Devil-Worship in France; or, The Question of LuciferWaite, Arthur Edward
Religion
Devil-Worship in France; or, The Question of Lucifer
Waite, Arthur Edward
Satanism
Before leaving Calcutta our adventurer purchased from Phileas Walder,
for the sum of two hundred francs, the serviceable dignity of a
Palladian Hierarch, "fortified with which he would be enabled to
penetrate everywhere." Regarding all English possessions as peculiarly
productive in the Dead Sea fruit of diabolism, Singapore was the next
scene of his curious researches. The English as a nation are criminal,
but Singapore is the yeast-house of British wickedness, where vice
ferments continually; there man masonifies naturally and most Masons
palladise. The doctor states plainly that one thing only has preserved
the place from the doom of the cities of the plain, and that is the
presence of certain good Christians, otherwise Catholics, in what he
terms the accursed city. For himself he tarried only to witness the
initiation of a Mistress-Templar according to the Palladian rite, which
took place in a Presbyterian Chapel, the Presbyterian persuasion, as he
tells us, being one of the broad roads leading to avowed Satanism. The
password was appropriately the name of the first murderer, and the
doctor was greeted to his great astonishment by an old acquaintance, an
English pastor, whom he had frequently seen upon his own magnificent
steam-boat, who also rejoiced in the nick-name of the Reverend Alcohol,
being, like the majority of Englishmen, almost invariably drunk. The
ceremony of initiation, which is described at great length in the
narrative, is a variation from that of Leo Taxil; the doctor, in mercy
to his readers, suppressing a part of the performance. Speaking
generally, it was concerned, as we have previously seen, with an
anti-Christian version of Gospel history and some commonplace outrages
of the Eucharistic elements, during which proceedings our witness
perspired freely. So, as he tells us, did one more Protestant pass over
to the worship of Lucifer.
The operations of the ritual were followed by a "divine solemnity,"
which had something of the character of an ordinary spiritual seance,
supposing it to have been held in a mad-house. I need only say that when
the lights were turned up at the end, every article of furniture,
including a large organ, was discovered hanging from the ceiling. As a
final phenomenon, the Master of the Ceremonies detached his shadow from
his substance, arranged it against the wall in the shape of a demon, and
it responded to various questions by signs. There was a burst of loud
applause, the proceedings terminated, and the Masonic Temple became once
more a Presbyterian Chapel.
Sec. 7. _The San-Ho-Hei._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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