Part 2 (2/2)
Women are admitted to members.h.i.+p. Immorality, a parody of the Eucharist, known as the black ma.s.s, and the practice of black magic, take place at the meetings. Lucifer is wors.h.i.+pped in the form of Baphomet, but from time to time he is personally evoked, and manifested to his followers.
Luciferianism tends to become identical with Satanism, in which Lucifer and Satan are identified and frankly wors.h.i.+pped as evil. The first mention of Luciferian Freemasonry was in the _Y-a-t-il des Femmes dans la Franc Maconnerie?_ (1891), of the somewhat notorious Leo Taxil. But the case rests mainly on the alleged revelations of writers who claim to have themselves been members of the Palladian Rite. The chief of these are Dr. Hacke or Bataille, Signor Margiotta and Miss Diana Vaughan.
Unfortunately very little evidence is forthcoming as to the ident.i.ty of any of these personages. Many leading Masons, _e.g._, M. Papus in his _Le Diable et l'Occultisme_, deny that Luciferian Freemasonry exists at all, and it is freely stated (_cf._ _Light_ for 27 June and 4 July, 1896, pp. 305, 322) that Miss Diana Vaughan is a myth, and that her _Memoires_ with the rest of the revelations are the ingenious concoction of a band of irresponsible journalists of whom Leo Taxil is the chief.
No one appears to have seen Miss Vaughan, and she is alleged to be hiding in some convent from the vengeance of the Luciferians. Probably there will be some further light thrown on the matter before long: in the meantime a good summary of the evidence up-to-date may be found in A. E. Waite's _Devil-Wors.h.i.+p in France_ (1896). a.s.suming that Luciferianism really exists, I do not for a moment believe that it has the antiquity which Miss Vaughan claims for it. The various Rites of modern Freemasonry, with their fantastic and high-sounding degrees, are comparatively recent excrescences upon the original Craft Masonry. The New and Reformed Palladian Rite is said to have been founded at Charlestown by the well-known Mason, Albert Pike, in 1870. It is based on the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, which dates from the beginning of the century. If there is such a thing as Luciferianism, I do not think we need look further back than 1870 for its origin. As expounded by Miss Vaughan and others, it is pretty clearly a compilation from Eliphaz Levi and other occultist and Cabbalistic writers, with a good deal of modern American Spiritualism thrown in. Albert Pike, a man of considerable learning, could easily have invented it. Masonic symbolism lends itself readily enough to a wide range of interpretations. I do not say that seventeenth-century occultism has left no traces upon Freemasonry which modern ritual-mongers may have elaborated; but it is a far cry from this to the belief that Thomas Vaughan and Luther were Manichaean wors.h.i.+ppers of Lucifer and Protestantism an organized warfare on Adonai.
[24] Miss Vaughan quotes from Allibone's _History of English Literature_. Allibone only repeats Anthony a Wood's account.
[25] Robert Vaughan belonged to quite a different branch from the Vaughans of Newton: and, as Sl. MS. 1741 shows, the father of Henry and Thomas Vaughan did not die until 1658.
[26] Miss Vaughan gives an elaborate account of the Rosicrucians and of their famous manifestoes, which I have no room to reproduce.
[27] Miss Vaughan states that Thomas Vaughan signed ”not _Eugenius Philalethes_, but _Eirenaeus Philalethes_” (p. 114). But she ascribes to him the _Anthroposophia Theomagica_ and other writings which are signed, though she does not mention it, _Eugenius Philalethes_ (p. 211). She quotes from Anthony a Wood the a.s.sertion, which he does not make, that the English translations of the _Fama Fraternitatis Rosae Crucis_ (1652) and of Maier's _Themis Aurea_ (1656) both bear the name of Eugenius, and were by another Thomas Vaughan! The ma.n.u.scripts of both are, she says, signed _Eirenaeus_ (p. 163). What Wood says is that he has seen a translation of Maier's tract, dedicated to Elias Ashmole by [N. L.]/[T.
S.] H. S., and that Ashmole has forgotten whose the initials are. He does not suggest that this translation is by a Thomas Vaughan. (_Ath.
Oxon._, iii. 724.)
[28] This episode has previously done duty in the _Vingt Ans Apres_ (vol. iii., ch. 8-10), of Alexandre Dumas, in which Mordaunt acts as the executioner of Charles. There is a Latin poem amongst Vaughan's remains in _Thalia Rediviva_ ent.i.tled _Epitaphium Gulielmi Laud Episcopi Cantuariensis_, full of sorrow for the archbishop's death.
[29] Miss Vaughan refers to Lenglet-Dufresnoy's _Histoire de la Philosophie Hermetique_ as an authority on Starkey's relations with Eirenaeus Philalethes. Lenglet-Dufresnoy probably took his account from _The Marrow of Alchemy_ (1654-5). The prefaces to this are signed with anagrams of George Starkey's name. But he ascribes the poem to a friend, who is called in the _Breve Manuductorium ad Campum Sophiae_ Agricola Rhomaeus. Perhaps Starkey himself was the real author. The t.i.tle-page has the name Eirenaeus Philoponus Philalethes, apparently a distinct designation from that of Eirenaeus Philalethes.
[30] The _Medulla Alchemiae_ (1664) is only a Latin translation of the _Marrow of Alchemy_ (1654-5) of Eirenaeus Philoponos Philalethes.
