In France more rigorous measures were adopted and fifty-four Knights who

had retracted their confessions were burnt at the stake as "relapsed

heretics" on May 12, 1310. Four years later, on March 14, 1314, the

Grand Master, Jacques du Molay, suffered the same fate.

Now, however much we must execrate the barbarity of this sentence--as

also the cruelties that had preceded it--- this is no reason why we

should admit the claim of the Order to noble martyrdom put forward by

the historians who have espoused their cause. The character of the

Templars is not rehabilitated by condemning the conduct of the King and

Pope. Yet this is the line of argument usually adopted by the defenders

of the Order. Thus the two main contentions on which they base their

defence are, firstly, that the confessions of the Knights were made

under torture, therefore they must be regarded as null and void; and,

secondly, that the whole affair was a plot concerted between the King

and Pope in order to obtain possession of the Templars' riches. Let us

examine these contentions in turn.

In the first place, as we have seen, all confessions were not made under

torture. No one, as far as I am aware, disputes Michelet's assertion

that the enquiry before the Papal Commission in Paris, at which a number

of Knights adhered to the statements they had made to the Pope, was

conducted without pressure of any kind. But further, the fact that

confessions are made under torture does not necessarily invalidate them

as evidence. Guy Fawkes also confessed under torture, yet it is never

suggested that the whole story of the Gunpowder Plot was a myth.

Torture, however much we may condemn it, has frequently proved the only

method for overcoming the intimidation exercised over the mind of a

conspirator; a man bound by the terrible obligations of a confederacy

and fearing the vengeance of his fellow-conspirators will not readily

yield to persuasion, but only to force. If, then, some of the Templars

were terrorized by torture, or even by the fear of torture, it must not

be forgotten that terrorism was exercised by both sides. Few will deny

that the Knights were bound by oaths of secrecy, so that on one hand

they were threatened with the vengeance of the Order if they betrayed

its secrets, and on the other faced with torture if they refused to

confess. Thus they found themselves between the devil and the deep sea.

It was therefore not a case of a mild and unoffending Order meeting

with brutal treatment at the hands of authority, but of the victims of a

terrible autocracy being delivered into the hands of another autocracy.

Moreover, do the confessions of the Knights appear to be the outcome of

pure imagination such as men under the influence of torture might

devise? It is certainly difficult to believe that the accounts of the

ceremony of initiation given in detail by men in different countries,

all closely resembling each other, yet related in different phraseology,

could be pure inventions. Had the victims been driven to invent they

would surely have contradicted each other, have cried out in their agony

that all kinds of wild and fantastic rites had taken place in order to

satisfy the demands of their interlocutors. But no, each appears to be

describing the same ceremony more or less completely, with

characteristic touches that indicate the personality of the speaker, and

in the main all the stories tally.

The further contention that the case against the Templars was

manufactured by the King and Pope with a view to obtaining their wealth

is entirely disproved by facts. The latest French historian of mediæval

France, whilst expressing disbelief in the guilt of the Templars,

characterizes this counter-accusation as "puerile." "Philippe le Bel,"

writes M. Funck-Brentano, "has never been understood; from the beginning

people have not been just to him. This young prince was one of the

greatest kings and the noblest characters that have appeared in

history."[162]

Without carrying appreciation so far, one must nevertheless accord to M.

Funck-Brentano's statement of facts the attention it merits. Philippe

has been blamed for debasing the coin of the realm; in reality he merely

ordered it to be mixed with alloy as a necessary measure after the war

with England,[163] precisely as own coinage was debased in consequence

of the recent war. This was done quite openly and the coinage was

restored at the earliest opportunity. Intensely national, his policy of

attacking the Lombards, exiling the Jews, and suppressing the Templars,

however regrettable the methods by which it was carried out, resulted in

immense benefits to France; M. Funck-Brentano has graphically described

the prosperity of the whole country during the early fourteenth

century--the increase of population, flourishing agriculture and

industry. "In Provence and Languedoc one meets swineherds who have

vineyards; simple cowherds who have town houses."[164]

The attitude of Philippe le Bel towards the Templars must be viewed in

this light--ruthless suppression of any body of people who interfered

with the prosperity of France. His action was not that of arbitrary

authority; he "proceeded," says M. Funck-Brentano, "by means of an

appeal to the people. In his name Nogaret (the Chancellor) spoke to the

Parisians in the garden of the Palace (October 13, 1307). Popular

assemblies were convoked all over France";[165] "the Parliament of

Tours, with hardly a dissentient vote, declared the Templars worthy of

death. The University of Paris gave the weight of their judgement as to

the fullness and authenticity of the confessions."[166] Even assuming

that these bodies were actuated by the same servility as that which has

been attributed to the Pope, how are we to explain the fact that the

trial of the Order aroused no opposition among the far from docile

people of Paris? If the Templars had indeed, as they professed, been

leading noble and upright lives, devoting themselves to the care of the

poor, one might surely expect their arrest to be followed by popular

risings. But there appears to have been no sign of this.

As to the Pope, we have already seen that from the outset he had shown

himself extremely reluctant to condemn the Order, and no satisfactory

explanation is given of his change of attitude except that he wished to

please the King. As far as his own interests were concerned, it is

obvious that he could have nothing to gain by publishing to the world a

scandal that must inevitably bring opprobrium on the Church. His

lamentations to this effect in the famous Bull[167] clearly show that he

recognized this danger and therefore desired at all costs to clear the

accused Knights, if evidence could be obtained in their favour. It was

only when the Templars made damning admissions in his presence that he

was obliged to abandon their defence.[168] Yet we are told that he did

this out of base compliance with the wishes of Philippe le Bel.

Philippe le Bell is thus represented as the arch-villain of the whole

piece, through seven long years hounding down a blameless Order--from

whom up to the very moment of their arrest he had repeatedly received

loans of money--solely with the object of appropriating their wealth.

Yet after all we find that the property of the Templars was not

appropriated by the King, but was given by him to the Knights of St.

John of Jerusalem!

What was the fate of the Templars' goods? Philippe le Bel decided

that they should be handed over to the Hospitallers. Clement V

states that the Orders given by the King on this subject were

executed. Even the domain of the Temple in Paris ... up to the eve

of the Revolution was the property of the Knights of St. John of

Jerusalem. The royal treasury kept for itself certain sums for the

costs of the trial. These had been immense.[169]

These facts in no way daunt the antagonists of Philippe, who we are now

assured--again without any proof whatever--was overruled by the Pope in

this matter. But setting all morality aside, as a mere question of

policy, is it likely that the King would have deprived himself of his

most valuable financial supporters and gone to the immense trouble of

bringing them to trial without first assuring himself that he would

benefit by the affair? Would he, in other words, have killed the goose

that laid the golden eggs without any guarantee that the body of the

goose would remain in his possession? Again, if, as we are told, the

Pope suppressed the Order so as to please the King, why should he have

thwarted him over the whole purpose the King had in view? Might we not

expect indignant remonstrances from Philippe at thus being baulked of

the booty he had toiled so long to gain? But, on the contrary, we find

him completely in agreement with the Pope on this subject. In November

1309 Clement V distinctly stated that "Philippe the Illustrious, King of

France," to whom the facts concerning the Templars had been told, was

"not prompted by avarice since he desired to keep or appropriate for

himself no part of the property of the Templars, but liberally and

devotedly left them to us and the Church to be administered," etc.[170]

Thus the whole theory concerning the object for which the Templars were

suppressed falls to the ground--a theory which on examination is seen to

be built up entirely on the plan of imputing motives without any

justification in facts. The King acted from cupidity, the Pope from

servility, and the Templars confessed from fear of torture--on these

pure hypotheses defenders of the Order base their arguments.

The truth is, far more probably, that if the King had any additional

reason for suppressing the Templars it was not envy of their wealth but

fear of the immense power their wealth conferred; the Order dared even

to defy the King and to refuse to pay taxes. The Temple in fact

constituted an _imperium in imperio_ that threatened not only the royal

authority but the whole social system.[171] An important light is thrown

on the situation by M. Funck-Brentano in this passage:

As the Templars had houses in all countries, they practised the

financial operations of the international banks of our times; they

were acquainted with letters of change, orders payable at sight,

they instituted dividends and annuities on deposited capital,

advanced funds, lent on credit, controlled private accounts,

undertook to raise taxes for the lay and ecclesiastical

seigneurs.[172]

Through their proficiency in these matters--acquired very possibly from

the Jews of Alexandria whom they must have met in the East--the Templars

had become the "international financiers" and "international

capitalists" of their day; had they not been suppressed, all the evils

now denounced by Socialists as peculiar to the system they describe as

"Capitalism"--trusts, monopolies, and "corners"--would in all

probability have been inaugurated during the course of the fourteenth

century in a far worse form than at the present day, since no

legislation existed to protect the community at large. The feudal

system, as Marx and Engels perceived, was the principal obstacle to

exploitation by a financial autocracy.[173]

Moreover, it is by no means improbable that this order of things would

have been brought about by the violent overthrow of the French

monarchy--indeed, of all monarchies; the Templars, "those terrible

conspirators," says Eliphas Lévi, "threatened the whole world with an

immense revolution."[174]

Here perhaps we may find the reason why this band of dissolute and

rapacious nobles has enlisted the passionate sympathy of democratic

writers. For it will be noticed that these same writers who attribute

the King's condemnation of the Order to envy of their wealth never apply

this argument to the demagogues of the eighteenth century and suggest

that their accusations against the nobles of France were inspired by

cupidity, nor would they ever admit that any such motive may enter into

the diatribes against private owners of wealth to-day. The Templars thus

remain the only body of capitalists, with the exception of the Jews, to

be not only pardoned for their riches but exalted as noble victims of

prejudice and envy. Is it merely because the Templars were the enemies

of monarchy? Or is it that the world revolution, whilst attacking

private owners of property, has never been opposed to International

Finance, particularly when combined with anti-Christian tendencies?

It is the continued defence of the Templars which, to the present

writer, appears the most convincing evidence against them. For even if

one believes them innocent of the crimes laid to their charge, how is it

possible to admire them in their later stages? The fact that cannot be

denied is that they were false to their obligations; that they took the

vow of poverty and then grew not only rich but arrogant; that they took

the vow of chastity and became notoriously immoral.[175] Are all these

things then condoned because the Templars formed a link in the chain of

world revolution?

At this distance of time the guilt or innocence of the Templars will

probably never be conclusively established either way; on the mass of

conflicting evidence bequeathed to us by history no one can pronounce a

final judgement.

Without attempting to digmatize on the question, I would suggest that

the real truth may be that the Knights were both innocent and guilty,

that is to say, that a certain number were initiated into the secret

doctrine of the Order whilst the majority remained throughout in

ignorance. Thus according to the evidence of Stephen de Stapelbrugge, an

English Knight, "there were two modes of reception, one lawful and good

and the other contrary to the Faith."[176] This would account for the

fact that some of the accused declined to confess even under the

greatest pressure. These may really have known nothing of the real

doctrines of the Order, which were confided orally only to those whom

the superiors regarded as unlikely to be revolted by them. Such have

always been the methods of secret societies, from the Ismailis onward.

This theory of a double doctrine is put forward by Loiseleur, who

observes:

If we consult the statutes of the Order of the Temple as they have

come down to us, we shall certainly discover there is nothing that

justifies the strange and abominable practices revealed at the

Inquiry. But ... besides the public rule, had not the Order another

one, whether traditional or written, authorizing or even

prescribing these practices--a secret rule, revealed only to the

initiates?[177]

Eliphas Lévi also exonerates the majority of the Templars from

complicity in either anti-monarchical or anti-religious designs:

These tendencies were enveloped in profound mystery and the Order

made an outward profession of the most perfect orthodoxy. The

Chiefs alone knew whither they were going; the rest followed

unsuspectingly.[178]

What, then, was the Templar heresy? On this point we find a variety of

opinions. According to Wilcke, Ranke, and Weber it was "the unitarian

deism of Islam"[179]; Lecouteulx de Canteleu thinks, however, it was

derived from heretical Islamic sources, and relates that whilst in

Palestine, one of the Knights, Guillaume de Montbard, was initiated by

the Old Man of the Mountain in a cave of Mount Lebanon.[180] That a

certain resemblance existed between the Templars and the Assassins has

been indicated by von Hammer,[181] and further emphasized by the

Freemason Clavel:

Oriental historians show us, at different periods, the Order of the

Templars maintaining intimate relations with that of the Assassins,

and they insist on the affinity that existed between the two

associations. They remark that they had adopted the same colours,

white and red; that they had the same organization, the same

hierarchy of degrees, those of fedavi, refik, and dai in one

corresponding to those of novice, professed, and knight in the

other; that both conspired for the ruin of the religions they

professed in public, and that finally both possessed numerous

castles, the former in Asia, the latter in Europe.[182]

But in spite of these outward resemblances it does not appear from the

confessions of the Knights that the secret doctrine of the Templars was

that of the Assassins or of any Ismaili sect by which, in accordance

with orthodox Islamism, Jesus was openly held up as a prophet, although,

secretly, indifference to all religion was inculcated. The Templars, as

far as can be discovered, were anti-Christian deists; Loiseleur

considers that their ideas were derived from Gnostic or Manichean

dualists--Cathari, Paulicians, or more particularly Bogomils, of which a

brief account must be given here.

