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diff --git a/21258-8.txt b/21258-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..84ffc4b --- /dev/null +++ b/21258-8.txt @@ -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: 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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEVIL-WORSHIP IN FRANCE *** + +***** This file should be named 21258-8.txt or 21258-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/1/2/5/21258/ + +Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Tamise Totterdell, Brian +Janes and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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