Title: Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer
Author: Waite, Arthur Edward
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.


*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer" ***


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 this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer" ***

Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.