marconis of Paris, becoming president of a confederation
+of the Rites which was brought about by Mr John Yarker in the year 1881.
+Before this period he was simply an Hon. Grand Master of Pessina's body.
+The articles of this treaty, with a true copy of all the signatures
+attached to it, and with the seals of the Sovereign Sanctuaries against
+them, is before me as I write. I may state, in conclusion, that Dr
+Bataille also falsely represents himself to have met with Mr Yarker, who
+told him that he had personally aspired to the succession at the death
+of Garibaldi, which Mr Yarker characterises as "an infamous concoction."
+
+I am in possession of ample materials for illustrating more fully the
+marvellous inventions produced by this witness of Lucifer, but the
+instalment here given is sufficient for the present purpose.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+DIANA UNVEILED
+
+
+The discovery of Leo Taxil and of M. Ricoux has one remaining witness in
+the person of Miss Diana Vaughan. She also, as we have seen, is a writer
+of memoirs, and in giving some account of her narrative I have already
+indicated in substance certain lines of criticism which might be applied
+with success thereto. We must obviously know more about this lady, and
+have some opportunity of verifying the particulars of her past life
+before we can accept her statement that she has written while fresh from
+"conversion," and is speaking for the first time the language of a
+Christian and a Catholic. The supernatural element of her memoirs it is
+not worth while to discuss. Were she otherwise worthy of credit, we
+might exonerate her personal veracity by assuming that she was tricked
+over the apparition and hallucinated in the vision that followed it, but
+I propose submitting to my readers sufficient evidence to justify a
+conclusion that she does not deserve our credit, and though out of
+deference to her sex it is desirable, so far as may be possible, to
+speak with moderation, I must establish most firmly that the motive she
+betrays in her memoirs is not in many respects preferable to that of the
+previous witness.
+
+It will be advisable, however, to distinguish that part of the narrative
+for which Miss Vaughan is admittedly and personally responsible from
+that which she claims to be derived from her family history. I must
+distinguish between them, not that I am prepared to admit as a
+legitimate consequence of her statement that there is any real
+difference or that I unquestionably regard Miss Vaughan as having
+created a strong presumption that she is in possession of the documents
+which she claims to have. I am simply recognising the classification
+which she may herself be held to make. If in this respect it can be
+shown that I have mistaken the actual position, I will make such
+reparation as may be due from a man of letters, whose reasonable
+indignation in the midst of much imposture will, in such case, have
+misled him. But there is only one course which is open to Miss Vaughan
+in the matter, and that is to produce the original documents on which
+she has based her narrative for the opinion of competent English
+investigators, in which case Miss Vaughan may be held to have
+established not the truth of her family history, which is essentially
+beyond establishment, but her _bona fides_ in connection with its
+relation. After this the portion for which she is personally
+responsible, and from which there is no escape, will still fasten the
+charge of falsehood ineffaceably upon her narrative.
+
+In addition, then, to her personal history, Miss Vaughan's memoirs
+contain:--I. A mendacious biography of the English mystic, Thomas
+Vaughan. II. A secret history of the English Rosicrucian Fraternity, and
+of its connection with Masonry, which is also an impudent fraud. The two
+constitute one of the most curious literary forgeries which are to be
+met with in the whole range of Hermetic literature; and Hermetic
+literature, it is known, has been enriched by many triumphs of
+invention. I shall deal with the narratives plainly on the provisional
+assumption that Miss Vaughan has been herself deceived in regard to
+them. They are based upon family papers said to be now in possession of
+the Charleston Dogmatic Directory. The central facts which are sought to
+be established by means of these papers have been mentioned already in
+my eighth chapter, namely, that Miss Vaughan is one of the two last
+descendants of the alchemist Thomas Vaughan; that this personage made a
+compact with Satan in the year 1645, that under the name of Eirenaeus
+Philalethes, he wrote the well-known alchemical work entitled "An Open
+Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King," and that he consummated a
+mystical marriage with Venus-Astarte, of which the Palladian
+Templar-Mistress is the last development. For the purposes of these
+narratives the birth of Thomas Vaughan is placed in the year 1612, and
+his death, or rather translation, in the year 1678. At the age of
+twenty-four years, that is to say, in 1636, he proceeded to London, and
+there connected himself with the mystic Robert Fludd, by whom he was
+initiated into a lower grade of the Rosicrucian Fraternity, and received
+a letter of introduction to the Grand Master, Johann Valentin Andreae,
+which he took over to Stuttgart and presented. In 1637, having returned
+to London, he was present at the death of Robert Fludd, which occurred
+in that year. In 1638 he made his first voyage to America, where he was
+hospitably entertained by a Protestant minister, named John Cotton, but
+his visit was not characterised by any remarkable occurrence. At this
+period the alchemist is represented by his descendant as a Puritan
+impregnated with the secret doctrine of Robert Fludd. In 1639 Vaughan
+returned to England, but was immediately attracted to Denmark by the
+discovery of a golden horn adorned with mysterious figures, which he and
+his colleagues in alchemy supposed to typify the search for the
+philosophical stone. At the age of twenty-eight, Vaughan made further
+progress in the Rosicrucian Fraternity, being advanced to the grade of
+_Adeptus Minor_ by Amos Komenski, in which year also Elias Ashmole
+entered the order. Accompanied by Komenski, Vaughan proceeded to
+Hamburg, thence by himself to Sweden, and subsequently to the Hague,
+where he initiated Martin de Vries. A year later he visited Italy, and
+made acquaintance with Berigard de Pisa. This was a pious pilgrimage
+which testified his devotion to Faustus Socinus, for Miss Vaughan, on
+the authority of her documents, regards the Italian heretic, not only as
+a conscious Satanist, but as the founder of the Rosicrucian Society, and
+the initiator of Johann Valentin Andreae, whom he also won over to
+Lucifer. On his return Thomas Vaughan tarried a short time in France,
+where he conceived the project of organising Freemasonry as it exists at
+the present day, and there also it occurred to him that the guilds of
+the Compagnage might serve him for raw material. When, however, he
+returned to England, he concluded that the honorary or Accepted Masons,
+received by the Masonic guilds of England, were better suited to his
+purpose. Some of these were already Rosicrucians, and among them he set
+to work. In the year 1644 he presided over a Rosicrucian assembly at
+which Ashmole was present. At this time also Oliver Cromwell is said to
+have been an accepted Mason, and it was by his intervention that, a year
+later, Thomas Vaughan was substituted for the headsman at the execution
+of Archbishop Laud, for the object already described. It was after his
+compact with Lucifer that the alchemist wrote the "Open Entrance." His
+activity in the Rosicrucian cause then became prodigious, and the
+followers of Socinus, apparently all implicated in the Satanism of their
+master, began to swell the ranks of the Accepted Masons. At this time
+also he began his collaborations with Ashmole for the composition of the
+Apprentice, Companion, and Master grades, that is to say, for the
+institution of symbolical Masonry. In 1646 he again visited America, and
+consummated his mystic marriage, as narrated in the eighth chapter. In
+1648 he returned to England, and one year later completed the Master
+grade, that of Companion having been produced during his absence, but
+following the indications he had given, by Elias Ashmole. In 1650 he
+began to issue his Rosicrucian and alchemical writings, namely,
+_Anthroposophia Theomagica_ and _Anima Magica Abscondita_, followed by
+_Lumen de Lumine_ and _Aula Lucis_ in 1651. The Rosicrucian Grand Master
+Andreae died in 1654, and was succeeded by Thomas Vaughan, whose next
+step was the publication of his work, entitled "Euphrates, or the Waters
+of the East." In 1656 he is said to have published the complete works of
+Socinus, two folio volumes in the collection, entitled _Bibliotheca
+Fratrum Polonorum_. Three years later appeared his "Fraternity of R.C.,"
+and in 1664 the _Medulla Alchymiae_. In 1667 he decided to publish the
+"Open Entrance," the MS. of which was returned to him by the editor
+Langius after printing, and was subsequently annotated in the way I have
+previously mentioned. During the early days of the same year Vaughan
+converted Helvetius, the celebrated physician of the Hague, who in his
+turn became Grand Master of the Rosicrucian Fraternity. In 1668 he
+published his "Experiments with Sophic Mercury" and _Tractatus Tres_,
+while ten years later, or in 1678, the year of his infernal translation,
+he produced his edition of "Ripley Revived" and the _Enarratio Trium
+Gebri_.
