The Taxil hoax was an 1890s hoax of exposure by Léo Taxil, intended to mock not only Freemasonry but also the Catholic Church's opposition to it.[
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Taxil, the author of an anti-papal tract, pretended to convert to Catholicism (circa 1884) and wrote several volumes, purportedly in the service to his new faith. These included the adventures of one Dr. Bataille, a surgeon serving in the French merchant navy who has infiltrated the Freemasons and observes their evil rituals as they occur all over the world. Buddhists, Hindus, and Spiritualists were alleged to join with Freemasons in conspiring against the Catholic Church, and Bataille uncovers an secret inner order within the Masons called the Palladists, who take their orders directly from demons.[
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In 1897, Taxil called a press conference at which he promised to produce Vaughan. Instead he declared that his revelations about the Freemasons were invented.[ Nine years later he told an American magazine how he initially assumed readers would recognize his tales as "amusement pure and simple" and too outlandish to be true. But when he realized the stories were believed by many, Taxil decided there was "lots of money" to be made in publishing the stories and he continued to perpetrate the hoax.]
Taxil and Freemasonry
Léo Taxil was the pen name of Marie Joseph Gabriel Antoine Jogand-Pagès, who had been accused earlier of libel regarding a book he wrote called The Secret Loves of Pope Pius IX. On April 20, 1884, Pope Leo XIII published an Papal encyclical, Humanum genus, that said that the human race was:
After this encyclical, Taxil underwent a public, feigned conversion to Catholicism and declared his intention of repairing the damage he had done to the true faith.
The first book produced by Taxil after his conversion was a four-volume history of Freemasonry, which contained fictitious eyewitness verifications of their participation in Satanism. With a collaborator who published as "Dr. Karl Hacks", Taxil wrote another book called Le Diable au XIXe siècle ( The Devil in the Nineteenth Century), which introduced a new character, Diana Vaughan, a supposed descendant of the Rosicrucian alchemist Thomas Vaughan. The book contained many tales about her encounters with incarnate , one of whom, a devil snake, was supposed to have written prophecies on her back with its tail, and another who played the piano while in the shape of a crocodile.[
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Diana was supposedly involved in Satanic Freemasonry but was redeemed when one day she professed admiration for Joan of Arc, at whose name the demons were put to flight. As Diana Vaughan, Taxil published a book called Eucharistic Novena, a collection of prayers which were praised by the Pope.
Palladists
In the Taxil hoax, Palladists were members of an alleged Theistic Satanist cult within Freemasonry. According to Taxil, Palladism was a religion practiced within the highest orders of Freemasonry. Adherents worshipped Lucifer and interacted with demons.
In 1891 Léo Taxil and Adolphe Ricoux claimed to have discovered a Palladian Society.[Waite, Arthur Edward The Hermetic Museum 2006 Lulu] An 1892 French book Le Diable au XIXe siècle (The Devil in the 19th Century", 1892), written by "Dr. Bataille" (actually Taxil himself) alleged that Palladists were Satanists based in Charleston, South Carolina, headed by the American Freemason Albert Pike and created by the Italian liberal patriot and author Giuseppe Mazzini.[p.204 Hastings, James, Editor Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. 12 Varda Books]
Dr. Bataille asserted that women would supposedly be initiated as "Companions of Penelope".[Reported word-for-word in Lewis Spence, An Encyclopaedia of Occultism, 1920 (reprinted 2006) p.314] According to Dr. Bataille, the society had two orders, "Adelph" and "Companion of Ulysses"; however, the society was broken up by French law enforcement a few years after its founding.
Early skepticism
The English magazine Light, devoted to occultism, published two letters and responses, skeptically analyzing the Taxil matter and claims attributed to Vaughn. The first letter was published in December 1895,[ Light, 1895 Letter, 'The Mystery of Miss Diana Vaughan', vol. 15, December 07, 1895; pp. 593–4]] and the second letter in January 1986.[ Light, 1896 Letter on 'Diana Vaughan', vol. 16, Jan 04, 1896; pp. 11–12]
Many Catholics were sympathetic to Taxil's claims, given the stories supported anti-Masonic sentiment in Catholicism. However, there were doubts among other Catholics, particularly about the existence of Diana Vaughn. Bishop Amand-Joseph Fava, among other leaders in the church, insisted Vaughn was a real person relating an accurate account of her experiences.[See Waite's Devil Worship in France, Chapter V.]
Prior to Taxil's confession of the fraud, English author Arthur Edward Waite was the most prominent skeptic of the story which he summarized and debunked in the 1896 book Devil Worship in France.[As seen in the blurb for The Internet Sacred Text Archive edition of Devil Worship in France and the conclusion, Waite was debunking the story of Palladists] Waite noted multiple problems and inconsistencies, including: claims that were contrary to known facts about Albert Pike and Thomas Vaughan; attribution to occultist Éliphas Lévi beliefs and practices which were not actually found in his works, as well as wholesale plagiarism of Lévi; no Masonic lodges were active in some of the times and places alleged by Taxil; and communications with residents of Calcutta which found no records of the persons alleged to have lived in that city. Furthermore, Waite noted documents supposedly written by the American Diana Vaughn showed frequent misspellings and errors indicating the author was probably French-speaking (e.g. Georges rather than George). Waite characterized the documents as "a perfervid narrative" with lurid illustrations similar to penny dreadful magazines of the era, which "deserves to rank among the most extraordinary literary swindles of the present, perhaps of any, century".
Confession
On April 19, 1897, Léo Taxil called a press conference at the Société de Géographie at which he claimed he would introduce Diana Vaughan to the press. He declared that his claims about the Freemasons were hoaxes.
Taxil's confession was printed, in its entirety, in the Parisian newspaper Le Frondeur, on April 25, 1897, titled: Twelve Years Under the Banner of the Church, The Prank Of Palladism. Miss Diana Vaughan–The Devil At The Freemasons. A Conference held by M. Léo Taxil, at the Hall of the Geographic Society in Paris.[ Is It True What They Say About Freemasonry? Authors: de Hoyos, Arturo and Morris, S. Brent, 1988, 2nd edition, pp. 27–36 & 195–228, Chap. 3, Leo Taxil: The Hoax of Luciferian Masonry, and Appendix 1, The Confession of Leo Taxil ]
Despite this confession, belief in Vaughan and the Palladists did not entirely die out, and the hoax material has been cited for decades. The Chick Publications tract, The Curse of Baphomet, also called "That's Baphomet?", refers to the hoax material as if it were accurate. Randy Noblitt's book on satanic ritual abuse, Cult and Ritual Abuse, also cites Taxil's fictitious claims.
Within works of fiction, a Palladist organization is central to the plot of the 1943 horror film The Seventh Victim.[
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Later interview with Taxil
Ten months before his death on March 31, 1907, Taxil was quoted in the American National Magazine as giving his true reasons behind the hoax.
The Luciferian quote
A series of paragraphs about Lucifer are frequently associated with the Taxil hoax. They read:
While this quotation was published by Abel Clarin de la Rive in his Woman and Child in Universal Freemasonry, it does not appear in Taxil's writings proper, though it is sourced in a footnote to Diana Vaughan, Taxil's creation.
See also
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List of hoaxes
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Affair of the Cards
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Poe's law
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The Prague Cemetery, a novel by Umberto Eco, 2010
Works cited
Further reading
External links
