Forover 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 subsistingin 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 ofthe 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 inLes Sœurs Maçonnesconflicts 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 androgynetype 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 factsin 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’sDogme 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 compareLes Sœurs Maçonnes, pp. 323 to 330, with the “Conjuration of the Four” in the fourth chapter of theRituel 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 theComte 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 theRituel, for arbitrary and unassignable reasons, and thatLes Sœurs Maçonnesreproduces 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 HolyInquisition 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” almostin extenso—that work being still in circulation—with the addition of important fresh material. The bulk of the new matter isconcerned 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 argumentssonnants 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 itselfwas 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 ofElect 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 theordeal 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 arein 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 referencesliteratimfrom 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 connectthe 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 hisHistoire 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’sRituel, 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 evidencedwhich 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 discreditablekind. A catalogue of the defunctLibraire Anti-Cléricaleis 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 Masonrybecause 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.
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Bythe 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 theturris 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 organLa 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 analter 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 ofPike 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 printsin extensoexhibits 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.
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Somefew 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 soportentous 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 thelatens 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 esotericdoctrines 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 areà prioridiabolical, 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, thatthe 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, andentirely 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, ase.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 secretliaison. 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 wordsnoctium phantasmatamay 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 immemorialbeen the covering of shame. Should it occur to you—videGenesis—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 Riteare 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 subjectof 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 ofAut 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.
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§ 1.Le Diable au XIXeSiècle
Althoughthe 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 hadcome 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 XIXeSiècle, 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, likeLe Diable au XIXeSiècleto 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 presentchapter 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-boatAnadyr, belonging to theCompagnie 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 thehotel flottantwas 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 hismétier, 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; agaillard grand et solidehad 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 Gaëtanoturn 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 readyear 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 theSupreme 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 completebona fides. Everyone fell on their knees; everyone was invited to rise; everyone rose accordingly; and Carbuccia found that hehad 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 ofAut Diabolus aut Nihildivested 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 havebeen 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, foradversarius noster diaboluspassed 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 generalcoup-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 concludedthat 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, thusbecoming 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 hada 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 tounderstand 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 eyesstarting 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 anOpen Sesameto 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 yougo?” “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 Masterad Vitamof 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. Theblood 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 universalpersuasion 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 PhileasWalder 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.