The _Paulicians_, who flourished about the seventh century A.D., bore a

resemblance to the Cainites and Ophites in their detestation of the

Demiurgus and in the corruption of their morals. Later, in the ninth

century, the _Bogomils_, whose name signifies in Slavonic "friends of

God" and who had migrated from Northern Syria and Mesopotamia to the

Balkan Peninsula, particularly Thrace, appeared as a further development

of Manichean dualism. Their doctrine may be summarized thus:

God, the Supreme Father, has two sons, the elder Satanael, the younger

Jesus. To Satanael, who sat on the right hand of God, belonged the right

of governing the celestial world, but, filled with pride, he rebelled

against his Father and fell from Heaven. Then, aided by the companions

of his fall, he created the visible world, image of the celestial,

having like the other its sun, moon, and stars, and last he created man

and the serpent which became his minister. Later Christ came to earth in

order to show men the way to Heaven, but His death was ineffectual, for

even by descending into Hell He could not wrest the power from Satanael,

i.e. Satan.

This belief in the impotence of Christ and the necessity therefore for

placating Satan, not only "the Prince of this world," but its creator,

led to the further doctrine that Satan, being all-powerful, should be

adored. Nicetas Choniates, a Byzantine historian of the twelfth century,

described the followers of this cult as "Satanists," because

"considering Satan powerful they worshipped him lest he might do them

harm"; subsequently they were known as Luciferians, their doctrine (as

stated by Neuss and Vitoduranus) being that Lucifer was unjustly driven

out of Heaven, that one day he will ascend there again and be restored

to his former glory and power in the celestial world.

The Bogomils and Luciferians were thus closely akin, but whilst the

former divided their worship between God and His two sons, the latter

worshipped Lucifer only, regarding the material world as his work and

holding that by indulging the flesh they were propitiating their

Demon-Creator. It was said that a black cat, the symbol of Satan,

figured in their ceremonies as an object of worship, also that at their

horrible nocturnal orgies sacrifices of children were made and their

blood used for making the Eucharistic bread of the sect.[183]

Thus the Templars recognize at the same time a good god,

incommunicable to man and consequently without symbolic

representation, and a bad god, to whom they give the features of an

idol of fearful aspect.[184]

Their most fervent worship was addressed to this god of evil, who alone

could enrich them. "They said with the Luciferians: 'The elder son of

God, Satanael or Lucifer alone has a right to the homage of mortals;

Jesus his younger brother does not deserve this honour.'"[185]

Although we shall not find these ideas so clearly defined in the

confessions of the Knights, some colour is lent to this theory by those

who related that the reason given to them for not believing in Christ

was "that He was nothing, He was a false prophet and of no value, and

that they should believe in the Higher God of Heaven who could save

them."[186] According to Loiseleur, the idol they were taught to

worship, the bearded head known to history as Baphomet, represented "the

inferior god, organizer and dominator of the material world, author of

good and evil here below, him by whom evil was introduced into

creation."[187]

The etymology of the word Baphomet is difficult to discover; Raynouard

says it originated with two witnesses heard at Carcassonne who spoke of

"Figura Baflometi," and suggests that it was a corruption of "Mohammed,"

whom the Inquisitors wished to make the Knights confess they were taught

to adore.[188] But this surmise with regard to the intentions of the

Inquisitors seems highly improbable, since they must have been well

aware that, as Wilcke points out, the Moslems forbid all idols.[189] For

this reason Wilcke concludes that the Mohammedanism of the Templars was

combined with Cabalism and that their idol was in reality the

_macroprosopos_, or head of the Ancient of Ancients, represented as an

old man with a long beard, or sometimes as three heads in one, which has

already been referred to under the name of the Long Face in the first

chapter of this book--a theory which would agree with Eliphas Lévi's

assertion that the Templars were "initiated into the mysterious

doctrines of the Cabala."[190] But Lévi goes on to define this teaching

under the name of Johannism. It is here that we reach a further theory

with regard to the secret doctrine of the Templars--- the most important

of all, since it emanates from masonic and neo-Templar sources thus

effectually disposing of the contention that the charge brought against

the Order of apostasy from the Catholic faith is solely the invention of

Catholic writers.

In 1842 the Freemason Ragon related that the Templars learnt from the

"initiates of the East" a certain Judaic doctrine which was attributed

to St. John the Apostle; therefore "they renounced the religion of St.

Peter" and became Johannites.[191] Eliphas Lévi expresses the same

opinion.

Now, these statements are apparently founded on a legend which was first

published early in the nineteenth century, when an association calling

itself the _Ordre du Temple_ and claiming direct descent from the

original Templar Order published two works, the _Manuel des Chevaliers

de l'Ordre du Temple_ in 1811, and the _Lévitikon_ in 1831, together

with a version of the Gospel of St. John differing from the Vulgate.

These books, which appear to have been printed only for private

circulation amongst the members and are now extremely rare, relate that

the Order of the Temple had never ceased to exist since the days of

Jacques du Molay, who appointed Jacques de Larménie his successor in

office, and from that time onwards a line of Grand Masters had succeeded

each other without a break up to the end of the eighteenth century, when

it ceased for a brief period but was reinstituted under a new Grand

Master, Fabré Palaprat, in 1804. Besides publishing the list of all

Grand Masters, known as the "Charter of Larmenius," said to have been

preserved in the secret archives of the Temple, these works also

reproduce another document drawn from the same repository describing the

origins of the Order. This manuscript, written in Greek on parchment,

dated 1154, purports to be partly taken from a fifth-century MS. and

relates that Hugues de Payens, first Grand Master of the Templars, was

initiated in 1118--that is to say, in the year the Order was

founded--into the religious doctrine of "the Primitive Christian Church"

by its Sovereign Pontiff and Patriarch, Theoclet, sixtieth in direct

succession from St. John the Apostle. The history of the Primitive

Church is then given as follows:

Moses was initiated in Egypt. Profoundly versed in the physical,

theological, and metaphysical mysteries of the priests, he knew how

to profit by these so as to surmount the power of the Mages and

deliver his companions. Aaron, his brother, and the chiefs of the

Hebrews became the depositaries of his doctrine....

The Son of God afterwards appeared on the scene of the world.... He

was brought up at the school of Alexandria.... Imbued with a spirit

wholly divine, endowed with the most astounding qualities

(_dispositions_), he was able to reach all the degrees of Egyptian

initiation. On his return to Jerusalem, he presented himself before

the chiefs of the Synagogue.... Jesus Christ, directing the fruit

of his lofty meditations towards universal civilization and the

happiness of the world, rent the veil which concealed the truth

from the peoples. He preached the love of God, the love of one's

neighbour, and equality before the common Father of all men....

Jesus conferred evangelical initiation on his apostles and

disciples. He transmitted his spirit to them, divided them into

several orders after the practice of John, the beloved disciple,

the apostle of fraternal love, whom he had instituted Sovereign

Pontiff and Patriarch....

Here we have the whole Cabalistic legend of a secret doctrine descending

from Moses, of Christ as an Egyptian initiate and founder of a secret

order--a theory, of course, absolutely destructive of belief in His

divinity. The legend of the _Ordre du Temple_ goes on to say:

Up to about the year 1118 (i.e. the year the Order of the Temple

was founded) the mysteries and the hierarchic Order of the

initiation of Egypt, transmitted to the Jews by Moses, then to the

Christians by J.C., were religiously preserved by the successors of

St. John the Apostle. These mysteries and initiations, regenerated

by the evangelical initiation (or baptism), were a sacred trust

which the simplicity of the primitive and unchanging morality of

the _Brothers of the East_ had preserved from all adulteration....

The Christians, persecuted by the infidels, appreciating the

courage and piety of these brave crusaders, who, with the sword in

one hand and the cross in the other, flew to the defence of the

holy places, and, above all, doing striking justice to the virtues

and the ardent charity of Hugues de Payens, held it their duty to

confide to hands so pure the treasures of knowledge acquired

throughout so many centuries, sanctified by the cross, the dogma

and the morality of the Man-God. Hugues was invested with the

Apostolic Patriarchal power and placed in the legitimate order of

the successors of St. John the apostle or the evangelist.

Such is the origin of the foundation of the Order of the Temple and

of the fusion in this Order of the different kinds of initiation of

the Christians of the East designated under the title of Primitive

Christians or Johannites.

It will be seen at once that all this story is subtly subversive of true

Christianity, and that the appellation of Christians applied to the

Johannites is an imposture. Indeed Fabré Palaprat, Grand Master of the

_Ordre du Temple_ in 1804, who in his book on the Templars repeats the

story contained in the _Lévitikon and the Manuel des Chevaliers du

Temple_, whilst making the same profession of "primitive Christian"

doctrines descending from St. John through Theoclet and Hugues de Payens

to the Order over which he presides, goes on to say that the secret

doctrine of the Templars "was essentially contrary to the canons of the

Church of Rome and that it is principally to this fact that one must

attribute the persecution of which history has preserved the memory."[192]

The belief of the Primitive Christians, and consequently that the

Templars, with regard to the miracles of Christ is that He "did or may

have done extraordinary or miraculous things," and that since "God can

do things incomprehensible to human intelligence," the Primitive Church

venerates "all the acts of Christ as they are described in the Gospel,

whether it considers them as acts of human science or whether as acts of

divine power."[193] Belief in the divinity of Christ is thus left an

open question, and the same attitude is maintained towards the

Resurrection, of which the story is omitted in the Gospel of St. John

possessed by the Order. Fabré Palaprat further admits that the gravest

accusations brought against the Templars were founded on facts which he

attempts to explain away in the following manner:

The Templars having in 1307 carefully abstracted all the

manuscripts composing the secret archives of the Order from the

search made by authority, and these authentic manuscripts having

been preciously preserved since that period, we have to-day the

certainty that the Knights endured a great number of religious and

moral trials before reaching the different degrees of initiation:

thus, for example, the recipient might receive the injunction under

pain of death to trample on the crucifix or to worship an idol, but

if he yielded to the terror which they sought to inspire in him he

was declared unworthy of being admitted to the higher grades of the

Order. One can imagine in this way how beings, too feeble or too

immoral to endure the trials of initiation, may have accused the

Templars of giving themselves up to infamous practices and of

having superstitious beliefs.

It is certainly not surprising that an Order which gave such injunctions

as these, for whatever purpose, should have become the object of

suspicion.

