HE 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 _a 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
Manichaean system having a special anti-Christian application, for while
affirming the existence of two equal first principles, Adonai and
Lucifer, it regards the latter as the god of light and goodness, while
the Christian Adonai 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. Adonai reigns surely, as the
Christian believes, but he is the author of human misery, and Jesus is
the Christ of Adonai, but he is the messenger of misfortune, suffering,
and false