+
+From beginning to end, generally and particularly, the narrative I have
+summarised above is a gross and planned imposture, nor would any
+epithets be so severe as to be undeserved by the person who has
+concocted it, because it does outrage to the sacred dead, in particular
+to the greatest of the English spiritual mystics, Thomas Vaughan, and to
+the greatest of the English physical mystics, Eirenaeus Philalethes. For
+the mendacious history confuses two entirely distinct persons--Eugenius
+and Eirenaeus Philalethes. It is true that this confusion has been made
+frequently, and it is true also that at the beginning of my researches
+into the archaeology of Hermetic literature I was one of its victims, for
+which I was sharply brought to book by those who knew better. But a
+young and unassisted investigator, imperfectly equipped, has an excuse
+which will exonerate him at least from a malicious intention. It is
+otherwise with a pretended family history. When documents of this kind
+reproduce blunders which are pardonable to ignorance alone, and upon a
+subject about which two opinions are no longer possible, it is certain
+that such documents are not what they claim; in other words, they have
+been fabricated, and the fabrication of historical papers is essentially
+a work of malice. Furthermore, when such forgeries impeach persons long
+since passed to their account, on the score of unheard of crimes, they
+are the work of diabolical malice, and this is a moderately worded
+judgment on the case now in hand. Thomas Vaughan, otherwise Eugenius
+Philalethes, was born in the year 1621 at Newton, in Brecknockshire. The
+accepted and perfectly correct authority for this statement is the
+_Athenae Oxonienses_ of Anthony Wood, but he is not the only authority,
+and if he be not good enough for Miss Vaughan, she can take in his place
+the exhaustive researches of the Rev. A. B. Grosart, whose edition of
+the works of the Silurist Henry Vaughan have probably been neither seen
+nor heard of by this unwise woman, in the same way that she is ignorant
+of most essential elements in the matters which she presumes to treat.
+The authority of a laborious scholar like Dr Grosart will probably be of
+greater weight than the foul narrative of a Palladian memoir-maker, who
+has not produced her documents. From this date it follows that in the
+year 1636 Thomas Vaughan was still in the schoolboy period, not even of
+sufficient age to begin a college career. He could not, as alleged, have
+visited Fludd, the illustrious Kentish mystic, in London, nor would he
+have been ripe for initiation, supposing that Fludd could have dispensed
+it. In like manner, Andreae, assuming that he was Grand Master of the
+Rosicrucians, would not have welcomed a youngster of fifteen years,
+supposing that in those days he was likely to travel from London to
+Stuttgart, but would have recommended him to return to his
+lesson-books. The first voyage to America and all the earlier incidents
+of the narrative are untrue for the same reason. In place of wandering
+through Denmark, the Hague, and Sweden, initiating and being initiated,
+he was drumming through a course at Oxford; in place of pious
+pilgrimages to the shrine of Socinus, he was preparing to take orders in
+the English Church, and the narrative which is untrue to his early is
+untrue also to his later life. After receiving Holy Orders he returned
+to his native village and took over the care of its souls. He was never
+a Puritan; he was never a friend of Cromwell; he was a high-churchman
+and a Royalist, and he was ejected from his living because he was
+accused by political enemies of carrying arms for the king. He never
+travelled; on the contrary, he married, at what period is unknown, but
+his tender devotion to his wife is commemorated on the reverse pages of
+an autograph alchemical MS. now in the British Museum, which belies
+furthermore, in every line and word, the Luciferian imposture of the
+Paris-cum-Yankee documents, by its passionate religious aspiration and
+its adoring love of Christ.
+
+When Vaughan came up to London, it was as a man who was somewhat out of
+joint with English, in spite of his Oxford career, because he was a
+Welsh speaking man, and when he took to writing books, he apologises for
+his awkward diction. He accentuates also his youth, which would be
+warrantable at the age of twenty-eight, but would be absurd in a writer
+approaching forty years. This point may be verified by any one who will
+refer to my edition of Vaughan's _Anthroposophia Theomagica_. The works
+of Thomas Vaughan, besides _Anthroposophia Theomagica_, are _Anima
+Magica Abscondita_, published in 1650; _Magia Adamica_ 1650, apparently
+forgotten by the "authentic documents" of Miss Vaughan, as are also "The
+Man-Mouse" and "The Second Wash, or the Moore scoured once
+More"--satires on Henry More, written in reply to that Platonist, who
+had attacked the previous books. These belong to the year 1651, as also
+does _Lumen de Lumine_; "The Fame and Confession of the Fraternity
+R.C." appeared in 1652, not 1659, as the "family history" affirms; _Aula
+Lucis_, 1652 (not 1651); and "Euphrates," 1655. What is obvious
+everywhere in these priceless little books is the devotion of a true
+mystic to Jesus Christ, and to gift them with the sordid interpretation
+of a French-born cultus of Lucifer is about as possible as to attribute
+a Christian intention to the calumnies of Miss Vaughan's documents.
+
+In the year 1665, at the house of the rector of Albury, a chemical
+experiment with mercury cost the Welsh alchemist his life, and he was
+buried in the churchyard of that village in Oxfordshire.
+
+It is clear, therefore, that the wonderful archives in the possession of
+Miss Vaughan give a bogus history of Eugenius Philalethes, but they are
+also untrue of Eirenaeus. It is untrue that this mysterious adept, whose
+identity has never been disclosed, was born in 1612; he was born some
+ten years later.
+
+The source of both dates is "The Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of
+the King"; but that which Miss Vaughan champions is based upon a
+corrupt reading in a bad version, and she has evidently never seen the
+original and best of the Latin impressions, that of Langius, though she
+has the presumption to cite it. That edition establishes that he wrote
+the treatise in the year 1645, he being then in the twenty-third year of
+his age--whence it follows that the date of his birth was most probably
+1622, and the history with which he is invested by Miss Vaughan is again
+a misfit; it is putting man's garments on a boy. Furthermore, there is
+not one item in her statements concerning the "Open Entrance" which is
+not directly and provably false. It was not printed, as she indicates,
+under the supervision of the author; it was not printed from the
+original MS., nor was that MS. returned to Philalethes after it had
+passed through the press. It is shameful for any person, male or female,
+however little they may consider their own fair fame, to so far violate
+the canons of literary honour as to make dogmatic statements concerning
+a work which they cannot have seen. The preface prefixed to this
+edition by Langius completely refutes Miss Vaughan. Here is a passage in
+point:--"Truly who or what kind of person was author of this sweet,
+must-like work, I know no more than he who is most ignorant, nor, since
+he himself would conceal his name, do I think fit to enquire so far,
+lest I get his displeasure." Again--"To pick out the roses from the most
+thorny bushes of writings, and to make the elixir of philosophers by his
+own industry, without any tutor, and at twenty-three years of age, this
+perchance hath been granted to none, or to most few hitherto." Langius,
+moreover, laments explicitly the fact that he did not print from an
+original MS. He printed from a Latin translation, the work of an unknown
+hand, which had come into his possession, as he tells us, from a man who
+was learned in such matters. Miss Vaughan's pretended autograph, with
+its despicable marginal readings, is obviously a Latin copy, whatever be
+its history otherwise. The original was in English, and when Langius was
+regretting its loss, "a transcript, probably written from the author's
+copy, or very little corrupted," was in possession of the bookseller
+William Cooper, of Little Saint Bartholomews, near Little Britain, in
+the city of London, who published it in the year 1669, to correct the
+imperfections in the edition of Amsterdam. This transcript also
+establishes that the "Open Entrance" was penned when the author was in
+his twenty-third year.
+
+As a matter of fact, Philalethes does not appear to have superintended
+the publication of any of his writings, and here Miss Vaughan again
+exhibits her unpardonable ignorance concerning the works with which she
+is dealing. To prove that her reputed ancestor was alive after the
+accepted date of Thomas Vaughan's death, she triumphantly observes that
+in the year 1668 he published his experiments on the preparation of
+Sophic Mercury and _Tractatus Tres_. But the latter volume was a piracy,
+for in his preface to "Ripley Revived" the author expressly laments that
+two of its three treatises had passed out of his hands, and he feared
+lest they should get into print, because they were imperfect works
+preceding the period of solid knowledge which produced the "Open
+Entrance." Again, so little was he consulted over the appearance of the
+"Sophic Mercury" that the printer represents it as the work of an
+American philosopher, whence it has been fathered upon George Starkey.