Eliphas Lévi, who, like Ragon, accepts the statements of the _Ordre du

Temple_ concerning the "Johannite" origin of the Templars' secret

doctrine, is, however, not deceived by these professions of

Christianity, and boldly asserts that the Sovereign Pontiff Theoclet

initiated Hugues de Payens "into the mysteries and hopes of his

pretended Church, he lured him by the ideas of sacerdotal sovereignty

and supreme royalty, he indicated him finally as his successor. So the

Order of the Knights of the Temple was stained from its origin with

schism and conspiracy against Kings."[194] Further, Lévi relates that

the real story told to initiates concerning Christ was no other than the

infamous _Toledot Yeshu_ described in the first chapter of this book,

and which the Johannites dared to attribute to St. John.[195] This would

accord with the confession of the Catalonian Knight Templar, Galcerandus

de Teus, who stated that the form of absolution in the Order was: "I

pray God that He may pardon your sins as He pardoned St. Mary Magdalene

and the thief on the cross"; but the witness went on to explain:

By the thief of which the head of the Chapter speaks, is meant,

according to our statutes, that Jesus or Christ who was crucified

by the Jews because he was not God, and yet he said he was God and

the King of the Jews, which was an outrage to the true God who is

in Heaven. When Jesus, a few moments before his death, had his side

pierced by the lance of Longinus, he repented of having called

himself God and King of the Jews and he asked pardon of the true

God; then the true God pardoned him. It is thus that we apply to

the crucified Christ these words: "as God pardoned the thief on the

cross."[196]

Raynouard, who quotes this deposition, stigmatizes it as "singular and

extravagant"; M. Matter agrees that it is doubtless extravagant, but

that "it merits attention. There was a whole system there, which was not

the invention of Galcerant."[197] Eliphas Lévi provides the clue to that

system and to the reason why Christ was described as a thief, by

indicating the Cabalistic legend wherein He was described as having

_stolen_ the sacred Name from the Holy of Holies. Elsewhere he explains

that the Johannites "made themselves out to be the only people initiated

into the true mysteries of the religion of the Saviour. They professed

to know the real history of Jesus Christ, and by adopting part of Jewish

traditions and the stories of the Talmud, they made out that the facts

related in the Gospels"--that is to say, the Gospels accepted by the

orthodox Church--"were only allegories of which St. John gives the

key."[198]

But it is time to pass from legend to facts. For the whole story of the

initiation of the Templars by the "Johannites" rests principally on the

documents produced by the Ordre du Temple in 1811. According to the

Abbés Grégoire and Münter the authenticity and antiquity of these

documents are beyond dispute. Grégoire, referring to the parchment

manuscript of the _Lévitikon_ and Gospel of St. John, says that

"Hellenists versed in paleography believe this manuscript to be of the

thirteenth century, others declare it to be earlier and to go back to

the eleventh century."[199] Matter, on the other hand, quoting Münter's

opinion that the manuscripts in the archives of the modern Templars date

from the thirteenth century, observes that this is all a tissue of

errors and that the critics, including the learned Professor Thilo of

Halle, have recognized that the manuscript in question, far from

belonging to the thirteenth century, dates from the beginning of the

eighteenth. From the arrangement of the chapters of the Gospel, M.

Matter arrives at the conclusion that it was intended to accompany the

ceremonies of some masonic or secret society.[200] We shall return to

this possibility in a later chapter.

The antiquity of the manuscript containing the history of the Templars

thus remains an open question on which no one can pronounce an opinion

without having seen the original. In order, then, to judge of the

probability of the story that this manuscript contained it is necessary

to consult the facts of history and to discover what proof can be found

that any such sect as the Johannites existed at the time of the Crusades

or earlier. Certainly none is known to have been called by this name or

by one resembling it before 1622, when some Portuguese monks reported

the existence of a sect whom they described as "Christians of St. John"

inhabiting the banks of the Euphrates. The appellation appears, however,

to have been wrongly applied by the monks, for the sectarians in

question, variously known as the Mandæans, Mandaites, Sabians,

Nazoreans, etc., called themselves Mandaï Iyahi, that is to say, the

disciples, or rather the wise men, of John, the word _mandaï_ being

derived from the Chaldean word _manda_, corresponding to the Greek word

γνῶσις or wisdom.[201] The multiplicity of names given to the

Mandæans arises apparently from the fact that in their dealings with

other communities they took the name of Sabians, whilst they called the

wise and learned amongst themselves Nazoreans.[202] The sect formerly

inhabited the banks of the Jordan, but was driven out by the Moslems,

who forced them to retire to Mesopotamia and Babylonia, where they

particularly affected the neighbourhood of rivers in order to be able to

carry out their peculiar baptismal rites.[203]

There can be no doubt that the doctrines of the Mandæans do resemble the

description of the Johannite heresy as given by Eliphas Lévi, though not

by the _Ordre du Temple_, in that the Mandæans professed to be the

disciples of St. John--the Baptist, however, not the Apostle--but were

at the same time the enemies of Jesus Christ. According to the Mandæans'

_Book of John_ (Sidra d'Yahya), Yahya, that is to say, St. John,

baptized myriads of men during forty years in the Jordan. By a

mistake--or in response to a written mandate from heaven saying,

"Yahya, baptize the liar in the Jordan"--he baptized the false prophet

Yishu Meshiha (the Messiah Jesus), son of the devil Ruha Kadishta.[204]

The same idea is found in another book of the sect, called the "Book of

Adam," which represents Jesus as the perverter of St. John's doctrine

and the disseminator of iniquity and perfidy throughout the world.[205]

The resemblance between all this and the legends of the Talmud, the

Cabala, and the Toledot Yeshu is at once apparent; moreover, the

Mandæans claim for the "Book of Adam" the same origin as the Jews

claimed for the Cabala, namely, that it was delivered to Adam by God

through the hands of the angel Razael.[206] This book, known to scholars

as the _Codex Nasaræus_, is described by Münter as "a sort of mosaic

without order, without method, where one finds mentioned Noah, Abraham,

Moses, Solomon, the Temple of Jerusalem, St. John the Baptist, Jesus

Christ, the Christians, and Mohammed." M. Matter, whilst denying any

proof of the Templar succession from the Mandæans, nevertheless gives

good reason for believing that the sect itself existed from the first

centuries of the Christian era and that its books dated from the eighth

century[207]; further that these Mandæans or Nazoreans--not to be

confounded with the pre-Christian Nazarites or Christian Nazarenes--were

Jews who revered St. John the Baptist as the prophet of ancient Mosaism,

but regarded Jesus Christ as a false Messiah sent by the powers of

darkness.[208] Modern Jewish opinion confirms this affirmation of Judaic

inspiration and agrees with Matter in describing the Mandæans as

Gnostics: "Their sacred books are in an Aramaic dialect, which has close

affinities with that of the Talmud of Babylon." The Jewish influence is

distinctly visible in the Mandæan religion. "It is essentially of the

type of ancient Gnosticism, traces of which are found in the Talmud, the

Midrash, and in a modified form the later Cabala."[209]

It may then be regarded as certain that a sect existed long before the

time of the Crusades corresponding to the description of the Johannites

given by Eliphas Lévi in that it was Cabalistic, anti-Christian, yet

professedly founded on the doctrines of one of the St. Johns. Whether it

was by this sect that the Templars were indoctrinated must remain an

open question. M. Matter objects that the evidence lacking to such a

conclusion lies in the fact that the Templars expressed no particular

reverence for St. John; but Loiseleur asserts that the Templars did

prefer the Gospel of St. John to that of the other evangelists, and that

modern masonic lodges claiming descent from the Templars possess a

special version of this Gospel said to have been copied from the

original on Mount Athos.[210] It is also said that "Baphomets" were

preserved in the masonic lodges of Hungary, where a debased form of

Masonry, known as Johannite Masonry, survives to this day. If the

Templar heresy was that of the Johannites, the head in question might

possibly represent that of John the Baptist, which would accord with the

theory that the word Baphomet was derived from Greek words signifying

baptism of wisdom. This would, moreover, not be incompatible with

Loiseleur's theory of an affinity between the Templars and the Bogomils,

for the Bogomils also possessed their own version of the Gospel of St.

John, which they placed on the heads of their neophytes during the

ceremony of initiation,[211] giving as the reason for the 'I peculiar

veneration they professed for its author that they regarded St. John as

the servant of the Jewish God Satanael.[212] Eliphas Lévi even goes so

far as to accuse the Templars of following the occult practices of the

Luciferians, who carried the doctrines of the Bogomils to the point of

paying homage to the powers of darkness:

Let us declare for the edification of the vulgar ... and for the

greater glory of the Church which has persecuted the Templars,

burned the magicians and excommunicated the Free-Masons, etc., let

us say boldly and loudly, that all the initiates of the occult

sciences ... have adored, do and will always adore that which is

signified by this frightful symbol [the Sabbatic goat].[213] Yes,

in our profound conviction, the Grand Masters of the Order of the

Templars adored Baphomet and caused him to be adored by their

initiates.[214]

It will be seen, then, that the accusation of heresy brought against the

Templars does not emanate solely from the Catholic Church, but also from

the secret societies. Even our Freemasons, who, for reasons I shall show

later, have generally defended the Order, are now willing to admit that

there was a very real case against them. Thus Dr. Ranking, who has

devoted many years of study to the question, has arrived at the

conclusion that Johannism is the real clue to the Templar heresy. In a

very interesting paper published in the masonic journal _Ars Quatuor

Coronatorum_, he observes that "the record of the Templars in Palestine

is one long tale of intrigue and treachery on the part of the Order,"

and finally:

That from the very commencement of Christianity there has been

transmitted through the centuries a body of doctrine incompatible

with Christianity in the various official Churches....

That the bodies teaching these doctrines professed to do so on the

authority of St. John, to whom, as they claimed, the true secrets

had been committed by the Founder of Christianity.

That during the Middle Ages the main support of the Gnostic bodies

and the main repository of this knowledge was the Society of the

Templars.[215]

What is the explanation of this choice of St. John for the propagation

of anti-Christian doctrines which we shall find continuing up to the

present day? What else than the method of perversion which in its

extreme form becomes Satanism, and consists in always selecting the most

sacred things for the purpose of desecration? Precisely then because the

Gospel of St. John is the one of all the four which most insists on the

divinity of Christ, the occult anti-Christian sects have habitually made

it the basis of their rites.

4

THREE CENTURIES OF OCCULTISM

It has been shown in the foregoing chapters that from very early times

occult sects had existed for two purposes--esoteric and political.

Whilst the Manicheans, the early Ismailis, the Bogomils, and the

Luciferians had concerned themselves mainly with religious or esoteric

doctrines, the later Ismailis, the Fatimites, the Karmathites, and

Templars had combined secrecy and occult rites with the political aim of

domination. We shall find this double tradition running through all the

secret society movement up to the present day.

The Dualist doctrines attributed to the Templars were not, however,

confined to this Order in Europe, but had been, as we have seen, those

professed by the Bogomils and also by the Cathari, who spread westwards

from Bulgaria and Bosnia to France. It was owing to their sojourn in

Bulgaria that the Cathari gained the popular nickname of "Bulgars" or

"Bourgres," signifying those addicted to unnatural vice. One section of

the Cathari in the South of France became known after 1180 as the

Albigenses, thus called from the town of Albi, although their

headquarters were really in Toulouse. Christians only in name, they

adhered in secret to the Gnostic and Manichean doctrines of the earlier

Cathari, which they would appear to have combined with Johannism, since,

like this Eastern sect, they claimed to possess their own Gospel of St.

John.[216]

Although not strictly a secret society, the Albigenses were divided

after the secret society system into initiates and semi-initiates. The

former, few in number, known as the _Perfecti_, led in appearance an

austere life, refraining from meat and professing abhorrence of oaths

or of lying. The mystery in which they enveloped themselves won for them

the adoring reverence of the _Credentes_, who formed the great majority

of the sect and gave themselves up to every vice, to usury, brigandage,

and perjury, and whilst describing marriage as prostitution, condoning

incest and all forms of licence.[217] The _Credentes_, who were probably

not fully initiated into the Dualist doctrines of their superiors,

looked to them for salvation through the laying-on of hands according to

the system of the Manicheans.

It was amongst the nobles of Languedoc that the Albigenses found their

principal support. This "Judæa of France," as it has been called, was

peopled by a medley of mixed races, Iberian, Gallic, Roman, and

Semitic.[218] The nobles, very different from the "ignorant and pious

chivalry of the North," had lost all respect for their traditions.

"There were few who in going back did not encounter some Saracen or

Jewish grandmother in their genealogy."[219] Moreover, many had brought

back to Europe the laxity of morals they had contracted during the

Crusades. The Comte de Comminges practised polygamy, and, according to

ecclesiastical chronicles, Raymond VI, Comte de Toulouse, one of the

most ardent of the Albigense _Credentes_, had his harem.[220] The

Albigensian movement has been falsely represented as a protest merely

against the tyranny of the Church of Rome; in reality it was a rising

against the fundamental doctrines of Christianity--more than this,

against all principles of religion and morality. For whilst some of the

sect openly declared that the Jewish law was preferable to that of the

Christians,[221] to others the God of the Old Testament was as abhorrent

as the "false Christ" who suffered at Golgotha; the old hatred of the

Gnostics and Manicheans for the demiurgus lived again in these rebels

against the social order. Forerunners of the seventeenth-century

Libertines and eighteenth-century Illuminati, the Albigense nobles,

under the pretext of fighting the priesthood, strove to throw off all

the restraints the Church imposed.

