el and the first murderer as errors fit for classification with the
monstrous idols of the anarchic symbolism of India (_Rituel_, pp. 13,
14). Is that diabolism? Is that the cultus of Lucifer? True, Levi did
not believe in the personal existence of a father of lies, and if it be
Satanism not to do so, let us be content to diabolise with Levi while
the false witnesses illustrate the methods of their father.

It is unnecessary to multiply quotations, but here is one more: "The
author of this book is a Christian like you; his faith is that of a
Catholic deeply and strongly convinced; therefore his mission is not to
deny dogmas, but to combat impiety under one of its most dangerous
forms, that of erroneous belief and superstition.... Away with the idol
which hides our Saviour! Down with the tyrant of falsehood! Down with
the black god of the Manichaeans! Down with the Ahriman of the old
idolaters! Live God alone and His incarnate Logos, Jesus the Christ,
Saviour of the world, who beheld Satan precipitated from heaven!" Go to,
M. le Docteur Bataille! _A bas_, Signor Margiotta! Phi, diabolus and Leo
Taxil!

Seeing then that Eliphas Levi has been calumniously represented, and
that he was not a Satanist, he could not have founded a Satanic society,
nor could a Manichaean order have been developed out of his doctrines.
Hence if a Palladian Society do exist at Charleston, it either owes
nothing to Levi, or its cultus has been falsely described. In other
words, from whatever point we approach the witnesses of Lucifer, they
are subjected to a rough unveiling. In the words of the motto on my
title, the first in this plot was Lucifer--_videlicet_, the Father of
Lies!

CHAPTER XV

CONCLUSION

It remains for us now to appreciate the exact position in which the
existence of the Palladian Order is left after all suspicious
information has been subtracted. We have examined in succession the
testimony of every witness to the discovery of Leo Taxil and M. Adolphe
Ricoux, and it has been made entirely evident that they are of a most
unsatisfactory kind. I make no pretence to pass a precise judgment upon
Leo Taxil, for I am not in a position to prove that the Palladian
rituals which appear in "Are there Women in Freemasonry?" can be
characterised as invented matter. Granting his personal good faith,
there are still many obvious questions, one of which is the connection
between the Palladians and Masonry. As regards the so-called