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Myths of Masonry, Part 6
The Taxil Hoax
Courtesy of Quest Magazine which has tons of info about the Knights Templar and Freemasonry, I came across a link to US News’ big story this month about the Masons. The article isn’t terribly detailed, but it does provide a decent historical overview for people new to the subject.
One the topics which I found the most helpful in it though was something called the Taxil Hoax, which you’ll hear about in researching Freemasonry, but it’s one of those things that a lot of people seem to miss. To quote US News:
Despite the fraternity’s good works, myths of dark doings continued to haunt Freemasonry. In the late 1880s, a mischievous French writer and former Mason, known by his pen name Leo Taxil, set out to play on Catholic fears of the order. He claimed to expose the order’s greatest secret, known only to the highest-degree Masons: that the secret religion of Masonry was the worship of Lucifer. Even after Taxil confessed to the hoax in 1897, the myth served as a staple of anti-Masonic lore, peddled in books like evangelist Pat Robertson’s New World Order.
Wikipedia also elaborates that evidently Leo Taxil had been rejected by the Masonic order. He underwent a fake public conversion to the Roman Catholic Church so that he could embarrass both groups. This prank was designed to make the Church look gullible. Whether or not it did that, the Masons lost face because people took this idea that they worshipped Lucifer and ran with it. And it still reverberates even today.
Check out Jack Chick’s classic anti-Masonic comic, the Curse of Baphomet for more. Also check out the full text of Leo Taxil’s public confession, courtesy of our friends at AltReligion.
Before you pull out the conspiracy card on me though, I know what you’re going to say: the Masons forced him to say it was all a hoax. Okay fine! If that’s what you want to think, go for it.
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September 12th, 2005 at 1:33 am
Tim, there are a lot of different “conspiracy cards” to pull, you know that. Your typical Xian Fundie Conspiracy Theory has nothing to do with, e.g., the typical Aquarian Conspiracy… Anyway, I’m going to offer a theory that Taxil may always have been a mason, the hoax engineered as disinformation:
Masons worship Baphomet?? Maybe. Did the Templars worship Baphomet? Are there links between the Templars and the Masons? Did Jesus sneak out of the cave to England?
I don’t think it’s possible to ever sort out the baphoment-mason-templar-jesus axis at this point. Just one example of confusion: Baphomet seems to be code for “Sophia”; Levi’s baphomet was an ambivalent symbol, why he called the pythagorean pentagram “evil,” then graphed it over Baphomet’s head, when he did not consider Baphomet evil… That’s just the symbol’s history.
It’s interesting to see the publicity the Masons got at the turn of the 19th Century. Jack the Ripper seems to have employed some Masonic symbology and Taxil affair. Death throes of a once-powerful organization, maybe?
September 12th, 2005 at 8:13 am
The Baphomet thing won’t fly. As with many things that cause Xian fundies to get their knickers in a twist it is based on misinterpretation, complete misunderstanding and the usual fundie lack of research.
Baphomet seems to be a corruption of the Arabic phrase “Abu Fihamat” meaning “Father of Understanding” - ie God - was used by the Templars in that sense. The Templars spoke Arabic as their lingua franca and it is no surprise they would use this term.
The confusion arose because of the reports of the mysterious ‘head’ which Templars were alleged to worship (no such head was ever found) but the Templars did use the phrase “ras el-fahmat” which translates to “head of knowledge” and it seems likely that the similarity of sounds led some fundie of the time to equate the two similar Arabic phrases and confuse them.
Levi compounded the confusion by equating Baphomet with the Goat of Mendes which is clearly a mistake. Levi really knew far less about his subject than he has (strangely) gained credit for unfortunately.
September 12th, 2005 at 9:37 am
it has become apparent in reading laurence gardner`s book, shadow of solomon, that the masons lost a lot of thier knowledge in the burning of the library of alexandria. laurence himself was a 20 year member of the masons, but tended his formal resignation because he felt that they had nothing to teach.
September 12th, 2005 at 9:44 am
………..and gardner devotes a section in the shadow of solomon to discussing satan(s) and the biblical representation of the names of satans and how this has led to modern christian confusion in the god/devil dialectic. jack chick`s cartoon is funny but for the fact that people take that shit seriously. delivering that message in a cartoon form resonates with the mind`s pre-adolescent acceptance of whatever is being read. whenever is see that form of 1950`s sytle cartoon representation now i feel as if i`m being patronised by default.
September 12th, 2005 at 12:44 pm
Oh, as far as the Baphomet = Sophia thing, that’s called the Atbash Cipher for anyone who is interested in it.
September 12th, 2005 at 3:39 pm
” the masons lost a lot of thier knowledge in the burning of the library of alexandria”
the razing of Alamut by the Mongols destroyed much knowledge as well.
September 12th, 2005 at 4:06 pm
the question i have begun to get answered is where the knowledge came from in the first place. some people report hearing voices that tell of magical things, some get visited by aliens, like the experiences of billy meier, some have a revelation in a field after wandering around insane across the countryside. some channel entities from far off galaxies. the masons may have had a collected revelation that they protected through initiation and ritual. what writers like gardner want us to know is that they don`t have it any longer. move along people, there`s nothing left here to see. my personal view is that the secrets of the masons is available to all of us eventually through our own ritual when we are receptive enough through meditation and focus. to me it`s the only thing left, the last unturned stone.
i had a conversation with a pastor today. he kept refering to the experience as religious extacy. i posited that this trancendental meditative experience that i was describing as available to us all through inner thought. he was struggling to seperate religious from extacy. the palpable awe of an acid high recreated in quiet meditation. he questioned the authenticity of stings experience on ihaouaska while travelling in the jungle. he said it sounded like the mystical revelations of a monk or shaman. i explained that that was what mckenna was ranting on about when he prescribed doing an heroic dose of mushrooms and then hanging on. we as humans share this ability to see god by a miltiplicty of methods. they all work. if you keep doing them long enough and trust the answers that you recieve.
September 12th, 2005 at 7:34 pm
Saying Taxil was “rejected” is like that story about Osama bin Laden hating America because a Western woman rejected his advances: it sounds great but can anyone really verify it?
Plus, as far as hoaxes go, I prefer Hugh Troy and Joey Skaggs– their pranks actually had a point, and made people laugh.