Inevitably the disorders that took place throughout the South of France

led to reprisals, and the Albigenses were suppressed with all the

cruelty of the age--a fact which has afforded historians the opportunity

to exalt them as noble martyrs, victims of ecclesiastical despotism. But

again, as in the case of the Templars, the fact that they were

persecuted does not prove them innocent of the crimes laid to their

charge.

Satanism

At the beginning of the fourteenth century another development of

Dualism, far more horrible than the Manichean heresy of the Albigenses,

began to make itself felt. This was the cult of Satanism, or black

magic. The subject is one that must be approached with extreme caution,

owing to the fact that on one hand much that has been written about it

is the result of mediæval superstition, which sees in every departure

from the Roman Catholic Faith the direct intervention of the Evil One,

whilst on the other hand the conspiracy of history, which denies _in

toto_ the existence of the Occult Power, discredits all revelations on

this question, from whatever source they emanate, as the outcome of

hysterical imagination.[222] This is rendered all the easier since the

subject by its amazing extravagance lends itself to ridicule.

It is, however, idle to deny that the cult of evil has always existed;

the invocation of the powers of darkness was practised in the earliest

days of the human race and, after the Christian era, found its

expression, as we have seen, in the Cainites, the Euchites, and the

Luciferians. These are not surmises, but actual facts of history.

Towards the end of the twelfth century Luciferianism spread eastwards

through Styria, the Tyrol, and Bohemia, even as far as Brandenburg; by

the beginning of the thirteenth century it had invaded western Germany,

and in the fourteenth century reached its zenith in that country, as

also in Italy and France. The cult had now reached a further stage in

its development, and it was not the mere propitiation of Satanael as the

prince of this world practised by the Luciferians, but actual

Satanism--the love of evil for the sake of evil--which formed the

doctrine of the sect known in Italy as _la vecchia religione_ or the

"old religion." Sorcery was adopted as a profession, and witches, not,

as is popularly supposed, sporadic growths, were trained in schools of

magic to practise their art. These facts should be remembered when the

Church is blamed for the violence it displayed against witchcraft--it

was not individuals, but a system which it set out to destroy.

The essence of Satanism is desecration. In the ceremonies for infernal

evocation described by Eliphas Lévi we read: "It is requisite to profane

the ceremonies of the religion one belongs to and to trample its holiest

symbols under foot."[223] This practice found a climax in desecrating

the Holy Sacrament. The consecrated wafer was given as food to mice,

toads, and pigs, or denied in unspeakable ways. A revolting description

of the Black Mass may be found in Huysmans's book _Là-bas_. It is

unnecessary to transcribe the loathsome details here. Suffice it, then,

to show that this cult had a very real existence, and if any further

doubt remains on the matter, the life of Gilles de Rais supplies

documentary evidence of the visible results of black magic in the Middle

Ages.

Gilles de Rais was born at Machecoul in Brittany about the year 1404.

The first period of his life was glorious; the companion and guide of

Jeanne d'Arc, he became Maréchal of France and distinguished himself by

many deeds of valour. But after dissipating his immense fortune, largely

on Church ceremonies carried out with the wildest extravagance, he was

led to study alchemy, partly by curiosity and partly as a means for

restoring his shattered fortunes. Hearing that Germany and Italy were

the countries where alchemy flourished, he enlisted Italians in his

service and was gradually drawn into the further region of magic.

According to Huysmans, Gilles de Rais had remained until this moment a

Christian mystic under the influence of Jeanne d'Arc, but after her

death--possibly in despair--he offered himself to the powers of

darkness. Evokers of Satan now flocked to him from every side, amongst

them Prelati, an Italian, by no means the old and wrinkled sorcerer of

tradition, but a young and attractive man of charming manners. For it

was from Italy that came the most skilful adepts in the art of alchemy,

astrology, magic, and infernal evocation, who spread themselves over

Europe, particularly France. Under the influence of these initiators

Gilles de Rais signed a letter to the devil in a meadow near Machecoul

asking him for "knowledge, power, and riches," and offering in exchange

anything that might be asked of him with the exception of his life or

his soul. But in spite of this appeal and of a pact signed with the

blood of the writer, no Satanic apparitions were forthcoming.

It was then that, becoming still more desperate, Gilles de Rais had

recourse to the abominations for which his name has remained

infamous--still more frightful invocations, loathsome debaucheries,

perverted vice in every form, Sadic cruelties, horrible sacrifices, and,

finally, holocausts of little boys and girls collected by his agents in

the surrounding country and put to death with the most inhuman tortures.

During the years 1432-40 literally hundreds of children disappeared.

Many of the names of the unhappy little victims were preserved in the

records of the period. Gilles de Rais met with a well-deserved end: in

1440 he was hanged and burnt. So far he does not appear to have found a

panegyrist to place him in the ranks of noble martyrs.

It will, of course, be urged that the crimes here described were those

of a criminal lunatic and not to be attributed to any occult cause; the

answer to this is that Gilles was not an isolated unit, but one of a

group of occultists who cannot all have been mad. Moreover, it was only

after his invocation of the Evil One that he developed these monstrous

proclivities. So also his eighteenth-century replica, the Marquis de

Sade, combined with his abominations an impassioned hatred of the

Christian religion.

What is the explanation of this craze for magic in Western Europe?

Deschamps points to the Cabala, "that science of demoniacal arts, of

which the Jews were the initiators," and undoubtedly in any

comprehensive review of the question the influence of the Jewish

Cabalists cannot be ignored. In Spain, Portugal, Provence, and Italy the

Jews by the fifteenth century had become a power; as early as 1450 they

had penetrated into the intellectual circles of Florence, and it was

also in Italy that, a century later, the modern Cabalistic school was

inaugurated by Isaac Luria (1533-72), whose doctrines were organized

into a practical system by the Hasidim of Eastern Europe for the writing

of amulets, the conjuration of devils, mystical jugglery with numbers

and letters, etc.[224] Italy in the fifteenth century was thus a centre

from which Cabalistic influences radiated, and it may be that the

Italians who indoctrinated Gilles de Rais had drawn their inspiration

from this source. Indeed Eliphas Lévi, who certainly cannot be accused

of "Anti-Semitism," declares that "the Jews, the most faithful trustees

of the secret of the Cabala, were almost always the reat masters of

magic in the Middle Ages,"[225] and suggests that Gilles de Rais took

his monstrous recipes for using the blood of murdered children "from

some of those old Hebrew _grimoires_ (books on magic), which, if they

had been known, would have sufficed to hold up the Jews to the

execration of the whole earth."[226] Voltaire, in his _Henriade_,

likewise attributes the magical blood-rites practised in the sixteenth

century to Jewish inspiration:

Dans l'ombre de la nuit, sous une voûte obscure,

Le silence conduit leui assemblée impure.

A la pàle lueur d'un magique flambeau

S'élève un vil autel dressé sur un tombeau.

C'est là que des deux rois on plaça les images,

Objets de leur terreur, objets de leurs outrages.

Leurs sacrilèges mains out mêlé sur l'autel

A des noms infernaux le nom de l'Éternel.

Sur ces murs ténébreux des lances sont rangées,

Dans des vases de sang leurs pointes sont plongées;

Appareil menaçant de leur mystère affreux.

Le prêtre de ce temple est un de ces Hébreux

Qui, proscrits sur la terre et citoyens du monde,

Portent de mers en mers leur misère profonde,

Et, d'un antique ramas de superstitions,

Out rempli dès longtemps toutes les nations, etc.

Voltaire adds in a footnote: "It was ordinarily Jews that were made use

of for magical operations. This ancient superstition comes from the

secrets of the Cabala, of which the Jews called themselves the sole

depositaries. Catherine de Medicis, the Maréchal d'Ancre, and many

others employed Jews for these spells."

This charge of black magic recurs all through the history of Europe from

the earliest times. The Jews are accused of poisoning wells, of

practising ritual murder, of using stolen church property for purposes

of desecration, etc. No doubt there enters into all this a great amount

of exaggeration, inspired by popular prejudice and mediæval

superstition. Yet, whilst condeming the persecution to which the Jews

were subjected on this account, it must be admitted that they laid

themselves open to suspicion by their real addiction to magical arts. If

ignorant superstition is found on the side of the persecutors, still

more amazing superstition is found on the side of the persecuted.

Demonology in Europe was in fact essentially a Jewish science, for

although a belief in evil spirits existed from the earliest times and

has always continued to exist amongst primitive races, and also amongst

the ignorant classes in civilized countries, it was mainly through the

Jews that these dark superstitions were imported to the West, where they

persisted not merely amongst the lower strata of the Jewish population,

but formed an essential part of Jewish tradition. Thus the Talmud says:

If the eye could perceive the demons that people the universe,

existence would be impossible. The demons are more numerous than we

are: they surround us on all sides like trenches dug round

vineyards. Every one of us has a thousand on his left hand and ten

thousand on his right. The discomfort endured by those who attend

rabbinical conferences ... comes from the demons mingling with men

in these circumstances. Besides, the fatigue one feels in one's

knees in walking comes from the demons that one knocks up against

at every step. If the clothing of the Rabbis wears out so quickly,

it is again because the demons rub up against them. Whoever wants

to convince himself of their presence has only to surround his bed

with sifted cinders and the next morning he will see the imprints

of cocks' feet.[227]

The same treatise goes on to give directions for seeing demons by

burning portions of a black cat and placing the ashes in one's eye:

"then at once one perceives the demons." The Talmud also explains that

devils particularly inhabit the waterspouts on houses and are fond of

drinking out of water-jugs, therefore it is advisable to pour a little

water out of a jug before drinking, so as to get rid of the unclean

part.[228]

These ideas received a fresh impetus from the publication of the Zohar,

which, a Jewish writer tells us, "from the fourteenth century held

almost unbroken sway over the minds of the majority of the Jews. In it

the Talmudic legends concerning the existence and activity of the

_shedhim_ (demons) are repeated and amplified, and a hierarchy of demons

was established corresponding to the heavenly hierarchy.... Manasseh

[ben Israel]'s _Nishmat Hayim_ is full of information concerning belief

in demons.... Even the scholarly and learned Rabbis of the seventeenth

century clung to the belief."[229]

Here, then, it is not a case of ignorant peasants evolving fantastic

visions from their own scared imaginations, but of the Rabbis, the

acknowledged leaders of a race claiming civilized traditions and a high

order of intelligence, deliberately inculcating in their disciples the

perpetual fear of demoniacal influences. How much of this fear

communicated itself to the Gentile population? It is at any rate a

curious coincidence to notice the resemblances between so-called popular

superstitions and the writings of the Rabbis. For example, the vile

confessions made both by Scotch and French peasant women accused of

witchcraft concerning the nocturnal visits paid them by male devils[230]

find an exact counterpart in passages of the Cabala, where it is said

that "the demons are both male and female, and they also endeavour to

consort with human beings--a conception from which arises the belief in

_incubi_ and _succubæ_."[231] Thus, on Jewish authority, we learn the

Judaic origin of this strange delusion.

