been chiefly derived, but it will
be seen that it is substantially correct. M. Ricoux further states that
"Albert Pike reformed the ancient Palladian Rite, and imparted thereto
the Luciferian character in all its brutality. Palladism, for him, is a
selection; he surrenders to the ordinary lodges the adepts who confine
themselves to materialism, or invoke the Grand Architect without daring
to apply to him his true name, and under the title of Knights Templars
and Mistress Templars, he groups the fanatics who do not shrink from the
direct patronage of Lucifer."

The most serious mistake which has been made in the use of the material
is an unconscious attempt to read into the "encyclicals" of Albert Pike
a proportion of Leo Taxil's material, for which the long citations given
by M. Ricoux do not afford a warrant. What he really appears to have
obtained is the instructions of Pike as Supreme Commander Grand Master
of the Supreme Council of the Mother-Lodge of the Ancient and Accepted
Scotch Rite of Charleston to the Twenty-three Supreme Confederated
Councils of the Globe. And the Scotch Rite is, by the hypothesis, apart
from the Palladium. In other respects, the information comes to much the
same thing. The long document which the pamphlet prints _in extenso_
exhibits Albert Pike preaching Palladism in the full foulness of its
doctrine and practice--the "resolution of the problem of the flesh" by
indiscriminate satisfaction of the passions; the multiplication of
androgyne lodges for this purpose; the dual nature of the Divine
Principle; and the cultus of Lucifer as the good God. The most curious
feature of the performance is that here again it is from end to end a
travesty of Eliphas Levi, slice after slice from his chief writings,
combined with interlineal additions, which give them a sense
diametrically opposed to that of the great magus. Now, it is impossible
that two persons, working independently for the production of bogus
documents, should both borrow from the same source; hence Leo Taxil and
M. Ricoux, if they have been guilty of imposition, must certainly have
collaborated. It is unreasonable, however, to advance such an accusation
in the absence of any evidence, and if we accept the contribution of M.
Ricoux as made in perfect good faith, we must acknowledge that it
exonerates Leo Taxil from the possible suspicion of himself adapting
Levi; and then the existence of a theurgic society, based on Manichaean
principl