DIANA UNVEILED
The discovery of Leo Taxil and of M. Ricoux has one remaining witness in
the person of Miss Diana Vaughan. She also, as we have seen, is a writer
of memoirs, and in giving some account of her narrative I have already
indicated in substance certain lines of criticism which might be applied
with success thereto. We must obviously know more about this lady, and
have some opportunity of verifying the particulars of her past life
before we can accept her statement that she has written while fresh from
"conversion," and is speaking for the first time the language of a
Christian and a Catholic. The supernatural element of her memoirs it is
not worth while to discuss. Were she otherwise worthy of credit, we
might exonerate her personal veracity by assuming that she was tricked
over the apparition and hallucinated in the vision that followed it, but
I propose submitting to my readers sufficient evidence to justify a
conclusion that she does not deserve our credit, and though out of
deference to her sex it is desirable, so far as may be possible, to
speak with moderation, I must establish most firmly that the motive she
betrays in her memoirs is not in many respects preferable to that of the
previous witness.
It will be advisable, however, to distinguish that part of the narrative
for which Miss Vaughan is admittedly and personally responsible from
that which she claims to be derived from her family history. I must
distinguish between them, not that I am prepared to admit as a
legitimate consequence of her statement that there is any real
difference or that I unquestionably regard Miss Vaughan as having
created a strong presumption that she is in possession of the documents
which she claims to have. I am simply recognising the classification
which she may herself be held to make. If in this respect it can be
shown that I have mistaken the actual position, I will make such
reparation as may be due from a man of letters, whose reasonable
indignation in the midst of much imposture will, in such case, have
misled him. But there is only one course which is open to Miss Vaughan
in the matter, and that is to produce the original documents on which
she has based her narrative for the opinion of competent English
investigators, in which case Miss Vaughan may be held to have
established not the truth of her family history, which is essentially
beyond establishment, but her _bona fides_ in connection with its
relation. After this the portion for which she is personally
responsible, and from which there is no escape, will still fasten the
charge of falsehood ineffaceably upon her narrative.
In addition, then, to her personal history, Miss Vaughan's memoirs
contain:--I. A mendacious biography of the English mystic, Thomas
Vaughan. II. A secret history of the English Rosicrucian Fraternity, and
of its connection with Masonry, which is also an impudent fraud. The two
constitute one of the most curious literary forgeries which are to be
met with in the whole range of Hermetic literature; and Hermetic
literature, it is known, has been enriched by many triumphs of
invention. I shall deal with the narratives plainly on the provisional
assumption that Miss Vaughan has been herself deceived in regard to
them. They are based upon family papers said to be now in possession of
the Charleston Dogmatic Directory. The central facts which are sought to
be established by means of these papers have been mentioned already in
my eighth chapter, namely, that Miss Vaughan is one of the two last
descendants of the alchemist Thomas Vaughan; that this personage made a
compact with Satan in the year 1645, that under the name of Eirenæus
Philalethes, he wrote the well-known alchemical work entitled "An Open
Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King," and that he consummated a
mystical marriage with Venus-Astarte, of which the Palladian
Templar-Mistress is the last development. For the purposes of these
narratives the birth of Thomas Vaughan is placed in the year 1612, and
his death, or rather translation, in the year 1678. At the age of
twenty-four years, that is to say, in 1636, he proceeded to London, and
there connected himself with the mystic Robert Fludd, by whom he was
initiated into a lower grade of the Rosicrucian Fraternity, and received