It is clearly to the same source that we may trace the magical formulæ

for the healing of diseases current at the same period. From the

earliest times the Jews had specialized in medicine, and many royal

personages insisted on employing Jewish doctors,[232] some of whom may

have acquired medical knowledge of a high order. The Jewish writer

Margoliouth dwells on this fact with some complacency, and goes on to

contrast the scientific methods of the Hebrew doctors with the

quackeries of the monks:

In spite of the reports circulated by the monks, that the Jews were

sorcerers (in consequence of their superior medical skill),

Christian patients would frequent the houses of the Jewish

physicians in preference to the monasteries, where cures were

pretended to have been effected by some extraordinary relics, such

as the nails of St. Augustine, the extremity of St. Peter's second

toe, ... etc. It need hardly be added that the cures effected by

the Jewish physicians were more numerous than those by the monkish

impostors.[233]

Yet in reality the grotesque remedies which Margoliouth attributes to

Christian superstition appear to have been partly derived from Jewish

sources. The author of a further article on Magic in Hastings'

_Encyclopædia_ goes on to say that the magical formulæ handed down in

Latin in ancient medical writings and used by the monks were mainly of

Eastern origin, derived from Babylonish, Egyptian, and Jewish magic. The

monks therefore "played merely an intermediate rôle."[234] Indeed, if

we turn to the Talmud we shall find cures recommended no less absurd

than those which Margoliouth derides. For example:

The eggs of a grasshopper as a remedy for toothache, the tooth of a

fox as a remedy for sleep, viz. the tooth of a live fox to prevent

sleep and of a dead one to cause sleep, the nail from the gallows

where a man was hanged, as a remedy for swelling.[235]

A strongly "pro-Semite" writer quotes a number of Jewish medical

writings of the eighteenth century, republished as late as the end of

the nineteenth, which show the persistence of these magical formulæ

amongst the Jews. Most of these are too loathsome to transcribe; but

some of the more innocuous are as follows: "For epilepsy kill a cock and

let it putrefy." "In order to protect yourself from all evils, gird

yourself with the rope with which a criminal has been hung." Blood of

different kinds also plays an important part: "Fox's blood and wolf's

blood are good for stone in the bladder, ram's blood for colic, weasel

blood for scrofula," etc.--these to be externally applied.[236]

But to return to Satanism. Whoever were the secret inspirers of magical

and diabolical practices during the fourteenth to the eighteenth

centuries, the evidence of the existence of Satanism during this long

period is overwhelming and rests on the actual facts of history. Details

quite as extravagant and revolting as those contained in the works of

Eliphas Lévi[237] or in Huysmans's _Là-bas_ are given in documentary

form by Margaret Alice Murray in her singularly passionless work

relating principally to the witches of Scotland.[238]

The cult of evil is a reality--by whatever means we may seek to explain

it. Eliphas Lévi, whilst denying the existence of Satan "as a superior

personality and power," admits this fundamental truth: "Evil exists; it

is impossible to doubt it. We can do good or evil. There are beings who

knowingly and voluntarily do evil."[239] There are also beings who love

evil. Lévi has admirably described the spirit that animates such beings

in his definition of black magic:

Black magic is really but a combination of sacrileges and murders

graduated with a view to the permanent perversion of the human will

and the realization in a living man of the monstrous phantom of the

fiend. It is, therefore, properly speaking, the religion of the

devil, the worship of darkness, the hatred of goodness exaggerated

to the point of paroxysm; it is the incarnation of death and the

permanent creation of hell.[240]

The Middle Ages, which depicted the devil fleeing from holy water, were

not perhaps quite so benighted as our superior modern culture has led us

to suppose. For that "hatred of goodness exaggerated to the point of

paroxysm," that impulse to desecrate and defile which forms the basis of

black magic and has manifested itself in successive phases of the

world-revolution, springs from fear. So by their very hatred the powers

of darkness proclaim the existence of the powers of light and their own

impotence. In the cry of the demoniac: "What have we to do with Thee,

Jesus of Nazareth? art Thou come to destroy us? I know Thee who Thou

art, the Holy One of God," do we not hear the unwilling tribute of the

vanquished to the victor in the mighty conflict between good; and evil?

The Rosicrucians

In dealing with the question of Magic it is necessary to realize that

although to the world in general the word is synonymous with necromancy,

it does not bear this significance in the language of occultism,

particularly the occultism of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Magic at this date was a term employed to cover many branches of

investigation which Robert Fludd, the English Rosicrucian, classified

under various headings, of which the first three are as follows: (1)

"_Natural Magic_, ... that most occult and secret department of physics

by which the mystical properties of natural substances are extracted";

(2) _Mathematical Magic_, which enables adepts in the art to "construct

marvellous machines by means of their geometrical knowledge "; whilst

(3) _Venefic Magic_ "is familiar with potions, philtres, and with

various preparations of poisons."[241]

It is obvious that all these have now passed into the realms of science

and are no longer regarded as magical arts; but the further categories

enumerated by Fludd and comprised under the general heading of

_Necromantic Magic_ retain the popular sense of the term. These are

described as (i) _Goetic_, which consists in "diabolical commerce with

unclean spirits, in rites of criminal curiosity, in illicit songs and

invocations, and in the evocation of the souls of the dead"; (2)

_Maleficent_, which is the adjuration of the devils by the virtue of

Divine Names; and (3) _Theurgic_, purporting "to be governed by good

angels and the Divine Will, but its wonders are most frequently

performed by evil spirits, who assume the names of God and of the

angels." (4) "The last species of magic is the _Thaumaturgic_, begetting

illusory phenomena; by this art the Magi produced their phantoms and

other marvels." To this list might be added _Celestial Magic_, or

knowledge dealing with the influence of the heavenly bodies, on which

astrology is based.

The forms of magic dealt with in the preceding part of this chapter

belong therefore to the second half of these categories, that is to say,

to Necromantic Magic. But at the same period another movement was

gradually taking shape which concerned itself with the first category

enumerated above, that is to say, the secret properties of natural

substances.

A man whose methods appear to have approached to the modern conception

of scientific research was Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim,

commonly known as Paracelsus, the son of a German doctor, born about

1493, who during his travels in the East is said to have acquired a

knowledge of some secret doctrine which he afterwards elaborated into a

system for the healing of diseases. Although his ideas were thus

doubtless drawn from some of the same sources as those from which the

Jewish Cabala descended, Paracelsus does not appear to have been a

Cabalist, but a scientist of no mean order, and, as an isolated thinker,

apparently connected with no secret association, does not enter further

into the scope of this work.

Paracelsus must therefore not be identified with the school of so-called

"Christian Cabalists," who, from Raymond Lulli, the "doctor illuminatus"

of the thirteenth century, onward, drew their inspiration from the

Cabala of the Jews. This is not to say that the influence under which

they fell was wholly pernicious, for, just as certain Jews appear to

have acquired some real medical skill, so also they appear to have

possessed some real knowledge of natural science, inherited perhaps from

the ancient traditions of the East or derived from the writings of

Hippocrates, Galen, and other of the great Greek physicians and as yet

unknown to Europe. Thus Eliphas Lévi relates that the Rabbi Jechiel, a

Cabalistic Jew protected by St. Louis, possessed the secret of

ever-burning lamps,[242] claimed later by the Rosicrucians, which

suggests the possibility that some kind of luminous gas or electric

light may have been known to the Jews. In alchemy they were the

acknowledged leaders; the most noted alchemist of the fourteenth

century, Nicholas Flamel, discovered the secret of the art from the book

of "Abraham the Jew, Prince, Priest, Levite, Astrologer, and

Philosopher," and this actual book is said to have passed later into the

possession of Cardinal Richelieu.[243]

It was likewise from a Florentine Jew, Alemanus or Datylus, that Pico

della Mirandola, the fifteenth-century mystic, received instructions in

the Cabala[244] and imagined that he had discovered in it the doctrines

of Christianity. This delighted Pope Sixtus IV, who thereupon ordered

Cabalistic writings to be translated into Latin for the use of divinity

students. At the same time the Cabala was introduced into Germany by

Reuchlin, who had learnt Hebrew from the Rabbi Jacob b. Jechiel Loans,

court physician to Frederick III, and in 1494 published a Cabalistic

treatise _De Verbo Mirifico_, showing that all wisdom and true

philosophy are derived from the Hebrews. Considerable alarm appears,

however, to have been created by the spread of Rabbinical literature,

and in 1509 a Jew converted to Christianity, named Pfefferkorn,

persuaded the Emperor Maximilian I to burn all Jewish books except the

Old Testament. Reuchlin, consulted on this matter, advised only the

destruction of the Toledot Yeshu and of the Sepher Nizzachon by the

Rabbi Lipmann, because these works "were full of blasphemies against

Christ and against the Christian religion," but urged the preservation

of the rest. In this defence of Jewish literature he was supported by

the Duke of Bavaria, who appointed him professor at Ingoldstadt, but was

strongly condemned by the Dominicans of Cologne. In reply to their

attacks Reuchlin launched his defence _De Arte Cabalistica_, glorifying

the Cabala, of which the "central doctrine for him was the Messianology

around which all its other doctrines grouped themselves."[245] His

whole philosophical system, as he himself admitted, was in fact entirely

Cabalistic, and his views were shared by his contemporary Cornelius

Agrippa of Nettesheim. As a result of these teachings a craze for

Cabalism spread amongst Christian prelates, statesmen, and warriors, and

a number of Christian thinkers took up the doctrines of the Cabala and

"essayed to work them over in their own way." Athanasius Kircher and

Knorr, Baron von Rosenroth, author of the _Kabbala Denudata_, in the

course of the seventeenth century "endeavoured to spread the Cabala

among the Christians by translating Cabalistic works which they regarded

as most ancient wisdom." "Most of them," the _Jewish Encyclopædia_ goes

on to observe derisively, "held the absurd idea that the Cabala

contained proofs of the truth of Christianity.... Much that appears

Christian [in the Cabala] is, in fact, nothing but the logical

development of certain ancient esoteric doctrines."[246]

The Rosicrucians appear to have been the outcome both of this Cabalistic

movement and of the teachings of Paracelsus. The earliest intimation of

their existence was given in a series of pamphlets which appeared at the

beginning of the seventeenth century. The first of these, entitled the

_Fama Fraternitatis; or a Discovery of the Fraternity of the most

Laudable Order of the Rosy Cross_, was published at Cassel in 1614 and

the _Confessio Fraternitatis_ early in the following year. These contain

what may be described as the "Grand Legend" of Rosicrucianism, which has

been repeated with slight variations up to the present day. Briefly,

this story is as follows[247]:

"The most godly and highly-illuminated Father, our brother C.R.," that

is to say, Christian Rosenkreutz, "a German, the chief and original of

our Fraternity," was born in 1378, and some sixteen years later

travelled to the East with a Brother P.A.L., who had determined to go to

the Holy Land. On reaching Cyprus, Brother P.A.L. died and "so never

came to Jerusalem." Brother C.R., however, having become acquainted with

certain Wise Men of "Damasco in Arabia," and beheld what great wonders

they wrought, went on alone to Damasco. Here the Wise Men received him,

and he then set himself to study Physick and Mathematics and to

translate the Book M into Latin. After three years he went to Egypt,

whence he journeyed on to Fez, where "he did get acquaintance with those

who are called the Elementary inhabitants, who revealed to him many of

their secrets.... Of those of Fez he often did confess that their Magia

was not altogether pure and also that their Cabala was defiled with

their religion, but notwithstanding he knew how to make good use of the

same." After two years Brother C.R. departed the city Fez and sailed

away with many costly things into Spain, where he conferred with the

learned men and being "ready bountifully to impart all his arts and

secrets" showed them amongst other things how "there might be a society

in Europe which might have gold, silver, and precious stones sufficient

for them to bestow on kings for their necessary uses and lawful

purposes...."

Christian Rosenkreutz then returned to Germany, where "there is nowadays

no want of learned men, Magicians, Cabalists, Physicians, and

Philosophers." Here he "builded himself a fitting and neat habitation in

which he ruminated his voyage and philosophy and reduced them together

in a true memorial." At the end of five years' meditation there "came

again into his mind the wished-for Reformation: accordingly he chose

some few adjoyned with him," the Brethren G.V., I.A., and I.O.--the

last of whom "was very expert and well learned in Cabala as his book H

witnesseth"--to form a circle of initiates. "After this manner began

the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross." Five other Brethren were afterwards

added, all Germans except I.A., and these eight constituted his new

building called Sancti Spiritus. The following agreement was then drawn

up:

First, that none of them should profess any other thing than to

cure the sick, and that gratis.

Second, none of the posterity should be constrained to wear one

certain kind of habit, but therein to follow the custom of the

country.

Third, that every year, upon the day C., they should meet together

at the house Sancti Spiritus, or write the cause of his absence.

Fourth, every Brother should look about for a worthy person who,

after his decease, might succeed him.

Fifth, the word C.R. should be their seal, mark, and character.

Sixth, the Fraternity should remain secret one hundred years.

Finally Brother C.R. died, but where and when, or in what country he was

buried, remained a secret. The date, however, is generally given as

1484. In 1604 the Brethren who then constituted the inner circle of the

Order discovered a door on which was written in large letters

Post 120 Annos Patebo.

On opening the door a vault was disclosed to view, where beneath a brass

tablet the body of Christian Rosenkreutz was found, "whole and

unconsumed," with all his "ornaments and attires," and holding in his

hand the parchment "I" which "next unto the Bible is our greatest

treasure," whilst beside him lay a number of books, amongst others the

_Vocabulario_ of Paracelsus, who, however, the _Fama_ observes, earlier

"was none of our Fraternity."[248]

The Brethren now knew that after a time there would be "a general

reformation both of divine and human things." While declaring their

belief in the Christian faith, the _Fama_ goes on to explain that:

Our Philosophy is not a new invention, but as Adam after his fall

hath received it and as Moses and Solomon used it, ... wherein

Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, and others did hit the mark and

wherein Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Solomon, did excel, but especially

wherewith that wonderful Book the Bible agreeth.