+
+Eirenaeus Philalethes was undoubtedly a great traveller and he visited
+America, but there is no ground for supposing that he was ever in Italy,
+and that either he or Thomas Vaughan edited the works of Socinus is an
+ignorant fiction, for which even Miss Vaughan can find no better warrant
+than the evasive place of publication which figures on the title-page of
+the _Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum_, namely, Eirenaeopolis. In like
+manner she erroneously credits him with the authorship of the _Medulla
+Alchemiae_, which is the work of Eirenaeus Philoponos Philalethes,
+otherwise George Starkey.
+
+These facts fully establish the fraudulent nature of Miss Vaughan's
+family history, by whomsoever it has been devised, and seeing that where
+it is possible to check it, it breaks down at every point, we need have
+no hesitation in rejecting the information which it provides in those
+cases where it cannot be brought to book. The connection of Faustus
+Socinus with the Rosicrucian Fraternity, as founder, is one instance;
+this is merely an extension of the imposture of Abbe Lefranc in his
+"Veil Raised for the Curious," and it rests, like its original, on no
+evidence which can be traced. Another is the Rosicrucian Imperatorship
+of Andreae, and yet another the initiation of Robert Fludd. Again, the
+connection of Philalethes with John Frederick Helvetius is based on
+speculation only, and that of Ashmole with the institution of symbolical
+Masonry has never been more than hypothesis, and not very deserving at
+that. I regret to add that, on the authority of her bogus documents,
+Miss Vaughan has given currency to a rumour that the founder of the
+Ashmolean Museum poisoned his first wife. She deserves the most severe
+reprobation for having failed to test her materials before she made
+public this foul slander. Furthermore, in that portion of her materials
+which is concerned with her family history, she is not above tampering
+with the sense of printed books. The worshippers of Lucifer are
+represented as invariably terming their divinity the "good God"--_Dieu
+bon_,--or our God--_notre Dieu_--to distinguish him from the God of the
+Adonaites, and the references made to the Deity by Philalethes in the
+"Open Entrance" she falsely translates by these Luciferian equivalents,
+thus creating an impression in the minds of the ignorant that he is not
+speaking of the true Divinity. After this it will hardly surprise my
+readers that a pretended translation from a MS. of Gillermet de
+Beauregard, which she states to be preserved in the archives of the
+Sovereign Patriarchal Council of Hamburg, is simply stolen from an
+_Instruction a la France sur la verite de l'Histoire des Freres de la
+Roze-Croix_, by Gabriel Naude, who ridiculed and reviled the Order. I
+submit in conclusion that, in view of the facts already elicited, it is
+not worth while to inquire into the value of the episode concerned with
+the judicial murder of Archbishop Laud, and to elaborately argue that
+Oliver Cromwell was the last person in England to be implicated in such
+a transaction, he, at the period in question, being briskly employed in
+checkmating his King, who was at Oxford in winter quarters, and having
+neither the power nor opportunity to meddle with the details of an
+execution. The incident, in a word, is worth as much and as little as
+the abominable story of the subsequent pact with Lucifer or the foolery
+of the mystic marriage.
+
+The critical investigation of Miss Vaughan's alleged documents having
+led to these results, it remains to be seen how far the other portions
+of her narrative will bear analysis. So long as she confined the more
+responsible part of her memoirs to personal experiences in the science
+of conversion and to the relation of her Eucharistic raptures, the
+lovers of ardent reading in this order of sensation were the only
+persons who could lay a complaint against her if she failed to fulfil
+their requirements. So long also as she fixed the scene of her history
+in a comparatively remote place, and among men now dead, she was
+partially protected from exposure, but when she transfers her
+revelations to England she is treading on dangerous ground, and she has
+in fact fallen into the pit. She has had the temerity to meddle with the
+modern history of Rosicrucian societies, and has undertaken to inform
+her readers after what manner she has come into possession of the
+rituals of the revived Rosicrucian Order, and her account is
+specifically untrue. She is undoubtedly acquainted with the grades of
+the order, but she could have obtained these from more than one
+published source--as, for example, the late Kenneth McKenzie's
+"Cyclopaedia of Freemasonry," or from my own "Real History of the
+Rosicrucians." But even if she possess the rituals, she has not come by
+them in the manner she describes. Her account is as follows:--"The
+Fraternity of the Rose-Cross comprises nine degrees of initiation--1.
+Zelator; 2. Theoricus; 3. Practicus (Miss Vaughan writes _Praticus_,
+which would be the error of a French person who does not read Latin and
+not the error of an English or American person as she claims to be); 4.
+Philosophus; 5. Adeptus Minor, according to the variants of Valentin
+Andreae, or Adeptus Junior, according to the variants of Nick Stone
+(those were the variants of Nick Stone which were ostensibly burned in
+1720 by the Grand Master Theophilus Desaguliers, but were not in reality
+destroyed; transmitted to trusty English brethren, after the death of
+Desaguliers, they passed from reliable hands to others also reliable,
+until the reconstitution of the Rose-Cross; for the reconstituted
+association exists actually in England, Scotland, the United States, and
+Canada, and those variants of the grades which were made by Nick Stone,
+are at the present day deposited with Doctor W. W. W., living at Cambden
+(_sic_) Road, London, Supreme Magus of the Rose-Cross for England, AT
+WHOSE HOUSE I HAVE TRANSCRIBED THEM); 6. Adeptus Major; 7. Adeptus
+Exemptus; 8. Magister Templi; 9. Magus."
+
+Miss Vaughan's literary methods are not exactly captivating, and the
+enormous parenthesis is hers, but the capitals which close it are mine.
+The English doctor mentioned is well known to transcendentalists, and he
+is actually a high-grade Mason; he is also personally well-known to
+myself. To the best of his recollection he has never at any time met any
+person terming herself Diana Vaughan. More especially, no such
+individual has ever called at his house, much less copied any rituals of
+which he may be in possession. There is therefore only one term by which
+it is possible to qualify Miss Vaughan in her account of this matter,
+and if I refrain from applying it, it is more out of literary grace than
+from considerations of gallantry, for when persons of the opposite sex
+elect to make themselves odious by gross imposition, they cannot expect
+to escape the legitimate consequences at the hands of criticism any more
+than another class of female malefactors will escape on the plea of
+their sex at the hand of justice.
+
+The subject of Luciferian Freemasonry has been under discussion in the
+columns of _Light_ long before the appearance of this volume, and a
+number of transcendentalists, including one of great eminence--Mr
+Charles Carleton Massey--a few high-grade Masons, and myself, have
+exposed the pretensions of the French conspiracy. In most cases, and by
+more than one person, copies of the various issues were sent to Miss
+Vaughan through her publisher, and if she be not, as I hinted in that
+journal, the Mrs Harris of Freemasonry, there is little doubt that they
+reached her like other friendly offerings which she acknowledges in odd
+corners of her memoirs. It is probably in consequence of the exposures
+made in _Light_ in connection with others said to have been made
+recently in Canada that in the eighth number of her memoirs she
+threatens to turn somewhat desperately on her critics. I understand that
+the Australian boomerang is a weapon that comes back to its caster, and
+the vindictive feeling which has prompted Miss Vaughan to a fresh burst
+of revelation has returned upon herself in a very overwhelming manner.
+"I am driven, and I will do it," is her position. "I will reveal the
+English Palladists such as they actually and personally are." And she
+does so to her own destruction as follows:--
+
+"The actual chief of the English Luciferians is Doctor William Wynn
+Westcott, living at 396 Cambden Road, London, whom on a previous
+occasion I mentioned only by his initials. It is he who is the actual
+custodian of the diabolical rituals of Nick Stone; it is he who is the
+Supreme Magus of the Socinian Rose-Cross for England." She proceeds to
+give the names of the Senior and Junior Sub-Magi, the members of the
+Grand Council, the chiefs of what she terms the Third Luciferian Order,
+and the Masters of the Temple, otherwise the Metropolitan College.
+Similar particulars follow concerning the York College, the College of
+Newcastle-on-Tyne, and that of Edinburgh.