a letter of introduction to the Grand Master, Johann Valentin Andreæ,
which he took over to Stuttgart and presented. In 1637, having returned
to London, he was present at the death of Robert Fludd, which occurred
in that year. In 1638 he made his first voyage to America, where he was
hospitably entertained by a Protestant minister, named John Cotton, but
his visit was not characterised by any remarkable occurrence. At this
period the alchemist is represented by his descendant as a Puritan
impregnated with the secret doctrine of Robert Fludd. In 1639 Vaughan
returned to England, but was immediately attracted to Denmark by the
discovery of a golden horn adorned with mysterious figures, which he and
his colleagues in alchemy supposed to typify the search for the
philosophical stone. At the age of twenty-eight, Vaughan made further
progress in the Rosicrucian Fraternity, being advanced to the grade of
_Adeptus Minor_ by Amos Komenski, in which year also Elias Ashmole
entered the order. Accompanied by Komenski, Vaughan proceeded to
Hamburg, thence by himself to Sweden, and subsequently to the Hague,
where he initiated Martin de Vriès. A year later he visited Italy, and
made acquaintance with Berigard de Pisa. This was a pious pilgrimage
which testified his devotion to Faustus Socinus, for Miss Vaughan, on
the authority of her documents, regards the Italian heretic, not only as
a conscious Satanist, but as the founder of the Rosicrucian Society, and
the initiator of Johann Valentin Andreæ, whom he also won over to
Lucifer. On his return Thomas Vaughan tarried a short time in France,
where he conceived the project of organising Freemasonry as it exists at
the present day, and there also it occurred to him that the guilds of
the Compagnage might serve him for raw material. When, however, he
returned to England, he concluded that the honorary or Accepted Masons,
received by the Masonic guilds of England, were better suited to his
purpose. Some of these were already Rosicrucians, and among them he set
to work. In the year 1644 he presided over a Rosicrucian assembly at
which Ashmole was present. At this time also Oliver Cromwell is said to
have been an accepted Mason, and it was by his intervention that, a year
later, Thomas Vaughan was substituted for the headsman at the execution
of Archbishop Laud, for the object already described. It was after his
compact with Lucifer that the alchemist wrote the "Open Entrance." His
activity in the Rosicrucian cause then became prodigious, and the
followers of Socinus, apparently all implicated in the Satanism of their
master, began to swell the ranks of the Accepted Masons. At this time
also he began his collaborations with Ashmole for the composition of the
Apprentice, Companion, and Master grades, that is to say, for the
institution of symbolical Masonry. In 1646 he again visited America, and
consummated his mystic marriage, as narrated in the eighth chapter. In
1648 he returned to England, and one year later completed the Master
grade, that of Companion having been produced during his absence, but
following the indications he had given, by Elias Ashmole. In 1650 he
began to issue his Rosicrucian and alchemical writings, namely,
_Anthroposophia Theomagica_ and _Anima Magica Abscondita_, followed by
_Lumen de Lumine_ and _Aula Lucis_ in 1651. The Rosicrucian Grand Master
Andreæ died in 1654, and was succeeded by Thomas Vaughan, whose next
step was the publication of his work, entitled "Euphrates, or the Waters
of the East." In 1656 he is said to have published the complete works of
Socinus, two folio volumes in the collection, entitled _Bibliotheca
Fratrum Polonorum_. Three years later appeared his "Fraternity of R.C.,"
and in 1664 the _Medulla Alchymiæ_. In 1667 he decided to publish the
"Open Entrance," the MS. of which was returned to him by the editor
Langius after printing, and was subsequently annotated in the way I have
previously mentioned. During the early days of the same year Vaughan
converted Helvetius, the celebrated physician of the Hague, who in his
turn became Grand Master of the Rosicrucian Fraternity. In 1668 he
published his "Experiments with Sophic Mercury" and _Tractatus Tres_,
while ten years later, or in 1678, the year of his infernal translation,
he produced his edition of "Ripley Revived" and the _Enarratio Trium
Gebri_.