It will be seen that, according to this Manifesto, Rosicrucianism was a

combination of the ancient secret tradition handed down from the

patriarchs through the philosophers of Greece and of the first Cabala of

the Jews.

The "Grand Legend" of Rosicrucianism rests, however, on no historical

evidence; there is, in fact, not the least reason to suppose that any

such person as Christian Rosenkreutz ever existed. The Illuminatus von

Knigge in the eighteenth century asserted that:

It is now recognized amongst enlightened men that no real

Rosicrucians have existed, but that the whole of what is contained

in the _Fama_ and the _Universal Reformation of the World_ [another

Rosicrucian pamphlet which appeared in the same year] was only a

subtle allegory of Valentine Andrea, of which afterwards partly

deceivers (such as the Jesuits) and partly visionaries made use in

order to realize this dream.[249]

What, then, was the origin of the name Rose-Cross? According to one

Rosicrucian tradition, the word "Rose" does not derive from the flower

depicted on the Rosicrucian cross, but from the Latin word _ros_,

signifying "dew," which was supposed to be the most powerful solvent of

gold, whilst _crux_, the cross, was the chemical hieroglyphic for

"light."[250] It is said that the Rosicrucians interpreted the initials

on the cross INRI by the sentence "Igne Nitrum Roris Invenitur."[251]

Supposing this derivation to be correct, it would be interesting to know

whether any connexion could be traced between the first appearance of

the word Rosie Cross in the _Fama Fraternitatis_ at the date of 1614 and

the cabalistic treatise of the celebrated Rabbi of Prague, Shabbethai

Sheftel Horowitz, entitled _Shefa Tal_, that is to say, "The Effusion of

Dew," which appeared in 1612.[252] Although this book has often been

reprinted, no copy is to be found in the British Museum, so I am unable

to pursue this line of enquiry further. A simpler explanation may be

that the Rosy Cross derived from the Red Cross of the Templars.

Mirabeau, who as a Freemason and an Illuminatus was in a position to

discover many facts about the secret societies of Germany during his

stay in the country, definitely asserts that "the Rose Croix Masons of

the seventeenth century were only the ancient Order of the Templars

secretly perpetuated."[253]

Lecouteulx de Canteleu is more explicit:

In France the Knights (Templar) who left the Order, henceforth

hidden, and so to speak unknown, formed the Order of the Flaming

Star and of the Rose-Croix, which in the fifteenth century spread

itself in Bohemia and Silesia. Every Grand officer of these Orders

had all his life to wear the Red Cross and to repeat every day the

prayer of St. Bernard.[254]

Eckert states that the ritual, symbols, and names of the Rose-Croix were

borrowed from the Templars, and that the Order was divided into seven

degrees, according to the seven days of creation, at the same time

signifying that their "principal aim was that of the mysterious, the

investigation of Being and of the forces of nature."[255]

The Rosicrucian Kenneth Mackenzie, in his _Masonic Cyclopædia_, appears

to suggest the same possibility of Templar origin. Under the heading of

Rosicrucians he refers enigmatically to an invisible fraternity that has

existed from very ancient times, as early as the days of the Crusades,

"bound by solemn obligations of impenetrable secrecy," and joining

together in work for humanity and to "glorify the good." At various

periods of history this body has emerged into a sort of temporary light;

but its true name has never transpired and is only known to the

innermost adepts and rulers of the society. "The Rosicrucians of the

sixteenth century finally disappeared and re-entered this invisible

fraternity "--from which they had presumably emerged. Whether any such

body really existed or whether the above account is simply an attempt at

mystification devised to excite curiosity, the incredulous may question.

The writer here observes that it would be indiscreet to say more, but

elsewhere he throws out a hint that may have some bearing on the matter,

for in his article on the Templars he says that after the suppression of

the Order it was revived in a more secret form and subsists to the

present day. This would exactly accord with Mirabeau's statement that

the Rosicrucians were only the Order of the Templars secretly

perpetuated. Moreover, as we shall see later, according to a legend

preserved by the Royal Order of Scotland, the degree of the Rosy Cross

had been instituted by that Order in conjunction with the Templars in

1314, and it would certainly be a remarkable coincidence that a man

bearing the name of Rosenkreutz should happen to have inaugurated a

society, founded, like the Templars, on Eastern secret doctrines during

the course of the same century, without any connexion existing between

the two.

I would suggest, then, that Christian Rosenkreutz was a purely mythical

personage, and that the whole legend concerning his travels was invented

to disguise the real sources whence the Rosicrucians derived their

system, which would appear to have been a compound of ancient esoteric

doctrines, of Arabian and Syrian magic, and of Jewish Cabalism, partly

inherited from the Templars but reinforced by direct contact with

Cabalistic Jews in Germany. The Rose-Croix, says Mirabeau, "were a

mystical, Cabalistic, theological, and magical sect," and Rosicrucianism

thus became in the seventeenth century the generic title by which

everything of the nature of Cabalism, Theosophy, Alchemy, Astrology, and

Mysticism was designated. For this reason it has been said that they

cannot be regarded as the descendants of the Templars. Mr. Waite, in

referring to "the alleged connexion between the Templars and the

Brethren of the Rosy Cross," observes:

The Templars were not alchemists, they had no scientific

pretensions, and their secret, so far as it can be ascertained, was

a religious secret of an anti-Christian kind. The Rosicrucians, on

the other hand, were pre-eminently a learned society and they were

also a Christian sect.[256]

The fact that the Templars do not appear to have practised alchemy is

beside the point; it is not pretended that the Rosicrucians followed the

Templars in every particular, but that they were the inheritors of a

secret tradition passed on to them by the earlier Order. Moreover, that

they were a learned society, or even a society at all, is not at all

certain, for they would appear to have possessed no organization like

the Templars or the Freemasons, but to have consisted rather of isolated

occultists bound together by some tie of secret knowledge concerning

natural phenomena. This secrecy was no doubt necessary at a period when

scientific research was liable to be regarded as sorcery, but whether

the Rosicrucians really accomplished anything is extremely doubtful.

They are said to have been alchemists; but did they ever succeed in

transmuting metals? They are described as learned, yet do the pamphlets

emanating from the Fraternity betray any proof of superior knowledge?

"The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosenkreutz," which appeared in

1616, certainly appears to be the purest nonsense--magical imaginings of

the most puerile kind; and Mr. Waite himself observes that the

publication of the _Fama_ and the _Confessio Fraternitalis_ will not add

new lustre to the Rosicrucian reputations:

We are accustomed to regard the adepts of the Rosy Cross as beings

of sublime elevation and preternatural physical powers, masters of

Nature, monarchs of the intellectual world.... But here in their

own acknowledged manifestos they avow themselves a mere

theosophical offshoot of the Lutheran heresy, acknowledging the

spiritual supremacy of a temporal prince, and calling the Pope

anti-Christ.... We find them intemperate in their language, rabid

in their religious prejudices, and instead of towering giant-like

above the intellectual average of their age, we see them buffeted

by the same passions and identified with all opinions of the men by

whom they were environed. The voice which addresses us behind the

mystical mask of the Rose-Croix does not come from an intellectual

throne....

So much for the Rosicrucians as a "learned society."

What, then, of their claim to be a Christian body? The Rosicrucian

student of the Cabala, Julius Sperber, in his _Echo of the Divinely

Illuminated Fraternity of the Admirable Order of the R.C._ (1615), has

indicated the place assigned to Christ by the Rosicrucians. In De

Quincey's words:

Having maintained the probability of the Rosicrucian pretensions

on the ground that such _magnalia Dei_ had from the creation

downwards been confided to the keeping of a few

individuals--agreeably to which he affirms that Adam was the first

Rosicrucian of the Old Testament and Simeon the last--he goes on to

ask whether the Gospel put an end to the secret tradition? By no

means, he answers: Christ established a new "college of magic"

among His disciples, and the greater mysteries were revealed to St.

John and St. Paul.

John Yarker, quoting this passage, adds: "This, Brother Findel points

out, was a claim of the Carpocratian Gnostics"; it was also, as we have

seen, a part of the Johannite tradition which is said to have been

imparted to the Templars. We shall find the same idea of Christ as an

"initiate" running all through the secret societies up to the present

day.

These doctrines not unnaturally brought on the Rosicrucians the

suspicion of being an anti-Christian body. The writer of a contemporary

pamphlet published in 1624, declares that "this fraternity is a

stratagem of the Jews and Cabalistic Hebrews, in whose philosophy, says

Pic de la Mirandole, all things are ... as if hidden in the majesty of

truth or as ... in very sacred Mysteries."[257]

Another work, _Examination of the Unknown and Novel Cabala of the

Brethren of the Rose-Cross_, agrees with the assertion that the chief of

this "execrable college is Satan, that its first rule is denial of God,

blasphemy against the most simple and undivided Trinity, trampling on

the mysteries of the redemption, spitting in the face of the mother of

God and of all the saints." The sect is further accused of compacts with

the devil, sacrifices of children, of cherishing toads, making poisonous

powders, dancing with fiends, etc.

Now, although all this would appear to be quite incompatible with the

character of the Rosicrucians as far as it is known, we have already

seen that the practices here described were by no means imaginary; in

this same seventeenth century, when the fame of the Rosicrucians was

first noised abroad, black magic was still, as in the days of Gilles de

Rais, a horrible reality, not only in France but in England, Scotland,

and Germany, where sorcerers of both sexes were continually put to

death.[258] However much we may deplore the methods employed against

these people or question the supernatural origin of their cult, it would

be idle to deny that the cult itself existed.

Moreover, towards the end of the century it assumed in France a very

tangible form in the series of mysterious dramas known as the "Affaire

des Poisons," of which the first act took place in 1666, when the

celebrated Marquise de Brinvilliers embarked on her amazing career of

crime in collaboration with her lover Sainte-Croix. This extraordinary

woman, who for ten years made a hobby of trying the effects of various

slow poisons on her nearest relations, thereby causing the death of her

father and brothers, might appear to have been merely an isolated

criminal of the abnormal type but for the sequel to her exploits in the

epidemic of poisoning which followed and during twenty years kept Paris

in a state of terror. The investigations of the police finally led to

the discovery of a whole band of magicians and alchemists--"a vast

ramification of malefactors covering all France"--who specialized in

the art of poisoning without fear of detection.

Concerning all these sorcerers, alchemists, compounders of magical

powders and philtres, frightful rumours circulated, "pacts with the

devil were talked of, sacrifices of new-born babies, incantations,

sacrilegious Masses and other practices as disquieting as they were

lugubrious."[259] Even the King's mistress, Madame de Montespan, is

said to have had recourse to black Masses in order to retain the royal

favour through the agency of the celebrated sorceress La Voisin, with

whom she was later implicated in an accusation of having attempted the

life of the King.

All the extraordinary details of these events have recently been

described in the book of Madame Latour, where the intimate connexion

between the poisoners and the magicians is shown. In the opinion of

contemporaries, these were not isolated individuals:

"Their methods were too certain, their execution of crime too

skilful and too easy for them not to have belonged, either directly

or indirectly, to a whole organization of criminals who prepared

the way, and studied the method of giving to crime the appearance

of illness, of forming, in a word, a school."[260]

The author of the work here quoted draws an interesting parallel between

this organization and the modern traffic in cocaine, and goes on to

describe the three degrees into which it was divided: firstly, the

Heads, cultivated and intelligent men, who understood chemistry,

physics, and nearly all useful sciences, "invisible counsellors but

supreme, without whom the sorcerers and diviners would have been

powerless"; secondly, the visible magicians employing mysterious

processes, complicated rites and terrifying ceremonies; and thirdly, the

crowd of nobles and plebeians who flocked to the doors of the sorcerers

and filled their pockets in return for magic potions, philtres, and, in

certain cases, insidious poisons. Thus La Voisin must be placed in the

second category; "in spite of her luxury, her profits, and her fame,"

she "is only a subaltern agent in this vast organization of criminals.