+
+Now, Dr Wynn Westcott is a high-grade Mason, as I have said, and he
+occupies a professional position of influence and importance; it is
+clear that a gratuitous attempt to fasten upon him charges of an odious
+character is an exceedingly evil proceeding and places the person who
+does so outside all limits of tender consideration. When Miss Vaughan
+states that Dr Westcott is a Palladist, a diabolist, a worshipper of
+Lucifer, or however she may elect to distinguish it, I reply that she is
+guilty of a gross libel, which is at the same time an abominable and
+cruel falsehood. When she says that she has been received at his house,
+I reply that she has not been received there, and that Dr Westcott is
+likely to require better credentials from female visitors than are
+supplied by the infamous inventions in the "Memoirs of an Ex-Palladist."
+When Miss Vaughan affirms that she has transcribed Dr Westcott's rituals
+at the house of Dr Westcott, I reply that this would be an untrue
+statement if the lady who made it were an intimate friend, and it is
+doubly untrue when affirmed by a perfect stranger. When Miss Vaughan
+states that Dr Westcott is the head of a Society which worships Lucifer,
+I reply that she is speaking falsely of a body concerning which she is
+in complete ignorance, and when an ignorant person thus attributes evil
+she or he does not only act foolishly but with exceeding malice. Miss
+Vaughan is henceforth upon all accounts outside that category of
+literary honour which makes it possible for criticism to be concerned
+with her and still preserve its dignity. Lastly, Miss Vaughan alleges
+that the official appointments made by Dr Westcott as Supreme Magus of
+the Society in question for the year 1896 were submitted to Adriano
+Lemmi and approved by him. This allegation is false _in toto_. Neither
+in a general nor a special sense is Dr Westcott responsible to Lemmi or
+to any Italian Freemason; what is more, no personal or written
+communication has at any time passed between them, and save as a past
+Grand Master Dr Westcott has never heard of the person to whose commands
+he is thus supposed to be subject. It will be seen that the baseless
+nature of this absurd statement involves all others of its kind, and
+there is no reason to attach the slightest credibility to anything which
+has been advanced concerning the supreme position of Adriano Lemmi, who,
+further, himself denies it, and, whatever his past history, is as much
+entitled to belief as accusers who betray their true character in this
+unenviable manner.
+
+The Society which has thus been attacked in the person of its Supreme
+Magus is of singularly unpretending nature, simple as regards its
+history, and making no claim either to Masonic or Mystical importance.
+It does not claim or possess a connection with the original Rosicrucian
+Fraternity. It does not attribute antiquity to the rituals which it
+uses. It was founded by Robert Wentworth Little, who died in 1878, and
+has been in existence somewhat less than forty years. Its sole
+connection with Masonry is that it only initiates Masons. It neither
+enjoys nor expects recognition from the Grand Lodge of England. It is
+literary and antiquarian in its object, and came into existence chiefly
+for the study of the history of Freemasonry and of other secret
+societies. Its members are required to believe in the fundamental
+principles of Christian doctrine. The Metropolitan College has only four
+convocations and one banquet annually; the number of Fratres upon the
+Roll of Subscribers is fifty-four. It has attracted Masons interested in
+the antiquities of their craft and has no other sphere of influence. It
+publishes occasional transactions, the dimensions of which are regulated
+by an exceedingly modest income. I mention many of these particulars
+merely to place a check upon exaggerated notions. Some of the provincial
+Colleges have a larger membership, but they are of precisely the same
+character. It is not a society of occultists, though, like innumerable
+other bodies, it counts occultists among its brethren. Finally, no
+religious cultus of any kind is performed at its meetings, and no woman
+has ever passed its threshold.
+
+The Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia is Rosicrucian only in its name, as
+it is Masonic only in its name, and its members are not Miss Vaughan's
+_ex-Freres d'Angleterre_.
+
+It is certainly and in all respects necessary that something effectual
+should be done to curb a slanderous and evil tongue which has the
+audacity to impress the most sacred feelings of religion into the
+service of wilful lying. Dr Westcott is not the only English Mason who
+has suffered the undeserved indignity of gross aspersion from this
+unclean pen. Another victim is Mr Robert S. Brown, Grand Secretary of
+the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland, who is also a member
+of the Ancient and Accepted Rite, and of nearly all Masonic Orders, the
+Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia included. This honourable gentleman is
+especially recommended by Miss Vaughan to the attention of Catholics in
+Edinburgh, being the city in which he resides. She describes him as a
+dangerous sectarian, a veritable sorcerer, and the evil genius of one of
+her own relatives. She states further that he is an Elect Magus of the
+Palladium, that he protects Sophia Walder when she visits Scotland, and
+that he was a great admirer of Phileas Walder, at whose instance he
+consecrated himself to the demon anti-Christ. In each and all these
+statements this malicious woman has lied foully. I communicated with Mr
+Brown on the subject, and hold his written denials, which are at the
+service of any person who desires to see them. Mr Brown says:--"I am not
+an Elect Magus of the Palladium. I never to my knowledge saw Miss
+Walder, and never knew Miss Vaughan, or anyone of the name, man, woman,
+or child. I never heard Miss Walder named till I received your letter,
+and never knew of the existence of the Palladian Order, if it does
+exist, till I saw it mentioned in articles in 'Light' and the
+'Freemason's Chronicle' (London).... With reference to the particular
+statements in this copy of the _Memoires_, no doubt the writer has
+succeeded in getting hold of the facts in most cases as to the official
+positions of the parties named, which of course are easily obtained; the
+little details regarding some of us would indicate the presence of an
+agent in our midst or near at hand. The 'inventions' and most slanderous
+statements regarding most of us are, however, outrageously false and
+wicked. My house has never had the honour(!!!) of entertaining Miss
+Walder or any other lady of like character; it is not a chemical
+laboratory, and I have never exercised myself in these _mysterious
+experiences_ either there or elsewhere. I am a humble member of the
+Episcopal Church of Scotland, and, I trust, a sincere follower of the
+Master.... I count nearly all the gentlemen named in this vile
+proclamation among my friends, they are all good men and true, and I
+hope to associate with them for many years to come. I most emphatically
+deny the vile aspersions cast on their characters and my own, and you
+have my full authority to do so as far as the same may serve your
+purpose." My readers will agree that the clear and temperate statement
+of Mr R. S. Brown brands Diana Vaughan with indelible disgrace in the
+eyes of the civilised world.
+
+There is a limit to the necessity of exposure, but should Miss Vaughan
+manifest any desire to have further instances of her mis-statements I
+will undertake to supply them. I will only add here in conclusion my
+personal opinion that Miss Vaughan has not been for any length of time a
+resident in an English-speaking country, much less can she have
+received, as it is alleged by some of her friends, an American
+education. The proof is that she makes characteristic French blunders
+over English names. Thus, we have _Cambden_ on each occasion for Camden,
+_Wescott_ for Westcott; we have _baronnet_ for baronet, _Cantorbery_ for
+Canterbury, _Kirkud-Bright_ for Kirkcudbright; we have hybrid
+combinations like _Georges_ Dickson, impossibilities like _Tiers-Ordre
+Luciferien d'Honoris Causa_, and numerous similar instances.
+
+To behold "Diana unveiled" was equivalent in alchemical terminology to
+attaining the _magnum opus_. The reputed author of the "New Light of
+Alchemy" testifies that some persons had in his own day and to his
+certain knowledge attained this supreme privilege. It is not of my own
+seeking if in another sense I have made public the same spectacle, and
+thus broken with the traditions of secret science. It would have been
+preferable from one point of view to have discovered Lucifer behind the
+mask of Masonry than to have found the conspiracy against it another
+_Tableau des Inconstances des Demons_ in which the _infidelite et
+mecreance_ connected with the old false witness, abound after a manner
+undreamed of by Bodin and Wierus, for it is distinctly disconcerting to
+think that a great church is so little honoured by her combatants and
+converts.
+
+It only remains to state, and I do so with extreme reluctance, that the
+evidence of Signor Domenico Margiotta, which seems so strong in itself,
+can only be accepted, as we have seen, in connection with the
+credibility of Miss Vaughan, and as this has completely broken down, we
+cannot do otherwise than regard that part of his evidence which is
+concerned with Palladism as the narrative of a person who has been very
+seriously misled. And I think he has otherwise shown us that he is not a
+judicious critic of the materials which have come into his hands. He
+should never, for example, have printed his list of Palladian Lotus
+Lodges--so far as regards Great Britain, it is undeniably a false list.