From beginning to end, generally and particularly, the narrative I have
summarised above is a gross and planned imposture, nor would any
epithets be so severe as to be undeserved by the person who has
concocted it, because it does outrage to the sacred dead, in particular
to the greatest of the English spiritual mystics, Thomas Vaughan, and to
the greatest of the English physical mystics, Eirenæus Philalethes. For
the mendacious history confuses two entirely distinct persons--Eugenius
and Eirenæus Philalethes. It is true that this confusion has been made
frequently, and it is true also that at the beginning of my researches
into the archæology of Hermetic literature I was one of its victims, for
which I was sharply brought to book by those who knew better. But a
young and unassisted investigator, imperfectly equipped, has an excuse
which will exonerate him at least from a malicious intention. It is
otherwise with a pretended family history. When documents of this kind
reproduce blunders which are pardonable to ignorance alone, and upon a
subject about which two opinions are no longer possible, it is certain
that such documents are not what they claim; in other words, they have
been fabricated, and the fabrication of historical papers is essentially
a work of malice. Furthermore, when such forgeries impeach persons long
since passed to their account, on the score of unheard of crimes, they
are the work of diabolical malice, and this is a moderately worded
judgment on the case now in hand. Thomas Vaughan, otherwise Eugenius
Philalethes, was born in the year 1621 at Newton, in Brecknockshire. The
accepted and perfectly correct authority for this statement is the
_Athenæ Oxonienses_ of Anthony Wood, but he is not the only authority,
and if he be not good enough for Miss Vaughan, she can take in his place
the exhaustive researches of the Rev. A. B. Grosart, whose edition of
the works of the Silurist Henry Vaughan have probably been neither seen
nor heard of by this unwise woman, in the same way that she is ignorant
of most essential elements in the matters which she presumes to treat.
The authority of a laborious scholar like Dr Grosart will probably be of
greater weight than the foul narrative of a Palladian memoir-maker, who
has not produced her documents. From this date it follows that in the
year 1636 Thomas Vaughan was still in the schoolboy period, not even of
sufficient age to begin a college career. He could not, as alleged, have
visited Fludd, the illustrious Kentish mystic, in London, nor would he
have been ripe for initiation, supposing that Fludd could have dispensed
it. In like manner, Andreæ, assuming that he was Grand Master of the
Rosicrucians, would not have welcomed a youngster of fifteen years,
supposing that in those days he was likely to travel from London to
Stuttgart, but would have recommended him to return to his
lesson-books. The first voyage to America and all the earlier incidents
of the narrative are untrue for the same reason. In place of wandering
through Denmark, the Hague, and Sweden, initiating and being initiated,
he was drumming through a course at Oxford; in place of pious
pilgrimages to the shrine of Socinus, he was preparing to take orders in
the English Church, and the narrative which is untrue to his early is
untrue also to his later life. After receiving Holy Orders he returned
to his native village and took over the care of its souls. He was never
a Puritan; he was never a friend of Cromwell; he was a high-churchman
and a Royalist, and he was ejected from his living because he was
accused by political enemies of carrying arms for the king. He never
travelled; on the contrary, he married, at what period is unknown, but
his tender devotion to his wife is commemorated on the reverse pages of
an autograph alchemical MS. now in the British Museum, which belies
furthermore, in every line and word, the Luciferian imposture of the
Paris-cum-Yankee documents, by its passionate religious aspiration and
its adoring love of Christ.
When Vaughan came up to London, it was as a man who was somewhat out of
joint with English, in spite of his Oxford career, because he was a
Welsh speaking man, and when he took to writing books, he apologises for
his awkward diction. He accentuates also his youth, which would be
warrantable at the age of twenty-eight, but would be absurd in a writer
approaching forty years. This point may be verified by any one who will
refer to my edition of Vaughan's _Anthroposophia Theomagica_. The works
of Thomas Vaughan, besides _Anthroposophia Theomagica_, are _Anima
Magica Abscondita_, published in 1650; _Magia Adamica_ 1650, apparently
forgotten by the "authentic documents" of Miss Vaughan, as are also "The
Man-Mouse" and "The Second Wash, or the Moore scoured once
More"--satires on Henry More, written in reply to that Platonist, who
had attacked the previous books. These belong to the year 1651, as also
does _Lumen de Lumine_; "The Fame and Confession of the Fraternity
R.C." appeared in 1652, not 1659, as the "family history" affirms; _Aula
Lucis_, 1652 (not 1651); and "Euphrates," 1655. What is obvious
everywhere in these priceless little books is the devotion of a true
mystic to Jesus Christ, and to gift them with the sordid interpretation
of a French-born cultus of Lucifer is about as possible as to attribute
a Christian intention to the calumnies of Miss Vaughan's documents.