She depends entirely for her great enterprises on the intellectual

chiefs of the corporation...."[261]

Who were these intellectual chiefs? The man who first initiated Madame

de Brinvilliers' lover Sainte-Croix into the art of poisoning was an

Italian named Exili or Eggidi; but the real initiate from whom Eggidi

and another Italian poisoner had learnt their secrets is said to have

been Glaser, variously described as a German or a Swiss chemist, who

followed the principles of Paracelsus and occupied the post of physician

to the King and the Duc d'Orléans.[262] This man, about whose history

little is known, might thus have been a kind of Rosicrucian. For since,

as has been said, the intellectual chiefs from whom the poisoners

derived their inspiration were men versed in chemistry, in science, in

physics, and the treatment of diseases, and since, further, they

included alchemists and people professing to be in possession of the

Philosopher's Stone, their resemblance with the Rosicrucians is at once

apparent. Indeed, in turning back to the branches of magic enumerated by

the Rosicrucian Robert Fludd, we find not only Natural Magic, "that most

occult and secret department of physics by which the mystical properties

of natural substances are extracted," but also Venefic Magic, which "is

familiar with potions, philtres, and with various preparations of

poisons."

The art of poisoning was therefore known to the Rosicrucians, and,

although there is no reason to suppose it was ever practised by the

heads of the Fraternity, it is possible that the inspirers of the

poisoners may have been perverted Rosicrucians, that is to say, students

of those portions of the Cabala relating to magic both of the

necromantic and venefic varieties, who turned the scientific knowledge

which the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross used for healing to a precisely

opposite and deadly purpose. This would explain the fact that

contemporaries like the author of the _Examination of the Unknown and

Novel Cabala of the Brethren of the Rose-Cross_ should identify these

brethren with the magicians and believe them to be guilty of practices

deriving from the same source as Rosicrucian knowledge--the Cabala of

the Jews. Their modern admirers would, of course, declare that they were

the poles asunder, the difference being between white and black magic.

Huysmans, however, scoffs at this distinction and says the use of the

term "white magic" was a ruse of the Rose-Croix.

But of the real doctrines of the Rosicrucians no one can speak with

certainty. The whole story of the Fraternity is wrapped in mystery.

Mystery was avowedly the essence of their system; their identity, their

aims, their doctrines, are said to have been kept a profound secret from

the world. Indeed it is said that no real Rosicrucian ever allowed

himself to be known as such. As a result of this systematic method of

concealment, sceptics on the one hand have declared the Rosicrucians to

have been charlatans and impostors or have denied their very existence,

whilst on the other hand romancers have exalted them as depositaries of

supernatural wisdom. The question is further obscured by the fact that

most accounts of the Fraternity--as, for example, those of Eliphas Lévi,

Hargrave Jennings, Kenneth Mackenzie, Mr. A.E. Waite, Dr. Wynn Westcott,

and Mr. Cadbury Jones--are the work of men claiming or believing

themselves to be initiated into Rosicrucianism or other occult systems

of a kindred nature and as such in possession of peculiar and exclusive

knowledge. This pretension may at once be dismissed as an absurdity;

nothing is easier than for anyone to make a compound out of Jewish

Cabalism and Eastern theosophy and to label it Rosicrucianism, but no

proof whatever exists of any affiliation between the self-styled

Rosicrucians of to-day and the seventeenth-century "Brothers of the Rosy

Cross."[263]

In spite of Mr. Wake's claim, "The Real History of the Rosicrucians"

still remains to be written, at any rate in the English language. The

book he has published under this name is merely a superficial study of

the question largely composed of reprints of Rosicrucian pamphlets

accessible to any student. Mr. Wigston and Mrs. Pott merely echo Mr.

Waite. Thus everything that has been published hitherto consists in the

repetition of Rosicrucian legends or in unsubstantiated theorizings on

their doctrines. What we need are facts. We want to know who were the

early Rosicrucians, when the Fraternity originated, and what were its

real aims. These researches must be made, not by an occultist weaving

his own theories into the subject, but by a historian free from any

prejudices for or against the Order, capable of weighing evidence and

bringing a judicial mind to bear on the material to be found in the

libraries of the Continent--notably the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in

Paris. Such a work would be a valuable contribution to the history of

secret societies in our country.

But if the Continental Brethren of the Rose-Croix form but a shadowy

group of "Invisibles" whose identity yet remains a mystery, the English

adepts of the Order stand forth in the light of day as, philosophers

well known to their age and country. That Francis Bacon was initiated

into Rosicrucianism is now recognized by Freemasons, but a more definite

link with the Rosicrucians of the Continent was Robert Fludd, who after

travelling for six years in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain--where he

formed connexions with Jewish Cabalists[264]--was visited by the German

Jew Rosicrucian Michel Maier--doctor to the Emperor Rudolf--by whom he

appears to have been initiated into further mysteries.

In 1616 Fludd published his _Tractatus Apologeticus_, defending the

Rosicrucians against the charges of "detestable magic and diabolical

superstition" brought against them by Libavius. Twelve years later Fludd

was attacked by Father Mersenne, to whom a reply was made "by Fludd or a

friend of Fludd's" containing a further defence of the Order. "The

Book," says Mr. Waite, "treats of the noble art of magic, the foundation

and nature of the Cabala, the essence of veritable alchemy, and of the

Causa Fratrum Rosae Crucis. It identifies the palace or home of the

Rosicrucians with the Scriptural House of Wisdom."

In further works by English writers the Eastern origin of the Fraternity

is insisted on. Thus Thomas Vaughan, known as Eugenius Philalethes,

writing in praise of the Rosicrucians in 1652, says that "their

knowledge at first was not purchased by their own disquisitions, for

they received it from the Arabians, amongst whom it remained as the

monument and legacy of the Children of the East. Nor is this at all

improbable, for the Eastern countries have been always famous for

magical and secret societies."

Another apologist of the Rosicrucians, John Heydon, who travelled in

Egypt, Persia, and Arabia, is described by a contemporary as having been

in "many strange places among the Rosie Crucians and at their castles,

holy houses, temples, sepulchres, sacrifices." Heydon himself, whilst

declaring that he is not a Rosicrucian, says that he knows members of

the Fraternity and its secrets, that they are sons of Moses, and that

"this Rosie Crucian Physick or Medicine, I happily and unexpectedly

alight upon in Arabia." These references to castles, temples,

sacrifices, encountered in Egypt, Persia, and Arabia inevitably recall

memories of both Templars and Ismailis. Is there no connexion between

"the Invisible Mountains of the Brethren" referred to elsewhere by

Heydon and the Mountains of the Assassins and the Freemasons? between

the Scriptural "House of Wisdom" and the Dar-ul-Hikmat or Grand Lodge of

Cairo, the model for Western masonic lodges?

It is as the precursors of the crisis which arose in 1717 that the

English Rosicrucians of the seventeenth century are of supreme

importance. No longer need we concern ourselves with shadowy Brethren

laying dubious claim to supernatural wisdom, but with a concrete

association of professed Initiates proclaiming their existence to the

world under the name of Freemasonry.

5

ORIGINS OF FREEMASONRY

"The origin of Freemasonry," says a masonic writer of the eighteenth

century, "is known to Freemasons alone."[265] If this was once the

case, it is so no longer, for, although the question would certainly

appear to be one on which the initiated should be most qualified to

speak, the fact is that no official theory on the origin of Freemasonry

exists; the great mass of the Freemasons do _not_ know or care to know

anything about the history of their Order, whilst Masonic authorities

are entirely disagreed on the matter. Dr. Mackey admits that "the origin

and source whence first sprang the institution of Freemasonry has given

rise to more difference of opinion and discussion among masonic scholars

than any other topic in the literature of the institution."[266] Nor is

this ignorance maintained merely in books for the general public, since

in those specially addressed to the Craft and at discussions in lodges

the same diversity of opinion prevails, and no decisive conclusions

appear to be reached. Thus Mr. Albert Churchward, a Freemason of the

thirtieth degree, who deplores the small amount of interest taken in

this matter by Masons in general, observes:

Hitherto there have been so many contradictory opinions and theories in

the attempt to supply the origin and the reason whence, where, and why

the Brotherhood of Freemasonry came into existence, and all the

"different parts" and various rituals of the "different degrees." All

that has been written on this has hitherto been _theories_, without any

facts for their fundation.[267]

In the absence, therefore, of any origin universally recognized by the

Craft, it is surely open to the lay mind to speculate on the matter and

to draw conclusions from history as to which of the many explanations

put forward seems to supply the key to the mystery.

According to the _Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_, no less than twelve

theories have been advanced as to the origins of the Order, namely, that

Masonry derived:

"(1) From the patriarchs. (2) From the mysteries of the pagans. (3) From

the construction of Solomon's Temple, (4) From the Crusades. (5) From

the Knights Templar. (6) From the Roman Collegia of Artificers. (7) From

the operative masons of the Middle Ages. (8) From the Rosicrucians of

the sixteenth century. (9) From Oliver Cromwell. (10) From Prince

Charles Stuart for political purposes. (11) From Sir Christopher Wren,

at the building of St. Paul's. (12) From Dr. Desaguliers and his friends

in 1717."

This enumeration is, however, misleading, for it implies that in _one_

of these various theories the true origin of Freemasonry may be found.

In reality modern Freemasonry is a dual system, a blend of two distinct

traditions--of operative masonry, that is to say the actual art of

building, and of speculative theory on the great truths of life and

death. As a well-known Freemason, the Count Goblet d'Alviella, has

expressed it: "Speculative Masonry" (that is to say, the dual system we

now know as Freemasonry) "is the legitimate offspring of a fruitful

union between the professional guild of mediæval Masons and of a secret

group of philosophical Adepts, the first having furnished the form and

the second the spirit."[268] In studying the origins of the present

system we have therefore (1) to examine separately the history of each

of these two traditions, and (2) to discover their point of junction.

Operative Masonry

Beginning with the first of these two traditions, we find that guilds of

working masons existed in very ancient times. Without going back as far

as ancient Egypt or Greece, which would be beyond the scope of the

present work, the course of these associations may be traced throughout

the history of Western Europe from the beginning of the Christian era.

According to certain masonic writers, the Druids originally came from

Egypt and brought with them traditions relating to the art of building.

The _Culdees_, who later on established schools and colleges in this

country for the teaching of arts, sciences, and handicrafts, are said

to have derived from the Druids.

But a more probable source of inspiration in the art of building are the

Romans, who established the famous collegia of architects referred to in

the list of alternative theories given in the _Masonic Cyclopædia_.

Advocates of the Roman Collegia origin of Freemasonry might be right as

far as operative masonry is concerned, for it is to the period following

on the Roman occupation of Britain that our masonic guilds can with the

greatest degree of certainty be traced. Owing to the importance the art

of building now acquired it is said that many distinguished men, such as

St. Alban, King Alfred, King Edwin, and King Athelstan, were numbered

amongst its patrons,[269] so that in time the guilds came to occupy the

position of privileged bodies and were known as "free corporations";

further that York was the first masonic centre in England, largely under

the control of the Culdees, who at the same period exercised much

influence over the Masonic Collegia in Scotland, at Kilwinning, Melrose,

and Aberdeen.[270]

But it must be remembered that all this is speculation. No documentary

evidence has ever been produced to prove the existence of masonic guilds

before the famous York charter of A.D. 936, and even the date of this

document is doubtful. Only with the period of Gothic architecture do we

reach firm ground. That guilds of working masons known in France as

"Compagnonnages" and in Germany as "Steinmetzen" did then form close

corporations and possibly possess secrets connected with their

profession is more than probable. That, in consequence of their skill in

building the magnificent cathedrals of this period, they now came to

occupy a privileged position seems fairly certain.

The Abbé Grandidier, writing from Strasbourg in 1778, traces the whole

system of Freemasonry from these German guilds: "This much-vaunted

Society of Freemasons is nothing but a servile imitation of an ancient

and useful _confrèrie_ of real masons whose headquarters was formerly at

Strasbourg and of which the constitution was confirmed by the Emperor

Maximilian in 1498."[271]

As far as it is possible to discover from the scanty documentary

evidence the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries provide,

the same privileges appear to have been accorded to the guilds of

working masons in England and Scotland, which, although presided over by

powerful nobles and apparently on occasion admitting members from

outside the Craft, remained essentially operative bodies. Nevertheless

we find the assemblies of Masons suppressed by Act of Parliament in the

beginning of the reign of Henry VI, and later on an armed force sent by

Queen Elizabeth to break up the Annual Grand Lodge at York. It is

possible that the fraternity merely by the secrecy with which it was

surrounded excited the suspicions of authority, for nothing could be

more law-abiding than its published statutes. Masons were to be "true

men to God and the Holy Church," also to the masters that they served.