[31] The actual name of the tract is _Ripley Revived_.
[32] The _Thalia Rediviva_ was actually published in 1678, not 1679.
[33] Miss Vaughan has herself witnessed this, in the presence of Lucifer. Moreover, the spirit of Philalethes has appeared, and conversed with her (pp. 257-267).
[34] Miss Vaughan refers to several family doc.u.ments, but does not offer them for inspection. They include (a) the will of her grandfather James, enumerating the proofs of his descent (p. 111); (b) the autobiographical Memoirs of Philalethes, from which Miss Vaughan quotes largely (pp. 174, 240); (c) a letter from Fludd to Andreae (pp. 114, 149); (d) a MS. of the _Introitus Apertus_, of which the margin has been covered by Vaughan with a comment for Luciferian initiates (pp. 111, 217, 225); (e) a letter from Andreae in the archives of the Sovereign Patriarchal Council of Hamburg (p. 197); (f) Henry Vaughan's account of his brother's disappearance in the archives of the Supreme Dogmatic Directory of Charleston (p. 114); (g) Masonic rituals in the archives of Masonic chapters at Bristol and Gibraltar (p. 200); (h) Rosicrucian rituals drawn up by one Nick Stone in the hands of Dr. W. W. W[estcott] of London (p. 141). The doc.u.ments in Masonic hands are presumably, like the Valetta talisman, now out of Miss Vaughan's reach. A communication signed Q. V. in _Light_ for May 16, 1896, denies, on Dr. Westcott's authority, that his rituals have anything to do with Nick Stone, or that Miss Vaughan ever saw them. Dr. Westcott is the head of the modern _Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia_. This body does not even pretend to be the _Fraternity of R. C._ Finally, there is (i) Thomas Vaughan's original pact with Lucifer, now, according to Miss Vaughan, in holy hands, and to be destroyed on the day she takes the veil.
[35] Miss Vaughan somewhat navely gives us a lead. After describing Thomas Vaughan's sojourn with Venus-Astarte among the Lenni-Lennaps, she adds: ”This legend is not accepted by all the Elect Mages; there are those who regard it as fabricated by my grandfather James of Boston, who was, they believe, of Delaware origin, or, at any rate, a half-breed; and they even a.s.sert that, in the desire to Anglicize himself, he invented an entirely false genealogy, by way of justifying his change of the Lennap name Waghan into Vaughan. Herein the opponents of the Luciferian legend of Thomas Vaughan go too far” (p. 181).
[36] I have already pointed out that Miss Vaughan is quite possibly a myth. But, if she exists, I do not see any reason to suppose that she personally invented the ”legend of Philalethes.” It lies between Leo Taxil and his friends in 1895, and the alleged founders of Palladism in or about 1870, that is Albert Pike and Miss Vaughan's father and uncle.
And, so far as it goes, the ignorance shown in the legend of all books published in the last twenty years is evidence for the earlier date, and therefore, to some extent, for the actual existence of Luciferianism.
[37] _Cf._ A. E. Waite, _Real History of the Rosicrucians_, p. 274.
[38] The princ.i.p.al writings ascribed to Eirenaeus Philalethes are _Introitus Apertus in Occlusum Regis Palatium_ (1667), _Tres Tractatus_ (1668), _Experimenta de Praeparatione Mercurii Sophici_ (1668), _Ripley Revived_ (1678), _Enarratio Trium Gebri Medicinarum_ (1678). The works of Eirenaeus Philoponos Philalethes (George Starkey?) are often attributed to him in error. The B. M. Catalogue, s.vv. _Philaletha, Philalethes_, is a ma.s.s of confusions. Lenglet-Dufresnoy, _Histoire de la Philosophie Hermetique_ (iii. 261-266), gives a long list of printed and ma.n.u.script works. Most of these he had probably never seen. He probably took many items in his list from one in J. M. Faust's edition of the _Introitus Apertus_ (Frankfort, 1706); and this, in its turn, was based on what Eirenaeus Philalethes himself says he has written in the preface to _Ripley Revived_. He there says, after naming other works: ”Two English Poems I wrote, declaring the whole secret, which are lost.
Also an Enchiridion of Experiments, together with a Diurnal of Meditations, in which were many Philosophical receipts, declaring the whole secret, with an Aenigma annexed; which also fell into such hands which I conceive will never restore it. This last was written in English.” Can this Enchiridion and Diurnal be Sl. MS. 1741? I find no ”Aenigma.” Can Starkey have stolen the poems and published them as the _Marrow of Alchemy_?
[39] The preface to _Ripley Revived_ makes it clear that the _Introitus Apertus_ was originally written in Latin, not in English.
[40] This is recorded in Helvetius' _Vitulus Aureus_ (1667). Helvetius describes his master as 43 or 44 years old, and calls him Elias Artistes.
[41] _See_ the pa.s.sage from the Epistle to _Euphrates_, quoted by Grosart (Vol. ii., p. 312).
[42] The ”legend of Philalethes” has already been exposed by Mr. A. E.
Waite in his _Devil Wors.h.i.+p in France_ (ch. xiii.). I am also indebted to what Mr. Waite has written on Eirenaeus Philalethes in that book, as well as in his _True History of the Rosicrucians_ (1887) and his _Lives of Alchymistical Philosophers_ (1888).
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