t 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 Misraim 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 compare _Les Soeurs Maconnes_, pp. 323 to 330, with the
"Conjuration of the Four" in the fourth chapter of the _Rituel de la
Haute Magie_. It will be objected that this conjuration is derived by
Levi himself from a source which he does not name, and as a fact part of
it is found in the _Comte de Gabalis_. Quite so, but my point is, that
it has come to the Taxil documents through Eliphas Levi. The proof is
that part of the exorcisms are given in Latin and part in French, by the
author of the _Rituel_, for arbitrary and unassignable reasons, and that
_Les Soeurs Maconnes_ reproduces 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 Holy Inquisition 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