They were to be honest in their manner of life and "to do no villainy

whereby the Craft or the Science may be slandered."[272]

Yet the seventeenth-century writer Plot, in his _Natural History of

Staffordshire_, expresses some suspicion with regard to the secrets of

Freemasonry. That these could not be merely trade secrets relating to

the art of building, but that already some speculative element had been

introduced to the lodges, seems the more probable from the fact that by

the middle of the seventeenth century not only noble patrons headed the

Craft, but ordinary gentlemen entirely unconnected with building were

received into the fraternity. The well-known entry in the diary of Elias

Ashmole under the date of October 16, 1646, clearly proves this fact: "I

was made a Freemason at Warrington in Lancashire with Col. Henry

Mainwaring of Karticham [?] in Cheshire. The names of those that were

then of the Lodge, Mr. Rich. Penket, Warden, Mr. James Collier, Mr.

Rich. Sankey, Henry Littler, John Ellam, Rich. Ellam and Hugh Brewer."[273]

"It is now ascertained," says Yarker, "that the majority of the

members present were not operative masons."[274]

Again, in 1682 Ashmole relates that he attended a meeting held at Mason

Hall in London, where with a number of other gentlemen he was admitted

into "the Fellowship of the Freemasons," that is to say, into the second

degree. We have then clear proof that already in the seventeenth century

Freemasonry had ceased to be an association composed exclusively of men

concerned with building, although eminent architects ranked high in the

Order; Inigo Jones is said to have been Grand Master under James I, and

Sir Christopher Wren to have occupied the same position from about 1685

to 1702. But it was not until 1703 that the Lodge of St. Paul in London

officially announced "that the privileges of Masonry should no longer be

restricted to operative Masons, but extended to men of various

professions, provided they were regularly approved and initiated into

the Order."[275]

This was followed in 1717 by the great _coup d'état_ when Grand Lodge

was founded, and Speculative Masonry, which we now know as Freemasonry,

was established on a settled basis with a ritual, rules, and

constitution drawn up in due form. It is at this important date that the

official history of Freemasonry begins.

But before pursuing the course of the Order through what is known as the

"Grand Lodge Era," it is necessary to go back and enquire into the

origins of the philosophy that was now combined with the system of

operative masonry. This is the point on which opinions are divided and

to which the various theories summarized in the _Masonic Cyclopcædia_

relate. Let us examine each of these in turn.

Speculative Masonry

According to certain sceptics concerning the mysteries of Freemasonry,

the system inaugurated in 1717 had no existence before that date, but

"was devised, promulgated, and palmed upon the world by Dr. Desaguliers,

Dr. Anderson, and others, who then founded the Grand Lodge of England."

Mr. Paton, in an admirable little pamphlet,[276] has shown the futility

of this contention and also the injustice of representing the founders

of Grand Lodge as perpetrating so gross a deception.

This 1717 theory ascribes to men of the highest character the

invention of a system of mere imposture.... It was brought forward

with pretensions which its framers knew to be false pretensions of

high antiquity; whereas ... it had newly been invented in their

studies. Is this likely? Or is it reasonable to ascribe such

conduct to honourable men, without even assigning a probable motive

for it?

We have indeed only to study masonic ritual--which is open to everyone

to read--in order to arrive at the same conclusion, that there could be

no motive for this imposture, and further that these two clergymen

cannot be supposed to have evolved the whole thing out of their heads.

Obviously some movement of a kindred nature must have led up to this

crisis. And since Elias Ashmole's diary clearly proves that a ceremony

of masonic initiation had existed in the preceding century, it is surely

only reasonable to conclude that Drs. Anderson and Desaguliers revised

but did not originate the ritual and constitutions drawn up by them.

Now, although the ritual of Freemasonry is couched in modern and by no

means classical English, the ideas running through it certainly bear

traces of extreme antiquity. The central idea of Freemasonry concerning

a loss which has befallen man and the hope of its ultimate recovery is

in fact no other than the ancient secret tradition described in the

first chapter of this book. Certain masonic writers indeed ascribe to

Freemasonry precisely the same genealogy as that of the early Cabala,

declaring that it descended from Adam and the first patriarchs of the

human race, and thence through groups of Wise Men amongst the Egyptians,

Chaldeans, Persians, and Greeks.[277] Mr. Albert Churchward insists

particularly on the Egyptian origin of the speculative element in

Freemasonry: "Brother Gould and other Freemasons will never understand

the meaning and origin of our sacred tenets till they have studied and

unlocked the mysteries of the past." This study will then reveal the

fact that "the Druids, the Gymnosophists of India, the Magi of Persia,

and the Chaldeans of Assyria had all the same religious rites and

ceremonies as practised by their priests who were initiated to their

Order, and that these were solemnly sworn to keep the doctrines a

profound secret from the rest of mankind. All these flowed from one

source--Egypt."[278]

Mr. Churchward further quotes the speech of the Rev. Dr. William Dodd at

the opening of a masonic temple in 1794, who traced Freemasonry from

"the first astronomers on the plains of Chaldea, the wise and mystic

kings and priests of Egypt, the sages of Greece and philosophers of

Rome," etc.[279]

But how did these traditions descend to the masons of the West?

According to a large body of masonic opinion in this country which

recognizes only a single source of inspiration to the system we now know

as Freemasonry, the speculative as well as the operative traditions of

the Order descended from the building guilds and were imported to

England by means of the Roman Collegia. Mr. Churchward, however,

strongly dissents from this view:

In the new and revised edition of the Perfect Ceremonies, according

to our E. working, a theory is given that Freemasonry originated

from certain guilds of workmen which are well known in history as

the "Roman College of Artificers." There is no foundation of fact

for such a theory. Freemasonry is now, and always was, an

Eschatology, as may be proved by the whole of our signs, symbols,

and words, and our rituals.[280]

But what Mr. Churchward fails to explain is how this eschatology reached

the working masons; moreover why, if as he asserts, it derived from

Egypt, Assyria, India, and Persia, Freemasonry no longer bears the stamp

of these countries. For although vestiges of Sabeism may be found in the

decoration of the lodges, and brief references to the mysteries of Egypt

and Phœnicia, to the secret teaching of Pythagoras, to Euclid, and to

Plato in the Ritual and instructions of the Craft degrees--nevertheless

the form in which the ancient tradition is clothed, the phraseology and

pass-words employed, are neither Egyptian, Chaldean, Greek, nor Persian,

but Judaic. Thus although some portion of the ancient secret tradition

may have penetrated to Great Britain through the Druids or the

Romans--versed in the lore of Greece and Egypt--another channel for its

introduction was clearly the Cabala of the Jews. Certain masonic writers

recognize this double tradition, the one descending from Egypt, Chaldea,

and Greece, the other from the Israelites, and assert that it is from

the latter source their system is derived.[281] For after tracing its

origin from Adam, Noah, Enoch, and Abraham, they proceed to show its

line of descent through Moses, David, and Solomon[282]--descent from

Solomon is in fact officially recognized by the Craft and forms a part

of the instructions to candidates for initiation into the first degree.

But, as we have already seen, this is the precise genealogy attributed

to the Cabala by the Jews. Moreover, modern Freemasonry is entirely

built up on the Solomonic, or rather the Hiramic legend. For the sake of

readers unfamiliar with the ritual of Freemasonry a brief _résumé_ of

this "Grand Legend" must be given here.

Solomon, when building the Temple, employed the services of a certain

artificer in brass, named Hiram, the son of a widow of the tribe of

Naphthali, who was sent to him by Hiram, King of Tyre. So much we know

from the Book of Kings, but the masonic legend goes on to relate that

Hiram, the widow's son, referred to as Hiram Abiff, and described as the

master-builder, met with an untimely end. For the purpose of preserving

order the masons working on the Temple were divided into three classes,

Entered Apprentices, Fellow Crafts, and Master Masons, the first two

distinguished by different pass-words and grips and paid at different

rates of wages, the last consisting only of three persons--Solomon

himself, Hiram King of Tyre, who had provided him with wood and precious

stones and Hiram Abiff. Now, before the completion of the Temple fifteen

of the Fellow Crafts conspired together to find out the secrets of the

Master Masons and resolved to waylay Hiram Abiff at the door of the

Temple.

At the last moment twelve of the fifteen drew back, but the remaining

three carried out the fell design, and after threatening Hiram in vain

in order to obtain the secrets, killed him with three blows on the head,

delivered by each in turn. They then conveyed the body away and buried

it on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. Solomon, informed of the disappearance

of the master-builder, sent out fifteen Fellow Crafts to seek for him;

five of these, having arrived at the mountain, noticed a place where the

earth had been disturbed and there discovered the body of Hiram. Leaving

a branch of acacia to mark the spot, they returned with their story to

Solomon, who ordered them to go and exhume the body--an order that was

immediately carried out.

The murder and exhumation, or "raising," of Hiram, accompanied by

extraordinary lamentations, form the climax of Craft Masonry; and when

it is remembered that in all probability no such, tragedy ever took

place, that possibly no one known as Hiram Abiff ever existed,[283] the

whole story can only be regarded as the survival of some ancient cult

relating not to an actual event, but to an esoteric doctrine. A legend

and a ceremony of this kind is indeed to be found in many earlier

mythologies; the story of the murder of Hiram had been foreshadowed by

the Egyptian legend of the murder of Osiris and the quest for his body

by Isis, whilst the lamentations around the tomb of Hiram had a

counterpart in the mourning ceremonies for Osiris and Adonis--both, like

Hiram, subsequently "raised"--and later on in that which took place

around the catafalque of Manes, who, like Hiram, was barbarously put to

death and is said to have been known to the Manicheans as "the son of

the widow." But in the form given to it by Freemasonry the legend is

purely Judaic, and would therefore appear to have derived from the

Judaic version of the ancient tradition. The pillars of the Temple,

Jachin and Boaz, which play so important a part in Craft Masonry, are

symbols which occur in the Jewish Cabala, where they are described as

two of the ten Sephiroths.[284] A writer of the eighteenth century,

referring to "fyve curiosities" he has discovered in Scotland, describes

one as--

The Mason word, which tho' some make a Misterie of it, I will not

conceal a little of what I know. It is lyke a Rabbinical Tradition

in way of Comment on Jachin and Boaz, the Two Pillars erected in

Solomon's Temple with ane Addition delyvered from Hand to Hand, by

which they know and become familiar one with another.[285]

This is precisely the system by which the Cabala was handed down amongst

the Jews. The _Jewish Encyclopædia_ lends colour to the theory of

Cabalistic transmission by suggesting that the story of Hiram "may

possibly trace back to the Rabbinic legend concerning the Temple of

Solomon," that "while all the workmen were killed so that they should

not build another temple devoted to idolatry, Hiram himself was raised

to Heaven like Enoch."[286]

How did this Rabbinic legend find its way into Freemasonry? Advocates of

the Roman Collegia theory explain it in the following manner.

After the building of the Temple of Solomon the masons who had been

engaged in the work were dispersed and a number made their way to

Europe, some to Marseilles, some perhaps to Rome, where they may have

introduced Judaic legends to the Collegia, which then passed on to the

Comacini Masters of the seventh century and from these to the mediæval

working guilds of England, France, and Germany. It is said that during

the Middle Ages a story concerning the Temple of Solomon was current

amongst the _compagnonnages_ of France. In one of these groups, known as

"the children of Solomon," the legend of Hiram appears to have existed

much in its present form; according to another group the victim of the

murder was not Hiram Abiff, but one of his companions named Maître

Jacques, who, whilst engaged with Hiram on the construction of the

Temple, met his death at the hands of five wicked Fellow Crafts,

instigated by a sixth, the Père Soubise.[287]

But the date at which this legend originated is unknown. Clavel thinks

that the "Hebraic mysteries" existed as early as the Roman Collegia,

which he describes as largely Judaized[288]; Yarker expresses precisely

the opposite view: "It is not so difficult to connect Freemasonry with

the Collegia; the difficulty lies in attributing Jewish traditions to

the Collegia, and we say on the evidence of the oldest charges that such

traditions had no existence in Saxon times."[289] Again: "So far as

this country is concerned, we know nothing from documents of a Masonry

dating from Solomon's Temple until after the Crusades, when the

constitution believed to have been sanctioned by King Athelstan

gradually underwent a change."[290] In a discussion which took place

recently at the Quatuor Coronati Lodge the Hiramic legend could only be

traced back--and then without absolute certainty--to the fourteenth

century, which would coincide with the date indicated by Yarker.[291]