_Gnostic Church of Lyons_. These
latter, although excluded, continued to follow their own way of
salvation, and addressed a legal declaration to the Republican
Government in 1906 in defence of their religious rights of association.

In the Gnostic teaching, the Eons, corresponding to the archetypal
ideas of Plato, are never single; each god has his feminine
counterpart; and the Gnostic assemblies are composed of "perfected
ones," male and female. The Valentinians give the mystic bride the
name of Helen.

The Gnostic rites and sacraments are complicated. There is the
_Consolamentum_, or laying on of hands; the breaking of bread, or means
of communication with the _Astral Body of Jesus_; and the
_Appareillamentum_, or means of receiving divine grace.

In peculiarities of faith and of its expression some of our French
sects certainly have little to learn from those of America and Russia.

The _Religion of Satanism_--or, as it was sometimes called, the
_Religion of Mercy_--founded by Vintras and Boullan, deserves special
mention. Vintras was arrested--unjustly, it seems certain--for
swindling, and in the visions which he experienced as a result of his
undeserved sufferings he believed himself to be in communication with
the Archangel Michael and with Christ Himself. Having spent about
twelve years in London, he returned to Lyons to preach his doctrine,
and succeeded in making a number of proselytes. He died in 1875. Some
years afterwards a doctor of divinity named Boullan installed himself
at Lyons as his successor. He taught that women should be common
property, and preached the union with inferior beings (in order to
raise them), the "union of charity," and the "union of wisdom." He
healed the sick, exorcised demons, and treated domestic animals with
great success, so that the peasants soon looked upon him as superior to
the cure who was incapable of curing their sick horses and cattle.

Vintras had proclaimed himself to be Elijah come to life; Boullan
adopted the title of John the Baptist resurrected. He died at the
beginning of the twentieth century, complaining of having been cruelly
slandered, especially by Stanislas de Guaita, who in his _Temple of
Satan_ had accused Boullan of being a priest of Lucifer, of making use
of spells and charms, and--worst of all--of celebrating the Black Mass.

The founder of the _Religion of Humanity_ had a tragic and troublous
career. Genius and madness have rarely