In the year 1665, at the house of the rector of Albury, a chemical
experiment with mercury cost the Welsh alchemist his life, and he was
buried in the churchyard of that village in Oxfordshire.
It is clear, therefore, that the wonderful archives in the possession of
Miss Vaughan give a bogus history of Eugenius Philalethes, but they are
also untrue of Eirenæus. It is untrue that this mysterious adept, whose
identity has never been disclosed, was born in 1612; he was born some
ten years later.
The source of both dates is "The Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of
the King"; but that which Miss Vaughan champions is based upon a
corrupt reading in a bad version, and she has evidently never seen the
original and best of the Latin impressions, that of Langius, though she
has the presumption to cite it. That edition establishes that he wrote
the treatise in the year 1645, he being then in the twenty-third year of
his age--whence it follows that the date of his birth was most probably
1622, and the history with which he is invested by Miss Vaughan is again
a misfit; it is putting man's garments on a boy. Furthermore, there is
not one item in her statements concerning the "Open Entrance" which is
not directly and provably false. It was not printed, as she indicates,
under the supervision of the author; it was not printed from the
original MS., nor was that MS. returned to Philalethes after it had
passed through the press. It is shameful for any person, male or female,
however little they may consider their own fair fame, to so far violate
the canons of literary honour as to make dogmatic statements concerning
a work which they cannot have seen. The preface prefixed to this
edition by Langius completely refutes Miss Vaughan. Here is a passage in
point:--"Truly who or what kind of person was author of this sweet,
must-like work, I know no more than he who is most ignorant, nor, since
he himself would conceal his name, do I think fit to enquire so far,
lest I get his displeasure." Again--"To pick out the roses from the most
thorny bushes of writings, and to make the elixir of philosophers by his
own industry, without any tutor, and at twenty-three years of age, this
perchance hath been granted to none, or to most few hitherto." Langius,
moreover, laments explicitly the fact that he did not print from an
original MS. He printed from a Latin translation, the work of an unknown
hand, which had come into his possession, as he tells us, from a man who
was learned in such matters. Miss Vaughan's pretended autograph, with
its despicable marginal readings, is obviously a Latin copy, whatever be
its history otherwise. The original was in English, and when Langius was
regretting its loss, "a transcript, probably written from the author's
copy, or very little corrupted," was in possession of the bookseller
William Cooper, of Little Saint Bartholomews, near Little Britain, in
the city of London, who published it in the year 1669, to correct the
imperfections in the edition of Amsterdam. This transcript also
establishes that the "Open Entrance" was penned when the author was in
his twenty-third year.
As a matter of fact, Philalethes does not appear to have superintended
the publication of any of his writings, and here Miss Vaughan again
exhibits her unpardonable ignorance concerning the works with which she
is dealing. To prove that her reputed ancestor was alive after the
accepted date of Thomas Vaughan's death, she triumphantly observes that
in the year 1668 he published his experiments on the preparation of
Sophic Mercury and _Tractatus Tres_. But the latter volume was a piracy,
for in his preface to "Ripley Revived" the author expressly laments that
two of its three treatises had passed out of his hands, and he feared
lest they should get into print, because they were imperfect works
preceding the period of solid knowledge which produced the "Open
Entrance." Again, so little was he consulted over the appearance of the
"Sophic Mercury" that the printer represents it as the work of an
American philosopher, whence it has been fathered upon George Starkey.
Eirenæus Philalethes was undoubtedly a great traveller and he visited
America, but there is no ground for supposing that he was ever in Italy,
and that either he or Thomas Vaughan edited the works of Socinus is an
ignorant fiction, for which even Miss Vaughan can find no better warrant
than the evasive place of publication which figures on the title-page of
the _Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum_, namely, Eirenæopolis. In like
manner she erroneously credits him with the authorship of the _Medulla
Alchemiæ_, which is the work of Eirenæus Philoponos Philalethes,
otherwise George Starkey.