+Take that of Edinburgh as a typical instance. Mr Brown, who has every
+opportunity of knowing, tells me there is absolutely no truth in the
+statement that there is in Edinburgh a Mother, or any, Lodge of the
+Palladian Order. "Neither is there a Triangular Province--whatever that
+may mean--such as is described. All is absolutely false."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE RADIX OF MODERN DIABOLISM
+
+
+We have finished with the witnesses of Lucifer, and I think that the
+search-light of a drastic criticism has left them in considerable
+disarray. We approach the limit of the present inquiry, but before
+summing up and presenting such a general statement or conclusion as may
+be warranted by the facts, there is one point, left over hereunto, and
+designed for final consideration, because it appeals more exclusively to
+professed transcendentalists, which it will be necessary to treat
+briefly. I have already indicated that sporadic revivals of black magic
+have occasionally been heard of by mystics here in England, and from
+time to time we have also heard vaguely of obscure assemblies of
+Luciferians. Quite recently an interview with Papus, the French
+occultist, published in _Light_, mentions a society which was devoted to
+the cultus of Lucifer, star of the morning, quite distinct from Masonry,
+quite unimportant, and since very naturally dead. Now, a large
+proportion of mystics here in England are High-Grade Masons, and if a
+society of the Palladium had extended to anything remotely approaching
+the proportions alleged, they could not have failed to know of it. I
+will go further and affirm that our non-Masonic transcendental
+associations have abundant opportunities to become acquainted with
+institutions similar to their own, and it is preposterous to suppose
+that there could be several Palladian triangles working their degrees in
+this country without our being aware of the fact. But we have not been
+aware of it, and our only informations concerning Palladism have come to
+us from France. We do not accept these informations; we know that the
+persons here in England who are alleged by French false witnesses to be
+connected with the Palladium are not so connected, and are now learning
+of it for the first time. The statements concerning Mr John Yarker are
+categorically untrue; the gross calumny published by the "converted"
+Diana Vaughan about Dr Wynn Westcott, who happens to be a High-Grade
+Mason, she will never dare to come forth from her "retreat" and
+re-affirm within the jurisdiction of these islands, because she knows
+well that a British jury would make a large demand upon her reputed
+American dollars. Let us, however, put aside for the moment the
+mendacities and forgeries which complicate the question of Lucifer, and
+let us approach Palladism from an altogether different side. I believe
+that I may speak with a certain accent of authority upon any question
+which connects with the French magus Eliphas Levi. I am an old student
+of his works, and of the aspects of occult science and magical history
+which arise out of them; in the year 1886 I published a digest of his
+writings which has been the only attempt to present them to English
+readers until the present year when I have undertaken a translation _in
+extenso_ of the _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie_, which is actually
+in the hands of the printer. Now, it has not been alleged in so many
+words that the radix of Modern Diabolism and the Masonic cultus of
+Lucifer is to be found in Eliphas Levi, but that is the substance of the
+charge. Most, or all, of the witnesses agree in representing him as an
+atrocious Satanist, an invoker of Lucifer, a celebrater of black masses,
+and an adept in the practical blasphemies of Eucharistic sacrilege; all
+of them father either upon the Palladium or upon Pike a variety of
+documents containing gross thefts from Levi; some of them, directly and
+upon their own responsibility, cite passages from his works, always with
+conspicuous bad faith. Finally, they agree in connecting him with the
+foundation of the New and Reformed Palladium through his alleged
+disciple Phileas Walder; and one of them goes so far as to say that
+Palladism was a further development or restoration of a Satanic society
+directed by Eliphas Levi and operating his theurgic system, which he in
+turn, if I rightly understand the mixed hypothesis of M. de la Rive, may
+have derived from the Palladic rite of 1730. If we accept for the
+moment this origin of the reformed order, it will follow that if the
+occult doctrines of Eliphas Levi have been seriously misunderstood or
+grossly defamed by the witnesses, the diabolical or Luciferian
+connection of Palladism does not wear the complexion which has been
+ascribed to it. It is represented as: (a) outwardly Masonic, and (b)
+actually theurgic. (c) It is Manichaean in doctrine. (d) It regards
+Lucifer as an eternal principle co-existent, but in a hostile sense,
+with Adonai. (e) It holds that the beneficent deity is Lucifer, while
+Adonai is malevolent; (f) Certain sections of Palladists, however,
+recognise that Lucifer is identical with Satan, and is the evil
+principle. (g) This section adores the evil principle as such. Now, in
+each and all these matters the Palladian system conflicts with that of
+Levi.
+
+To give a colourable aspect to their hypothesis, the witnesses affirm
+that Levi was a high-grade Mason. He was nothing of the kind; he affirms
+most distinctly in his "History of Magic," that for any knowledge which
+he possessed about the mysteries of the fraternity, he owed his
+initiation only to God and to his individual studies. Secondly, the
+practice of ceremonial magic, which is what the witnesses understand by
+theurgy, is a practice condemned by Levi, except as an isolated
+experiment to fortify intellectual conviction as to the truth of magical
+theorems. He attempted it for this purpose in the spring of the year
+1854, and having satisfied himself as to the fact, he did not renew it.
+Thirdly, the philosophy of Eliphas Levi is in direct contrast to
+Manichaean doctrine; it cannot be explained by dualism, but must be
+explained by its opposite, namely, triplicity in unity. He shows that
+"the unintelligent disciples of Zoroaster have divided the duad without
+referring it to unity, thus separating the pillars of the temple, and
+seeking to halve God" (_Dogme_, p. 129, 2nd edition). Is that a
+Manichaean doctrine? Again: "If you conceive the Absolute as two, you
+must immediately conceive it as three to recover the unity principle"
+(_Ibid._). Once more: "Divinity, one in its essence, has two fundamental
+conditions of being--necessity and liberty" (_Ibid._, p. 127). And yet
+again: "If God were one only, He would never be Creator nor Father. If
+He were two, there would be antagonism or division in the infinite, and
+this would be severance or death for every possible existence; He is
+therefore three for the creation by Himself, and in His image of the
+infinite multitude of beings and numbers. Thus He is really one in
+Himself and triple in our conception, by which we also behold Him triple
+in Himself and one in our intelligence and in our love. This is a
+mystery for the faithful and a logical necessity for the initiate of the
+absolute and true sciences" (_Ibid._, p. 138). And the witnesses of
+Lucifer have the effrontery to represent Levi as a dualist! I will not
+discredit their understanding by supposing that they could misread so
+plain a principle, nor dissemble my full conviction that they acted with
+intentional bad faith. Fourthly, Eliphas Levi regarded Lucifer as a
+conception of transcendental mythology, and the devil as an impossible
+fiction, or an inverted and blasphemous conception of God--divinity _a
+rebours_. He describes the Ophite heresy which offered adoration to the
+serpent and the Cainite heresy which justified the revolt of the first
+angel and the first murderer as errors fit for classification with the
+monstrous idols of the anarchic symbolism of India (_Rituel_, pp. 13,
+14). Is that diabolism? Is that the cultus of Lucifer? True, Levi did
+not believe in the personal existence of a father of lies, and if it be
+Satanism not to do so, let us be content to diabolise with Levi while
+the false witnesses illustrate the methods of their father.
+
+It is unnecessary to multiply quotations, but here is one more: "The
+author of this book is a Christian like you; his faith is that of a
+Catholic deeply and strongly convinced; therefore his mission is not to
+deny dogmas, but to combat impiety under one of its most dangerous
+forms, that of erroneous belief and superstition.... Away with the idol
+which hides our Saviour! Down with the tyrant of falsehood! Down with
+the black god of the Manichaeans! Down with the Ahriman of the old
+idolaters! Live God alone and His incarnate Logos, Jesus the Christ,
+Saviour of the world, who beheld Satan precipitated from heaven!" Go to,
+M. le Docteur Bataille! _A bas_, Signor Margiotta! Phi, diabolus and Leo
+Taxil!
