Now that we’ve not only covered some interesting early history of Freemasonry involving the Hanovers and Jacobites but established the animostiy of the Catholic Church towards Freemasonry (although to be fair, i have not yet listed the specific reasons the Church holds its firm stance, but bear with me) we shall today tell one of my favorite stories regarding the Catholic/Freemasonry “feud”: Leo Taxil and the Palladian Order.
Leo Taxil was the pen name of a French guy named Gabriel Jogand-Pagès. In the late 1800s he was more or a less a hack writer who wrote lower brow journalism, some pornography and a lot of anti-Catholic propaganda. He was also a Freemason.
In 1884 the Pope once again issued an edict decrying Freemasonry. Shortly after Taxil quit Freemasonry, and sought absolution from his local bishop. After a legnthy penance he was welcomed back into the Catholic Church.
A few months after this Taxil began writing and publishing books which detailed the higher inner workings of Freemasonry. Inside the highest eschalon of the Craft was a secret order, the Palladian Order, and it was outright Satanic.
By the way, the very word “Satanic” comes from Taxil’s books.
The Palladium Order conducted myriads of rituals which worshipped Satan directly and were filled with all kinds of blasphemies, sacrileges and sexual excesses with a special group of female Masons, whose female order existed just for the purpose of having woman to engage in these sex magick rituals with.
The Palladian Order was also heavily engaged in covertly supporting international agendas of the British Government and subverting the Catholic Church in every way possible. It was lead by the famous Albert Pike, a reknowned Mason who was also the one who had taken the old, dry and dreary Jacobite Scottish Rite and transformed it into one of the greatest, deepest rites in all of Freemasonry, the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, from which the whole 33 degrees of Freemasonry comes (as opposed to the original 3). Pike lived in South Caroline where he dictated the ultimate directions and rites of the Palladian Order.
Taxil’s books described it all, every dirty, titillating detail. The books became runaway bestsellers and French Catholics, from laypeople to bishops and archbishops read them ravenously and rallied to his cause. They had long suspected such deviances and schemes but even they were shocked at the full revelations.
Several other writers came forth with their own tales of the Palladian Orders’ Satanic rituals, sexual deviations and political schemes. The biggest sensation was a magazine printed by Diana Vaughan, more appropriately Grand Priestess Diana Vaughan the Grand Priestess of the female masonic group at the center of the sex magicks. Taxil had mentioned her numerous times and she was printing a magazine preaching the Palladian gospel to an infuriated French public (who never the less bought it in droves).
By 1895 the entire thing reached a fever pitch when Diana Vaughan had a vision of Joan of Arc, fled the Palladian Order and converted to Catholicism. She then published her memoirs giving all the details of her time as leader of the Satanic organization: the rituals, the orgies, the intrigue, the power struggles, more orgies and the connections and involvements with some of Europe’s biggest political names.
By now the media and the Catholic Church were demanding to meet her. Taxil who had already met personally with the Pope by this time, announced that Diana, who was obviously hiding for fear of her life, would give a lecture at one of Paris’ biggest Halls.
Tickets sold out faster than if Jimi Hendrix announced he was coming back from the dead to jam with a resurrected and reunited Beatles.
The big night came and Taxil stepped out on stage to introduce the former High Priestess.
He then explained that he had made the entire Palladian Order up, had been making it all up from the start, and had begun the whole business to show just how naive, credulous and idiotic religious people can be. He pointed out that he had written and published everything himself with the help of one other friend and the two of them had pretended to be all of these authors including Diana. The whole thing demonstrated clearly to the world just what an insane degree of nonsense the religious will believe. Then he walked off stage.
Fan.
Shit.
BOOM.
You better believe a riot ensued. The place went NUTS. Taxil walked straight out just before the shocked audience could even pick their jaws up and had dinner at a nearby restaurant with friends while the uproar turned into a flat out riot and the gendarmes had to be brought in to clear out the chaos.
The whole affair lived in infamy for quite some time afterwards. The word Satanist entered the english lexicon and conspiracy nutjobs still quote Taxil’s writing to back up their deluded claims. Interestingly, Taxil also made up and described the Palladian Order’s ongoing rift over Satanist theology: Lucifer was the true Gd and Jehovah the ruling god of darkness is one side and the other is that God is God and the Devil is the Devil but the fact is the Devil will ultimately triumph. This exact theological debate years later became the central theological debate in actual Satanism and its various groups and fills numerous books.
Taxil’s writings get regurgitated again and again and again. Which shows, once a bunch of sensationlistic mamby pamby enters the public consciousness, it will forever be drawn upon even if the very person writing it reveals it as a hoax. Taxil was correct. The credulous will believe whatever they want to.