These facts fully establish the fraudulent nature of Miss Vaughan's
family history, by whomsoever it has been devised, and seeing that where
it is possible to check it, it breaks down at every point, we need have
no hesitation in rejecting the information which it provides in those
cases where it cannot be brought to book. The connection of Faustus
Socinus with the Rosicrucian Fraternity, as founder, is one instance;
this is merely an extension of the imposture of Abbé Lefranc in his
"Veil Raised for the Curious," and it rests, like its original, on no
evidence which can be traced. Another is the Rosicrucian Imperatorship
of Andreæ, and yet another the initiation of Robert Fludd. Again, the
connection of Philalethes with John Frederick Helvetius is based on
speculation only, and that of Ashmole with the institution of symbolical
Masonry has never been more than hypothesis, and not very deserving at
that. I regret to add that, on the authority of her bogus documents,
Miss Vaughan has given currency to a rumour that the founder of the
Ashmolean Museum poisoned his first wife. She deserves the most severe
reprobation for having failed to test her materials before she made
public this foul slander. Furthermore, in that portion of her materials
which is concerned with her family history, she is not above tampering
with the sense of printed books. The worshippers of Lucifer are
represented as invariably terming their divinity the "good God"--_Dieu
bon_,--or our God--_notre Dieu_--to distinguish him from the God of the
Adonaïtes, and the references made to the Deity by Philalethes in the
"Open Entrance" she falsely translates by these Luciferian equivalents,
thus creating an impression in the minds of the ignorant that he is not
speaking of the true Divinity. After this it will hardly surprise my
readers that a pretended translation from a MS. of Gillermet de
Beauregard, which she states to be preserved in the archives of the
Sovereign Patriarchal Council of Hamburg, is simply stolen from an
_Instruction à la France sur la vérité de l'Histoire des Frères de la
Roze-Croix_, by Gabriel Naudé, who ridiculed and reviled the Order. I
submit in conclusion that, in view of the facts already elicited, it is
not worth while to inquire into the value of the episode concerned with
the judicial murder of Archbishop Laud, and to elaborately argue that
Oliver Cromwell was the last person in England to be implicated in such
a transaction, he, at the period in question, being briskly employed in
checkmating his King, who was at Oxford in winter quarters, and having
neither the power nor opportunity to meddle with the details of an
execution. The incident, in a word, is worth as much and as little as
the abominable story of the subsequent pact with Lucifer or the foolery
of the mystic marriage.
The critical investigation of Miss Vaughan's alleged documents having
led to these results, it remains to be seen how far the other portions
of her narrative will bear analysis. So long as she confined the more
responsible part of her memoirs to personal experiences in the science
of conversion and to the relation of her Eucharistic raptures, the
lovers of ardent reading in this order of sensation were the only
persons who could lay a complaint against her if she failed to fulfil
their requirements. So long also as she fixed the scene of her history
in a comparatively remote place, and among men now dead, she was
partially protected from exposure, but when she transfers her
revelations to England she is treading on dangerous ground, and she has
in fact fallen into the pit. She has had the temerity to meddle with the
modern history of Rosicrucian societies, and has undertaken to inform
her readers after what manner she has come into possession of the
rituals of the revived Rosicrucian Order, and her account is
specifically untrue. She is undoubtedly acquainted with the grades of
the order, but she could have obtained these from more than one
published source--as, for example, the late Kenneth McKenzie's
"Cyclopædia of Freemasonry," or from my own "Real History of the
Rosicrucians." But even if she possess the rituals, she has not come by
them in the manner she describes. Her account is as follows:--"The
Fraternity of the Rose-Cross comprises nine degrees of initiation--1.
Zelator; 2. Theoricus; 3. Practicus (Miss Vaughan writes _Praticus_,
which would be the error of a French person who does not read Latin and
not the error of an English or American person as she claims to be); 4.