+
+Seeing then that Eliphas Levi has been calumniously represented, and
+that he was not a Satanist, he could not have founded a Satanic society,
+nor could a Manichaean order have been developed out of his doctrines.
+Hence if a Palladian Society do exist at Charleston, it either owes
+nothing to Levi, or its cultus has been falsely described. In other
+words, from whatever point we approach the witnesses of Lucifer, they
+are subjected to a rough unveiling. In the words of the motto on my
+title, the first in this plot was Lucifer--_videlicet_, the Father of
+Lies!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+It remains for us now to appreciate the exact position in which the
+existence of the Palladian Order is left after all suspicious
+information has been subtracted. We have examined in succession the
+testimony of every witness to the discovery of Leo Taxil and M. Adolphe
+Ricoux, and it has been made entirely evident that they are of a most
+unsatisfactory kind. I make no pretence to pass a precise judgment upon
+Leo Taxil, for I am not in a position to prove that the Palladian
+rituals which appear in "Are there Women in Freemasonry?" can be
+characterised as invented matter. Granting his personal good faith,
+there are still many obvious questions, one of which is the connection
+between the Palladians and Masonry. As regards the so-called Paris
+triangle, from which the information was obtained, as regards the
+ritual itself, there is obviously no such connection, except the
+fantastic and arbitrary rule that initiation is imparted exclusively to
+persons possessed of Masonic degrees. It is patent that such an
+institution is not Masonic, though it possesses some secrets of Masonry.
+The Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, as we have seen, is an association
+based upon precisely the same regulation, but it has no official
+position. Should a circle of Catholic priests conspire for the formation
+of a society dedicated to black magic and the celebration of the Satanic
+mass, that would not be the Church diabolising. No institution, and no
+society, is responsible for the unauthorised acts of individual members.
+At the same time, if it should be advanced by hostile criticism that the
+invention of rituals is easy, and that the literary antecedents of Leo
+Taxil are not precisely of that kind which would lead any cautious
+person to place blind confidence in his unchecked statements, I am
+compelled to say that I should find considerable difficulty in
+challenging such a position.
+
+Mgr. Meurin, the next witness, deserves, by his position and ability,
+our very sincere respect; compared with the octogenarian sentimentalism
+of Jean Kostka, the violence of Signor Margiotta, and the paste-pot of
+M. de la Rive, one breathes _a pleine poitrine_ in the altitudes of
+ecclesiastical erudition, artificial as their eminence turns out; the
+art sacerdotal does not concern itself with preposterous narratives, so
+that it disputes nothing with the art of Bataille; it has never stood in
+need of conversion, and hence is exempt from the hysterical ardours and
+languors of Diana Vaughan. But the archbishop's interpretation of
+Masonry is based upon another interpretation of Kabbalistic literature,
+which can be accepted by no person who is acquainted therewith, and
+would have scarcely been attempted by himself if he had known it at
+first hand. In the matter of Palladian Masonry, he can tell us only what
+he has learned from Ricoux.
+
+It is agreed upon all sides that we dismiss Dr Bataille. He does not
+disclose the name and nation which he adopted during his Masonic career,
+and hence the persons whom he states that he met are, with one
+exception, not in a position to contradict him, because they are not in
+a position to identify him. The personality of the one exception is not
+particularised, but may be guessed without the exercise of much skill in
+divination, and here I must leave the point, not because I am
+disinclined to speak plainly and thus risk the possibility of being
+mistaken, but because Dr Bataille informs us that this one confidant is
+in his power, and that he could procure for him or her a term of penal
+servitude. Lastly, he is not in a position to exhibit his Palladian
+diplomas, which were demanded by the dispensing authorities when he
+first fell under their suspicion and have not been returned to him.
+While we are therefore prevented from checking his affirmations in what
+most concerns our inquiry, we see that at all points where it is
+possible to control him he has completely broken down; the miraculous
+element of his narrative transcends credit, and his statements upon a
+multitude of ordinary matters of fact are beneath it. When we connect
+these points with the mode of publication he has seen fit to adopt, and
+remember the kind of motive which usually attaches to that mode, we have
+no other course but to set him entirely outside consideration. His book
+is evidentially valuable only to close the question. He may have visited
+Charleston; he may have made the personal acquaintance of Albert Pike,
+Gallatin Mackey, Phileas Walder, and his daughter Sophia; three of these
+persons are dead and cannot testify; the fourth acknowledges that he
+attended her medically at Naples; she protests against his betrayal, but
+she does not betray in return his Masonic identity, though I need
+scarcely add that she does not substantiate his statements. On these
+points my readers may be reasonably left to form their own judgments.
+
+Miss Diana Vaughan is a lady who, in spite of much notoriety, is not in
+evidence; with one exception no credible person has ever said that he
+has seen her; that exception is Signor Margiotta. It would not, however,
+be the strongest line of criticism to dispute her existence; we may
+accept very gladly all that her Italian friend is good enough to say in
+regard to her personal characteristics, but we know that she has tried
+to deceive us, with conspicuous ill-success it is true, yet in a gross
+and most wicked manner. As to Signor Margiotta himself, with all his
+imperfections, he is the strongest witness to the discovery of Leo
+Taxil. I have admitted the great apparent force which belongs to his
+enormous array of documentary evidence, and I have established the
+nature of the complications which make that evidence extremely difficult
+to accept.
+
+Lastly, Jean Kostka and M. A. C. de la Rive, though they came within the
+scope of our inquiry, are not Palladian witnesses. It would appear,
+therefore, that Leo Taxil and M. Adolphe Ricoux are, for the most part,
+neither honoured in their witnesses nor in a position to stand alone.
+The evidence which has grown out of their discovery is in an exceedingly
+corrupt state, and in summing the Question of Lucifer, as an impartial
+critic, I shall therefore simply propose to my readers the following
+general statement:--In the year 1891, Leo Taxil and M. Adolphe Ricoux
+state that they have discovered certain documents which show the
+existence of a Palladian Society, claimed to be at the head of Masonry,
+and in the year 1895 Signor Domenico Margiotta states that he belonged
+to that society and gives further particulars concerning it. A number of
+other witnesses have also come forward whose evidence must, for various
+reasons, be completely rejected. It is in all respects much to be
+deplored that Signor Margiotta has largely and approvingly cited the
+testimony of two of these witnesses who are most open to condemnation,
+and that he has himself exercised an imperfect and uncritical censorship
+over papers which have come into his hands. From first to last all
+documents are open to strong suspicion.
+
+Such is the slender residue which results from this sifting of Lucifer;
+if I have made my final statement thus indeterminate in its character,
+it is because I wish my readers to form their own conclusions as to Leo
+Taxil and Domenico Margiotta, and because I believe that, before long,
+further evidence will be forthcoming. I have little personal doubt as to
+the ultimate nature of the verdict, but at the present stage of the
+inquiry, with all the exposures which I have had the satisfaction of
+making fresh and clear in my mind, I would dissuade any one from saying
+that there is "nothing in" the Question of Lucifer; it is at least
+obvious that there is no end to its impostures, in which respect I do
+not claim to have done more than trim the fringes of the question. It is
+not therefore closed, and, if I may so venture to affirm, it assumes a
+fresh interest with the appearance of this book. It deserves to rank
+among the most extraordinary literary swindles of the present, perhaps
+of any, century. The field which it covers is enormous, and there is
+room, and more than room, for a score of other investigators who will
+none fail of their reward. Within the limits of a moderate volume, it is
+impossible to take into account the whole of the issues involved, while
+the importance which is to be attributed to the subject should not be
+lightly regarded, seeing that in France, at the time of writing, it
+provides an apparently remunerative circulation to two monthly reviews,
+and that its literature is otherwise still growing. At the present
+moment, and for the purposes of this criticism, a few concluding
+statements alone remain to be made; they concern the position of Italy
+in connection with the so-called Universal Masonry, some aspects of the
+history of the Scotch Rite in connection with the recent revelations,
+and the interference of the Catholic Church, wisely or not, in the
+question.
