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{{short description|1890s hoax of exposure by Léo Taxil}}(File:Les Mystères de la franc-maçonnerie dévoilés par Léo Taxil.jpg|thumb|right|Poster advertising the work of Leo Taxil)The Taxil hoax was an 1890s hoax of exposure by Léo Taxil, intended to mock not only Freemasonry but also the Catholic Church’s opposition to it.EPISODE , Taxil, the author of an anti-papal tract, pretended to convert to Catholicism (circa 1884) and wrote several volumes, purportedly in the service to his new faith. These included the adventures of one Dr. Bataille, a surgeon serving in the French merchant navy who has infiltrated the Freemasons and observes their evil rituals as they occur all over the world. Buddhists, Hindus, and Spiritualists join with Freemasons in conspiring against the Catholic church, and Bataille uncovers an even more secret order within the Masons called the Palladists, who take their orders directly from demons.Laycock, Satanism, 1981: section 2 Imagining the Black Mass. The Taxil Hoax As Dr. Bataille’s tale unfolds, he introduces Diana Vaughan, a former high priestess of Palladism who has converted to Catholicism and is in grave danger of assassination from vengeful Freemasons. In 1897, Taxil called a press conference at which he promised to produce Vaughan. Instead he announced that his revelations about the Freemasons were made up, and thanked the Catholic clergy for helping to publicize his stories. Nine years later he told an American magazine that he at first thought readers would recognize his tales as “amusement pure and simple“—too outlandish to be true—but when he realized they believed them and that there was “lots of money” to be made in publishing them, he continued to perpetrate the hoax. Despite this debunking, belief in Vaughan and the Palladists did not entirely die and the Palladists appeared in a 1943 noir film The Seventh Victim.

Taxil and Freemasonry

Léo Taxil was the pen name of Marie Joseph Gabriel Antoine Jogand-Pagès, who had been accused earlier of libel regarding a book he wrote called The Secret Loves of Pope Pius IX. On April 20, 1884, Pope Leo XIII published an encyclical, Humanum genus, that said that the human race was:}}(File:Diana Vaughan - Mémoires d’une ex-palladiste parfaite, initiée, indépendante.jpg|thumb|right|The so-called “Diana Vaughan”, dressed as “General Inspector of Palladium”. Photograph by Van Bosch, published in the book Mémoires d’une ex-palladiste parfaite, initiée, indépendante (1895))After this encyclical, Taxil underwent a public, feigned conversion to Roman Catholicism and announced his intention of repairing the damage he had done to the true faith.The first book produced by Taxil after his conversion was a four-volume history of Freemasonry, which contained fictitious eyewitness verifications of their participation in Satanism. With a collaborator who published as “Dr. Karl Hacks”, Taxil wrote another book called Le Diable au XIXe siècle (The Devil in the Nineteenth Century), which introduced a new character, Diana Vaughan, a supposed descendant of the Rosicrucian alchemist Thomas Vaughan. The book contained many tales about her encounters with incarnate demons, one of whom, a devil snake, was supposed to have written prophecies on her back with its tail, and another who played the piano while in the shape of a crocodile.JOURNAL, Anti–Protestant Rhetoric in the Early Third Republic, Hause, Steven C., French Historical Studies, Spring 1989, 16, 1, 192, 10.2307/286440, 286440, Diana was supposedly involved in Satanic Freemasonry but was redeemed when one day she professed admiration for Joan of Arc, at whose name the demons were put to flight. As Diana Vaughan, Taxil published a book called Eucharistic Novena, a collection of prayers which were praised by the Pope.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}}

Palladists

In the Taxil hoax, Palladists were members of an alleged Theistic Satanist cult within Freemasonry. According to Taxil, Palladism was a religion practiced within the highest orders of Freemasonry. Adherents worshipped Lucifer and interacted with demons. In 1891 Léo Taxil (Gabriel Jogand-Pagès) and Adolphe Ricoux claimed to have discovered a Palladian Society.Waite, Arthur Edward The Hermetic Museum 2006 Lulu An 1892 French book Le Diable au XIXe siècle (The Devil in the 19th Century”, 1892), written by “Dr. Bataille” (actually Jogand-Pagès himself)Characterised by Waite as “a perfervid narrative issued in penny numbers with absurd illustrations of a highly sensational type; in a word, Le Diable au XIXe Siècle, which is the title given to his memoirs by the present witness, connects in manner and appearance with that class of literature which is known as the “penny dreadful.” (Waite, Devil Worship in France, ch. VII (on-line text). alleged that Palladists were Satanists based in Charleston, South Carolina, headed by the American Freemason Albert Pike and created by the Italian liberal patriot and author Giuseppe Mazzini.p.204 Hastings, James, Editor Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. 12 Varda BooksArthur Edward Waite, debunking the existence of the group in Devil-Worship in France, or The Question of Lucifer, ch. II: “The Mask of Masonry” (London, 1896), reports according to “the works of Domenico Margiotta and Dr Bataille” that “[t]he Order of Palladium founded in Paris 20 May 1737 or Sovereign Council of Wisdom” was a “Masonic diabolic order”.Waite, Arthur Edward. Devil-Worship in France, or the Question of Lucifer. George Redway. London, 1896. 22ff. Dr. Bataille asserted that women would supposedly be initiated as “Companions of Penelope”.Reported word-for-word in Lewis Spence, An Encyclopaedia of Occultism, 1920 (reprinted 2006) p.314As seen in the blurb for The Internet Sacred Text Archive edition of Devil Worship in France and the conclusion, Waite was debunking the story of Palladists According to Dr. Bataille, the society had two orders, “Adelph” and “Companion of Ulysses”; however, the society was broken up by French law enforcement a few years after its founding.WEB,www.witchvox.com/whs/dt_whs.html?aid=cabc&id=8981, “Pagan Protection Center” website, 2008-07-26,www.witchvox.com/whs/dt_whs.html?aid=cabc&id=8981," title="web.archive.org/web/20110525065101www.witchvox.com/whs/dt_whs.html?aid=cabc&id=8981,">web.archive.org/web/20110525065101www.witchvox.com/whs/dt_whs.html?aid=cabc&id=8981, 2011-05-25, dead, A supposed Diana Vaughan published Confessions of an Ex-Palladist in 1895.