Philosophus; 5. Adeptus Minor, according to the variants of Valentin
Andreæ, or Adeptus Junior, according to the variants of Nick Stone
(those were the variants of Nick Stone which were ostensibly burned in
1720 by the Grand Master Theophilus Desaguliers, but were not in reality
destroyed; transmitted to trusty English brethren, after the death of
Desaguliers, they passed from reliable hands to others also reliable,
until the reconstitution of the Rose-Cross; for the reconstituted
association exists actually in England, Scotland, the United States, and
Canada, and those variants of the grades which were made by Nick Stone,
are at the present day deposited with Doctor W. W. W., living at Cambden
(_sic_) Road, London, Supreme Magus of the Rose-Cross for England, AT
WHOSE HOUSE I HAVE TRANSCRIBED THEM); 6. Adeptus Major; 7. Adeptus
Exemptus; 8. Magister Templi; 9. Magus."
Miss Vaughan's literary methods are not exactly captivating, and the
enormous parenthesis is hers, but the capitals which close it are mine.
The English doctor mentioned is well known to transcendentalists, and he
is actually a high-grade Mason; he is also personally well-known to
myself. To the best of his recollection he has never at any time met any
person terming herself Diana Vaughan. More especially, no such
individual has ever called at his house, much less copied any rituals of
which he may be in possession. There is therefore only one term by which
it is possible to qualify Miss Vaughan in her account of this matter,
and if I refrain from applying it, it is more out of literary grace than
from considerations of gallantry, for when persons of the opposite sex
elect to make themselves odious by gross imposition, they cannot expect
to escape the legitimate consequences at the hands of criticism any more
than another class of female malefactors will escape on the plea of
their sex at the hand of justice.
The subject of Luciferian Freemasonry has been under discussion in the
columns of _Light_ long before the appearance of this volume, and a
number of transcendentalists, including one of great eminence--Mr
Charles Carleton Massey--a few high-grade Masons, and myself, have
exposed the pretensions of the French conspiracy. In most cases, and by
more than one person, copies of the various issues were sent to Miss
Vaughan through her publisher, and if she be not, as I hinted in that
journal, the Mrs Harris of Freemasonry, there is little doubt that they
reached her like other friendly offerings which she acknowledges in odd
corners of her memoirs. It is probably in consequence of the exposures
made in _Light_ in connection with others said to have been made
recently in Canada that in the eighth number of her memoirs she
threatens to turn somewhat desperately on her critics. I understand that
the Australian boomerang is a weapon that comes back to its caster, and
the vindictive feeling which has prompted Miss Vaughan to a fresh burst
of revelation has returned upon herself in a very overwhelming manner.
"I am driven, and I will do it," is her position. "I will reveal the
English Palladists such as they actually and personally are." And she
does so to her own destruction as follows:--
"The actual chief of the English Luciferians is Doctor William Wynn
Westcott, living at 396 Cambden Road, London, whom on a previous
occasion I mentioned only by his initials. It is he who is the actual
custodian of the diabolical rituals of Nick Stone; it is he who is the
Supreme Magus of the Socinian Rose-Cross for England." She proceeds to
give the names of the Senior and Junior Sub-Magi, the members of the
Grand Council, the chiefs of what she terms the Third Luciferian Order,
and the Masters of the Temple, otherwise the Metropolitan College.
Similar particulars follow concerning the York College, the College of
Newcastle-on-Tyne, and that of Edinburgh.
Now, Dr Wynn Westcott is a high-grade Mason, as I have said, and he
occupies a professional position of influence and importance; it is
clear that a gratuitous attempt to fasten upon him charges of an odious
character is an exceedingly evil proceeding and places the person who
does so outside all limits of tender consideration. When Miss Vaughan
states that Dr Westcott is a Palladist, a diabolist, a worshipper of
Lucifer, or however she may elect to distinguish it, I reply that she is
guilty of a gross libel, which is at the same time an abominable and
cruel falsehood. When she says that she has been received at his house,
I reply that she has not been received there, and that Dr Westcott is
likely to require better credentials from female visitors than are
supplied by the infamous inventions in the "Memoirs of an Ex-Palladist."