+
+The one Mason whose rank corresponds in Italy to that of Albert Pike in
+America is not Adriano Lemmi, but Signor Timoteo Riboli, Sovereign Grand
+Commander of the 33rd and last degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch
+Rite. Adriano Lemmi is, or was, Grand Master of the Craft Section of
+Italy and Deputy Grand Commander only of the Supreme Council of Italy of
+the 33 deg.. The pretended Grand Central Directory of Naples, which governs
+all Europe in the interests of Charleston, with Giovanni Bovio for
+Sovereign Director, is a Masonic myth--_pace_ Signor Margiotta. Signor
+Bovio is a Member of the Grand Master's Council and a 33 deg. at Rome. There
+is a Neapolitan Section of the Ancient and Accepted Rite, but it has
+powers only up to the 30 deg., and as such has no authority in general
+government, nor does Bovio appear to be a member of the Neapolitan
+section, though as a member of Lemmi's Council, and a 33 deg., he no doubt
+has his share in the government of the Neapolitans.
+
+The history of the Ancient and Accepted Rite as given by Signor
+Margiotta and sketched in my second chapter is an incorrect history. The
+facts are as follows:--A person named Isaac Long was engaged in
+propagating the French Rite of Perfection of 25 deg. in America before 1796;
+in that year he gave the degrees to one de Grasse and also to de la
+Hogue, who established a Consistory of the 25 deg. at Charleston. In 1802
+this Consistory had blossomed into a Supreme Grand Council, 33 deg., and at
+a little later period they forged the name of Voltaire's friend,
+Frederick the Great of Prussia, to what Mr Yarker terms "one of the most
+stupidly concocted documents ever palmed upon an ignorant public."
+However this may be, Long does not seem to have been at any time a
+member of this body. This is how the "Mother Council of the World" is
+said to have come into existence, and Charleston has established Supreme
+Councils 33 deg., between 1811 and 1846, in France, Ireland, Scotland,
+England, and elsewhere.
+
+There is no foundation for the legend of the Charleston Templar relics,
+namely, the skull of Jacques de Molay and the Baphomet, beyond the fact
+that one of the grades, the 23 deg. of the old Rite of Perfection and the
+30 deg. of the modern Rite, uses a representation of the Papal tiara in its
+ceremonies and also of the crown of France, in allusion to Pope Clement
+V. and Philip le Bel.
+
+I can find no Mason, of what grade or rite soever, who has ever heard of
+Pike's Sepher d'Hebarim, his book called Apadno, or lectures in which he
+imparted extracts unacknowledged from Eliphas Levi; they may rank with
+triangular provinces, Lucifer _chez lui_, the skull of Molay, and the
+Palladium; in other words, they are lying myths. Nothing which Pike has
+or is known to have written has any Luciferian complexion. He has
+collected into his lectures a mass of mystical material from rites like
+Memphis and Misraim, but it is alchemical, theosophical, or dealing with
+ancient symbolism, the mysteries, pre-christian theology, &c. As to Pike
+himself, a Mason of high authority observes in a private letter:--"He
+was one of the greatest men who ever adorned our Order. He was a giant
+among men, his learning was most profound, his eloquence great, and his
+wisdom comprehensive; he was a scholar in many languages, and a most
+voluminous writer. He was an ornament to the profession to which he
+belonged, namely, Law; he fought the cause of the red man against the
+American government many years ago, and prevailed in a large degree. I
+believe he was a true and humble servant of the One True and Living God,
+and a lover of humanity."
+
+Having regard to all these facts, it is much to be regretted that the
+Catholic Church should have warmly approved and welcomed the extremely
+unsatisfactory testimony which connects Masonry with Diabolism. When the
+report of Diabolism first reached the ears of English mystics, and it
+was understood that the Church had concerned herself very seriously in
+the matter, I must confess that a hidden motive was immediately
+suspected. A recrudescence of mediaeval Black Magic was in no sense
+likely to attain such proportions as to warrant the august interference;
+it seemed much as if Her Majesty's government should think it worth
+while to suppress the League of the White Rose. But when it transpired
+that the Question of Lucifer was a new aspect of the old question of
+Catholic hostility to Masonry, the astonishment evaporated; it was at
+once seen that Modern Diabolism had acquired an extrinsic importance
+because it was alleged to be connected with that Fraternity which the
+Church has long regarded as her implacable enemy. I must be permitted to
+register clearly the general conviction that if black magic, sorcery,
+and the Sabbath up to date had been merely revived demonomania, had been
+merely concerned with the black paternoster, the black mass, or even
+with transcendental sensualism and the ordeal of the pastos, the Roman
+hierarchy would not have taken action as it has, nor would the witnesses
+concerning these things have been welcomed with open arms; as a fact,
+no interest whatsoever is manifested in the doings of diabolists who
+operate apart from Masonry. Now, the hostility of Continental Masons
+towards Catholicism, in so far as it provably exists, has been largely
+or exclusively created by the hostility of the Church, and we know that
+he hates most who hates the first. In so far, therefore, as the Church
+has concerned herself by encouragement, which has something of the
+aspect of incitement, in the recent revelations, we shall have to bear
+in mind her attitude, while the history of forged decretals and bogus
+apostolic epistles will reveal to us that she does not invariably
+exercise a searching criticism upon documents which serve her purpose.
+
+The sorcery of the nineteenth century is under no circumstances likely
+to justify the faggots of the fifteenth; it might be easier to justify
+the sorcery. As much by mystics as by the Church Catholic, modern black
+magic may be left to perish of its own corruption. But an attempt on the
+part of the Church to fasten the charge of diabolism on the Masonic
+Fraternity has credibly another motive than that of political hostility,
+which seems held to justify almost any weapon that comes to hand. At the
+bottom of her hatred of Masonry there is also her dread of the mystic.
+Transcendental science claims to have the key of her doctrines, and
+there is evidence that she fears that claim. Black magic, which, by the
+hypothesis, is the use of the most evil forces for the most evil
+purposes, she does not fear, for it wears its condemnation on its
+forehead; but mysticism, which accepts her own dogmas and interprets
+them in a sense which is not her own, which claims a certitude in
+matters of religion that transcends the certitude of faith, seems to
+hint that at one point it is possible to undermine her foundations.
+Hence she has ever suspected the mystic, and a part of her suspicion of
+Masonry has been by reason of its connection with the mystic; she has
+intuitively divined that connection, which by Masons themselves, for the
+most part, is not dreamed at this day, and when suggested is generally
+somewhat lightly cast aside. It would be quite out of place at the
+close of the present inquiry, which, from a wholly independent
+standpoint, has sought to justify a great fraternity from a singularly
+foul aspersion, to attempt enforcing upon Masons a special view of their
+institution, but it is desirable, at the same time, to be just towards
+the Catholic Church, and to affirm that we, as mystics, are on this
+point substantially in agreement with her. The connection in question
+was for a time visible, and remains in historical remembrance; from the
+beginning of its public appearance till the close of the eighteenth
+century, the history of Masonry is part of transcendental history. That
+connection has now ceased to manifest, but there is another which is
+integral and permanent, and is a matter of common principles and common
+objects. Let it be remembered, however, that connection is not identity;
+it is not intended to say that the threshold of Masonry is a gate of
+Mysticism, but that there is a community of purpose, of symbolism, of
+history, and indirectly of origin, between the two systems.
+
+All true religion, all true morality, all true mysticism have but one
+object, and that is to act on humanity, collective and individual, in
+such a manner that it shall correspond efficiently with the great law of
+development, and co-operate consciously therewith to achieve the end of
+development. Under all the mysteries of its symbolism, behind the
+impressive parables of its ritual, and as equally, but if possible more
+effectually concealed, beneath the commonplace insistences of its moral
+maxims, this end is also proposed by the occult initiations of Masonry;
+and if it be defined more explicitly as the perfection of man both here
+and hereafter, and his union with what is highest in the universe, we
+shall see more clearly not only that it is the sole fundamental
+principle of all religion, its very essence, divested of creed and
+dogma, but also inherent in the nature of symbolical Masonry, and
+"inwrought in the whole system of Masonic ceremonies."
+
+As mystics, however, we consider that the ethical standard of Masonry
+will produce good citizens to society and good brethren to the
+Fraternity, but it will not produce saints to Christ. There is an
+excellence which is other than the moral, and stands to morality in
+precisely the same relation that genius bears to talent. The moral
+virtues are not the _summum bonum_, nor the totality of all forces at
+work in the development of man, nor actually the perfect way, though
+they are the gate of the way of perfection. Now, the mystic claims to be
+in possession of the higher law which transcends the ethical, from which
+the ethical derives, and to which it must be referred for its reason.