Confession

On April 19, 1897, in Société de Géographie, Léo Taxil called a press conference at which, he claimed, he would introduce Diana Vaughan to the press. At the conference instead he announced that his revelations about the Freemasons were fictitious. He thanked the Catholic clergy for their assistance in giving publicity to his wild claims.WEB,altreligion.about.com/library/texts/bl_confessiontaxil.htm, 2007-10-25, The Confession of Leo Taxil, April 25, 1897, 2008-05-13,altreligion.about.com/library/texts/bl_confessiontaxil.htm," title="web.archive.org/web/20080513164148altreligion.about.com/library/texts/bl_confessiontaxil.htm,">web.archive.org/web/20080513164148altreligion.about.com/library/texts/bl_confessiontaxil.htm, dead, Taxil’s confession was printed, in its entirety, in the Parisian newspaper Le Frondeur, on April 25, 1897, titled: Twelve Years Under the Banner of the Church, The Prank Of Palladism. Miss Diana Vaughan–The Devil At The Freemasons. A Conference held by M. Léo Taxil, at the Hall of the Geographic Society in Paris.Is It True What They Say About Freemasonry? Authors: de Hoyos, Arturo and Morris, S. Brent, 1988, 2nd edition, pp. 27–36 & 195–228, Chap. 3, Leo Taxil: The Hoax of Luciferian Masonry, and Appendix 1, The Confession of Leo Taxil {{ISBN|1590771532}}The hoax material is still cited to this day. The Chick Publications tract, The Curse of Baphomet,also called “That’s Baphomet?” and Randy Noblitt’s book on satanic ritual abuse, Cult and Ritual Abuse, both cite Taxil’s fictitious claims.WEB,www.masonicinfo.com/books/cultritualabuse.htm, Book review: Cult & Ritual Abuse â€” Its History, Anthropology, and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America, 2009-04-05, King, EL,

Later interview with Taxil

(File:Le Frondeur.jpg|thumb|Parisian newspaper with the account of Leo Taxil’s confession to the Taxil hoax)Ten months before his death on March 31, 1907, Taxil was quoted in the American National Magazine as giving his true reasons behind the hoax.

The Luciferian quote

A series of paragraphs about Lucifer are frequently associated with the Taxil hoax. They read:{{Freemasonry}}While this quotation was published by Abel Clarin de la Rive in his Woman and Child in Universal Freemasonry, it does not appear in Taxil’s writings proper, though it is sourced in a footnote to Diana Vaughan, Taxil’s creation.BOOK, de Hoyos, Arturo, Morris, S. Brent, Is It True What They Say About Freemasonry?, Albert Pike and Lucifer, 1998, Masonic Information Center, Silver Spring, Maryland, 2nd edition (revised),www.srmason-sj.org/web/SRpublications/DeHoyos.htm#i11, 2007-10-25, dead,www.srmason-sj.org/web/SRpublications/DeHoyos.htm#i11," title="web.archive.org/web/20060815093041www.srmason-sj.org/web/SRpublications/DeHoyos.htm#i11,">web.archive.org/web/20060815093041www.srmason-sj.org/web/SRpublications/DeHoyos.htm#i11, 2006-08-15,

Popular culture

• The Palladists are the name of the Greenwich Village Satanist society in Val Lewton’s film The Seventh Victim.
• The Palladists play a major role in the latter part of Umberto Eco’s novel The Prague Cemetery (2011).

See also

• List of hoaxes
• Affair of the Cards
• Poe’s law
• QAnon

References

{{Reflist}}

Further reading

• BOOK, Joseph P., Laycock,www.cambridge.org/core/elements/satanism/4150D0B522022169485FCD56FA7FE2BE, Satanism, 2023, Cambridge University Press, Elements in New Religious Movements, 9781009057349, online, JPLS2023,
• BOOK, Alec, Melior, trans. B. R. Feinson, A Hoaxer of Genius-Leo Taxil (1890-7), Our Separated Brethren, the Freemasons, London, G. G. Harrap & Co., 1961, 149–55,

External links

• “A hoax”, l’Illustration, May 1. 1897- No. 2827: Paris, France.
• Abel Claren de la Rive (1855-1914)
• Freemason site on the Palladium
• Devil-Worship in France, by A.E. Waite complete e-text of Waite’s debunking of Taxil.
• Lady Queenborough, Edith Starr Miller
• Leo Taxil’s Confession
• The Prague Cemetery, a novel by Umberto Eco, 2010
• National Magazine, an Illustrated American Monthly, Volume XXIV: April, 1906 - September, 1906
• The Prank of Palladism Taxil’s confession {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080513164148altreligion.about.com/library/texts/bl_confessiontaxil.htm |date=2008-05-13 }}
• Knights Templar page on the Palladium {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924114209www.templarhistory.com/taxil.html |date=2015-09-24 }}