When Miss Vaughan affirms that she has transcribed Dr Westcott's rituals
at the house of Dr Westcott, I reply that this would be an untrue
statement if the lady who made it were an intimate friend, and it is
doubly untrue when affirmed by a perfect stranger. When Miss Vaughan
states that Dr Westcott is the head of a Society which worships Lucifer,
I reply that she is speaking falsely of a body concerning which she is
in complete ignorance, and when an ignorant person thus attributes evil
she or he does not only act foolishly but with exceeding malice. Miss
Vaughan is henceforth upon all accounts outside that category of
literary honour which makes it possible for criticism to be concerned
with her and still preserve its dignity. Lastly, Miss Vaughan alleges
that the official appointments made by Dr Westcott as Supreme Magus of
the Society in question for the year 1896 were submitted to Adriano
Lemmi and approved by him. This allegation is false _in toto_. Neither
in a general nor a special sense is Dr Westcott responsible to Lemmi or
to any Italian Freemason; what is more, no personal or written
communication has at any time passed between them, and save as a past
Grand Master Dr Westcott has never heard of the person to whose commands
he is thus supposed to be subject. It will be seen that the baseless
nature of this absurd statement involves all others of its kind, and
there is no reason to attach the slightest credibility to anything which
has been advanced concerning the supreme position of Adriano Lemmi, who,
further, himself denies it, and, whatever his past history, is as much
entitled to belief as accusers who betray their true character in this
unenviable manner.
The Society which has thus been attacked in the person of its Supreme
Magus is of singularly unpretending nature, simple as regards its
history, and making no claim either to Masonic or Mystical importance.
It does not claim or possess a connection with the original Rosicrucian
Fraternity. It does not attribute antiquity to the rituals which it
uses. It was founded by Robert Wentworth Little, who died in 1878, and
has been in existence somewhat less than forty years. Its sole
connection with Masonry is that it only initiates Masons. It neither
enjoys nor expects recognition from the Grand Lodge of England. It is
literary and antiquarian in its object, and came into existence chiefly
for the study of the history of Freemasonry and of other secret
societies. Its members are required to believe in the fundamental
principles of Christian doctrine. The Metropolitan College has only four
convocations and one banquet annually; the number of Fratres upon the
Roll of Subscribers is fifty-four. It has attracted Masons interested in
the antiquities of their craft and has no other sphere of influence. It
publishes occasional transactions, the dimensions of which are regulated
by an exceedingly modest income. I mention many of these particulars
merely to place a check upon exaggerated notions. Some of the provincial
Colleges have a larger membership, but they are of precisely the same
character. It is not a society of occultists, though, like innumerable
other bodies, it counts occultists among its brethren. Finally, no
religious cultus of any kind is performed at its meetings, and no woman
has ever passed its threshold.
The Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia is Rosicrucian only in its name, as
it is Masonic only in its name, and its members are not Miss Vaughan's
_ex-Frères d'Angleterre_.