+That the lost secret of Freemasonry is concerned with special
+applications of this higher law which connect with mysticism, we, as
+mystics, do hold and can make evident in its proper time and place.
+Here, and personally, I am concerned only with a comprehensive
+statement. In addition to its body of moral law, which is founded in the
+general conscience, or in the light of nature, Masonry has a body of
+symbolism, of which the source is not generally known, and by which it
+is identified with movements and modes of thought, and with
+evolutionary processes, having reference to regions already described as
+transcending the ethical world and concerned with the spiritual man.
+From every Masonic candidate, ignoring the schismatic and excommunicated
+sections, there is required a distinct attitude of mind towards the
+world without and the world within. He is required to believe in the
+existence of a Supreme Intelligence, with which his essential nature
+corresponds in the possession of an indestructible principle of
+conscious or understanding life. Beyond these doctrines, Masonry is
+wholly unsectarian; it recognises no other dogmas; it accredits no form
+of faith. Now, Mysticism is a body of spiritual methods and processes,
+based, like the Masonic body of ethical methods and processes, on these
+same doctrines. Every man who believes in God and immortality is the raw
+material of a mystic; every man who believes that there is a
+discoverable way to God is on the path of conscious mysticism. As this
+path has been pursued in all ages and nations by persons of widely
+divergent creeds, it is clear that however much mysticism has been
+identified with special spheres of religious thought and activity, it is
+independent of all.
+
+But while Masonry would appear to regard the evolution of our physical,
+intellectual, and moral nature as the best preparation for that larger
+existence which is included in its central doctrine, and would thus work
+inward from without, mysticism deems that the evolution of the spiritual
+man and the production of a human spirit at one with the divine,
+constitute the missing condition requisite for the reconstruction of
+humanity, and would thus work outward from within. Neither Mason nor
+Mystic, however, can ignore either method. The one supplements the
+other; and seeing that the processes of mysticism are distinct from what
+is still a subject of derision under the name of transcendental
+phenomena, as they are wholly philosophical and interior, not to be
+appreciated by the senses, a secret experience within the depths and
+heights of our spiritual being, an institution which believes in God and
+immortality, and by the fact of immortality in the subsistence of an
+intimate relation between the spirit and God, will not look suspiciously
+on mysticism when it comes to understand it better.
+
+I have spoken of Masonic symbolism, and the method of instruction in
+Masonry is identical with that of mysticism; both systems are "veiled in
+allegory and illustrated by symbolism." The significance of this
+correspondence would not be measurably weakened were there no similarity
+in the typology, no trace of mystic influence in Masonic rite and
+legend. But there is a resemblance, and the types are often identical,
+though the accredited interpretation varies. Masonry, as a fact,
+interprets the types which belong to our own science according to the
+criterion of ethics, and thus provides a prolegomena to Mysticism, as
+ethics are a necessary introduction to the inner science of the soul.
+There is naturally a minor body of conventional typology which is
+tolerably exclusive to the craft, but the grand and universal emblems,
+characteristic of symbolical Masonry as distinct from the operative
+art--these are our own emblems. The All-Seeing Eye, the Burning Star,
+the Rough and Perfect Ashlar, the Point within a Circle, the Pentalpha,
+the Seal of Solomon, the Cubic Stone--all these belong to the most lofty
+and arcane order of occult symbolism, but in mystic science they
+illumine more exalted zones of the heaven of mind. The rites, legends,
+and mysteries of the great Fraternity are also full of mystical
+allusions, and admit of mystical interpretation in the same manner, but
+their evidential force is weaker, because ceremonial and legend in the
+hands of a skilful commentator can be made to take any shape and any
+complexion; it is otherwise with the symbols of the Brotherhood which
+were possessed by us before the historical appearance of Masonry. So
+also the Masonic reverence for certain numbers which are apparently
+arbitrary in themselves is in reality connected with a most recondite
+and curious system of mystic methodical philosophy, while in the high
+titles of Masonic dignity there is frequently a direct reference to
+Mysticism.
+
+If we turn from these considerations and approach the historical
+connection through those still undetermined problems which concern the
+origin of Masonry, we shall discern not unfortunately a way clear to
+their solution, but a significant characteristic pervading every Masonic
+hypothesis almost without exception--namely, an instinctive desire to
+refer Masonry in its original form to sources that are provably mystic.
+In the fanciful and extravagant period, when archaeology and comparative
+mythology were as yet in their childhood, this tendency was not less
+strong because it was mostly quite unconscious. To pass in review before
+us the chief institutions of antiquity with which Masonry was then said
+to be connected, would be to sweep the whole field of transcendental
+history, and when we come to a more sober period which recognised the
+better claim of the building guilds to explain the beginnings of the
+Fraternity, the link with Mysticism was not even then abandoned, and a
+splendid variant of the Dionysian dream took back the mediaeval
+architects to the portals of Eleusis and of Thebes.
+
+When the history of Freemasonry becomes possible by the possession of
+materials, its chief philosophical interest centres in one country of
+Europe; there is no doubt that it exercised an immense influence upon
+France during that century of quakings and quickenings which gave birth
+to the great revolution, transformed civilisation in the West, and
+inaugurated the modern era. Without being a political society, it was an
+instrument eminently adaptable to the sub-surface determination of
+political movements. At a later date it may have contributed to the
+formation of Germany, as it did certainly to the creation of Italy, but
+the point and centre of Masonic history is France in the eighteenth
+century. To that country also is mainly confined the historical
+connection between Masonry and mystic science, for the revival of
+Mysticism which originated in Germany at the close of the eighteenth
+century, and thence passed over to England, found its final field in
+France at the period in question. There Rosicrucianism reappeared, there
+Anton Mesmer recovered the initial process of transcendental practice,
+there the Marquis de Puysegur discovered clairvoyance, there Martines de
+Pasqually instructed his disciples in the mysteries of ceremonial magic;
+there the illustrious Saint-Martin, _le philosophe inconnu_, developed a
+special system of spiritual reconstruction; there alchemy flourished;
+there spiritual and political princes betook themselves to extravagant
+researches after an elixir of life; there also, as a consequence, rose
+up a line of magnificent impostors who posed as initiates of the occult
+sciences, as possessors of the grand secret and the grand mastery;
+there, finally, under the influences of transcendental philosophy,
+emblematic Freemasonry took root and grew and flourished, developing ten
+thousand splendours of symbolic grades, of romantic legends, of sonorous
+names and titles. In a word, the Mysticism of Europe concentrated its
+forces at Paris and Lyons, and all French Mysticism gathered under the
+shadow of the square and compass. To that, as to a centre, the whole
+movement gravitated, and thence it worked. There is nothing to show that
+it endeavoured to revolutionise Masonry in its own interest. The
+Fraternity naturally attracted all Mystics to its ranks, and the
+development of the mystic degrees took place as the result of that
+attraction.
+
+By the year 1825 a variety of circumstances had combined to suspend
+transcendental activity, and the connection with Masonry ended, but the
+present revival of mystic thought is rapidly picking up the links of the
+broken chain; secretly or unobtrusively the spirit of transcendentalism
+is working within the Fraternity, and the bogus question of Lucifer is
+simply a hostile and unscrupulous method of recognising that fact. If
+Masonry and Mysticism could be shown in the historical world to be
+separated by the great sea, the consanguinity of their intention would
+remain, which is more important than external affinity, and they are
+sisters by that bond. But they have not been so separated, and on either
+side there is no need to be ashamed of the connection. With all brethren
+of the Fraternity, "we also do believe in the resurrection of Hiram,"
+and we regard the Temple as "an edifice immediately realisable, for we
+rebuild it in our hearts." We also adore the Grand Architect, and offer
+our intellectual homage to the divine cipher which is in the centre of
+the symbolic star; and we believe that some day the Mason will recognise
+the Mystic. He is the heir of the great names of antiquity, the
+philosophers and hierarchs, and the spiritual kings of old; he is of the
+line of Orpheus and Hermes, of the Essenes and the Magi. And all those
+illustrious systems and all those splendid names with which Masonry has
+ever claimed kindred belong absolutely to the history of Mysticism.
+
+THE END
+
+TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Devil-Worship in France, by Arthur Edward Waite
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