It is certainly and in all respects necessary that something effectual
should be done to curb a slanderous and evil tongue which has the
audacity to impress the most sacred feelings of religion into the
service of wilful lying. Dr Westcott is not the only English Mason who
has suffered the undeserved indignity of gross aspersion from this
unclean pen. Another victim is Mr Robert S. Brown, Grand Secretary of
the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland, who is also a member
of the Ancient and Accepted Rite, and of nearly all Masonic Orders, the
Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia included. This honourable gentleman is
especially recommended by Miss Vaughan to the attention of Catholics in
Edinburgh, being the city in which he resides. She describes him as a
dangerous sectarian, a veritable sorcerer, and the evil genius of one of
her own relatives. She states further that he is an Elect Magus of the
Palladium, that he protects Sophia Walder when she visits Scotland, and
that he was a great admirer of Phileas Walder, at whose instance he
consecrated himself to the demon anti-Christ. In each and all these
statements this malicious woman has lied foully. I communicated with Mr
Brown on the subject, and hold his written denials, which are at the
service of any person who desires to see them. Mr Brown says:--"I am not
an Elect Magus of the Palladium. I never to my knowledge saw Miss
Walder, and never knew Miss Vaughan, or anyone of the name, man, woman,
or child. I never heard Miss Walder named till I received your letter,
and never knew of the existence of the Palladian Order, if it does
exist, till I saw it mentioned in articles in 'Light' and the
'Freemason's Chronicle' (London).... With reference to the particular
statements in this copy of the _Mémoires_, no doubt the writer has
succeeded in getting hold of the facts in most cases as to the official
positions of the parties named, which of course are easily obtained; the
little details regarding some of us would indicate the presence of an
agent in our midst or near at hand. The 'inventions' and most slanderous
statements regarding most of us are, however, outrageously false and
wicked. My house has never had the honour(!!!) of entertaining Miss
Walder or any other lady of like character; it is not a chemical
laboratory, and I have never exercised myself in these _mysterious
experiences_ either there or elsewhere. I am a humble member of the
Episcopal Church of Scotland, and, I trust, a sincere follower of the
Master.... I count nearly all the gentlemen named in this vile
proclamation among my friends, they are all good men and true, and I
hope to associate with them for many years to come. I most emphatically
deny the vile aspersions cast on their characters and my own, and you
have my full authority to do so as far as the same may serve your
purpose." My readers will agree that the clear and temperate statement
of Mr R. S. Brown brands Diana Vaughan with indelible disgrace in the
eyes of the civilised world.
There is a limit to the necessity of exposure, but should Miss Vaughan
manifest any desire to have further instances of her mis-statements I
will undertake to supply them. I will only add here in conclusion my
personal opinion that Miss Vaughan has not been for any length of time a
resident in an English-speaking country, much less can she have
received, as it is alleged by some of her friends, an American
education. The proof is that she makes characteristic French blunders
over English names. Thus, we have _Cambden_ on each occasion for Camden,
_Wescott_ for Westcott; we have _baronnet_ for baronet, _Cantorbéry_ for
Canterbury, _Kirkud-Bright_ for Kirkcudbright; we have hybrid
combinations like _Georges_ Dickson, impossibilities like _Tiers-Ordre
Luciferien d'Honoris Causa_, and numerous similar instances.
To behold "Diana unveiled" was equivalent in alchemical terminology to
attaining the _magnum opus_. The reputed author of the "New Light of
Alchemy" testifies that some persons had in his own day and to his
certain knowledge attained this supreme privilege. It is not of my own
seeking if in another sense I have made public the same spectacle, and
thus broken with the traditions of secret science. It would have been
preferable from one point of view to have discovered Lucifer behind the
mask of Masonry than to have found the conspiracy against it another
_Tableau des Inconstances des Démons_ in which the _infidelité et
mécreance_ connected with the old false witness, abound after a manner
undreamed of by Bodin and Wierus, for it is distinctly disconcerting to
think that a great church is so little honoured by her combatants and
converts.
It only remains to state, and I do so with extreme reluctance, that the
evidence of Signor Domenico Margiotta, which seems so strong in itself,
can only be accepted, as we have seen, in connection with the
credibility of Miss Vaughan, and as this has completely broken down, we
cannot do otherwise than regard that part of his evidence which is
concerned with Palladism as the narrative of a person who has been very
seriously misled. And I think he has otherwise shown us that he is not a
judicious critic of the materials which have come into his hands. He
should never, for example, have printed his list of Palladian Lotus
Lodges--so far as regards Great Britain, it is undeniably a false list.
Take that of Edinburgh as a typical instance. Mr Brown, who has every
opportunity of knowing, tells me there is absolutely no truth in the
statement that there is in Edinburgh a Mother, or any, Lodge of the
Palladian Order. "Neither is there a Triangular Province--whatever that
may mean--such as is described. All is absolutely false."